Tirage with terrorists

The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) apparently changed their position on triage, and it did not go down well. According to media reports, the new rules would require emergency medical personnel to treat all those harmed in a terrorist attack according to severity of injury, including those who caused the harm. I would quote the exact words of the IMA position paper, but it seems to have been taken down from their website, amid the ensuing controversy. I would also quote directly from the comments section of some Israeli newspapers, but bloodlust is not everyone's thing.  

The prior guidance on triage in such situations seemed to be influenced by rabbinic principles to the tune of 'charity begins at home'. In that case, you treat your own injured people first, and only those who are 'other than your own' or ‘opposed to your own’ afterwards. The new guidance removed that reference, rendering it more cosmopolitan, where ethnic/national/perpetrator/victim distinctions are irrelevant, and suffering humans in such situations are to be treated by physicians purely according to medical criteria. Opponents of the change find it outrageous that a terrorist could potentially be treated ahead of one of his/her less severely injured victims.  

Of course, the larger background is the longstanding Israeli-Palestianian conflict, including who gets called a terrorist when civilians are put in harm's way or killed to further political aims, and who does not. But even leaving that to one side, the old position on triage was already controversial. The 'charity begins at home' approach turns the physician into an instrument of (certain currents within) the Israeli state, where doctors are instructed to perform political triage with medical resources. This approach may not even be wise politically, given that dead people are harder to gain information from, and that it implies that IDF members should receive likewise (non-)treatment from Palestinian physicians in casualty situations. It would also seem to imply that Israeli physicians should treat even the most minor physical injury of 'one's own' above the injuries of the one(s) who caused the harm, no matter how severe. That implication would undoubtedly appeal to angry posters in comments sections, some of whom say that injured terrorists should simply die, and doctors on the scene should not prevent, or perhaps should even hasten, their death. One can understand the rage evoked by the killing of innocent civilians, but what kind of doctor does that? 

 In any case, the IMA is responsible for clarifying its current position and its ethical rationale. It will also need to state how medical professionals will be protected on the scene if they are to follow any new cosmopolitan guidelines, considering how violently some are opposed to it.