Recently, Lancet published a correspondence, “An Open Letter for the People of Gaza,” a highly partisan, demonstrably inaccurate and defamatory representation of the violence now taking place between the Israel Defense Forces and the terrorist group Hamas (1). The authors declared they had no competing interests but Stall et al, (2) have pointed out that that two of the co-authors have affiliations with pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In fact that barely scratches the surface in terms of the potentially biasing conflicts. For one example, the letter’s first author, Paolo Manduca received funding from several anti-Israel NGOs including Interpal (3), which has been designated as a terrorist entity by the governments of the United States, Canada and Australia (4). US Federal authorities describe the organization as a global clearinghouse channeling money to Hamas and a BBC investigation came to the same conclusion (5 -7). Interpal is a founding member of the so-called “Union of Good,” an umbrella organization, which funds Islamic terrorists in Gaza (8). Its leader, Yussef al- Qaradawi, is a notorious jihadist who has publically lauded Hitler for “putting Jews in their place” and has said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “We must plant the love of death and the love of martyrdom in the Islamic nation.” The organization actively encourages Palestinian children to become martyrs and suicide bombers (5-7). Manduca not only receives funding from Interpal but also raises money for it (9).
