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| Photo: Dr Rahmeh Aladwan |
Dr Rahmeh Aladwan is a British NHS doctor of Palestinian origin. She came to prominence after her supposedly antisemitic comments. Her comments were related to October 7th and also her statements on the existence of the Israeli state. These were hardly problematic statements. Her basic position is similar to that of people like Max Blumenthal who debunked the false claims about October 7th made by the Israeli government. She also doesn’t think that there should be a Zionist state, something I myself have argued.[1]
However, due to her comments, this doctor who is training to be an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon faced calls for her studies to be cancelled and she faced an online campaign of hate and defamation led by Zionists and also the Daily Mail who accused her of antisemitism.[2] She responded to the defamatory accusations from the Daily Mail with a video published on her twitter account.[3] That did not stop the attempts by Zionists to silence her and ruin her career. Their loathing for medical professionals is not limited to the ones they bomb in Gaza. She was arrested by the British police in October and risked losing her medical licence, not over malpractice, as you can get away with that if you are powerful enough (more on that), but because of her views on Palestine. She is not the only doctor this has happened to, but no Zionist doctors are being processed in this manner, despite the Hippocratic Oath clearly stating:
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
All my fellow human beings includes Palestinians. She had also previously been arrested for her role in a protest outside the Israeli arms manufacture Elbit. Preventative medicine if you will.
She won her case and they have refused to suspend her medical licence arguing that her medical record was unblemished and that she was entitled to freedom of expression. Aladwan in a similar vein stated that:
This is a victory not just for me, but for all those who believe in the right to speak out against injustice. As a Palestinian, I have lost dozens of friends and family members in Gaza. I will not be silenced for expressing my grief and my opposition to war crimes. Today’s decision is a reminder that doctors, like all citizens, are entitled to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.[4]
Her problems have not ended there. Now some liberals are turning on her. Not over Palestine though. She is a Muslim, and she is also a medical professional, so it should come as no surprise that she has opinions on medical matters. In our modern woke world of the liberals this does not matter. No woke types are actually leftwing, they are at best liberal despite quoting everyone from Trotsky to Mao. As a doctor they would scream at her that their identity politics trumps, science & medicine. I am sure the reader can guess by now, that she said something they didn’t like about so-called trans.
Rupert Lowe, an MP for the right-wing Reform party, issued a public call to oppose a clinical trial that had been authorised to administer puberty blockers to children as young as eleven.[5] This issue is controversial; many people rightly oppose the attempts to medicalise and transition children suffering from dysphoria. It turns out this doctor is not only brave enough to speak out on genocide but that she pulls no punches in an area she has some knowledge of: medicine. On her twitter account she called on Muslim MPs to back this call. She was questioned as to why just Muslims. Perhaps it is because most Muslim MPs would steer clear of anything to do with Reform. She was pointing out that despite this, opposing medical trials for puberty blockers on children is ethical.[6] She then suffered a pile on. Lots of supposed pro-Palestinian trans supporters called her a bigot and unfollowed her. The right of a man to put on a skirt and go into women’s spaces trumps genocide and the medical malpractice of administering puberty blockers to children for conditions that do not require them is the type of medical malpractice that not only can you get away with, it is handsomely rewarded. To be clear, there are conditions such as precocious puberty in very young children, before the age of eight for girls and nine for boys, for which such medication is administered. Dysphoria does not meet the criteria and this doctor knows it.
She responded to the trans allies and those who withdrew their support for her by saying:
You were likely following me because I am against genocide and ‘israel’. I had not disclosed my stance against involving children in non-life saving/gender trials. Now that you realise I hold this position, you have withdrawn your support. This reveals more about you than me.[7]
I have some personal experience on this issue. I interviewed László Molnárfi, the student union leader at Trinity College Dublin, whose protests successfully forced Trinity to divest from Israel. Shortly after the interview he withdrew permission to use it because of my position on trans, which to be clear is if you want to wear a skirt and call yourself Mary instead of Mark, then enjoy your life, live it to the full, but none of this makes you a woman nor does it give you the right to participate in women’s spaces. He had prior to my interview given two interviews to the right-wing mainstream newspaper The Irish Independent[10] and even wrote an article for them.[11] This rag is also critical of trans and is rabidly pro-Zionist. He then went on to write an article for the avowedly right-wing student magazine The Burkean,[12] but would have no truck with leftists who ran afoul of his trans redline. His article was titled For a sovereign Ireland, the Left and the Right must unite against Israel. He is like all trans activists given to magical thinking and the idea that Israel is something separate from capitalism is just that. I do wonder though, whether in his zeal to seek an alliance with the Right whether he is dropping his redlines.
Those who rail against Dr Aladwan are useless. They priortise Cocks in Frocks over what the Israelis do with Glocks.[13] Genocide is a secondary issue for them. Not only are they misogynists who side with a men’s rights movement (the trans movement is just that), they prioritise this issue over all others and would prefer to be beaten on the issue of genocide if they can virtue signal on the trans issue to their hearts content. As Dr Aladwan points out.
Conditional support is never support. People will never agree on everything. The Left purity testing is disingenuous and why it’s so fractured.[14]
But the Left is willing to forgive people on the right for major fundamental disagreements, but not deal with other Leftists who defend women’s spaces. Useless and reactionary. They deserve our utter contempt and Dr Aladwan, now more than ever deserves our support.
References
[1] Ó Loingsigh, G. (06/04/2025) Should Israel be wiped off the face of the Earth?
[2] 5 Pillars (20/02/2025) British-Palestinian under ‘police protection’ after online threats. Rob Carter.
[3] See .
[1] Ó Loingsigh, G. (06/04/2025) Should Israel be wiped off the face of the Earth?
[2] 5 Pillars (20/02/2025) British-Palestinian under ‘police protection’ after online threats. Rob Carter.
[3] See .
[4] Statement from Rohman Lowe Solicitors (n/d)
[5] See.
[6] See.
[7] See.
[8] The Telegraph (10/11/2025) Gender-critical MPs ‘have no place in Corbyn’s new party. Ruby Cline & Dominic Penna.
[9] Ó Loingsigh, G. (23/01/2024) Palestine, gender ideology and censorship.
[10] See Irish Independent (04/05/2024) Trinity student: Why I’m risking my €20,000-a-year education to protest as Book of Kells is barricaded ‘indefinely’. Niamh Horan.
[11] See Irish Independent (16/05/2024) László Molnárfi: Trinity students stood up and won – the Palestinian solidarity movement must now escalate its actions. László Molnárfi.
[12] The Burkean (05/11/2025) For a sovereign Ireland, the Left and the Right must unite against Israel. László Molnárfi.
[13] The Glock 19 is the standard issue pistol for the Israeli military.
[14] See.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
The author damns his own case by citing the notorious pro Assad and Putin conspiracist Max Blumenthal of Greyzone fame as an authority for his and the good doctor's denial of the atrocities of October 7.
ReplyDeleteMy wife assures me that Max B is what you say he is but his book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel strips away the Zionist/fascist (to borrow from Gideon Levy) democratic veneer to expose a very ugly racist state and society.
DeleteHe omits the slew of toxic posts on X by the doctor including calling hospitals "hotbeds of Jewish supremacism" and saying that the British government, Labour and Tory parties have been captured by Israel and her support for Hamas.
ReplyDeletewhat hospitals is she referring to? If it is Israeli hospitals then she has strong grounds. In a deeply racist society where support for war crimes and genocide is extensive, it would be difficult to see them as anything else. The Labour and Tory parties are up to their necks in supporting war crimes and enabling genocide. She is hardly wrong about that.
DeleteAs for her support for Hamas - it is the government which Israel helped sustain and finance for the purposes of keeping at distance the emergence of a Palestinian state consistent with the two state solution. Hamas as an entity does much more than wage war, much like the government of Israel has other responsibilities than conducting genocide. There are doctors who support the Israeli government (they might not support genocide) - would you be as critical of them as you are of her for supporting a particular government?
Next time he goes on an anti trans rant can he spare a thought for 16 year old Brianna Ghey, a trans girl murdered in Warrington in 2023 as a result of the trans hatred that his sort of invective generates.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure anyone knows what you are talking about. Who is being referred to when you speak about an anti trans rant? The above article hardly fits that cap.
DeleteHe refers to the trans movement as a misoygnist men's rights movement which wishes to invade women's spaces. Blanket condemnation of an entire movement with no nuance.
DeleteI don't recall that argument being made by him. He has consistently challenged identity politics as a driver for progress, highlighting its conservative core. He has refused to defer to the sex is a spectrum argument preferring instead to go with the sex is binary perspective as outlined by the eminent biologists who have been to the fore in pushing backing against Creationist pseudo science. He has challenged those who use cancel culture to hound and silence ideas. He has ridiculed Starmer and Sturgeon for tying themselves up in knots when faced with the question 'what is a woman?' All of this does not prevent him from supporting Trans rights when they do not obliterate other rights such as women's right, intellectual rights (such as having a different opinion.
DeleteAs for Brianna - that was a horrendous murder in which anti-Trans played a marginal role for one of the killers. I listened to a podcast recently about her death and it seems the driver there was sadism. They were determined to kill someone and Brianna being trans made her appear vulnerable to the two teens who killed her.
This type of thing should not be used to suppress discussion of important issues.
It is preposterous for someone who defends Russian aggression in Ukraine as a special military operation to style himaelf as a human rights activist.
ReplyDeleteAgain it would help if you would cite who you are referring to. This is starting to sound as if you jumped out of bed, necked a shot of whiskey and went off on one. The comments are far removed form the depth and acuity we see in your long read articles.
DeleteThe very fact that he quotes partially approvingly from an article in the alt right Burkean journal which tries to disguise its Jew hate with tropes of Zionist financial control and capturing goverments and institutions betrays his ownJew baiting tendencies which straddle the far left.
ReplyDeletewhat partially approving of the Burkean article?
DeleteHis Holocaust Harris jibe was despucable. Has he ever been to Auschwitz or read much about the Holocaust. One can condemn the Biden
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can explain what you are referring to by the Holocaust Harris jibe.
DeleteHe made that comment in last week's Substack article. One can rightfully condemn Biden's role in Gaza without that despicable alliteration.
DeleteI see nothing despicable about it. This is a woman who is a genocide denier.
DeleteThe author has previously referred to the invasion of Ukraine as a special military operation. Cannot recall the exact article but could search.
ReplyDeleteNo need to. If he said it he can explain it.
DeleteIf she experienced widespread support for the genocide in he hospital it is hardly unreasonable for her to arrive at the views she has.
DeleteIt is the Royal Free Hospital in London that she has described as a hotbed of Jewish supremacism in one of her many posts that has earned her a 15 month suspension by the General Medical Council. I would not want to be treated by someone witj
ReplyDeleteIt was the Royal Free Hospital in London that she described as a hotbed of Jewish supremacism one of many posts that earned her a 15 month suspension by the GMC.
ReplyDeleteMy view of the Gazan war is that i has had potentially genocidal effects but that it has yet to be definitively adjudicated as a full genocide by the ICJ. Same with Ukraine. Neither compares to the Hokocaust in extent, planning and organisation】. So the Holocaust Harris jibe is out of order.
ReplyDeleteThat is a Starmer like cop out.
DeleteYou could just as easily say Charlie Kirk was only potentially murdered because he hasn't been found guilty yet.
She also believes that Jews should not live in Palestine and like Gaeroid is opposed to two state solution - the mirror image of Bibi and Bin Givr.
ReplyDeleteShe is entitled to oppose a two state solution. Given the genocide and Israeli attempts to make a two state solution unworkable more people are coming to the view that it is not viable. I believe in a one state solution but feel it will not come about. I don't see why a colonial power should steal land, evict those living there and then be rewarded with ownership.
DeleteOk, the war has had genocidal effects and people have the right to call it a genocide. Equally, I have the right to my views without people accusing me (not you) of supporting or enabling genocide. More to the point of this thread, when Gaeroid refers to Ukraine as a special military operation, he loses all moral credibility to comment on anything.
ReplyDeleteI don't ever recall Gearoid using the term special military operation. As I recall it he used the term war. I think the SMO would have jumped out at me.
DeleteYou tried this also on Norman Finkelstein recently without much success - claiming he had lost all credibility because he was interviewed by somebody you did not approve of. I just don't think it works.
Nor is there anything in the above piece which approves anything in the Burkean. But the Burkean is a legitimate forum of political expression disagree with it as we might. If anybody approves something in it then it should be judged on what they approved not the forum it appeared in.
I don't think you get accused of enabling genocide. My recollection is that you have spoken out against it.
DeleteRight. Barry repeats the smears of the Daily Mail. But did he actually read my article. I did not favourably quote the Burkean, but criticised Molnárfi for refusing to allow me to use an interview I had done with him because I crossed one of his redlines and then went to write for the Burkean. Also I have never called the war in Ukraine an SMO, even though I don't support the NATO war there. I have always used the term invasion/war.
ReplyDeleteBut it is not a NATO war. It is quite simply a territorial grab of an independent democratic nation by an autocratic imperialist power, namely Russia.
DeleteI think we would need to be obtuse not to see it as a NATO war at one level. It is also a war of national resistance to foreign aggression at the same time. So, it can be both at once. It can hardly be argued that NATO is arming Ukraine for humanitarian reasons when its leaders are arming the genocide in Gaza. NATO is involved to curb Russia not to protect Ukraine.
DeleteThe only time I have ever used the term was to point to a journalist who used that term as evidence of her position on the war. Get your facts right Barry. Nor have I ever mentioned you. In fact, I had to look you up to make sure who you were. As for Harris, she supported the supply of weapons to Israel in the midst of the genocide. I am quite entitle to call her Holocaust Harris, it is as apt as Genocide Joe.
ReplyDeleteI can assure you he used the term "special military operation" to describe the full Russian invasion of Ukraine. Another pearler was his comparison of the Palestine Authority to the Vichy regime.
ReplyDeleteOh I did compare the PA to the Vichy Regime and I think that piece was republished here on TPQ and I stand over that. I am not the only one, even The Huffington Post has done that. I can find no article where I argued that it was an SMO. Any articles I have written on the subject use the term war or invasion, regardless of my position on the war. So please show me the piece where I did that or retract it.
ReplyDeleteI await the article I am said to have described it as a special operation in. Meanwhile, here is the piece about Vichy Palestine, one I stand over and of course I was late to the game. Many described it thus long before me. https://www.thepensivequill.com/2023/12/the-role-of-vichy-palestinian-authority.html
ReplyDeleteSo where is the PA analogue to the deportation of 42,000 French Jews to Auschwitz by the Vichy Regime?
DeleteBarry - that would be a very limited application of Vichy. In modern parlance a popular inflexion placed on it is that of a regime wholly subservient to the colonial power. Much like Quisling. The PA is often characterised that way.
DeleteA more valid comparison would be Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen as modern day potential Quislings to Putin's Russia given the well documented links between the Kremlin and those two and other far right European leaders. And collaboration in thr Holocaust be it by Vichy France or othet Nazi satellites like Slovakia are hardly limited applications.
ReplyDeleteOr Starmer to Israel.
DeleteFarage and Le Pen are comparisons (but by your own admissions only potential ones).
The author is more concerned with real time comparisons not possible future ones.
There was more harm done to the Jews by Ukrainians during WW2 than by Vichy. Not sure about Slovakia.
NATO as a military instution is not involved in Ukraine because Ukraine is not a member state of it. Helps to get basic facts right. Ukraine is in an existential life and death struggle with Russia but faces being sold out by Trump. Europe has to step up to the plate.
ReplyDeleteNATO is up to its neck in the Ukraine war. It is providing arms to Ukraine. Ukraine has a right to get arms from wherever it can but there should be no fiction built around the motives of those giving arms. If dies help to get basic facts right but you don't seem to get much help in that area.
DeleteOk, this is all very interesting, but what Barry has done is steer the discussion towards things it doesn't deal with. The time to critique my position on the PA was when I wrote the Vichy article. The time on Ukraine was when I wrote something on Ukraine and I still waiting for the article on the SMO. I even trawled the internet to see whether I had made a stupid comment somewhere. But Barry knows apparently but refuses to tell us where and when. He's rather discuss my sources but not the actual content of the article. What a way to sabotage any discussion of it. Nice. Sneaky but well done.
ReplyDeleteit wasn't well done at all. It was clumsy and missed the target
DeleteBarry of course did comment my Vichy piece, but did something similar to what he has done here. He is to an argument, like Teflon. He can't stick to the point. He even mentioned Iran in his discussion on Vichy PA.
ReplyDelete