That’s how Ahmed Alkhatib sees the UK. Nicole Lampert interviews him in the Telegraph – Deluded Western activists must stop shouting over actual Palestinians like me:
He has the word “Zionist” screamed at him. He is branded a genocide supporter. He is called a traitor.
When Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib goes to talk at university campuses, sometimes he doesn’t even get as far as opening his mouth. As a result of protests from “pro-Palestinians”, several colleges have simply cancelled his talks, citing the threat of “security interruptions”.
Yet Alkhatib is a Palestinian from Gaza who has lost 33 members of his immediate and extended family in the war. He was once groomed by Hamas, but he has no love for the keffiyeh-sporting, resistance-spouting “pro-Palestine” movement – members of which, he says, know little about Gaza itself.
“There is this huge gap between the many people in the Gaza Strip who have experienced the consequences of Hamas’s terrorism, violence and jihadism, and the resistance narrative being pushed,” says Alkhatib, 36.
He says the “pro-Palestinian” movement advocates “resistance”, but uses the Palestinians not as an actual people, but as a cypher for their radicalism. He sighs at “pro-Palestinian” activists, such as Greta Thunberg and Sally Rooney. Earlier this year, Rooney declared that by “standing in solidarity with Palestine, we are learning to fight for light on earth”. None of them truly understand what is going on, he says.
“Those in the West, whether they are Muslims or so-called ‘allies’ who are still cheering on the resistance narrative, at best seek to sideline Hamas and pretend that it is not a significant contributor to the situation. At worst, this has led to a horrendous, unprecedented normalisation of Hamas, an Islamo-fascist, jihadi organisation that, ironically, had been losing an immense amount of legitimacy and support in Gaza well before October 7.”
Alkhatib has written a short book called Hamas and Its Two Million Hostages. He sees Hamas not as the victors who have managed so well to turn the world against the Israelis, but as a terror group that holds its own people hostage. He says that those who claim to speak for Palestinians have simply made things more dangerous for them – and more dangerous for his family.
“You have Westerners in the UK, in North America, in Western Europe, in Australia and New Zealand, acknowledging Hamas as an expression of organic resistance. It is resistance porn,” he says. “Somehow, October 7 became about 77 years of Israeli occupation and dispossession, not about a horrendous decision [made] by a small number of jihadis in Gaza tunnels.” He adds that Hamas has “dragged its people along for a suicidal adventure”.
He says that Western liberals who support Palestine are, in doing so, supporting an Islamic state and its associated terrorists. “Being pro-Hamas, and now pro-Islamic Republic, has become a mainstream position. Essentially, you have Western support for Islamist groups. And within this Western coalition, you have an unholy alliance of Islamists and supposedly social justice warriors – who ostensibly care about women’s rights, equality, gay rights and immigrant rights, and a whole host of social causes – directly or indirectly singing the praises of a jihadist terrorist organisation.” He shakes his head in anger and frustration….
Alkhatib was living in California and working in international development on Oct 7, 2023. He spoke out against Hamas on social media and in newspaper opinion pieces while explaining what was going on in Gaza. Gradually, he realised that he had an important voice that people wanted to listen to. He moved to Washington and started the Realign for Palestine project, promoting non-violence and the two-state solution with Palestinians, Israelis and Americans.
He worries about Britain in particular, seeing us as leading the way in a moral blindness regarding jihadism.
“I am quite alarmed by what I am seeing in the UK – there are deeply problematic Islamist narratives taking hold,” he says. “They [Islamists] are openly fantasising about how they are going to take over. It is crazy to me that there are politicians elected on a ‘Gaza’ ticket. The people in Gaza are not concerned with what a few MPs are yelling and screaming about here. What they want is to be emancipated from Hamas, from the shackles of the resistance narrative that for the last 20 years has seen billions of dollars wasted and lives lost for absolutely nothing.”
Alkhatib wants us all to know he is not alone. There are many others who think just like him in Gaza. But as long as Hamas has an influence in Gaza, he says there will be a return to violence from the current relative peace.
“War is coming back to Gaza,” he says sadly. “The people there say, ‘We are slowly dying.’ As long as Hamas is in charge, no one is willing to develop or put money into [Gaza]. The people of Gaza had hoped their forced sacrifice would mean something – that Hamas would be gone. But right now, they are extremely disillusioned.
“For all the talk from the ‘quote community’ of revolution, and all the talk from the politicians of how Gaza can be turned into this ‘futuristic city’, everyone has to open their eyes. Hamas is a deeply irrational actor in pursuit of a deeply irrational agenda – the destruction of the state of Israel. What I find grotesque is how many in the West are still waving their flags.”
A voice that needs to be heard.
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