After hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation at Camp David receded yet again last month, evidence of quiet cooperation between the two sides in health care brought some grounds for optimism. Whereas Palestinian and Israeli political leaders may not yet be able to agree about sovereignty, territory, and security, health professionals are collaborating effectively to prevent and treat disease on both sides of the border, a study has shown. The report, produced by experts at Al-Quds University, a Palestinian institution of higher education based in east Jerusalem, and at the JDC-Brookdale and JDC-Israel institutes in west Jerusalem, reviewed a range of collaborative projects in the 1990s. Over two years the Israeli and Palestinian researchers studied 148 cooperative projects that brought together 67 mostly non-governmental organisations and some 4000 Palestinians and Israelis in the field of health care and disease prevention. Most participants in these health programmes—Jews, Muslims, and Christians with secular and religious backgrounds and left wing and right wing personal views—declared that they were very satisfied with the outcome and wanted to continue working together. The study began after researchers realised that despite the formal separation between the two health systems in 1994, cooperation between professionals continued. The research was sponsored by the US Institute of Peace, the Rich Foundation in Switzerland, and the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. Health policy researcher Tamara Barnea of the JDC-Brookdale Institute and joint head of the research team said that both sides benefited from cooperation on health projects. Professor Ziad Abdeen, dean of research at Al-Quds University and also joint head of the team, commented: “We Palestinians and Israelis are destined to live together: it will either be face to face or back to back,” said Professor Abdeen. Israeli and Palestinian participants said they benefited personally and wanted to contribute to the building of a new post-conflict era. The many successful joint projects listed in the report included a survey of the health behaviour of school age children in both populations; efforts to prevent the spread of leishmaniasis; a health education project for Palestinian schoolchildren; programmes to detect hearing problems and to perform oral and cardiac surgery on Palestinian youngsters; the development of a “call-in” psychological first aid service; and workshops for AIDS education. © 2000 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.
