Belgian Doctor Suspended Over Antisemitic Social Media Posts Amid Rising Antisemitism in Western Health Care

 

September 3, 2025

By Ailin Vilches Arguello

Reprinted from the algemeiner

 

A Belgian hospital has suspended a physician after discovering antisemitic cartoons on his social media accounts, days after defending him for labeling a patient as Jewish in records for no apparent medical reason.

Last week, Dr. Qasim Arkawazy — a radiologist at AZ Zeno Campus Knokke-Heist in the town of Knokke, Belgium — listed “Jewish (Israeli)” as a medical problem in the report of a nine-year-old girl treated for arm pain.

The Jewish Information and Documentation Center (JID), a Belgian nonprofit that combats antisemitism, filed a formal complaint with both law enforcement and the country’s medical authorities, urging a swift response to the incident.

Sparking outrage within Belgium’s Jewish community, this latest controversy reflects a broader wave of antisemitism in health-care settings, raising concern among Jewish patients across Western countries.

Shortly after the incident, the hospital initially defended Arkawazy’s decision to note the patient’s ethnicity “for medical reasons,” later acknowledging it “could be seen as offensive” and confirming that the patient’s digital file had been updated.

However, JID’s complaint prompted an investigation that uncovered several antisemitic posts on Arkawazy’s social media, ultimately leading to his suspension.

According to multiple reports, Arkawazy — a Shi’ite Muslim originally from Baghdad, Iraq — had shared several antisemitic cartoons on Facebook in the months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

The posts included a cartoon showing several babies decapitated by the tip of a Star of David, along with an AI-generated image portraying Hasidic Jews as vampires poised to devour a sleeping baby.

“AZ Zeno immediately launched an internal investigation to carefully map out all the elements; an external investigation is also underway,” the hospital said in a statement.

“The doctor involved was suspended with immediate effect so that the investigation can proceed calmly and thoroughly,” the statement read.

The incident in Belgium comes amid a surge of medical professionals in several Western countries voicing antisemitic sentiments, including outright death threats against Israelis.

Last month, three Dutch hospitals canceled or refused to host lectures by Israeli physician Dr. Amit Frenkel, head of intensive care at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, who was scheduled to speak about treating victims of mass-casualty events, including terrorist attacks.

The hospitals cited “serious concerns” over safety, warning of possible violence from anti-Israel activists.

In Italy, two medical workers filmed themselves at their workplace discarding medicine produced by the Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals in protest against the Jewish state and the war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, a doctor in the UK was allowed to return to work last month after praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during an antisemitic rant and making racist comments about a colleague.

In the UK, other troubling incidents have drawn attention, including one at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), which recently apologized after a patient reported anti-Israel posters displayed at a facility.

The posters — bearing slogans such as “Zionism is Poison,” “Free Palestine,” and accusations that Israel starves and kills Palestinians — left the patient fearing she might receive substandard care if staff learned she was Jewish.

In a separate incident, midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who resigned from her position after her anti-Israel social media posts were exposed, has now filed a claim against Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, alleging a violation of her rights.

In her posts, Mohamied both defended and celebrated the Oct. 7 atrocities and made other antisemitic remarks.

In other Western countries, hostility toward Israel among health-care providers has at times escalated into violent threats.

In the Netherlands, police opened an investigation into nurse Batisma Chayat Sa’id, who allegedly made antisemitic comments and threatened to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.

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.

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.

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