On Oct. 7, Hamas unleashed a barbaric terrorist attack against Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans. The event was unprecedented in its scale and cruelty in a country that is no stranger to terrorism. Still, it was not met with universal condemnation. Rather, a nontrivial number of Americans either justified or even celebrated the attacks. Such responses were especially prevalent within the elite universities that popular imagination historically upholds as a bulwark against religious and ethnic bigotry, and mostly occurred with impunity.

Medicine has eagerly adopted the same type of identity politics that have come to define the policies, sensibilities, and ideologies of Ivy League universities, where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officials have essentially served as a political commissariat, articulating and enforcing identity politics orthodoxy. Indeed, medical training and practice is fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish. Looking at explicit acts of antisemitism from health care providers in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, we observe that doctors are among those who have engaged in some of the most egregious displays of antisemitism, and that they are not regularly punished for their conduct. Second, we examined the responses of professional medical associations and medical schools to Hamas’ attack against Israel compared to their response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Leading medical institutions treat the world’s only Jewish state differently from other U.S. allies even though Americans overall have warmer feelings toward Israel than Ukraine.

If we want to understand why medical professionals are drawn to acts of antisemitism despite their advanced levels of education, we need to look at what their medical associations and schools are teaching them. Those institutions not only advance an ideology that facilitates Jew hatred, they demonstrate by the example of their public statements that they hold Jews and the Jewish state to a different standard.