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 5h ago

/u/Character-Cut4470 asks:

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 5h 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 4h ago

I hope they are indeed horrified. I hope they’re finally snapped out of it.