The Palestinian Maverick

For some time now I’ve been keen to speak with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an anti-Hamas Palestinian nationalist and peace advocate who has a scorching critique of the so-called pro-Palestinian movement in the West. This week I finally got my wish; here, Ahmed talks to me at length about his essay Hamas and Its Two Million Hostages, published this week in The Jewish Quarterly. Ahmed’s piece interrogates how the Islamist terror group took root in Gaza, seized power and stayed in power long enough to execute the October 7 invasion of southern Israel. He dissects Hamas’s strategy of brutalising and indoctrinating ordinary Gazans into the cult of martyrdom so that the jihadists could weaponise civilian deaths to inflame world opinion against Israel. To understate matters, the strategy proved spectacularly successful. In the Gaza war, Ahmed himself lost 34 members of his extended family to Israeli airstrikes. His essay is in part memoir — revisiting his childhood in Gaza and the all-too-brief moment of optimism and euphoria in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. We talk about the real Gaza as opposed to the symbolic Gaza that animates what Ahmed calls the “pro-Palestine industrial complex”: about the toxic impact of foreign aid on the strip and about the Al Jazeera’ing (who says it’s not a word!) of media discourse on Israel-Gaza. About why the Western liberal-progressive media finds his an inconvenient voice, and how his views on Jews, Israel and Zionism evolved over the years. His words ought to carry weight here in Australia, given that the Labor Party dumped references to Hamas needing to disarm and play no governing role from its resolution at the weekend's national conference, even though these elements are official Labor government policy. A few clarifications. At one point I ask Ahmed about the Israeli writer Einat Wilf’s claim that she’s only aware of three Palestinians who are prepared to affirm the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state between the river and the sea. Actually, she said four people rather than three; and obviously she’s referring to people prepared to publicly accept the legitimacy of Israel — I should have made that clear. For Ahmed’s response, have a listen! At another point I refer to Hasbara: I should have explained that that’s a Hebrew word for Israel’s public diplomacy — and like all things related to Israel it’s assumed a sinister meaning for the political left. Ahmed is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a US foreign policy think-tank based in Washington, DC., where he leads the project Realign for Palestine. To buy a copy of Ahmed’s essay, Hamas and Its Two Million Hostages, follow this link: https://jewishquarterly.com Szego Unplugged is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit szegounplugged.substack.com/subscribe