Around sixty Jewish doctors, including senior consultants and general practitioners, have left or are planning to leave the British Medical Association. Their decision is not a fleeting protest, but a serious response to\u00a0what they consider to be\u00a0a deeper institutional malaise that has gone untreated for too long.<\/p>\n
\nMany Jewish doctors feel their concerns have been ignored<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The BMA, whose purpose is to protect its members\u2019 welfare, is now regarded by many Jewish doctors as compromised. They feel that it is no longer impartial, no longer safe. For a professional body that prides itself on care, inclusion and advocacy, this represents a systemic failure of grave consequence.<\/p>\n
The resignations follow the 2025 Annual Representative Meeting in Liverpool last month, for which dozens of motions were submitted, several of which were selected for debate, relating to Israel, Gaza, and the Palestinians. The resigning doctors say that these topics were disproportionately represented in a deliberately divisive and one-sided way, which may have contravened the BMA\u2019s own behavioural code as outlined in its Code of Conduct. The BMA, however, says that \u2018at ARM, four of more than 75 motions debated related to Israel and Gaza, the selection of which followed proper, rigorous and democratic processes.\u2019<\/p>\n
Of only three motions picked on international relations, all were related to Israel, Palestinians, and antisemitism. None were included about any other international healthcare matters. In the emergency motions, a further motion was chosen which was critical of Israel, at the expense of more urgent issues such as the Ten Year Health Plan which is of particular concern to GPs but also all doctors.<\/p>\n
Among the motions passed this year were calls to boycott the Israeli medical association and a demand that the UK government support genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.<\/p>\n
Jewish doctors were also shocked by protests outside the meeting featuring old shoes as a gesture of solidarity with\u00a0Palestinians \u2013 symbols that, for many, carry searing associations with Holocaust remembrance. The BMA said it is \u2018deeply concerned\u2026that some Jewish members have raised issues regarding this year\u2019s conference\u2019 but that \u2018some of these issues relate to a protest which was held by an external group outside of the conference\u2019. The BMA also told us that \u2018within these motions, policy was passed decrying antisemitism and calling for support for Jewish doctors\u2019 and that the motions also made \u2018principled calls on medical neutrality that apply to all conflicts worldwide\u2019.<\/p>\n
But many Jewish doctors feel their concerns have been ignored. Dr Peter Albert, an acute medicine consultant in Luton and Dunstable hospital, is among those who have resigned. He describes a long-building disquiet: \u2018My discontent with the BMA has been growing over the past 18 months, chiefly in response to the BMA\u2019s biased approach to the conflict sparked when the terrorist group Hamas invaded Israel on 7th October 2023.\u2019<\/p>\n
He says that attempts to cast the atmosphere as legitimate political criticism are disingenuous: \u2018How patronising of the BMA to explain to us what is and is not antisemitism.\u2019 The BMA said that there was no place for antisemitism within the organisation and that it condemned such discrimination \u2018in the strongest possible terms\u2019.<\/p>\n
The issue at stake is not political dissent, but\u00a0what seems to be an\u00a0institutional failure to protect a minority. Under the Equality Act 2010, harassment includes \u2018unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic which has the purpose or effect of violating a person\u2019s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.\u2019 Critically, it is the effect that matters. That so many Jewish doctors now report feeling unsafe or unwelcome, irrespective of the BMA\u2019s stated intentions, places the organisation at risk of breaching this duty \u2013 something the BMA says it is \u2018confident\u2019 it did not do. But under the Macpherson principle, the perception of the victim is also integral to understanding a racist incident. The impact of this climate within the BMA for Jewish doctors cannot simply be dismissed.<\/p>\n
The BMA\u2019s choice to entertain so many motions on the Israel-Gaza conflict has created an atmosphere of imbalance and exclusion. These Jewish members no longer see the BMA as a representative home. Many of those resigning are GPs. Unlike hospital doctors, who have the option of joining the apolitical HCSA union, GPs rely entirely on the BMA for professional representation. For some, resignation therefore means forfeiting the protection of their employment rights. Others who remain are choosing to fight from within and may not yet feel able to speak publicly. There are also those who stay silent out of fear. That so many have already chosen to walk away is profoundly telling, especially given how small a proportion of the British population, and of the BMA\u2019s membership, is Jewish.<\/p>\n
It is important to recognise that those who serve on the BMA council and its committees are, by all appearances, intelligent, educated and public-spirited individuals. They have devoted their careers to the NHS, to the health of the nation, and to the collective strength of the profession. It would be extraordinary if such people, decent professionals motivated by service, failed to hear the plea of their Jewish colleagues. It is difficult to imagine that they are driven by antisemitism or would ignore it once clearly brought to their attention. Their integrity must now be tested not by their intentions, but by their actions.<\/p>\n
This crisis is not about shielding Israel from legitimate criticism. It is about the ethical duties of a professional association to safeguard all of its members from bias, exclusion and hostility. When the very institution designed to protect doctors becomes, for some, a source of injury, the condition is critical.<\/p>\n
It would be wrong to suggest that so many Jewish doctors are acting in bad faith. When exclusion is felt, and fear becomes real, it is not the critic\u2019s intent that matters, but the Jewish member\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n
The answer is not complicated. The BMA should return to its proper role: representing doctors in employment disputes and professional affairs, not entangling itself in divisive foreign policy debates for which it has neither the mandate nor the expertise. The government has made a poor enough job of diplomacy without medical unions following suit.<\/p>\n
If the BMA still aspires to be a home for all doctors, it must start by listening to those who now feel they no longer belong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around sixty Jewish doctors, including senior consultants and general practitioners, have left or are planning to leave the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-259912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114842327063291396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}