New humanitarianism, human rights and the contested meaning of the "political": Physicians for Human Rights - Israel as a case study

Medical humanitarian aid, human rights activism and political advocacy for an egalitarian right to health emerged as distinct – and at times conflicting – conceptions (Brauman 2008, Darcy 2008). However, in the last decades, following the emergence of a "New Humanitarianism" and transformations within the human rights movement, the distinctions between these conceptions have eroded (Leebaw 2007). While current interpretations of both humanitarian and human rights movements have been considered an expression of greater commitment to the victims of human right violations as well as a mandate to act, critics have stressed the depoliticizing effects of both movements (Brown 1995, Ticktin 2006, 2011).

The present paper studies two medical humanitarian projects of the Israeli human rights NGO Physicians for Human Rights (PHR-IL) in order to probe the complex relationship between medical humanitarianism, human rights advocacy and political activism. The two projects are a) the Open Clinic for uninsured persons, which is based in Tel Aviv-Yafo and mainly serves undocumented labor migrants and asylum seekers; and b) the Mobile Clinic, which operates in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Using qualitative methodologies including in-depth interviews and critical discourse analysis, we expose and analyze the tensions and possible synergism between the divergent paradigms underlying humanitarian, human rights and political action.