An NHS trainee paediatrician is facing calls for immediate dismissal and GMC investigation after comparing Israelis to a disease and selling a controversial Palestine poppy.
A Birmingham-based trainee paediatrician, who has worked across West Midlands hospitals, shared an image depicting Israeli flags as diseased cells under a microscope.
Abdul Qader Ismail, 41, posted an illustration showing a doctor looking through a lens at cells overlaid with the Israeli flag. The deleted post carried the caption: “This is the worst cancer I have ever seen”.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism pointed out that linking Israel and Jewish people to disease is an ancient trope stretching back to the Black Death.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism condemned the post:
This is sickening, and even more so coming from a doctor charged with delivering equal treatment to all. We will be reporting him, as we have done with so many other medics whose obsessive hatred for the Jewish state has brought their profession into disrepute.
Dismissal demands from political leaders
The NHS should sack him immediately. We cannot have views like this working in our health service.
Nigel Farage, Reform UK leader
Lord Austin, the UK trade envoy to Israel, declared that the paediatrician’s online activity was “absolutely disgusting” and urged swift official intervention.
No one with views like these should be anywhere near the treatment of children. The General Medical Council must investigate these reports immediately. But sadly this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a doctor with abhorrent views practising in our health service. The Health Secretary must act to get medical practitioners like this out of the NHS once and for all.
Fiyaz Mughal, of Muslims Against Antisemitism, highlighted broader concerns regarding hostility toward Jewish people:
There is an endemic problem of anti-Semitic rhetoric and deep antipathy towards Jews and or Israel within significant parts of British Muslim communities.
Hamas attack called legal resistance
In a deleted YouTube video recorded at his local mosque, Ismail addressed the October 7 atrocities in Israel.
While condemning the slaughter of 1,200 people, he claimed Palestinian violence was an “inevitable” response to oppression after peaceful attempts failed.
Speaking in the video, Ismail said:
It is inevitable they [Palestinians] will resort to armed resistance and this is legal under international law. This will nearly always end up causing the death of civilians. And while this is always a tragedy, it is grotesque to blame the victim of the oppression. The oppressor has created the horrific situation in which armed resistance has led to the death of innocents.
Hundreds of those killed by Hamas militants on October 7 were young people attending the Nova music festival.
The case follows previous reports involving other NHS consultants across England who expressed support for anti-Semitic attacks. One doctor in Surrey termed the October 7 raids “creative”, a doctor in Keighley claimed they were “justified”, and a consultant in Liverpool described Zionists as “rapists and paedophiles”.
Poppy symbol sold for charity online
Ismail, who studied medicine at Oxford University between 2004 and 2010 and has published neonatology research, also sells a £1.78 enamel pin on eBay.
The item is shaped like a red poppy but colored like the Palestinian flag. Profits are passed to groups working to end the occupation, including Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA).
A 2024 Home Office report designated FOA as a “far-Left Islamist” organization. Founded in 1997 by Ismail Patel, who once declared “we are all Hamas” and met former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, the group frequently helps organize pro-Palestine marches.
The website selling the pin features a video containing the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, widely interpreted as a call for Israel’s destruction.
Former Royal Navy officer and Labour councillor Stuart Fawcett warned that the pin attempts to “hijack our national symbol of resistance”.
The traditional red poppy, introduced by the Royal British Legion in 1921, is a non-partisan symbol raising millions annually for British Armed Forces veterans and their families.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators recently stepped on poppy wreaths and scaled a Battle of Britain monument, resulting in 20 arrests and one woman accused of giving a Nazi salute.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism added:
The substitution of the poppy representing British soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in Flanders Fields with a ‘Palestine poppy’ is one of the best examples of how those who put Palestine first put Britain last. Their hatred of the Jewish state is so all-engrossing that they will disgrace any British institution and tradition to express it.
Hospital trust issues firm statement
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, where Ismail undertook a placement in 2023, confirmed he is not currently employed there.
A spokesman for the trust said:
UHCW condemns anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, discrimination and hate. Such behaviour is entirely contrary to our values and the standards we expect of everyone working within the NHS. We take any allegations of discriminatory behaviour extremely seriously and will take appropriate action when concerns are raised.
Both Ismail and the General Medical Council have been approached for comment.