'Dear friends of Hamas'

This week, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is hosting the ARC APAC Innovation Summit. Hosted by the ARC Centre for Digital Innovation at Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre and sponsored by the Victorian government, the Summit bills itself as “a convergence of minds, ideas and unwavering commitment to transforming healthcare … [and] to create impact in global healthcare and digital health by connecting partners and delegates in a meaningful way”.

Located in Tel Aviv, Sheba Medical Centre is Israel’s largest hospital — one that vocally voices support for the IDF and the war on Gaza on its social media accounts. Sheba has also stayed silent regarding medical atrocities committed by Israel since the start of the war, including the killing of at least 1200 Palestinian healthcare workers, the 136 air strikes carried out on Gaza hospitals as of July 2024, and the ongoing abduction and torture of Palestinian medical workers.

Besides its high-minded theme, ‘Transforming Healthcare by Fostering Innovation’, the Summit also represents a deepening of the longstanding ties between the Victorian government and the Israeli tech industry. While a memorandum of understanding between the Victorian jobs and industry department and the Israeli defence ministry was allowed to lapse in December 2024 following public pressure, initiatives like the Victoria-Israel Science and Technology Research and Development Fund, which supports “the support of new technologies from proof of concept to a minimum viable product stage of development in respective markets,” and the Trade and Investment office established in Tel Aviv by the Andrews government in 2017, are ongoing.

The Summit’s two-day program features some of the biggest names in Israeli, Australian and international health. Royal Melbourne Hospital CEO Shelley Dolan, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne CEO Adj. Prof. Nicole Tweddle, NSW Health chief medical officer Dr Sid Vohra, Sydney Local Health District chief executive Dr. Teresa Anderson, Monash Health CEO Prof. Eugene Yafele, Beyond Blue CEO Georgie Harman, former Governor of Victoria the Hon. Linda Dessau and Medibank group chief medical officer Dr. Andrew Wilson are on the bill alongside Sheba Medical Centre director general Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce national chairman Leon Kempler AM, New Zealand commissioner of health Prof. Lester Levy, and Dr Björn Zoéga MD, PhD, deputy CEO of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital Research Centre in Saudi Arabia.