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The World Needs to Adopt a Real Humanitarian Goal: Removing Hamas From Gaza (PART ONE)
Palestinian women react at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip December 1, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
As a doctor who spent a lifetime of work in epidemiology and environmental medicine, I have extensive experience thinking about how external factors drive public health outcomes — preventable disease and premature death.
I have studied the negative public health impacts of asbestos, pesticides, unsafe driving, cigarettes, and more — and made recommendations aimed at reducing these dangers.
Much of this work occurred in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That experience has much to say about the catastrophe we have witnessed in Israel and Gaza, and which we risk reoccurring, if we do not address the intergenerational indoctrination and incitement in the Palestinian world.
As an environmental epidemiologist with significant work studying genocide and incitement, I see indoctrination in genocidal ideology as a form of hazardous exposure with toxic effects on all age groups — but with specifically dangerous impacts on the young. Exposure to such indoctrination and incitement can be likened to frequent or prolonged exposures to toxins such as lead, asbestos, and tobacco smoke. The impacts are both immediate and long-lasting. We should act accordingly.
October 7th
It’s critical that we see the Hamas massacres on October 7th and the resulting war in Gaza not just as a geostrategic milestone, but also as an incident in environmental medicine with impacts on both Israeli and Palestinian lives.
The barbaric attacks on Israel were systematic. For one day, Hamas waged total war — raping, murdering, and kidnapping — and setting out to make Israel’s Gaza envelope communities uninhabitable, which many still are, more than a year later.
Israel has responded by defending itself and seeking to defeat Hamas militarily. Because Hamas has placed itself within and often underneath the civilian population, this has required a brutal and grinding kind of warfare, combined with internal displacement of Gaza’s population, especially in its north.
For Gaza, this has been an epidemiological catastrophe. Whatever Gaza once was, it no longer is.
While some in the public health and humanitarian community blame Israel for this destruction, that would be a mistake.
The predicate for all of the public health losses was the ideology that made Israel’s military action inevitable.
Poisoned Minds, Not Poisoned Wells
In a disease model, we must look for the risks and causes of the disease, not merely the symptoms, if we are to heal the patient. The same is true in epidemiology: We must identify the content and effect of toxic exposure in a community. The legendary epidemiologic discovery came in 1854, when John Snow deduced that a cholera epidemic in London could be linked to a single water pump on Broad Street.
In this case, we are not looking for a contaminated well. We are looking for contaminated minds — the contaminant is the ideology of Hamas.
Hamas and its enablers have indoctrinated all Gazans in this ideology, from cradle to grave. Many of the thousands who came across the border to murder, rape, and loot on October 7 were not only uniformed and trained Hamas terrorists, but ordinary Gazans who joined in on the genocidal massacre.
They were motivated to commit murder and rape by what they were taught at home, at school, at mosques, in the streets, and on social media. If they had no formal training to kill, they didn’t need any.
It is rare that a society becomes so sick to the core that mass murder becomes a socially acceptable norm. Hamas terrorists bragged to their parents. They were greeted as conquering heroes and were eligible for large cash awards and free apartments. This is a culture in which genocidal massacre is celebrated.
Critics of Israel’s offensive into Gaza say it will only create more supporters for Hamas. That is absurd. Gaza already is dominated by intergenerational indoctrination of an extreme version of jihadist Islam.
It is critical that we recall Gregory Stanton’s seminal “Ten Stages of Genocide,” which speaks to this issue specifically. Genocide follows a distinct pattern, from classification of the enemy to symbolization of the enemy, to discrimination, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, persecution, extermination, and finally, denial.
Just as Palestinian society has been shaped by genocidal motifs of demonization, delegitimization, and glorification of terror, it is also not destined to serve the cause of genocide. This was not inevitable. There are many traditional and religious societies in the Arab world similar to Palestinian Arabs which do not engage in any of the kind of genocidal or pre-genocidal steps of Hamas.
More than Hamas
If the problem is man-made, then the solution will be man-made. First, let us dispense with the fiction that destroying Hamas’ hardware, its fortifications above ground, and its tunnels underground is sufficient.
If Israel exits Gaza only having killed Hamas operatives and destroying Hamas infrastructure, it will have achieved very little of lasting value. It must take on the hard work of removing genocide indoctrination and incitement.
Like any epidemiological matter of any consequence, this will take many years.
Many public health epidemics and mass exposures in the past such as typhoid, cholera, exposure to asbestos, and lead took many years to prevent or control, and required a generational commitment of the entire medical and policymaker community.
De-Nazification as a model
There is, however, a model for this process, and it comes from America and its allies as they sought to de-Nazify Germany and pacify Japan after World War II. These efforts were comprehensive and driven by military dominance.
In Germany, the process included the Nuremberg trials, which did much to expose the world — and Germany — to the horrors of the Nazi genocide program. But it wasn’t enough.
The process was not perfect. Many former Nazis avoided punishment; some innocent Germans were unfairly accused. The Allied forces confiscated all media — including school textbooks — that would contribute to Nazism or militarism. Art extolling Nazism was similarly banned and shunted aside. This was not a libertarian exercise.
But it succeeded. Germany had, at that point, emerged from roughly a century of bellicose militarism and deep antisemitism. It had started two world wars and carried out an industrial-scale program of genocide. Few believed it could ever be anything but a source of human misery in the heart of Europe.
The Germany of today — peaceful, global, and prosperous — would have seemed to be a mirage. In fact, General Dwight Eisenhower, Allied commander in Europe, predicted the de-Nazification of Germany would take 50 years.
In Japan, too, the efforts were monumental. Japan had been a militant and bellicose society, with deep racial animus towards its neighbors and the West, for several centuries. Not only were its military and military industries disbanded, but outward signs of patriotism were banned in public life, including schools.
Massive other changes, including the introduction of a parliamentary democracy, the political rights of women, and basic free speech rights, were enshrined in its new constitution. Again, as in Germany, textbooks were censored and control over schools was strictly regulated.
Elihu D. Richter is a retired head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Hebrew University School of Public Health and is the founder of the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention.
The post The World Needs to Adopt a Real Humanitarian Goal: Removing Hamas From Gaza (PART ONE) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Israel Bias in UK Hospitals Alarms Jewish Patients, Fueling Fears of Global Trend
University College London Hospital. Photo: Tagishsimon via Wikimedia Commons
Two recent incidents at hospitals in the UK fit a troubling pattern of Jews feeling unsafe due to medical professionals expressing antisemitism or even outright threats of death against Israelis.
The University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH Trust) has issued an apology following a patient’s complaints about the placement of anti-Israel posters at a facility.
“I’m an outpatient but God forbid in other circumstances to feel so vulnerable already and be surrounded by hostility would be so scary,” the unnamed female patient told the group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), fearful of receiving subpar treatment if the hospital staff discovered she was Jewish. “I shouldn’t have to remove my Star of David necklace to go to a hospital visit.”
The poster read:
Israel is starving and killing Palestinians in Gaza.
Children are being slaughtered beyond measure.
We have a voice, they don’t.
We are the generation that can influence the system & government.
Please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Do not let the mainstream media influence you. It is poison. Zionism is Poison.
People are being killed, just to show the world what is happening, see for yourself:
@eye.on.palestine
@lowkeyonline @Wearethepeace
@hossam_shbat @anasjamal44
If you can’t lift the injustice, at least tell everyone about it.
Free Palestine.
End Zionism.
David Probert, chief executive of UCLH Trust, released a statement on Sunday to UKLFI.
“Firstly, I would like to apologize on behalf of UCLH for the distress and upset caused by these posters. At UCLH, we value diversity and inclusivity, and we are committed to providing a fair and non-discriminatory service to all individuals, regardless of background,” Probert stated. “Following receipt of your letter, I promptly made internal enquiries and was informed that the posters were initially noticed last week. This matter was immediately treated as an incident, and all the posters were removed without delay.”
Probert added, “Senior members of staff conducted a walk-around to ensure no further posters remained. Additionally, the department’s newsletter addressed the incident, reminding staff of the Trust’s policy against displaying political messages and encouraging vigilance in identifying and removing any similar materials. Security personnel have also been instructed to remain alert.”
Caroline Turner, director of UKLFI, said that her organization welcomed the hospital’s taking down of the posters.
“We welcome UCLH’s prompt, proactive, and constructive engagement with this issue. UCLH’s actions will help preserve dignity, equality, neutrality, and respect within NHS spaces, particularly for Jewish patients seeking medical care,” she said in a statement.
Another instance of anti-Israel rhetoric at UK hospitals involves midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who resigned from her position after UKLFI highlighted her anti-Israel social media posts. Mohamied has now filed a claim against Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, alleging a violation of her rights.
“I have been subjected to a concerted and targeted effort to intimidate, harass, and punish me into silence for my Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Zionism,” Mohamied said. “I am taking legal action against my former employer to finally seek accountability for a campaign of harassment against me in the midst of a live genocide perpetrated by the Israeli state — I will not accept the attempts to silence me and those like me.”
Mohamied added, “Health=care workers in the NHS have the right to critique a colonial political ideology that has upheld an illegal occupation for decades and is responsible for violating universal values of health.”
Examples of Mohamied’s posts include her declaration “hell yeah!!!” on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, as she reshared the statement “Palestinians have a right to resist their occupation-we have a right to support them. It’s that simple.”
She also wrote on Oct. 7, 2023, that “Palestinian women have birthed under blockade and seige [sic] This is apartheid and like all apartheid, no justice or dignity can be found.” The post was in response to another social media user defending Hamas’s atrocities as a justified response to Israeli actions.
In another online comment, Mohamied wrote, “The problem lies in using Jewish cultural safety as a smokescreen to propagate colonialism, occupation, apartheid, and genocide as somehow acceptable. The problem here are the Zionist speakers you hold no qualm or shame to platform. There is no neutrality in degradation, there is no balance in ignoring opposition to Zionists, there is no innocence in hosting Zionists.”
Liana Wood, a partner at the legal firm Leigh Day representing Mohamied, said that the trust’s “referrals against Fatimah, made a year after she had stopped working for them, were an entirely disproportionate response to her lawful expressions of belief on her personal blog and social media accounts.” She added that “Fatimah’s case, which has parallels with other cases we have seen recently in the NHS, highlights the need for employers to resist pressure from lobby groups in such cases, and to carefully consider any potential infringement on an individual’s rights before taking action against them.”
These instances in the UK track with other reports from Jews around the world expressing discomfort with health-care providers’ antipathy toward Israel manifesting as violent threats.
In the Netherlands, for example, police opened an investigation into Batisma Chayat Sa’id, a nurse who allegedly stated she would administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.
Sa’id denied making the comments. “It seems someone is pretending to be me, posting false and defamatory statements,” she said. “I want to make it clear — I hold no hatred toward Jews or any people, race, religion, or identity.”
Last year, however, an account under her name also posted threatening messages aimed at Jewish people, including “Your time will come — don’t spare anyone,” and another in which she described the burial of Israelis in Gaza as “a dream come true.”
The nurse’s alleged threat mirrors a similar incident in Australia, in which video showed two nurses — Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh — posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements.
The widely circulated footage showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” Shira Nussdorf, a US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago, told The Algemeiner earlier this year when the video first emerged. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities in Australia suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They were also charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, they face up to 22 years in prison.
A December 2024 study by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group, found that 40 percent of 645 Jewish American health-care professionals surveyed reported experiencing antisemitism in the workplace. A similar study of Canadian Jewish health workers conducted last year reached 80 percent.
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First Charter Aliyah Flight Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 Attack Brings 225 Newcomers to Israel
New olim disembark at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on the first charter aliyah flight since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, arriving to begin new lives in Israel. Photo: The Algemeiner
NEW YORK/TEL AVIV — Defying the uncertainty of war, 225 Jews arrived in Tel Aviv on the first charter aliyah flight since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, determined to start new lives and contribute to the country they now call home.
On Wednesday morning, Nefesh B’Nefesh — a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the United States and Canada — brought its 65th charter flight from New York to Tel Aviv.
Aliyah refers to the process of Jews immigrating to Israel.
With the most children yet on a single flight, this historic aliyah brought 45 families to their new homeland — 125 children among them, ranging from the youngest at 9 months to the oldest at 72.
Migrating from across the US and Canada, these newcomers and families are settling throughout Israel to build communities and begin new lives of service to the Jewish state. Among them are professionals in fields such as medicine, journalism, education, law, accounting, engineering, and many others.
During a farewell ceremony in New York, Nefesh B’Nefesh chairman and co-founder Tony Gelbart commended those on the flight, holding them up as examples of Jewish resilience and unity in the face of adversity
“You’re fulfilling your dream, but I believe you’re doing something even more important at this time,” Gelbart said in his speech.
“Not only are you helping Israel; you’re showing the world that Jews everywhere stand together and care for one another,” he continued.
Israeli Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer, who traveled to the US to see off the new olim (immigrants who moved to Israel) on their historic flight, also praised them for embarking on this new chapter in Israel.
“I want to thank each and every person who made the decision to make aliyah during the war. It strengthens our resilience and our solidarity, and I am truly proud of them,” Sofer told The Algemeiner.
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen that most people want to support Israel … but the highest form of solidarity is choosing to make aliyah,” the Israeli official said. “These individuals want to be part of what’s happening in Israel, make a meaningful difference, and stand with their people.”
Founded in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh is dedicated to “strengthening the State of Israel by facilitating aliyah, advancing national service and development, and promoting Zionist education.”
Nefesh B’Nefesh, working alongside Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth, and the Jewish National Fund-USA, helps olim become fully integrated members of Israeli society.
To this day, they have assisted nearly 100,000 olim in establishing thriving lives in Israel, guiding them through the aliyah process.
Those who decide to make aliyah receive comprehensive support to help them transition smoothly into their new life, including guidance through the immigration process, access to community programs, health-care assistance, and employment resources.
The Israeli government also provides a range of support and resources to ease the transition and adaptation for those taking this significant step, including housing subsidies and higher education incentives for young olim and professionals pursuing studies in Israel.
“I believe we’ll see an increase in the number of people making aliyah in the coming years. It won’t happen overnight, but it will be a gradual process,” Sofer told The Algemeiner. “The trend is clear, and there is growing interest among many in taking this step.”
“We’re seeing numbers rise year by year, especially from Western countries like the UK, France, and North America, and I expect that trend to continue,” the Israeli minister said.
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‘Pat Buchanan in a New Guise’: Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka Slams Tucker Carlson Over Anti-Israel Stance
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the US president and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House National Security Council, at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, Aug. 19, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A senior aide to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday repudiated controversial political commentator Tucker Carlson for promoting what he described as an isolationist foreign policy that’s hostile to Israel, suggesting that Carlson is “repackaging” the ideology of infamous paleoconservative intellectual Pat Buchanan.
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House National Security Council, made the comments while appearing for an event at the Hudson Institute, a prominent think tank in Washington, DC.
Moderator Michael Doran, a Hudson senior fellow and Middle East expert, asked Gorka to address the growth of anti-Israel, antisemitic sentiment on right-wing podcasts and social media.
“This wing of isolationism is nothing new. We had this 100 years ago, and this is just a poor, substandard repackaging of neo-Buchananite isolationism,” Gorka said in response.
“The Tucker right wing is basically, you know, Pat Buchanan in a new guise. It is actually a shallower version. Pat is far smarter than this version of isolationism,” Gorka continued.
Carlson, a right-wing podcaster and former Fox News host, has repeatedly argued on his podcast that the US should withdraw from costly foreign entanglements and focus on domestic issues. That perspective has led him to sharply criticize US support for Israel, which he has framed as an unnecessary drain on American resources and a distraction from pressing challenges at home.
Carlson has often warned that Washington’s commitments to its allies, particularly in the Middle East, risk dragging the United States into wars that he believes serve little purpose for the average American family. His rhetoric has placed him at odds with more traditional conservatives who view support for Israel as central to US foreign policy.
In June, Carlson clashed with US Sen. Ted Cruzhttps://www.algemeiner.com/2025/06/18/ted-cruz-defends-aipac-foreign-influence-claims-accuses-tucker-carlson-antisemitism/ (R-Texas) over the latter’s support for Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a lobbying group that promotes bipartisan support for a strong US-Israel relationship. During the tense interview, Cruz called out Carlson over his “obsession” with the world’s lone Jewish state.
“You’re asking, ‘Why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?’” Cruz stated. “If you’re not an antisemite, give me another reason why the obsession is Israel.”
Carlson recently came under fire for interviewing Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian but not pushing back against his claims or challenging the leader on Iran’s nuclear program or human rights record.
Meanwhile, Buchanan regularly courted controversy with provocative statements depicting the so-called “Israel lobby” as a sinister force swaying US policy — even claiming Capitol Hill is “Israeli occupied territory.” He has also cast doubt on established Holocaust history, minimizing atrocities at Treblinka, and framed Jewish influence in ways many critics condemned as antisemitic. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) branded him an “unrepentant bigot” and claimed that he “repeatedly demonizes Jews and minorities and openly affiliates with white supremacists.”
Gorka dismissed the vocal chorus of isolationist, anti-Israel conservatives as “probably half a dozen very loud people on Twitter [now officially called X] and Rumble.” He emphasized that isolationist ideologues such as Carlson are not representative of the broader conservative political base.
“I mean, you get out of the miasma, the cesspit that is social media and you talk to representative MAGA [Make America Great Again] of the 80 million that put the president back in the White House,” Gorka said. “They don’t think that we should pull down the shutters on the Pacific and the Atlantic coast. They don’t think that Israel is the reason for [Hamas’s attack on Israel on] October the 7th. They actually have a very special place in their heart for Israel, and they don’t think that hospitals being bombed in Ukraine is a good thing.”
Gorka added that the Americans people will not be easily swayed by the isolationist wing of the conservative movement.
“One of the most trenchant, indicative characteristics for me of the American people is common sense. They understand who was responsible for October the 7th. They understand who Vladimir Putin is,” Gorka said.
Doran argued during the event that the anti-Israel wing of conservatism maintains “no hold” on Trump.
“It’s clear that that President Trump is not listening to them, making decisions in a completely different way,” Doran said. “I mean, he basically signaled it with that Truth Social posting where he said, ‘Who’s going to tell kooky Tucker Carlson that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon?”