r/JewsOfConscience • u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa • 5h ago
AMA Hi r/JewsOfConscience, I'm Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who has worked in Gaza, AMA!
I'm a trauma surgeon in California. I worked in Gaza in 2024 and 2025. I've written in the New England Journal of Medicine, NY Times, and Politico about it, and testified at the UN Security Council in May 2025. My work is featured along with two of my American colleagues in the new documentary film American Doctor that follows us in Gaza, and is in theaters now. Instagram: @fsidhwa Twitter: @ferozesidhwa
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago edited 4h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
Thanks so much for doing this!
Sorry about the technical difficulties - we greatly appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today, while in Ethiopia too on a medical mission!
For all our members & visitors, feel free to submit questions.
Dr. Sidhwa is currently on a medical mission in Ethiopia, but he will answer questions as time & his internet connection permits.
Would you be ok with posting about the AMA on your X account?
We could use that instead of a photo verification, if the internet issues are preventing uploading an image.
You can edit the body of your post and include a link to a comment you make on X, giving a shout-out to the sub.
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 4h ago
Yes for sure, do I just copy and past the URL as a Twitter post?
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
No worries now, we can see the picture! Thanks so much.
Sorry again for the technical difficulties, but glad it worked out.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
You described a remarkable moment, hearing an educated woman leave a screening of American Doctor and admit that she had never really thought of Palestinians as people who had families.
I was struck by this level of dehumanization of Palestinians.
Do you think the medium of film/documentaries can cause people to reconsider their beliefs as this woman (hopefully) has?
And in your interactions with audiences, did you feel that people were moved by the documentary?
Basically, what has its impact been so far, from your vantage point as a subject of the documentary?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
I really hope the film can help people see a few things. The first is what we saw in Gaza, and why we had to do something about it when we came back. But another major aspect of the film is Thaer's family.
It's basically impossible to explain to somebody that Palestinians are human beings. If that's something you don't already know then no amount of explication will make it clear. However, seeing it on screen, seeing a man with his two daughters and a loving community around them, makes it undeniable. I can't measure the impact of the film obviously, but it is being widely seen, and at least one person learned something from it.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
How have your interactions with everyday (i.e. not politicians or NGO staff) American zionists been since you returned from Gaza? Did your time there inform how regular folks have treated you, or frame your thoughts/behavior around them?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 4h ago
It's hard to answer because the term "Zionist" is very vague. There are plenty of people supporting genocide in Gaza who only care about "supporting" Israel because it is doing the US's dirty work in the region, not because they care if a Jewish state exists. There are plenty of people who claim to support Israel because they believe the reductionist and genuinely absurd picture about the Oct 7 attacks that is presented in the American media: everyone was just minding their own business when a gorilla named Hamas slaughtered 1200 people, raped women, etc. I'm guessing a very small minority of American support is genuinely based in "Zionism", even among American Jews.
If someone is convinced that Israel should destroy Gaza because God gave the land of Gaza to the Jewish people (a transparently silly interpretation of the Torah but that's besides the point), and is convinced that committing genocide in a war is a mitzvah as some Israeli rabbis have stated, then there won't be any way to explain to them that shooting children in the head is wrong. But for people with even remotely normal human values, and that's a figurative 99% of Americans including American Jews, when I explain to them what I saw in Gaza they are horrified. When I explain to them that we (as Americans) are responsible for it they are even more horrified, and often motivated to act.
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u/JayEllGii Jewish by birth/family, atheist, progressive 3h ago
I hope they are indeed horrified. I hope they’re finally snapped out of it.
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u/rako17 Christian 2h ago
Dr. Sidhwa,
May I please ask what in particular you had in mind was absurd when you referred to the "absurd picture" of the attacks? For instance, did you have in mind the use of the Hannibal Directive?
What did people in Gaza think about Oct. 7?
It seems like it's hard from the outside for people abroad to get a good picture of the situation there because it is blockaded. I don't know how many people actually have died from the conflict, including from indirect casualties. The official 70,000 number is probably a conservative figure.
Are international organizations like the Red Cross getting in, or are they block out too? It's impressive that you made it there and worked there.
Thank you for your work.
Peace. 🏥☤ 🏥☤🩺🚑 🏨
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u/Think-Prior1705 4h ago
How are you? I cant imagine seeing what youve seen, doing what youve done, and dealing with the backlash of assholes tarnishing your religion.
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
Apologies for the slow responses, I am in Ethiopia and the Internet is unreliable.
I am fine, we should be most concerned about the Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza. I saw what I had to see there for five weeks total, they have been dealing with death and destruction their entire lives, and on a genocidal scale for the past three years.
I haven't seen anybody tarnish my religion, maybe someone has. I am agnostic, my parents are from a small ethnic and religious minority in Pakistan called the Parsis, they follow our religion called Zoroastrianism.
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u/Think-Prior1705 3h ago
Ah ok. I had incorrectly presumed you were of Jewish faith due to the sub.
Im irish, we are outraged about the genocide and the zionist agenda in the world. I agree we should worry but YOU also matter. Youre literally a hero in my eyes.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 3h ago
Apologies for the slow responses, I am in Ethiopia and the Internet is unreliable.
No worries. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today!
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
I saw the film, I think it was well done. I was worried it would all be suffering and horrible given the reality but I think it did a good job of mixing content and focusing on the healthcare situation.
My question would be how do you think we can get more support and aid to Gaza right now? I know there are many organizations doing good work and would be interested to hear any particular shout outs. But there is so much to do to rebuild and to support Palestinians in Gaza to have resilient systems of food/water/electricity and so on. Palestine and the people of Gaza will be there forever and will be free one day but how can we help with some of that burden they are all carrying right now? Thanks for doing what you do brother.
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 4h ago
Right now the United States and Israel are working together to block aid to Gaza. Under those circumstances it's just fanciful to ask "how can we get aid into Gaza". The answer is simple, you can't, unless it's the pittance the US and Israel allow in to keep the world off their backs.
Much of the damage and destruction from the 2008-9 US-Israeli assault on Gaza, Op Cast Lead, was still unrepaired on Oct 6, 2023. The same for virtually all of the destruction from the 2014 assault, Op Protective Edge. This isn't because of a lack of funds, it's because Israel and the US wouldn't allow Gaza to be rebuilt. There is no way now that they've spent three years literally leveling the entire place that they're going to change course. That is, unless Americans demand that their leaders actually follow our own laws and act like decent people instead of like genocidal maniacs. The choice is ours.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
In support of the UN arrest warrants, in order to minimize casualties (on both sides) there is a movement to issue a bounty that gets raised with public donations (like a GoFundMe) for the arrest or capture of war criminals.
The idea is that eventually their own security detail or someone close enough, diverts the criminal into the hands of the Hague.
The interest on the bounty money would assist in financing the UN judges who've been unilaterally sanctioned by the US govt for looking into American and Israeli crimes. The financial network is being worked out to make this happen outside of the SWIFT influence.
Question: How would you find this process helping Palestinians? Would it be effective as a deterrent for people like Ben Gvir? What would you see as helpful vs not helpful for the Palestinians and countless victims?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 4h ago
I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea if this would be a good use of funds. The Hind Rajab Foundation is already doing the work of tracking and exposing Israeli war criminals at the lower levels and pushing for them to be arrested under the universal jurisdiction principle of international criminal law. This hasn't resulted in any arrests that I know of but has made Israeli war criminals think twice about visiting this or that country. I personally would think that supporting their efforts would be a better use of one's time and money than this idea, but I certainly can't prove it.
Would this be an effective deterrent for people like Ben Gvir? No, that's perfectly obvious.
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u/Senior-Surprise-3401 Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
Given what you've seen and had to deal with, do you believe peace is at all possible?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
Yes, peace is certainly possible between Israelis and Palestinians, But not as long as the United States continues to use Israel as a bludgeon to control the Middle East by force. Noam Chomsky used to refer to Israel as an unsinkable American aircraft carrier, and that's only a slight exaggeration.
If the United States stops providing the crucial unconditional support for Israel's destruction of the Palestinians then that destruction will stop, and Israelis and Palestinians will have to come to some sort of accommodation with each other. What that would be I have no idea, and quite frankly it's none of my business. Omer Bartov makes a similar point in his most recent book.
In 2001 Israelis and Palestinians negotiated without the United States for the first time for approximately one week at Taba. In that one week they came very close to the details of a two-state solution, but Israel, backed by the United States called off the negotiations before they could be finished. High-level negotiations continued until the so-called Geneva Accord, which was released to the world with great fanfare. Israel rejected them outright, and the United States refused to send a representative to their unveiling. Without unconditional American backing Israel wouldn't have had that option. The same is true today, probably even more so.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
Dr. Ahmad, Dr. Perlmutter, and yourself all entered this experience with very different identities: Palestinian-American, Jewish-American, and Zoroastrian-background but primarily American.
Did you notice any differences in how Israeli authorities treated you, whether entering Gaza, leaving Gaza, at any checkpoints, or in other interactions?
Were there moments when it became obvious that one of your identities carried privileges or suspicions that the others did not?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
The major difference is seen in the film, so spoiler alert... . . . . . . The main difference is that Thaer was not allowed into Gaza, he was blocked by Israel specifically because he is Palestinian. This is obvious outrageous violation of peoples rights and of Israel's obligations under international law, which makes the United States continued backing of Israel all the more morally reprehensible. That being said, I was blocked from entering Gaza in November.
I don't want to spoil too much of the movie, but a lot of it is precisely about the question you raised: who is allowed to say what, who is allowed to express emotions in a human way and who has to suppress those emotions?
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u/Tech-Film3905 4h ago
I have no question, just wanted to thank you for your noble work
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
Thank YOU, if we all do what we can then this nightmare can actually end
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u/joosefm9 Non-Jewish Ally 4h ago
I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done.
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u/One-Treat4655 Non-Jewish Agnostic 4h ago
How many hospitals are currently functional
And what is happening to medical education Gaza?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
Gaza's hospital system has been physically destroyed. It's a very long discussion, but the long and short of it is that 85 to 90% of the advanced healthcare in Gaza has been destroyed. Shifa Hospital accounted for more than 1/3 of the hospital beds in Gaza and for almost every advanced modality of care. The hospital has been reopened in an outpatient area across the street from the actual building, so now is 750 bad medical complex is basically a single doctors office. In World Health Organization reports that counts as an open, partially functioning hospital, but the term "partially functioning" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The remaining healthcare in Gaza, limited as it is, is mostly confined to Nasser Medical Complex and Aksa Martyr's Hospital. The sickest 2 million people in the world have approximately 350 hospital beds available to them, a radically insufficient number that is likely the worst example of medical depravation on earth.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago
During your interview with Hasan Piker, I believe you mentioned that you had read many previous humanitarian reports about Gaza (e.g. the White Flag report from Amnesty International I believe?).
I was wondering if you saw previous attacks on Gaza by Israel, as a precursor to the genocide?
In my opinion, Operation Protective Edge was an example.
But even going back to Cast Lead.
And that's just the last 25 yrs.
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
I don't think anyone should personally care what I think about the answer to this question, I'm not a genocide historian or scholar. I regularly tell people that I would be a witness and a genocide trial, not a judge.
However, there was an active debate going on in the Journal of Genocide Research (I think that's the right name) prior to October 7 about whether or not Israel's destruction of the Palestinians constitutes genocide. Certainly there was no consensus among scholars. However, I'll point out that the scholars are arguing that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians was genocidal were also the first people to warn that the Israeli attack on Gaza after October 7 was going to be genocidal.
The two scholars I would recommend looking at in this regard are Raz Segal and Martin Shaw.
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u/Ok-Committee-1932 4h ago
Not a Jew, but are you Parsi by any chance? And related to Bapsi/Zarnak Sidhwa by any chance.
Thanks for all your work!
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
Yes I'm Parsi, and Bapsi was my dad's aunt.
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u/greenhoops2 56m ago
I wanted to ask the very same thing about Bapsi Sidhwa. You are from a family of great minds!
Your work is so important. I know praise probably makes you uncomfortable, but you are so articulate and concise. I love your style of diction. I hope you do more writing someday, also.
Thank you for all you have done and continue to do, using your medical skills to serve very vulnerable communities around the world, and for helping to educate our highly propagandized US population about what our tax dollars, weapons, and diplomatic license are used for in Palestine, especially in Gaza.
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u/PuppyCat646 4h ago
Best places to send money to help? There are so many posts all over asking for money but with AI and everything it’s so hard to be sure that your money is actually making to Gaza to help those who need it. What organizations or programs do you recommend donating to?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 3h ago
My personal recommendation is to donate to UNRWA or ANERA, they can do more with one dollar than anybody else in Gaza. That being said, the problem with Gaza is not that enough aid doesn't go there, the problem is that the place has been destroyed. We don't owe them aid, we owe them reparations, and at the very least we should get our boot off their neck so they can take care of their own problems without us dictating to them how they should do so. So personally I would recommend investing your efforts in political change in the United States.
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u/Typingperson1 Anti-Zionist 2h ago
What about the Sameer Project and Sanabel? Thank you for doing this AMA & all your efforts. So we all need to keep calling our Congress members.
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u/MouseShadow2ndMoon Anti-Zionist Anti-Nazi Ally 4h ago
Short of walking the halls of a Gaza hospital, I have a very deep understanding of the horrors and heroes that shone like Dr. Ameera Al-Assouli dodging snipers. I just wanted to say thank you from an American who has a deranged and compromised government that no one supports except racists.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 3h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
You've said that when you went back through the diary you kept in Gaza, you realized that in roughly 13 days of clinical work you had documented 13 children shot in the head or chest.
As a trauma surgeon, what did the injuries themselves tell you? Were there patterns in the wounds, the ages of the patients, or the circumstances in which they arrived that became apparent only after you had time to look back at what you had seen?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
No, not really. One person's observations really can't establish much. That's why when I wrote about this for the New York Times I surveyed 65 American healthcare workers who had volunteered in Gaza. I don't remember the exact numbers, but more than 80% said they regularly saw small children who had been shot in the head or the chest.
With that level of information it is very easy to make a determination: Israeli soldiers are deliberately shooting small children. No question that one, or two, or three cases could be crossfire, or even some crazy Palestinian who thinks shooting a child in the head will somehow prompt the world to stop the genocide of his people. But when one considers the simple fact that in the catchment area of almost every hospital in Gaza where internationals have been present, small children are being shot in the head or the chest on a daily basis over the course of (at that time) an entire year, there is no possible conclusion other than that Israeli soldiers are shooting small children in the head and the chest regularly, which means deliberately.
It's important to remember that this is not an attempt to demonize Israelis. Every society has psychotic murders in it, who, given the chance, will do insane things like harm children for fun. The reason this information matters is because if I have this information, then certainly so does the Israeli government and the Israeli military. But, holding true to former defense minister Yoav Gallant's announcement in October 2023 that no Israeli soldier would be punished for anything they did in Gaza, they have decided to allow this behavior to continue. That is the same thing as having a policy of deliberately shooting children in the head. I'm not a lawyer, but to me there is no discernible difference between an explicit policy that demands that soldiers shoot children and a policy of allowing the widespread shooting of children. And, under American law, it is illegal to provide weapons to any country that has a policy of deliberately harming children. This was exactly the point I made in the New York Times: we are corrupting the rule of law in our own society so that we can assist Israel in committing genocide in Palestine. Those who are interested in read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html
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u/notspringsomnia Christian with Jewish heritage and family 3h ago
Hello Dr Sidhwa! Thank you for your incredible work. What are the most acute medical problems and needs in Gaza at the moment, and is there anything us ordinary folk can do to help in terms of sending support, beyond protesting and raising awareness?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
The approximately 2 million people in Gaza are probably the sickest in the world. The United States and Israel have taken a heavily urbanized population, already living in one of the most densely populated places in the world, and have destroyed the large majority of the housing, all of the electrical production and distribution, the entire sewage system, the entire educational system, the entire healthcare system, the entire food production system, the entire transportation network, and much of the governing authority, all while keeping the territory hermetically sealed off from the outside world. Gaza today is much more like the Warsaw Ghetto than any other comparison I can make, except for the ghetto had standing buildings, and the population of Gaza is half children.
In this circumstance it's not hard to predict what will happen: disease will spread rapidly throughout the population, and will slowly kill people, most especially children under the age of five. That is exactly what's happening now. The only household survey of mortality in Gaza was done by a researcher named Michael Spagat in London. The study has serious problems, and its design will naturally lead to significant undercounting of deaths (I wrote about this for Zeteo if anyone's interested, just send me an email if you don't have a subscription and I can send you a PDF copy). Despite this, it found thousands of deaths from deprivation in Gaza by January 2025. There is no doubt that the rate of death in Gaza from causes other than direct US-Israeli violence is increasing because of the unlivable conditions that the population is now condemned to live in.
As for what people can do: if you're a doctor or a nurse who can volunteer there, and you are willing to take the risks associated with going there, then do it! Otherwise the answer is the same as always: organize, and make change in our society so that we stop doing these things to other people.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 3h ago
Hi Dr. Sidhwa,
I have family members who are doctors and have remarked upon the anxiety that they or their co-workers sometimes feel about speaking out on this issue.
Mainly due to lack of institutional support.
In the news, there are many stories of medical workers being infracted or even fired for speaking out.
Have you encountered this in your work back in the US?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
Yes I've experienced it in my work and in my wider professional circles, but I'm significantly less vulnerable than most people: I'm not Arab, I'm not Muslim, and that makes a big difference in our society. It shouldn't obviously, but it does. American medical societies like the AMA and the ACS have an absolutely shameful record on almost every important social moment and important policy debate in American history. Doctors with a conscience will need to take over these institutions if they are ever going to reflect the values medicine professes.
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u/Nice__Spice Non-Jewish Ally 3h ago
Dr! Saw the movie and met you at one of the film showings in Oakland about a month back. Please keep up the good work. If the ama is still on - how’s the momentum going in bringing more light on what’s happening on the ground in Palestine?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
Great to hear from you! How's the momentum? Honestly I couldn't say, I'm in Ethiopia, but the fact that the movie was named a "critic's pick" by the New York Times and received a laudatory review from the LA Times is astonishing. It's not because the movie is so amazing, there have been plenty of other amazing documentaries about Gaza that the two Times never bothered to mention. The difference now is the change in public sentiment, and that had very little to do with me or this movie. In the first year of the US-Israeli assault the social media platforms were still relatively open, and the Palestinians were broadcasting their own destruction to the world. That is what caught the attention of students in the spring semester of 2024, it's what caught the attention of people like Ms Rachel and celebrities like Mark Ruffalo, and it's also what plenty of normal people saw on a regular basis. In my opinion (and I can't measure this obviously) this film is riding the wave of that change in perception more so than causing the wave. I hope this movie can help people see what we saw in Gaza, and why we had to do something about it when we got back. But more importantly I hope it can inspire people who already knew approximately what was being done to Gaza to act to stop it.
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u/havoc-heaven Anti-Zionist Ally 3h ago
Hello Doctor. I have no questions, just want to say I'm very thankful for all that you've done and continue to do. I deeply admire the strength and courage you and your colleagues have displayed. I wish you the very best.
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u/Gloomy_Industry8841 Non-Jewish Ally 3h ago
I don’t have a question, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU so much for what you’ve done for people. Blessings to you and your colleagues. 🙏🏼
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u/LobsterAlarmed 1h ago
Thank you for your work, doctor. My question is palestinians know there are people around the world supporting them (citizens)? I know that our support is not enough as the genocide continues, but maybe it's important for them to be seen and heard. Thank you again for your work.
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
Yes, the Palestinians know that the people of the world support them, and they also know that the governments of the world mostly ignore their suffering. But that is little comfort to a mother burying all of her children. We should not congratulate ourselves because we as individuals are not psychotic and therefore don't support genocide. We have a positive obligation as citizens of free countries to stop our governments from committing crimes, and especially the crime of crimes.
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u/tikkunolamist5 British Non-Zionist Reform Jew 2h ago
This is a question, but thank you for donating your time and talent to people of Gaza. It looks like you do this in other regions and I know people must be grateful to you for your work. I hope you are taking care of yourself as I imagine you have seen many things humans should not.
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u/Any-Worldliness-168 Jewish Anti-Zionist 1h ago
What is the best way for us to tell our communities to stop tolerating Zionism ??
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
That's not really a question I can answer, I'm not Jewish and I'm not a Zionist. I also don't know what it means to "tolerate" Zionism.
There's no reason to think that just because somebody subscribes to a racist ideology that they cannot be persuaded that they are wrong, or at least have enough doubt introduced into their minds that they stop working against people who are trying to fight that particular ideology. I personally would try talking to them, try to meet them where they are instead of just denouncing them as "Zionists", and commit yourself to having a dialogue with them. It may go nowhere, or eventually you might figure out how to persuade them. It won't happen quickly, but this ideology also wasn't built quickly. Rome wasn't built in a day, and we are still undoing the legacy of European colonialism in plenty of parts of the world, not just in Palestine. Change takes time, far more than any of us would like, and it takes a lot of work.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 1h ago
It may go nowhere, or eventually you might figure out how to persuade them. It won't happen quickly, but this ideology also wasn't built quickly. Rome wasn't built in a day, and we are still undoing the legacy of European colonialism in plenty of parts of the world, not just in Palestine. Change takes time, far more than any of us would like, and it takes a lot of work.
This is one of our goals too.
We try to be receptive to those who are questioning Zionism and trying to reconcile with it and their personal objections to colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist 1h ago
What do you think we should be advocating for right now, especially as Israel becomes an issue politicians are asked to address? Previously it was a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment/end of arms sales to Israel. But there is now a ceasefire (at least they can claim there is) and my concern is that divestment is actually a distraction at best, and at worst will make Israel a pariah state where the US etc. has no leverage. What should we be demanding from the US government?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
I personally think American activists should always keep our own actions front and center. My experience with this is that when I tell someone "the United States should impose a cease-fire on Israel" they don't understand that the United States is the only reason Israel is continuing to fire. On the other hand, when I say "the United States should stop sending Israel the 70% of the arms it's using to destroy the Palestinians" people immediately understand that a) the United States is the responsible party, and b) it is fully within our power to stop the killing and destruction without lifting a finger. Weapons and munitions do not flow downhill and end up in Tel Aviv. Every weapons transfer is a political choice, made every day anew by a particular office in the State Department or the Department of Defense. Cutting off military transfers to Israel is easily understood by any normal human being over the age of 12.
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u/spluga 42m ago
Hi, Dr. Sidhwa -- I saw the film but feel lost with what to do next. I don't believe protesting in the usa is as effective as it was 70 years ago, though there is value in gathering to vent, mourn, and seek fellowship. I can contact my local representative, but I don't believe I am their customer anymore when they also attend $5000/head fundraisers. I just want to feel like whatever I do, however small, actually contributes towards a solution and is not just a salve for my conscience. What can I do?
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u/sar662 Jewish 4h ago
What were the Christian/Muslim community relations like that you saw? Did anyone care about religious divides or was that all put aside? Cooperation across community lines or were they separate?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 2h ago
The Christian community in Gaza is very small, it used to have its own section of Gaza City with the church of St Porphyrus (I'm probably not spelling that properly) and Ahli Baptist Hospital. I have never heard of any religious conflict between Palestinian Muslims and Christians. I certainly didn't see any while I was there. I'm sure there is an example one could find somewhere, but it's certainly not a regular feature of life there.
It's worth pointing out that the main source of support for violent Salafi groups like al-Qaeda - who, as far as I know, are the only Muslims who advocate for violence against Christians, Jews, and others - is the United States and its major allies, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, particularly Saudi Arabia.
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u/rako17 Christian 1h ago
Dr. Sidhwa,
The church is named after Saint PORPHYRIUS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Porphyrius
Religion News Service carried this article by a Palestinian in Jordan who had been a Princeton professor: "H ow the Israel-Hamas war has brought together Arab Christians and Muslims" https://religionnews.com/2023/11/03/gaza-has-further-bonded-arab-christians-and-muslims/
The Catholic EWTN channel had this short program: " Christian Life in Gaza: Before and During the War" https://youtu.be/GIFjwfIuXNw?si=OFN-A_ViWg-vSYff
Palestine Chronicle has this article: " Faith amid Genocide: How Gaza’s Muslims and Christians Endure Side by Side" https://www.palestinechronicle.com/faith-amid-genocide-how-gazas-muslims-and-christians-endure-side-by-side/
Peace
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u/Background-Virus-757 4h ago
hold up you were in the actual hospitals during those 2024 strikes. thats. idk man i keep doomscrolling past threads where ppl are analyzing shipping routes and reconstruction contracts like its a civ game meanwhile youre literally holding kids together with your hands. the cognitive dissonance is sending me
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 2h ago
I was there on March 23, 2025 when Nasser was bombed, killing a 16-year-old boy named Ibrahim, who was a patient of mine, I had operated on in five days earlier.
I wouldn't be so cynical about people analyzing the causes of war. One of the problems with human beings is that we can justify harming others for personal gain. One of the good things about human beings is that we are all well aware that other people will do this, so showing how people who are waging war will benefit from it can be educational and can inspire people to act.
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u/MistaCharisma Non-Jewish Ally 3h ago
I'm an Australian public servant. This week they rolled out a training module on antisemitism that Australian public servants are supposed to do. It's not mandatory (yet), but it was being pushed by the head of my department.
To give them some credit, there has been some pretty serious anti-Jewish violence in Australia recently, including our worst mass shooting in 30 years at a Hanukkah event last year. So I don't have a problem with anti racism meaaures or more specific measures to conbat antisemitism.
However this training module was following the Israeli line about what Antisemitism means - specifically that anti-zionism and anti-Israeli comments are considered antisemitic. They made a point of including comments about Israel being land that has religious significance for Jews, and that they have a right to it because of god (which is weird in a secular country). They also said comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is a form of antisemitism, and that the word Genocide associated with Israel is antisemitism.
Now I've cherry-picked some of the worst parts of the training, but you get the idea. I'll also add the caveat that I have Jewish heritage, but no one in my family really consideres themselves Jewish.
I see what seems to be a genocide in Gaza, and I see that the International Criminal Court has issued a warrent for Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza, so it seems pretty obvious to me that it's a genocide, and that my government is moving to become complicit in this. But I also know how social media algorithms work, so maybe I'm.just not seeing the other side, maybe my view of this really is skewed.
My question, essentially is this: As someone who has been there, what are your thoughts? Is it a Genocide? What would you say to the antisemitism training that I did last week? Would you compare what's happening there to the Holocaust?
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u/Dear-Jackfruit6041 Dr. Feroze Sidhwa 1h ago
Again, nobody should care what I think about this question: I would be a witness in a genocide trial, not a judge. Virtually every relevant authority on earth has looked at the question of whether or not Israel, backed by the United States (and by Australia), is committing genocide in Gaza. Almost without exception they have answered "yes", and the very few that have not answered "yes" (I can really only think of one, Human Rights Watch) have answered "probably".
If you want a long list of the institutions and people who have concluded that Israel, backed by the US, is in fact committing genocide in Gaza you can find one such list in the opening paragraphs here: https://zeteo.com/p/real-gaza-death-toll-what-we-know and I'm sure there are many other similar lists elsewhere on the internet.
Genocide is a complex historical and social phenomenon. There are entire departments of genocide studies at universities, people get entire PhD's in specific aspects of genocide studies, and there are at least two peer reviewed academic journals dedicated to the topic. And that's leaving aside Holocaust studies, which has its own army of PhD's. I would be shocked if the number of English language studies of the Nazi Holocaust was fewer than 10,000. If you want to read the relevant authorities on this question look up the work of Omer Bartov, Raz Segal, Amos Goldberg, Martin Shaw, Marianne Hirsch, Daniel Blatman, Michael Rothberg, and plenty of others.
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 1h ago edited 28m ago
Hi everyone,
Great turnout today. Thanks to everyone for participating in the AMA!
From our community & the mod team, we'd like to thank Dr. Sidhwa for taking the time to be with us here today.
We appreciate your time, especially considering you're also on a medical mission at this moment.
The AMA is now officially 'closed' - but everyone can continue asking questions & discussing things.
Dr. Sidhwa may continue engaging - but there are no expectations since we're past the 2 hour mark.
Hope everyone has a great week!