Terry Newman: The anti-Zionist doctor who didn’t know what she’d done wrong

Terry Newman: The anti-Zionist doctor who didn't know what she'd done wrong

An anti-Israel agitator created a hostile environment at a historically Jewish hospital. The Toronto Star wants you to believe she is the victim

Kavita Algu, a former palliative care doctor at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, recently quit after a workplace investigator found her to be disruptive and unprofessional, which the Toronto Star would like you to believe is some kind of injustice. Judging from the Star’s own “investigation” and Algu’s activism, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

According to the Star’s investigation, Algu “was never told specifically what she did wrong.” She was just a physician who engaged in Palestinian advocacy and “ultimately felt she had no choice but to leave a career she had spent years building.”

The Star’s Shree Paradkar notes that Algu wasn’t a particularly experienced public speaker when she spoke at a Toronto rally in 2024, but that she “felt obligated to speak out about the destruction of a health-care system,” which apparently included suggesting that Israel was targeting staff and patients in hospitals and committing “genocide” against Palestinians.

Of course, this wasn’t the only time that Algu had made such accusations. Less than three months after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, Algu wrote an op-ed for Spring magazine, which refers to itself as “a magazine of socialist ideas in action,” arguing that health care in Gaza was being “specifically targeted including bombings of ambulances and hospitals and sniper attacks on medical professionals.” She then suggested that what was happening in Gaza was a “textbook case of genocide.”

Algu has made numerous posts on X that would cause most reasonable people — especially Jews working at a historically Jewish hospital that was founded because they could not get jobs and health-care services elsewhere due to antisemitism — to raise an eyebrow.

Responding to comments made by Foreign Minister Anita Anand in July 2025, Algu equated Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, with the Israeli government, writing on X: “You say ‘Hamas must release all hostages, lay down its arms and play no role in…governance’. Should Israeli government officials do the same? Some of whom are wanted by the (International Criminal Court)?”

Of course, there is no evidence that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza and there has been no finding of such by any credibly international body. Moreover, the International Criminal Court prosecutor who issued those warrants for Israeli officials was forced to resign last month over a sexual-assault scandal and allegations that Qatar promised to “look after” him if he set his sights on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

More recently, in response to a BBC News report in June, Algu wrote on X: “We all watched every single hospital and university in Gaza be bombed by Israel and the entire civilian population tortured and starved — while you have been telling us the slaughter is moral and just. Of course no one trusts most mainstream news.”

These claims are absolutely false, and the suggestion that Israel is purposely starving and torturing civilians is a blood libel. I can’t imagine why Jewish health-care workers would be concerned about working alongside Algu. It’s a complete mystery.

The Israel Defence Forces, in contrast with the terrorist group Hamas, are such vicious torturers that they drop leaflets, make phone calls, leave voicemails and send text messages warning civilians to evacuate areas. If genocide is what the Israelis are up to, they appear to be horrible at it.

As for the suggestion that Israel is purposely targeting the Gazan health-care system, Hamas uses underground tunnels, sometimes in hospitals, as well ambulances as cover for its terror operations. Even the New York Times, which is not known for being particularly Israel-friendly, concluded that Hamas had been using Al-Shifa hospital for weapons storage, living quarters and communications.

As for Algu’s complaint about the mainstream media, I wonder if she is bothered by the fact that Paradkar failed to mention that she is a board member of the Movement Media Hub (MMH). The MMH describes itself as helping activists “harness the power of media,” and provides services such as “narrative and media strategy development,” press release “writing and distribution,” “social media campaign planning,” “content creation” “media coaching” and more.

The MMH boasts that it has “secured” more than 450 news segments and pieces, over 175 spokespeople, over 75 live broadcasts and more than 45 media engagements. And now, the Toronto Star and Paradkar can add themselves to that list.

Algu can also be seen in on online video reading a message from a member of Palestine Action — a proscribed terrorist organization in the United Kingdom — outside the British Consulate in Toronto. While reading the statement, Algu admits the prisoner whose words she’s about to recite was being held under the Terrorism Act.

Suffice to say, I imagine that Mount Sinai Hospital accepted Algu’s resignation while breathing a sigh of relief.

National Post