Harley Street doctor compares Israel to Nazis as she posts picture of swastika next to state flag
A Harley Street doctor has been reported to the police after comparing Israel to the Nazis following the Hamas terror attacks of Oct 7.
Dr Maryam Osmani, 43, a former NHS doctor who runs a “luxury aesthetic clinic” offering cosmetic procedures including Botox and fillers, sparked outrage by posting a picture of the swastika alongside the Israeli flag on her official Instagram page earlier this week.
The post appears to attempt to draw parallels between Israel and Adolf Hitler’s regime, which killed more than six million Jews during the Holocaust, by suggesting that both were “founded on supremacy”, “expelled millions from their homes” and “put racial groups in ghettos”.
It also suggests that Israel is like the Nazis by claiming both use “dehumanising language for undesirables” and “enforce collective punishments”.
Under the swastika, it reads: “Signature method: gas chambers” while under the Israeli flag it reads “Signature method: carpet bombing”.
Complaint being made to medical watchdog
Dr Osmani has been referred to the police and the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects British Jews from anti-Semitism and related threats, and a complaint is being submitted to the General Medical Council, the healthcare watchdog.
Dave Rich, the CST’s director of policy, said: “It is difficult to think of anything more hurtful” than comparing Israel “to those who tried to exterminate us.”
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said: “Posts such as these, which compare Israel to the Nazis in breach of the International Definition of Anti-Semitism, are even more grotesque at a time when the Jewish people are mourning the biggest massacre since the Holocaust.
“This sort of rhetoric from doctors and other medical professionals demonstrates, at a minimum, a lack of empathy unworthy of those in medical practice, and fuels antisemitism in the UK.”
The incident comes amid reports of a rising tide of anti-Semitism among medical professionals.
An open letter to all employers of UK healthcare professionals from the UK Doctors Anti-Racism Group this week warned that Jewish medics had been “experiencing escalating anti-Semitism” from colleagues, both online and in person.
It cited several examples of “colleagues displaying extremist views and behaviours” including one suggestion that “Jews pray to kill Egyptian babies on Passover”, a lack of empathy for the murder of Israeli babies and children by Hamas and one patient referring to “foreign invaders”.
Earlier this week, an unnamed hospital launched an inquiry after a Jewish doctor with family members attacked by Hamas in Israel claimed to have been branded a “baby killer” by a colleague.
The consultant, who later reported the matter to his hospital, the police and the CST, said that “matters had degenerated into a shouting match”.
The other doctor has denied the claims, insisting he supports peace in the Middle East.
In another practice, a doctor told Jewish News that one receptionist turned up to work wearing a “Support Palestine” T-shirt on.
‘Loud and aggressive harassment’
A consultant working in a north of England hospital also told the newspaper that there was “very loud and aggressive harassment” in a group of Facebook doctors who are also mothers, whenever anything happened in the Middle East.
“If someone questions the attacks on Israel, there is immediately a response that ‘if you take our land, you deserve it’, or mentions of ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’.”
The Telegraph has seen comments posted on a closed Facebook group of around 20,000 medical professionals referring to the “wealth and power of the Jewish community”, accusing Israel of carrying out a “genocide” and describing Gaza as an “extermination camp”.
Last week, 2,000 medics wrote to the Department of Health and Social Care demanding officials remove the department’s Israel flag because of the country’s “genocide” of Palestinians.
It also called for Health Secretary Steve Barclay to officially condemn “the inexcusable war crimes committed by the state of Israel against Palestinian civilians in Gaza” while making no mention of the atrocities carried out by the terror group.
Among the signatories was Dr Mennah Elwan, a neurology registrar, who mocked festival-goers fleeing Hamas gunmen with a post which read “If it was ur home, u would stay and fight. U wouldn’t just run away” with a smiley face emoji.
Campaign groups and MPs have since called for her to be suspended by the NHS and investigated by the regulator.
Dr Osmani declined to comment when contacted by The Telegraph on Friday.
