American ‘anti-racism’ activist condemned over ‘terrified about Zionist doctors’ claim
Sairo Rao is accused of antisemitism after tweeting she is 'genuinely terrified for Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Black patients' treated by doctors and nurses who are 'Zionists'
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
An American race campaigner has sparked anger after claiming she was “genuinely terrified” about the number of “Zionists” treating “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and black patients.”
Saira Rao, founder of Race2Dinner, a group that aims to “help white women confront their own racism”, posted the inflammatory claim on X/formerly known as Twitter.
When it was widely condemned as being antisemitic, Rao, who has been widely ridiculed for earlier posts about pop star Taylor Swift and “white nonsense” refused to back down, claiming “the majority of Zionists are Christian.”
The 49-year-old author had first tweeted:”Realising how many American doctors and nurses are Zionists and genuinely terrified for Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Black patients — even more than usual. And usually it’s bad.”
Responding Daniel Sugarman, director of public affairs for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “Just say ‘Jewish’, Saira, this is taking forever.”
Sugarman wrote on X: “There are lots of Jewish people in medicine. We’re very well aware of what this sort of comment means.”
Realizing how many American doctors and nurses are Zionists and genuinely terrified for Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Black patients — even more than usual.
And usually it’s bad.
— saira rao (@sairasameerarao) January 1, 2024
Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore said that claims “Zionist” doctors harmed patients were a tenet of anti-Semitism.“A call to purge dangerous ‘Zionist doctors’ and ‘decolonise’ medicine,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Out of the slime of racist history crawls the blood libel and Stalin’s anti-Jewish Doctor’s Plot: he devised personally the lie of Jewish faux-healers who killed.“Even for our times this is gross.”
On X, a Context message was also posted stating:”This is a classic antisemitic trope. Throughout history, Jews & Jewish doctors have been accused of intentionally doing harm or plotting to do harm to non-Jews (esp children & people in power). Israeli doctors provide care to Palestinians all the time. Even terrorists.”
But Rao, who is athe co-author, with Regina Jackson, of a New York Times best-selling book “Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better” refused to back down.
On Tuesday she tweeted: “To the haters of my medical tweet, genuinely curious how the entire medical profession can be inoculated from Zionism? And why it’s unreasonable to be afraid for Muslims who have doctors who are cheering on Israel’s genocide?”Lastly, the majority of Zionists are Christian.”
Last year the Creative Artists Agency severed ties with Rao after she made inflammatory comments about Israelis, referring to them as “bloodthirsty genocidal ghouls” who are so “obsessed with land and power and money that you murder newborns to obtain this STUFF”.
She claimed that “the vast majority of white Americans are pro-genocide”, as is the CAA itself, for failing to condemn what she alleged was the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Rao was also widely ridiculed for a post on X/Twitter in which she attacked TIME Magazine for naming Taylor Swift as Person of the Year.
She accused the magazine of “White nonsense, white violence, white love of Black and brown genocide” for selecting Swift, who Rao alleged would be able to singlehandedly stop the genocide of Palestinians with one Instagram post, but chooses not to.
In 2018 Rao ran for Congress, losing out to incumbent Democrat Diana DeGette in the primary.
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