‘You spread hate’: full anti-Israeli video released
A longer video showing two nurses suggesting Israeli patients would be killed or refused care has emerged as police wait to receive a copy to consider charges.
A nurse whose alleged anti-Israeli rant triggered outrage and disgust across Australia has been hospitalised as a longer video of the exchange emerges.
After being barred from practising nationwide, Ahmad Rashad Nadir was treated by emergency services on Thursday night after a “concern for welfare”.
Paramedics were called to the male pediatric nurse’s Bankstown home about 9pm and he was taken to hospital for an assessment, NSW Police said.
The medical incident comes as he and his female former colleague, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, await the outcome of a police investigation into their comments made to an Israeli blogger, who initially posted a cut version of their interaction online.
The video, in which they appear to claim they won’t treat Israeli people and boast of sending them to hell, sparked shock and outrage from other nurses, government officials and the wider community.
Social media influencer, Max Veifer, on Friday shared a longer, two-and-a-half-minute version of his conversation with the nurses in an online chat room.
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In comments not aired in the shorter, edited version of the video, Mr Veifer asked if his service in the Israeli Defence Force was why Mr Nadir thought he would go to hell.
“Um, that’s definitely the answer, correct,” the nurse replied.
The trio then began speaking over the top of each other as they addressed his military service, Hamas and the occupied Palestinian territories.
“One day, your time will come and you will die the most horrible death,” Ms Lebdeh says.
Mr Veifer replied: “You spread hate, we spread positivity, we spread protection, we spread peace and you spread death.”
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb earlier said an unedited version of the video had been requested to inform investigators considering potential criminal charges.
Mr Veifer said he “had nothing to hide”.
“Here it is and if they tell me where to send it I will send it to them,” he said in a post on Instagram.
Police confirmed the video had been “formally requested and not handed to police at this stage” after it was posted online.
Australia’s health practitioner watchdog on Thursday updated its public records to show both nurses, who worked at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney’s southwest, had been forbidden from working in the profession nationwide “in any context”.
The pair have also had their registrations suspended by the NSW Nursing and Midwifery Council.
“Their sickening comments – and the hatred that underpins them – have no place in our health system and no place anywhere in Australia,” Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said.
An initial examination by NSW Health found no evidence that the care of any patients had been affected, but a more thorough investigation is in train.
CCTV footage has been seized from the hospital and other staff have been interviewed by police.
The unfolding scandal has broken trust in the public health system, NSW Premier Chris Minns has conceded, and nurses have also expressed their devastation and outrage at the comments.
“We cannot have examples of naked racism from public servants exhibited on social media or anywhere,” he said.
But Mr Minns added he strongly believed the video and the views expressed in it by the nurses were an “aberration” among health workers.
Mr Nadir has issued an apology through a lawyer after being stood down from the hospital and separately told reporters the incident was a misunderstanding and a mistake before his hospitalisation.
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By: Jack Gramenz and Luke Costin/AAP
Indeed, Mr Veifer has nothing to hide. If this is what we must do to get the world to look and listen – invite (some will say ‘trap’) those who hate into exposing themselves – in order to have antisemitism acknowledged and acted upon, then so be it.