'Judaise medicine': Palestinian doctors are under attack in Israel

'Judaise medicine': Palestinian doctors are under attack in Israel Submitted by Lubna Masarwa on Wed, 09/09/2026 - 13:53 Israeli politicians and pundits want Arabic driven from hospital wards in a country where Palestinian citizens make up a quarter of doctors Medical staff take part in a simulation drill at an emergency underground hospital facility at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa on 18 April 2024 (Jack Guez/AFP) Off The destruction of the healthcare system that Palestinians can access is by no means limited to Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

Alongside the arrests of doctors in the West Bank, a campaign has been launched in the media against doctors who are Palestinian citizens of Israel and work in Israeli hospitals.

The latest campaign was sparked by relatives of a soldier wounded in Lebanon.

Yehoshua Shani, the chairman of a forum that opposes the Gaza ceasefire and supports continuing the war, claimed his nephew was mistreated by Arab staff at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

In a post on X, Shani said the nurses on duty were all "Arabic speakers" who ignored the patient's request for water and turned him over in his bed "like a sardine", hitting his head against the bed.

The hospital authorities at Rambam rejected the claim that this patient was treated "inappropriately". That should have been the end of the story.

But it wasn't. Open incitement Israel was soon debating whether Arabs should be allowed to practise medicine at all, let alone speak Arabic in Jewish hospitals.

"A soldier shouldn't have to hear in a hospital the language of those he's fighting against...

what's happening here in this country has simply become crazy. A soldier alone in the room - everyone Arabic speakers," said Boaz Golan, an Israeli journalist.

One member of the Knesset played on the Hebrew term for affirmative action - literally "corrective discrimination" - recasting it as "damaging discrimination".

'A soldier shouldn't have to hear in a hospital the language of those he's fighting against' - Boaz Golan, Israeli journalist "I will continue to fight for you also on the issue of the Arab doctors and the damaging discrimination that harms our serving children.

I will not give up until we fix the situation, cancel the discrimination, and prevent the acceptance of students from terror universities in the Palestinian Authority into hospitals in Israel," said Likud MK Moshe Saada.

Osnat Mark, a lawyer and former Likud MK, called for the removal of all Palestinian doctors and health officials from the health system: "We simply need to Judaize this profession of medicine...

pharmacists, nurses. You arrive at hospitals and you almost feel like you're in Ramallah.

" Mark was talking about roughly a quarter of Israel's physicians, 27 percent of its nurses and dentists, and just under half of its pharmacists, according to a study published last year.

There had been a rise in the number of newly registered Palestinians, but today increasing numbers are out of work.

Up to 5,000 trained physicians cannot find a job, as internships are becoming closed to them, and many are considering emigrating.

A wave of persecution Palestinians working in the Israeli health system have been experiencing a wave of racist attacks.

There is no official data, but the human rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) has tracked disciplinary hearings against Palestinian doctors since the war started in October 2023, in at least 15 hospitals and all four of Israel's health maintenance organisations.

Why the position of Palestinian health workers in Israel has grown increasingly precarious Read More » "Israel's public healthcare system experienced a wave of persecution targeting Palestinian personnel, including hearings, disciplinary inquiries, sanctions, and dismissals in response to expressed views or social media activity," the group concluded in a report published in April.

I spoke to Palestinian doctors and, on condition of anonymity, this is what one of them told me. "I once had a patient who came for treatment and, upon seeing my name and realising it was Arabic, reacted with shock.

He began saying mockingly, 'An Arab wants to treat me! I don't want him at all.

' He then went on to make arrogant, disgusting racist remarks against me that I would rather not repeat. "What disturbed me even more was the sense of entitlement he displayed.

He felt completely comfortable saying all of this in front of the entire medical team, without any embarrassment or hesitation.

" The doctor reported the incident to his manager, gave him the patient's name and ID number, but nothing happened. The manager was still willing to receive and treat him.

By contrast, the secretary of the hospital had a very difficult reaction when a complaint was filed against the doctor by a patient. The secretary suggested the complaint may have stemmed from racism on his part.

"Everyone began treating the complaint 'seriously', even though the complaint itself did not contain any accusation of racism in the first place," the doctor said.

'Good Arabs' The doctors said there are increasing attempts to file complaints against them. Patients who speak Hebrew react with surprise when they hear Arabic spoken.

"Personally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with speaking Arabic. On one occasion, someone asked me, 'Why are you speaking Arabic in front of me?

' I replied, 'Why are you speaking Hebrew in front of me? Go and learn Arabic if you want to understand'.

" This doctor was adamant he would continue to speak Arabic in front of Jewish Israeli patients. "I see no reason for us to justify our position with carefully polished words in Hebrew.

Anyone who wants us to serve merely as a workforce under hospital management has no right to demand that we justify our Arabic language to them," he told me.

Another Palestinian doctor who has Israeli citizenship told PHRI: "The system tells you… you can be Arab… but you need to be… 'good Arabs'.

The Arabs that do manage to build a career and get to a more senior position… need to be fine with the flag and the soldiers and the magnifying glass they're constantly under.

"You need to accept that because you're Palestinian, your career development will be more difficult, and you shouldn't complain about it. " I usually avoid historical comparisons.

Every conflict has its own horrors, but it is almost impossible not to think about how, in 1938, the Nazi authorities stripped Jewish physicians in Germany of their licences to practise medicine, permitting only a small number to continue treating exclusively Jewish patients.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

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