By Maryam Qarehgozlou

 

Yielding to pressure from pro-Israel lobbying groups, the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC) has reopened a politically motivated case against British-Palestinian doctor Rahmeh Aladwan over her outspoken criticism of UK-backed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

 

The renewed proceedings aim to suspend the 31-year-old medic from the UK medical register over social media posts condemning the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of the British government.

 

The move comes less than a month after the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) ruled that the complaints against her were not “sufficient to establish that there may be a real risk to patients” and refused to impose any restrictions on her licence.

 

That September 25 decision had appeared to close the case.

 

However, under pressure from Zionist lobbying groups — led by the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) and the Jewish Medical Association (UK) — the GMC has now reversed course.

 

Both groups, backed by Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting, have spearheaded a smear campaign to punish Dr. Aladwan for her vocal and strong pro-Palestine stance.

 

For nearly two years, she has been the target of online smears and defamation for exposing Israel’s slaughter of more than 68,000 Palestinians and the near-total destruction of Gaza.

 

Earlier this month, the CAA escalated its rhetoric, claiming that Aladwan was conducting a “campaign of hatred against British Jews” and threatened to legally challenge the MPTS for clearing her name.

 

Streeting — who has publicly vowed to overhaul the way medical regulators handle so-called “anti-Semitism” cases — has openly pushed for harsher measures against critics of Israel.

 

In practice, his proposal would mean prosecuting anyone who denounces the Zionist regime’s genocidal actions.

 

Investigations by Declassified UK revealed that Streeting received almost £30,000 from Britain’s pro-Israel lobby, and in 2022, he became the first member of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet to visit the Israeli-occupied territories — in a move designed to signal a break with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Palestine position.

 

Under this political pressure, a GMC case examiner compiled a new dossier of Aladwan’s social-media posts from late September to early October and referred her again to the Interim Orders Tribunal (IOT).

 

The CAA quickly boasted that its legal threat had forced the regulator to act.

 

At Thursday’s hearing, the MPTS agreed to convene a second tribunal — a move that could ultimately strip Dr. Aladwan, a National Health Service (NHS) doctor with seven years of service, of her right to practice medicine in the country where he grew up.

 

Speaking before the hearing, Dr. Aladwan told reporters she had been “summoned by what is now more accurately called the Genocide Medical Council.”

“It is only four weeks since I was summoned here for exactly these allegations, it is my social media postings, it is my support for the Palestinians to resist under international law,” she said.

 

“Mostly really, it’s the GMC buckling to the pressure of the Israeli lobby and the MPs such as Wesley Streeting who are funded by them and who are making comments.”

 

She described the ordeal as a coordinated effort to silence voices of dissent.

 

“There’s been a huge media smear campaign, corruption, and collusions between all these institutions that have been subverted by the Israeli lobby to just take my license away or silence me.”

 

Inside the tribunal, Aladwan was even denied the right to address the panel directly. Representing the GMC, Emma Gilsenan said that only her legal representative could pose questions — a privilege she had been granted in the earlier hearing.

 

Her counsel, Kevin Saunders, instructed by Zillur Rahman of Rahman Lowe Solicitors, denounced the proceedings as a response to “external pressure.”

 

He highlighted Streeting’s public condemnation of the previous tribunal’s ruling, calling it “an attempt to undermine the rule of law and the determination of an independent body.”

 

Saunders pointed out that the 12-page dossier presented by the GMC contained nothing new to justify reopening the case.

 

He stressed that Aladwan’s social media posts were separate from her clinical practice, which has been exemplary, noting that she was expressing solidarity with her own people under siege.

 

No evidence has ever shown that her posts affected patient safety or her duties as a doctor, he said.

 

When Saunders requested a stay of proceedings on grounds of “abuse of process,” the tribunal rejected the motion.

‘Surrender to political pressure’

 

On Friday, after the second tribunal, Dr. Aladwan took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn what she described as the MPTS’s “surrender to political pressure.”

 

“They chose to trample on their own ruling from the 25th of September and allow the GMC to resubmit the same evidence—effectively perverting our British legal system on behalf of the ‘Israeli’ Jewish lobby and their funded MP Streeting,” she wrote.

 

“If a foreign lobby can force our panels to backtrack on a ruling, the finality of British justice is dead.”

 

She called it “a dark day for Britain,” vowing to continue her fight.

 

“They picked the wrong British Palestinian. I will fight this — not just for me, but for our sovereignty and fundamental rights in Britain. If the process is the punishment, then bring it on.”

 

Ahead of the hearing, she had warned that the GMC was determined to destroy her livelihood “to please its masters in the Israeli lobby.”

 

“Let’s be clear,” she posted. “A British Jewish or ‘Israeli’ doctor could … bomb hospitals and kill patients in Palestine — and keep their license and freely treat British patients. I’m being persecuted for speech. They would be protected for murder. This is Jewish supremacy.”

 

By Tuesday, Aladwan revealed that the GMC was now seeking her suspension for being “unrepentant.”

 

“The first tribunal found no need for any order. Now, the GMC demands suspension because I refused to ‘moderate’ speech that was already deemed acceptable,” she said.

 

“This is not about safety. It’s about punishment. They are explicitly seeking what the ‘Israeli’ lobby demanded: my removal from practice for my political views. This is the weaponisation of medical regulation. This is political persecution.”

Arrest before tribunal: A ‘political theatre’

 

Only two days before facing her second tribunal, Aladwan was arrested by British police — a move many saw as part of a broader campaign to silence and intimidate her.

 

In a video posted on social media, the British-Palestinian doctor could be seen confronting police officers as they informed her she was under arrest for “three malicious communications and one offence of inciting racial hatred.”

 

According to the officer, the charges stem from Aladwan’s posts on October 7 — marking the second anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Hamas-led operation launched in response to over seven decades of Israeli apartheid — and from a July 21 speech at a pro-Palestine rally outside the Foreign Office, where police claimed she had called for “the eradication of Israel.”

 

Aladwan, who in her posts described the historic resistance operation as the day Israel was “humiliated,” immediately challenged the officer’s motives.

 

“You are doing this for the Israeli Jewish lobby so you can get an arrest on me before my tribunal on Thursday,” she said in the video. “This is what the UK does to its doctors.”

 

After her release, Aladwan denounced the arrest as “political theatre, not policing.”

 

In a detailed social media post, she described harsh and degrading conditions during her detention — denied water for six hours, refused essential medication, left in a freezing cell without a blanket, and isolated with a broken intercom.

 

“These are not standard procedures. They are punitive measures,” she wrote.

 

Aladwan also revealed the political motive behind the arrest.

 

“An officer explicitly informed me the police would be ‘reporting the arrest to the GMC.’ This is a non-reportable event. This admission reveals the direct channel of communication between the police and my regulator,” she said.

 

She further noted that the arrest was part of a coordinated campaign of intimidation aimed at influencing the medical tribunal and shaping public perception.

 

“It reveals a seamless network: lobby groups, politicians (Streeting), police, regulator (GMC),” she wrote. “They are not following due process. They are executing a strategy. Our British institutions have become enforcement tools for a foreign, hostile agenda—for the Israeli Jewish lobby—and the entire world can see it.”

 

Her post ended with a defiant declaration: “Free Britain and Palestine from Jewish supremacy (Zionism).”

 

Later, Aladwan published her bail conditions, which she said were a form of “house arrest.”

 

She is banned from attending any public event or protest related to Palestine or the Israeli regime in London, placed under curfew at a specified address, and required to notify police if she leaves home for more than 48 hours.

‘Losing grip over the narrative’

 

The arrest sparked outrage among pro-Palestine activists and supporters online, who harshly criticized British authorities for weaponizing law enforcement to suppress dissent.

 

A social media activist, Thomas Keith, wrote that the state’s reaction only exposes its weakness.

 

“The irony is that every time they try to silence a Rahmeh Aladwan, they just spotlight the hollowness of their so-called freedoms,” he said. “The more aggressive and coordinated the repression, the more obvious it is that the state is panicking, losing its grip over the narrative as more and more people refuse to look away from Gaza.”

 

“What you’re seeing is Britain showing the world it’s still an empire at heart, propping up colonialism abroad and silencing dissent at home. The cost of speaking the truth has never been higher, but the mask is off, and more people than ever see exactly who benefits from the machinery of state repression.”

 

Ellen Kriesels, another user on X, highlighted the hypocrisy of reopening a cleared case under lobby pressure and condemned the GMC’s renewed action as a blatant act of political persecution.

 

“This doctor was cleared by a tribunal three weeks ago. Now she is going back there on Thursday after intense media and political pressure at the behest of pro-Israel lobby groups. No new material. Political persecution is what this is. Shame on the GMC,” she wrote.

 

Aladwan herself has long maintained that silence is complicity. After her first tribunal in September, she posted a message urging others to resist fear and speak truth.

 

“We must operate without fear. We must name the root cause and identify the criminals. Palestinians are bravely resisting with their lives. The least we can do is resist with our words, uphold the principles of liberation (thawabet), and speak the full truth.”

 

She condemned Zionist supremacist structures behind the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the extermination of Palestinians across the occupied territories.

 

“The Jewish lobby and Jewish supremacists need to have some shame,” she wrote. “While Palestinians are being kidnapped, tortured, murdered, starved, raped, and burned alive by Israeli Jews, they continue to play victim and cry over our words and activism that are rooted in justice, morality, and humanity.”

 

In her message, she made clear what this struggle is really about.

 

“This is not about Jewish feelings or tears. This is about genocide caused by Jewish supremacy, extremism, and unadulterated terrorism.”

 

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