UCLA medical residents tell lecture it is wrong to ‘stigmatize’ people who burn themselves to death to protest Gaza – despite doctors being banned from promoting self-harm [Video]

16:54 EDT 12 Apr 2024 , updated 17:00 EDT 12 Apr 2024

Two doctors with the UCLA’s psychiatry department have held a lecture in which they have gone against medical norms by suggesting self-immolation, the act of setting oneself on fire, should not be stigmatized, despite it usually killing the person involved.

Drs. Ragda Izar and Afaf Moustafa, both psychiatry residents at UCLA, held a discussion entitled ‘Depathologizing Resistance’ and saw the pair describe the disturbing and violent act as a form of ‘revolutionary suicide.’

The pair specifically referenced the case of Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. serviceman who set himself on fire in protest against U.S. support for Israel or as the doctors described the country, ‘indigenous Palestine.’

The duo argued that Bushnell’s actions, although stemming from mental distress, could also be seen as a rational response to what they described as Israel‘s ‘genocide’ in Palestine. 

The pair suggested that Bushnell could be considered a ‘martyr,’ and that he was a …