Tribunal: UK doctor shared antisemitic content but intent unproven

Dr. Najmiah Ahmad reposted claims blaming Jews for the 9/11 attacks.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A medical tribunal ruled Friday that a British anesthesiologist had shared antisemitic and offensive posts on social media over the past two months but said it did not prove they were motivated by racial or religious hostility toward Jews.

The Jewish Medical Association filed a misconduct complaint against Dr. Najmiah Ahmad with the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) after she reposted two statements on X promoting the idea that Jews were behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s Twin Towers and the US Pentagon.

One read: “The Zionist owned-and-controlled mainstream media has suppressed this important story for years. Are you surprised? 9/11 was an inside job, the Zionist owned-and-controlled US Government was complicit.”

The second was an AI-generated image of an airplane approaching the towers with five men dressed in Hasidic clothing on a rooftop seemingly celebrating the attack, with a Star of David displayed nearby.

Ahmad denied she was antisemitic, saying she had not linked the term “Zionist” with “Jews” in her mind when she had publicized the posts, and that she had experienced “a steep learning curve” because “it’s a foreign thing for me to learn about antisemitism [since] it’s not a Southeast Asian thing to grow up learning about it in school.”

Katie Nowell, a representative of the General Medical Council, the independent regulator for medical professionals in the UK, acknowledged that prior to the hearing, Ahmad had stipulated that she accepted that “Zionists” was often used as a code word for “Jews.”

Ahmad also apologized, saying, “My actions caused junior colleagues to feel personally targeted – this was a serious professional failing.”

Still, Nowell told the hearing that Ahmad had often responded heatedly to Jewish critics of her posts and would have known her “deliberate” reposts were offensive.

The MPTS adjudicates complaints against doctors’ conduct, health or performance, with the power to impose sanctions, including restricting or ending their ability to practice in the UK.

In this case, the tribunal accepted most of Ahmad’s defense and ruled that there was not enough evidence to conclude she posed a danger to any of her patients or would “undermine public confidence in the medical profession” if she continued to work.

The MPTS has yet to decide if Ahmad has breached “professional standards” warranting disciplinary action.