BDS Infiltration of NHS: Politicizing Healthcare Undermines Lives and Western Values / by Lesley Acton PhD

In the hallowed halls of the National Health Service (NHS), where the sacred duty of healing must professionally and morally transcend politics, a troubling shadow has emerged. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—a Palestinian-initiated campaign launched in 2005 aimed at imposing economic and institutional isolation on Israel until it meets certain political demands and/or no longer exists—has found a foothold through groups like Health Workers for Palestine (HW4P).

This grassroots network, co-founded by UK doctors immediately following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, now masquerades as a humanitarian advocacy effort but strategically aligns with BDS objectives. By targeting medical institutions, universities, and pharmaceutical suppliers for boycotts, HW4P advances an agenda that politicizes healthcare, fosters division, promotes antisemitism, and encourages ethical breaches that ultimately harm patients, staff, and the very principles of impartial medical care previously upheld by Western democracies like the United Kingdom.

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From Medicine to Activism

HW4P emerged immediately after Hamas’s massacre of over 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of more than 250 hostages. Its founder, Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan, a British Egyptian pediatric neurologist, actively supports BDS tactics—including calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the World Medical Association and accusing Israel of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘settler colonialism.’

This group—composed of pro-terrorist clinicians, students, and public health professionals—claims to defend medical personnel in Gaza while ignoring Hamas’s well-documented use of hospitals as military infrastructure. It blames Israel for Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, omitting the reality of Hamas’s terror war and Iran’s involvement.

Though decentralized, HW4P coordinates closely with affiliated groups such as Health Workers for a Free Palestine and Medact’s Palestine Project, both of which organize pro-terrorist vigils and campaigns.

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Politicization Within the NHS

This infiltration into NHS is not abstract; it manifests in concrete actions that erode NHS’s neutrality.

• In June 2025, an NHS worker wearing an official lanyard was filmed soliciting signatures for a petition to oust the Israeli Medical Association, citing baseless claims of ‘white supremacy’ and other libels against the Jewish state.

• Dr. Abdel-Mannan himself spoke outside a courtroom in August 2025 in support of an individual charged with waving a Hezbollah flag, railing against ‘Zionist infiltration of the workplace’—a dangerous inversion that paints Jewish professionals as threats while excusing support for a terrorist group sworn to Israel's destruction.

• By July 2025, HW4P boasted of influencing the British Medical Association (BMA), where four ‘anti-genocide’ motions were passed, compelling the body to enact BDS-style policies.

• As with the BMA, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has also been ‘captured.’ It supports the distribution of template letters and model motions urging unions to sever ties with Israeli counterparts and condemns Israel's defensive operations as violations of international law.

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Ties to the BDS Movement

The ties between HW4P and BDS are tactical and profound. They call for sanctions against the Israeli Medical Association and provide toolkits and step-by-step guides for health workers, BDS activists, and patients to lobby against what they consider Zionist interests.

One example is Medact's ‘No Palantir in the NHS!’ campaign. Palantir Technologies provides data management and analytics services to the UK’s NHS, developing the NHS Federated Data Platform, which helps integrate and analyze healthcare data to improve operations, resource planning, and patient care.

In 2025, public health networks influenced by HW4P debated divesting from Israeli suppliers, echoing the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). In one morally bankrupt campaign, HW4P tried to get King’s College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to divest from Wheelshare—an Israeli company that provides wheelchair sharing and rental services.

The moral absurdity is obvious: How exactly is divesting from a wheelchair company supposed to help the people of Gaza or advance any legitimate humanitarian aim? Will denying mobility and independence to disabled people, both in Britain and around the world, somehow lead to peace? Is making it harder for patients to access life-changing or life-saving technology a path to justice?

The answer is self-evident: targeting Wheelshare serves no constructive purpose. It is purely an ideological and performative act, one that puts politics above the needs of the vulnerable, and contradicts both NHS ethos and the principles of medical ethics. Punishing a wheelchair supplier will not feed a single child in Gaza, will not build a single school, nor heal a wound. On the contrary—it sets a dangerous precedent that the supposed ‘virtue’ of boycotting Israel is more important than treating patients.

Similarly, a campaign to boycott the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva was eagerly embraced by HW4P. They pushed for ‘No prescribing by physicians, no dispensing by pharmacists, and no consumption by patients.’ Once again, HW4P is putting virtue politics before patient care and safety. Surely it is the duty of prescribers to give a patient the best medication possible based solely on clinical judgment rather than prescribing according to a political agenda?

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The Human Cost of Ideological Medicine

Politicizing NHS through this lens is profoundly harmful to patients and staff alike. Injecting ideological poison into an institution founded on universal care and the rule of law benefits absolutely no one.

• How would you feel as an NHS patient denied medications or assistive technology because of a boycott against an Israeli innovator?

• How would you feel if you did not receive the best possible treatment due to severed academic collaborations or pharmaceutical boycotts?

Staff face even graver perils. How disheartening must it be to work in a toxic environment rife with division, harassment, and antisemitism? Intimidation through HW4P's protests—such as white-coat processions outside Downing Street in November 2023, silent marches from St Thomas’ Hospital in December 2023, and sieges on MPs' offices in August 2025—all take their toll on those healthcare workers not aligned with their more militant Jihadi colleagues.

Jewish healthcare workers report feeling unsafe amid accusations of ‘Zionist complicity,’ mirroring the systemic antisemitism fueled by the left's unwitting alliance with Iran's global jihad network—useful idiots who, like their Nazi predecessors, promote the annihilation of Jews.

HW4P’s claim that ‘pro-Palestinian voices are being silenced’ rings hollow when its activism itself normalizes hostility toward Jewish colleagues and medical institutions. In June 2025, over 2,500 UK health workers signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer accusing Britain of ‘complicity’ in Israel’s self-defense—a document invoking the discredited ‘right of return’ that would erase Israel demographically. Such efforts divert healthcare professionals from their true mission: treating patients.

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Defending Western Values in Medicine

HW4P’s global network represents more than just a fringe movement. It is part of a coordinated campaign to subvert Western institutions by weaponizing moral language. Under the guise of ‘human rights’ and ‘health equity,’ it advances the political aims of authoritarian regimes hostile to democracy, individual freedom, Jews, Israel, and anybody who does not support a political Islamic agenda.

NHS must reject this infiltration. Patients deserve care free from propaganda, and staff deserve a workplace free from hate. Upholding Western values—freedom, reason, and the sanctity of human life—means protecting healthcare from ideological manipulation.

Let us reaffirm the true principles of the NHS:

• Provide a comprehensive health service for everyone, free at the point of use.

• Base access on clinical need, not ability to pay.

• Deliver the highest standards of quality and professionalism.

• Put patients at the heart of all decisions.

• Work in partnership across services and communities.

• Use resources fairly and responsibly.

• Be open and accountable to the public.

These principles—enshrined in the NHS Constitution—reflect the values of dignity, compassion, and respect that distinguish free societies from those that glorify terrorism. To protect those principles, NHS must remain a sanctuary of healing, not a stage for political crusades.

#NoHateInHealthcare