SINGAPORE: Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ang Swee Chai has said it was the Palestinians who brought her back to Singapore, decades after she went into exile.
The 77-year-old doctor was invited by the National University of Singapore (NUS) for her fourth visit home, after years of living abroad following the Internal Security Department’s (ISD) attempt to arrest her husband, human rights lawyer Francis Khoo.
In an almost two-hour podcast with Ya Lah But on 22 August, Dr Ang recounted her journey from Singapore to London, her work in war-torn Lebanon, and her lifelong advocacy of the Palestinian cause.
Early Inspiration to Become a Doctor
Dr Ang, co-founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians, shared how her childhood illness inspired her to pursue medicine.
“For a child, you see, a doctor can be almost a god figure, and you want to be able to do that,” she recalled.
Initially drawn to public health, she was motivated by its wide-reaching impact through vaccination programmes and improved nutrition.
However, her outspoken criticism of Singapore’s industrial laws and her surveys on health workers’ poor living conditions created friction with both the authorities and her department.
“I was told, better go look for another job,” she said.
She eventually returned to hospital work and decided to train as a surgeon.
“I wanted to be a surgeon because it’s as far away from public health as you can be — very individualised. You treat one person, operate on them, and nobody can object to me helping one patient.”
Yet even in the shelter of clinical medicine, she realised inequality persisted.
“The inequality of wealth results in the inequality of health. A doctor cannot run away from it,” she reflected.
She chose orthopaedics because of her passion for “fixing things,” which she described as a blend of “cooking, cleaning up, and using your hands.”
Marriage to Francis Khoo
Her life took a dramatic turn when she married Francis Khoo, a human rights lawyer who later became a refugee in the UK.
Khoo was one of five individuals who attempted to save the liberal newspaper Singapore Herald. Together with lawyer G Raman, he also defended two marine workers charged alongside activist Tan Wah Piow in the 1970s.
After several of his colleagues were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act in February 1977, Khoo fled to England.
Dr Ang recalled that she had always wanted to marry a man dedicated to working for others.
“His hobby was human rights. He didn’t care about money, and he put his life and career on the line to help others.”
Just two weeks into their marriage, authorities came knocking. Dr Ang urged Khoo to escape through the back door.
A month later, when Khoo failed to appear, Dr Ang herself was arrested and interrogated for three days and nights in an attempt to trace his whereabouts.
“So he didn’t go to prison. I did,” she said.
Khoo eventually managed to slip across the Causeway during Chinese New Year with the help of a friend who provided him with a ticket out of the country.
The police later informed Dr Ang that her husband was in London.
After her release, she was told she had a good academic record and was considered a “good citizen,” and was encouraged to persuade her husband to return.
Instead, for the first time, she was issued a Singapore passport — which she used to leave the country and reunite with Khoo in London.
Dr Ang explained that as his wife, her place was with him, and that decision marked the end of her right to return to Singapore.
“So I became the wife of a refugee.”
Awakening to the Palestinian Struggle
Dr Ang, author of From Beirut to Jerusalem, recalled her first encounter with the Palestinian issue.
It was 1982, while she was training at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
One day, upon returning home, she witnessed a horrific television broadcast showing warplanes bombing Lebanon.
She grew up as a Sunday school teacher in Singapore, wholeheartedly supporting Israel, which she believed at the time to be “the chosen people of God” as taught in the Old Testament.
“I was surrounded with people who were completely supportive of Israel,” she said, adding that it took her years to realise she had been supporting the wrong side.
“The more I watched, the louder the voice became. I finally asked myself, who is God and who am I?”
She eventually left St Thomas’ and joined a surgical team with Christian Aid, travelling to Lebanon to treat children and civilians wounded by the war.
Firsthand Witness to War
In Lebanon, Dr Ang treated traumatised children who had lost their families and homes.
She described confronting horrors that no medical training had prepared her for, including victims of phosphorous and conventional bombs.
On one occasion, she accompanied a medical team to a bombed site, only to discover it was the remains of a Palestinian refugee camp.
There, she learned about the Palestinians’ displacement in 1948, when they were driven from their homes and forced into refugee camps across the Middle East.
She recalled that when Israel invaded Beirut, hospitals were flattened by bombardment.
“The Red Crescent had nine hospitals — eight of them were completely destroyed,” she said.
While expecting to treat wounded fighters, Dr Ang instead saw old men, women, teenagers, and babies brought in, killed by air strikes and tanks.
One haunting memory was of a mother, anticipating death, thrusting her baby into Dr Ang’s arms in the hope the child might survive.
Soldiers forced the baby back to her, and later both mother and child were killed.
“That was forty-three years ago. If the baby had lived, he would be forty-three now. He was beautiful like his mother, but he never had a chance,” she said.
The massacre, she added, changed her forever.
“I was no longer a doctor because the hospital was closed. I became a busybody telling the story of the Palestinian people. That’s what I should do — because there was nobody to tell their story.”
Since then, Dr Ang has dedicated herself to Palestinian advocacy, repeatedly visiting Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, and founding the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
She argued that there was a “big silencing programme” preventing people from knowing the reality of Palestinian suffering.
“If you choose to listen only to Israel, which most of us have done — as I did for 33 years — this will continue until the war aims are accomplished. And those war aims are spelled out by Israel itself: drive them out, ethnically cleanse,” she said.
Returning to Singapore
Reflecting on her return to Singapore, Dr Ang has visited only four times in the past 47 or 48 years.
The first was in 2012, with special permission to bring back her husband’s ashes.
Her second visit was for a commission of inquiry when she refused to renounce her British citizenship, which led to her losing her Singaporean citizenship.
A third visit followed when the Harvard Club of Singapore honoured her as a fellow for her work in Palestine.
This latest visit came at the invitation of NUS.
“They knew full well I was going to talk about Palestine and Gaza. But they told me not to be political. How not to be political? I’m speaking up against the machinery that wants to kill them, and I want to save them. That is political,” she said.
It is noted that during her return, Dr Ang also spoke at several events, including a public talk on Gaza hosted by Wardah Books.
On Hamas and Misrepresentation
Responding to questions on why some people equate Palestinians with Hamas, Dr Ang said such conflation is used to justify atrocities.
“Some people deliberately confound the two to legitimise a genocide. But if you look at it — in 1982, there was no Hamas. In 1948, there was no Hamas. All this happened without Hamas,” she said.
Just as many Israelis have protested against Prime Minister Netanyahu, insisting he does not represent them, Palestinians also say Hamas does not represent them.
“Nobody says because Netanyahu is so bad, we will withdraw funding to Israel or stop supplying arms. But when it comes to Palestinians, the bombs keep coming. It’s biased already.”
A Message for Singapore
Dr Ang said she was inspired by the younger generation in Singapore, noting their shifting views on Palestine.
“Growing up in a country that was completely pro-Israel, I think you have shifted your government and educated your government to the contrary,” she said.
She stressed that Palestinians have a right to statehood, just like any other people.
“By the time five years come and this continues, there may be no Palestine left to recognise. Recognition must not distract from what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank now.”
“Palestine is a centre and a litmus test for humanity. It is a moral compass. If I walk away, I am worth nothing,” she said.
“I never dreamed that Singapore would even consider recognising a Palestinian state. But who pushed them? Not me. The people of Singapore.”
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