CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The American Medical Association Has an Obligation and It’s Failing

Image by Emad El Byed.

Israel tortured a one-year-old baby. They burned him with cigarettes and drove nails through his feet as a form of torture during his father’s interrogation. This isn’t some twisted, made-up movie scene; this is real life. And it’s the one case we know of right now, but who knows how many other babies, in all their innocence, have been tortured by the Israeli military? It also begs the question: since they’re willing to do this to an infant, what are they doing to older prisoners?

It’s always been clear that the Zionist settler colony will go to any length to achieve its goal of being an ethno-state. To achieve this goal, it subjects Palestinians to mass-imprisonment campaigns. No title — child, teenager, mother, father, health professional, aid worker — is spared from the Israeli prison system. Because if Israel can’t just outright exterminate all Palestinians at once, the next best option is to round them up and slowly kill them behind bars.

Well, that was the case before March 30, 2026, when the Israeli Knesset passed a bill that calls for the hanging of Palestinian prisoners within 90 days of being convicted of killing Israeli settlers. The bill was introduced by Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been wearing noose pins and carrying around a physical noose to publicly show his excitement for potentially becoming Israel’s official executioner. When the vote was called out and the bill was passed, Ben-Gvir popped champagne bottles with his cronies, celebrating the essence of killing more Palestinians.

These are illegal settlers under international law, who have been terrorizing Palestinian villagers for years, their attacks becoming increasingly frequent and heinous. Palestinians have had their houses set on fire while inside them at the hands of these settlers, backed by the state. It is important to remember that the Israeli military courts........

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