Dr Swee Ang HARDtalk

implicated. Now it is time for HARDtalk. Dr Swee Ang is a doctor

with a difference. A 1982 she was working in a benign in the

Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra mac and sheer terror just as

thousands of residents were being massacred. -- Sabra and Shatila.

Should it charities tried to rise above the conflicts in which they

operate or or are they themselves Welcome to HARDtalk. Festival, tell

me how you came to be working in those Palestinian refugee camps? --

first of all. I toured the Old Testament -- taught. In 1982 when I

was working in a London hospital and I sought the benign being

bombed, I asked myself if Israel was saying or not? There is was

during the Israeli invasion? Yes. When they asked for a doctor I

volunteer. I had no idea that they were Palestinian refugee camps, but

that where I ended up. Not quite being aware of what was going on

around you? You were working in a basement? Yes. Gaza hospital is

right between the two refugee camps. Because of being under bombardment

for years they have located their office in the basement. I was

operating non-stop with my team. David Nutt look like combatants and

they were shot at close range. -- they did not look like. They were

women, children, old people. I did not have time to investigate

because it was so hectic. massacre changed your view dented?

-- didn't it? Yes. It hosted the PLO also, not just refugees. That

was then seen as a terrorist organisation. Yes, in fact I'd also

saw them as a terrorist organisation. He evacuation happen

to three weeks before the massacre. I was taking to the refugee camps

to look after civilians. I discovered people who had been

refugees for many generations. At that time the 4th generation were

growing up in refugee camps. gave evidence to Israel's an

inquiry into what happened. That commission came out with some very

strong conclusions. It will lead the resignation of the then Defence

Minister, ANA Real Chevron. --. Israeli people are not to be blamed

for what sections of the Israeli army did. The background to the

commission was that 400,000 Israeli citizens demonstrated in Tel Aviv

and protested. Many of my Jewish friends, not only Palestinians,

urged me to speak. It is important not to blame Israeli people as a

whole. Nevertheless, after this trauma for you, I knew return

Christian Aid did not renew your contract. Why was that? Christian

Aid is a wonderful charity. I decided that was my own doing.

Having witnessed and survived a massacre and having discovered

Palestinians, it once my job as they adopted to speak up. Many of

their lives I could not say. -- my job as their doctor. They felt you

were speaking out in too much of a stridently political fashion?

did not accuse me of that. In your book you said that you thought your

colleagues might complain that you had been openly anti- Israeli and

read to them. -- impolite to them. That is what I felt. He then

decided to found Medical Aid for Palestinians and shortly after that

you were that and the area was being attacked again by a pro

Syrian military. I did a lot of speaking around the country. There

were a lot of debates and the blame game was going on. There are

hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who are

destitute and need our help. That is not political. As a doctor in a

very small and modest way we started. He said it wasn't

political, but you also right in your book that you were happy to

advertise your political affiliation. If the weather was not

too hot I walk a Hezbollah scarf around my head. Is that it a wise

thing to do? Yes, in the refugee camps. The Hezbollah scarf is

pretty clear. It was she -- a Ishinomaki scarf. -- a Shia Muslim

scarf. If you wore a Shia Muslim scarf you got better treatment.

say it is not political to want better treatment for Palestinian

refugees. On the Medical Aid for Palestinians website it says: We

are a strictly non-profit organisation and we take no

political side on the conflict between Palestine and other

countries. That is not true, is it? Yes. I have to be very clear in

public. Whether I am talking in a personal capacity or whether I am

speaking on behalf of the charity. But you are a patron of the charity,

saying you cannot discern the Kuwait those two things, can you? -

- you cannot separate. Things can be misconstrued. I am speaking in a

personal capacity and not as a patron of the charity. But you have

to take responsibility for what you say. Yes, they can attack me as a

person. He told about how the Palestinians fought back in the

second siege which she witnessed. There were reports of teenage girls

loading themselves with explosives and running into the enemy tanks.

The newspapers call then suicide bombers and the camp called them

martyrs. What you call them? That is difficult because you have

touched on a raw nerve. Some of them were nurses who I personally

trained. I wish they did not have to do this. But you say that they

did have to? Yes, to defend their people. What else could they do?

Medical people willing to cause mass casualties on the other side.

That is justifiable. Yes, personally I would not do it. When

the girls did that, they were not acting as nurses. The circumstances

of besiege were that the camp was being shelled day and night. -- the

circumstances of the siege. I was in London when I heard the news. I

knew they were desperate, because I knew then personally. They were not

that kind of people. For how do you square those acts of violence with

being a doctor? Very difficult, because as young women anywhere in

the world, they should be.... They were kind to their patients. People

urged me to be non-partisan, treat everyone as a human being. Some of

them were planning marriages, hoping to keep university. -- go to

university. I would not like them to do those things. He would not

like them to do those things, but now you are saying it is

understandable, justifiable? It is understandable, but not justifiable.

You think there is a difference? Yes, I understand why they did it.

Is there another way? Navy, if we defend them, if NATO had defended

them, they would not have had to do it. You're charity, which according

to its website is non-political. One of your trustees, Professor

Graham Watt, urged Alex Salmond to cancel a trip to Israel. He wrote

that the question he must ask himself is: What is Scottish public

opinion on continuing to have relations with Israel when it

behaves the way it does? That does not sound very a political to me.

am not familiar with the exact circumstances. He was probably

acting as part of the call to boycott Israeli goods and trade.

sure organisation should not be doing if it says it is not

political. Yes. He has -- the charity has not openly called for a

boycott. Whether he did it in his personal capacity? So it is wrong

for the charity to call for a boycott of Israel? I do not think

the charity called for a boycott of Israel. But you can't make the

distinction, can you? If you don't want to have the responsibility of

not being political and saying you are not partisan, fair enough, but

then do not be a member of the charity which says actually, to

support Palestinians is a political thing.

So you do have to take sides? is you murdered Palestinians like

to complete that without witnesses, with at any one of strutting them.

If Gaza is under siege I would stand up as being political because

I am not in favour of Gaza being blockaded. Do you think you may

change from a charity that offers medical help that by no longer

being a neutral player you could make it more difficult for yourself

to operate in conflict turns? -- You could stop helping the people

who are trying to help. You have to ask yourself, how do you help them

the best. Do you help them by giving them antibiotics. What do

you help them with the root cause. When I talk to Palestinians, for

instance when I was leaving to go to Jerusalem, I said, if I go to

Jerusalem and testify there will be a lot of publicity and I might not

be able to come back to you. I'll see you again. -- I will not. But

if I keep quiet I will continue to be your doctor. You say that you

need to talk about the root cause. Do you believe in a one state or a

to state solution. -- two state solution. I want to ask, what is a

two state solution? There was a time when I really subscribe to

that, in the 1990s, after the first Palestinian uprising, like many

Palestinians. We thought that it was possible to have a Palestinian

state living side by side with an Israeli state. That is the

overwhelming international consensus. You no longer believe

that his wild bull? It is viable. - viable? But we cannot have Gaza

with 1.6 p 8 -- 1.6 million people living in the size of the Isle of

Wight. And we cannot have the West Bank walled up in a little zone to

make a state. You know I think -- you now think a one state solution

is the only way? No. You should take down the walls and the West

Bank, the lift the blockade of Gaza, you establish a ridge between Gaza

and the West Bank, and you make sure that the Palestinians

recognise Israel and make sure Israel recognise the Palestinians.

That would be a two state solution. Do you believe that the injustice

is on one side? No. It takes to mac sides to create trouble. I am not

favouring one side. Israel have got bigger bombs. Higher fire power.

They can do more damage. I am not saying that Palestinians are angels.

If they had the zings Israel had, they would inflict equal damage.

What do you say about the Palestinian militants who fire

Unguided missile's from Gaza? Is that understandable? No, it is not.

The nurses who blew themselves I did so against tanks who were

shelling. If tanks were their shelling of them, they would stop

the shelling. It is AC each. If you are deliberately going to target

civilians in Tel Aviv or something and shoot at them, that is not an

act of war. That is targeting innocent people. Have you done

enough to protest against that type of action? I think I have because I

routinely asked that question. I say that terrorism is when somebody

declares war against innocent people. If you bomb a refugee camp

that is terrorism. If a fire a rocket kills as many people as you

want to buy just as a cafe, that is terrorism. Have you done enough to

protest against the ill-treatment of Palestinians by Palestinians.

The unlawful killings in detention. The Palestinians doing that to each

other? It happens a lot in Gaza and in the West Bank. Yes, it does. I

have written... I have not spoken publicly enough, perhaps. But that

is not something that should be... I do not condone it. I wish they

would stop it. It is wrong. If you do that, what kind of country are

you looking for? When you have a two state solution does it mean

that the oppression of Palestinians by Israel becomes the oppression of

Palestinians by Palestinians? Medical Aid for Palestinians did

seem quite keen to suggest there were other reasons why this

mistreatment why the -- might be taking place. It signed a joint

letter which seemed quick to explain responsibility, saying the

international diplomatic and financial were cut of Hamas has

facilitated and aggravated this situation. It's I really do not

know exactly what is meant by that. I am just guessing, I have not read

the whole thing. I might be wrong, but I suppose they are saying it

because we in the West have not gone out of our way to boycott and

not talk to Hamas. It is almost a knee-jerk reaction. It is based on

the fact that there chapter is anti-Semitic and they subscribe to

violence against Israelis. They will change that they eventually.

Not that they wanted, but they might. It may take you beyond the

territories. Back to Lebanon, where Medical Aid for Palestinians does

still work. Again, there seems to be a sense that although the

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon with a miserable life, indeed it is

described as an underclass by the Commissioner General for the UN

refugee agency for Palestinians, speaking earlier this year. They

live in a fragile state in which poverty and marginalisation carry

serious risks of instability. Again, the rhetoric from mac is all about

that any society having it so iron instability. There seems to be a

desire not to criticise in a way that you are very willing to

criticise Israel. There is a big campaign that I have subscribed to,

to ask the Lebanese to grant Palestinians civil rights. And a

campaign is being backed by the charity? They did not started. I am

not sure whether they are officially packet. But individuals

from Medical Aid for Palestinians had signed up. That is why it is so

difficult. I as an individual have done that. But some of my trusted

colleagues as individuals have also done that. But officially, whether

Medical Aid for Palestinians has done that, I am not sure. You'll be

-- elsewhere in the Middle East, outside the area directly to do

with Palestinians and your work, but to do with how doctors are

dealt with in conflict zones, we are seeing in Bahrain at the moment

doctors and nurses being picked up, detained, a charge with political

activities against the state. How concerned are you that doctors in

conflict signs are not safe? I am very concerned. Doctors in conflict

zones are constantly in danger. In fact, there are two kinds of, maybe

more, doctors who are in Bahrain, who are very of Neville but they

have not got a choice. Doctors who come from outside who volunteer to

go it to a conflict zone. I have always told a young doctors who

want to do that, that it is dangerous, you might be kidnapped

and killed. Young people are very emotional and want to do things.

Back to the case of Bahrain, it is not the first time that doctors

treated badly. It has happened a few times. Isn't there a danger

that by the sort of work you are involved in in which you are very

politically active, you could be tarring all doctors with the brush

of being party Prix? I really do not know. Some of them might see it

that way. They might say that I am overstepping myself. But at the

same time, young doctors will also see that you as a doctor are not

only a technician. We are constantly trying to defend

patients' right. In one circumstance, speaking up is a way

to defend them. Swee Ang, Thank you Thence to plenty of cloud piling

across the UK overnight, we are getting off to a much milder start

today but obviously a much greyer one and a rather damp one for the

rush hour. Outbreaks of rain affecting many parts. Rather

persistent especially in the west. The further east you go, chances

are he will escape with quite an overcast start but a relatively dry

one. For northern England, the breeze picks up in the morning. The

heaviest downpours likely across Cumbria and Lancashire. The rain

also creeps into Scotland. The north-east remains dry. Northern

Ireland, cloudy with patchy outbreaks of rain. Similar for

Wales and the south-west of England. Very misty and murky here,

particularly across the coasts and the Welsh mountains. Further east

and the chance of seeing more significant rain for diminishes but

I think there will be some patchy rain around. A grey start to

Tuesday. As the day goes on, the south becomes increasingly dry. The

brightness limited, though, overall on Tuesday. Northern Ireland gets

the best of the sunshine in the afternoon. In the north of Scotland,

we could get up to 25 millimetres of rain. That will linger across

the north of Scotland into the early hours of Wednesday. Elsewhere,

clear weather coming in from the west. Much cooler weather as well.

Another chilly night particularly in the north of the UK. Rural areas

into single figures. And in the west, the area of Blue Moon in

there. Eh? On Wednesday's weather. Wednesday looks drier. The South

will get more cloud. Later on, some rain for Wales and the south-west

of England. The timing is uncertain. The system looks like it will