Advocacy in nursing: A critical analysis of professional nursing’s response in Canada and the United States to the genocide of Palestinians

In this article, we analyse the response of professional nursing in Canada and the United States to the ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza. We do this by contextualizing the nursing profession’s ties to settler-colonialism in Canada. Employing frameworks of settler-colonialism and necropolitics, we interrogate the Israeli occupation’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system or medicide , and the pre-existing healthcare disparities. Through the framework of epistemic disobedience we analyse two case studies: the politically motivated firing of nurse Hesen Jabr by New York’s Langone hospital and the politically motivated suspension of student nurse Arij Al Khafagi at the University of Manitoba. Both were disciplined for speaking out against the genocide of Palestinians. Finally, we offer a critical perspective on nursing advocacy, contrasting the response by professional nursing to the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. We contend that genuine advocacy is both an ethical duty and a basic nursing competency. It requires risk-taking by challenging the status quo on an individual, interpersonal and institutional level. We advocate for nursing organizations and nursing leaders to loosen their grip on the privileges of White supremacy in order to engage in politics to protect and support all people facing war and calamity, even if there is risk in doing so.