What if Dr Aladwan was a teacher?
- Alan Newland
- Oct 25
- 3 min read
An NHS doctor who has been accused of celebrating the October 7 attacks on Israel wore a necklace with the number seven to the medical tribunal she was summoned to appear at, in Manchester recently.
Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, appeared in front of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) accused of anti-Semitism and creating social media posts glorifying the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas.
She arrived at the hearing wearing a gold necklace with a number seven motif and vowed she “would never” condemn the October 7 attacks.
She is further accused of referring to Israelis as “worse than Nazis”, describing anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as a “concept” and describing October 7 as “the day ‘Israel’ was humiliated”. She also described the Royal Free Hospital in north London as a “Jewish supremacy cesspit”.
Let’s imagine for a moment that this was the case of a teacher appearing before the Teaching Regulation Agency answering to similar allegations.
In discussion of such examples, as I do with teacher-trainees around the country at universities and SCITTs, I apply to what I call my “legal, ethical and moral test”.
Let’s do it here with Dr Aladwan.
Has Dr Aladwan said anything illegal?
On the face of it, I cannot see that she has. In my assessment, what she has said does not cross the threshold for ‘threats, abuse or incitement to violence’.
In my view, what she has said is abhorrent and I totally disagree with her, but I defend the right of people to have abhorrent views as long as they do not threaten, abuse or incite violence.
Is what Dr Aladwan said unethical?
Without pre-empting the judgment of the MPTS or the General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practice Panel, I think she is going to find it difficult to defend herself against the claim that her social media posts do not cause alarm and distress, certainly to Jewish patients and possibly the wider public. It would surely be reasonable to assume that Dr Aladwan might view her Jewish patients negatively.
Is what Dr Aladwan said immoral?
This of course depends on what side of the Israel-Palestine argument you are on. I would defend anyone’s right to have a respectful debate about the rights and wrongs of both sides of this conflict – and from your own moral position you may wish to defend her right to say what she has said.
However, there are two issues that bother my own moral stance on this. The first is that one of her social media posts claimed that: “The number of proven rapes on October 7th is ZERO”. This statement seems to me to be a grossly immoral claim given the substantiated video and medical evidence to the contrary. The second is that wearing a gold necklace with a ‘7’ motif to a professional disciplinary tribunal seems to me to be a highly provocative gesture which cannot fail to reveal her moral stance on events of that day.
What particularly interests me about this case is how we, as a teaching profession would deal with Dr Aladwan if she were a teacher?
What would your ethical judgment be of her behaviour, as a colleague? That she has a perfect right to ‘free speech’ in her private and social media life? That her comments were not directed at any of her pupils or parents (or in this case, patients)?
Or would you judge that her views, though expressed outside of her work, unavoidably raise alarm and distress in her real or potential pupils and parents (or for her, patients), especially the Jewish ones?
What would be your moral judgment of her as a parent? What would you think if she was the teacher of your child, whether or not you happened to be Jewish?
My book: "Becoming a Teacher - the legal, ethical and moral implications of entering society's most fundamental profession" explores many more issues like this. It's available with a 20% discount from Crown House Publishing by adding "Becoming20" at the checkout.
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