Letters

摘要

In response to your article on Palestinian hunger strikers, "To feed or to free" (August 22nd), it should be pointed out that around two dozen of Israel's leading bioethicists, doctors and legal experts have issued a position paper favouring the imposition of life-saving feeding on hunger-striking prisoners when there is a clear threat to their life. They declared that in Israeli culture the value of human life should take priority over that of autonomy. This position, in opposition to that of the Israeli Medical Association, is supported by several Israeli court decisions, by the Israeli Patients Rights Law and is in keeping with the position of the European Court of Human Rights.