A recently-published article in a peer-reviewed Canadian medical journal promoted thinly-veiled pro-Hezbollah propaganda, praising the supposed “strength” and “endurance” of Hezbollah terrorists who were the targets of a September, 2024 Israeli counter-terrorism operation which made their electronic devices explode.
The article entitled: “The day the pagers exploded,” published in the February 2025 edition of Canadian Family Physician, the official journal of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, was written by Nisrine Makarem, a Lebanon-based family doctor and an Assistant Professor of Clinical Family Medicine at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.
In her article, Makarem described visiting Hezbollah terrorists whose Hezbollah-supplied pagers exploded on September 17, 2024 in a targeted Israeli counter-terrorism operation, describing the “composure of the patients… I struggle to find the right words to describe the scene: strength, resilience, denial, endurance, faith…whatever it was, it is something that deserves to be shared with the world.”
Given the leadership of the medical journal, there should be little surprise that such overt pro-Hezbollah propaganda was permitted to be published.
As pointed out by Ottawa professor of family medicine, Yoni Freedhoff, in November, 2023, the chair of the journal’s editorial advisory board, Vanessa Brcic, a family physician with K’omoks First Nation on Vancouver Island, signed her name to an open letter which freely accused Israel of genocide, while simultaneously refusing to mention Hamas nor the hundreds of hostages kidnapped from Israel a month earlier.
Brcic, who also lectures at the University of British Columbia (UBC), notes that her clinical work “is focused on deconstructing oppression in clinical spaces.”
Worse yet, this article in Canadian Family Physician is just the latest scandal showing the continued presence of anti-Israel hate in some corners of Canadian medicine, largely ignored by the Canadian news media.
In spite of publicly and unabashedly praising Palestinian terrorism, Yipeng Ge, an Ottawa family physician who continues to practice in the nation’s capital, has continued to be interviewed on news media outlets like CTV News and CBC News for his supposed expertise on the Hamas-Israel war.
The College of Family Physicians of Canada is the legal certifying body of all family physicians in Canada and represents about 45,000 members. It is the body which establishes standards for members and approves professional development programs. It is thus inconceivable that this body should publish an article in its official journal glorifying Hezbollah terrorists, members of a fanatical Islamic group that is a banned terrorist organization in Canada.
While Makarem may not be a practicing physician in Canada, she is hardly alone in her field in publicly expressing anti-Israel sentiments without consequence. In the same open letter signed by Vanessa Bcric in the fall of 2023, she was joined by some three thousand other medical professionals from across the country.
Since then, there have been more incidents of hateful anti-Israel expressions by members of Canada’s medical profession, ranging from a lab analyst accsued of beseeching “Allah (to) destroy Israel,” a dental assistant accused of praising Hamas terrorism, to a demonstration in Toronto by “health care professionals” featuring a flag of a Palestinian terrorist organization while Toronto police looked on.
These are not isolated incidents, but different examples of a deep rot within Canadian medicine, and it’s time that the Canadian news media stop turning a blind eye to this dangerous phenomenon, and start demanding action and accountability from the medical profession.
For its part, an apology is required and an investigation must be launched by the College Of Family Physicians Of Canada, in light of its journal, Canadian Family Physician, which recently published an article glorifying Hezbollah terrorists.
Originally published by Honest Reporting Canada.