Muslim groups slam ‘selective outrage’ over Sydney nurse video
Dozens of Muslim groups and community leaders have blasted the “selective outrage” over a video of Sydney nurses threatening to kill Israeli patients.
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Dozens of Muslim groups, including a prominent Islamist organisation, have slammed the “selective outrage” over a video of Sydney nurses threatening to kill Israeli patients, denying the comments were anti-Semitic.
But that notion has been slammed in turn by a leading Jewish rights group.
Bankstown Hospital nurses Ahmad “Rashad” Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh threatened Israeli patients in a video shared by Israeli influencer Max Veifera last week and labelled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “vile” and “disgusting”.
In a statement on social media, the coalition of Muslim groups and community leaders condemned the response to the video by media outlets and political leaders, claiming those “same voices have provided active diplomatic and journalistic cover for ongoing crimes by the Zionists”.
“This is more than hypocrisy. It is calculated, politically motivated outrage. It is not a failure of consistency; it is the deliberate engineering of public morality,” the statement read.
The coalition further denied the video was anti-Semitic, claiming it followed a “well-documented pattern of gaslighting by Zionist lobby groups and their friends within government and media circles”.
“We are unequivocal: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. The frustration and anger directed at Israel is a direct response to its violence and inhumane policies — not an expression of hatred towards Jewish people,” the statement read.
The coalition’s statement also dismissed references in the video to “killing Israelis” as “clearly emotional and hyperbolic”.
“Healthcare professionals are bound by their duty to treat and care for all individuals. This principle is most powerfully exemplified by healthcare workers in Gaza who, even as their hospitals are bombed and their colleagues targeted and killed, continue to provide lifesaving care to all who need it,” the statement read.
Hitting back at the coalition's “sickening” response, Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Australia’s leading civil rights organisation fighting antisemitism, condemned the groups for excusing a “vile” act.
“A coalition of groups has just looked the Australian public in the eye and told them, with a straight face, that a promise to murder Jews in a hospital bed is not antisemitism ,” Dr Abramovich told news.com.au.
“This is a sickening, unhinged, and morally bankrupt defence of death threats against Jews, wrapped in a grotesque attempt to gaslight the nation into believing that we didn’t hear ‘what we heard, that we didn’t see what we saw.”
‘Hyperbolic comments’
In their social media post, the coalition noted the statement was not about “defending inappropriate remarks” but instead about “pushing back against the double standers and moral manipulation at play”.
It urged Australians to see through the “manufactured moral panic and recognise the deeply political nature of this response”.
“We call on our leaders and media institutions to apply their professed moral standards consistently — not only when it is politically convenient, but when doing so requires confronting uncomfortable truths.”.
Signatories included The Muslim Vote and Stand 4 Palestine.
‘Turned the perpetrators into the victims’
Dr Abramovich said the coalition’s response went beyond gaslighting.
“Welcome to the upside-down, where two nurses vowing to kill Jewish patients isn’t the crime — it’s exposing them that’s the real crime Where the actual victims of hate are smeared as manipulators, and where moral depravity is repackaged as a courageous stand against oppression.”
“This isn’t just gaslighting — it’s an all-out assault on reality itself. These groups have done something extraordinary, something that should send a chill down the spine of every person with a conscience. They have not only excused an act so vile that it should have been universally condemned, but they have turned the perpetrators into the victims. According to them, the real problem here isn’t the open threats to Jewish lives but the outrage that followed.”
He stressed the response cannot go unchallenged.
“If we allow this level of moral corruption, of outright sympathy for those who call for Jewish blood, then we are done. If an open death threat against Jews is now just another political football to be kicked around, then Australia has lost itself.”
Since the release of the video, both Mr Nadir and Ms Abu Lebdeh have been deregistered by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW, effective from February 13.
Mr Nadir’s solicitor Mohamad Sakr lat week said his client had sent a “very sincere apology to not only that individual but to the Jewish community as a whole” and was “trying to make amends”, while a man who claimed to be Ms Lebdeh’s uncle said the nurse was also “sorry”.
The influencer who posted the video, Max Veifer, is set to share further comments about the video on Tuesday.
Mr Veifer announced on Instagram he would discuss the video at 7am Israel time – about 4pm AEDT, revealing there would be “a few words from me”.
“In just a few hours, it will be exactly one week since I exposed the two healthcare workers in Australia who claimed they had killed and would kill Israel patients in their hospital,” Mr Veifer wrote to Instagram.
“In a few hours, I’ll be posting a video where I talk about it.”
– With NCA NewsWire
Originally published as Muslim groups slam ‘selective outrage’ over Sydney nurse video
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