NHS doctor suggested Jews were responsible for 9/11, tribunal hears

One repost read: “The Zionist owned-and-controlled mainstream media has suppressed this important story for years. Are you surprised? 9/11 was an inside job, The Zionist owned-and-controlled US government was complicit.”

A second post read: “This should also be considered. 5 Dancing Zionists on 9/11 attacks.”

It was accompanied by an AI image showing the New York skyline with the Twin Towers in the background and a plane flying towards them.

The image also showed a white van on a rooftop with five males wearing dark trousers and white shirts - typically associated with Chasidic Jews - celebrating the attack together with the blue Star of David.

Ms Nowell said the doctor, who was working at the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust at the time, said the posts related to “conspiracy theories” that Zionists were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

She said the context was not the Palestinian conflict so the term Zionist would be considered by members of the public to be an “overall term” for Jewish people generally.

The posts were offensive and objectively antisemitic, she said, because it suggested Jewish people were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, controlled the US government and media, and therefore they were an “inside job”.

Ms Nowell said that the doctor had since provided a statement in which she accepted that the term Zionist could often be conflated with Jewish people generally and at times of “heightened tension political language carries profound personal weight” and a “focus on the humanitarian impact of military action neglected this reality and my actions caused junior colleagues to feel personally targeted - this was a serious professional failing.”

She said the doctor also accepted that well-knowns tropes used to “promote hostility” against Jewish people included the conspiracy theory they were responsible for 9/11 and controlled media and government.

Ahmad claims she used X as a research tool and had reposted comments so she could “bookmark” them to read later after she’d became “obsessed” with understanding more about Zionism.

But this was dismissed by Ms Nowell who said the doctor had used X “much more extensively” and she would have known her “deliberate” reposts were offensive.

Giving evidence, Ahmad claimed she hadn’t previously connected the term Zionist with Jewish identity after Ms Nowell said the term could be used to “attack” Jews.

“I now understand that a lot of people who call themselves Zionists are also Jewish,” Ahmad said.

“But I know Jewish friends who don’t want to be called Zionist.”

Ms Nowell said the reposts had “specifically” set out antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

“I would like the tribunal to know that it’s a foreign thing for me to learn about antisemitism,” replied Ahmad.

“It’s not a Southeast Asian thing to grow up learning about it in school.

“I had a steep learning curve.

“At the time I reposted it I wanted to know what has Zionism got to with 9/11 - conspiracy or not conspiracy, I just wanted to know.

“I don’t support any of this.”

Ahmad, who’s since undergone training and mentoring in her use of social media, added: “I don’t hate Jews.”

But Ms Nowell claimed that she had often posted “in anger” and to hit back at comments from Jewish users on X.

The tribunal continues.