To those who only speak out when it is risk free
JVL Introduction
We are pleased to post this review of Omar El Akkad’s book ‘One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This’. His anguish and questioning at the appalling bombardment of Gaza, including self questioning looks like compelling reading and, of course, the context is not forgotten. For example he takes aim at “a fiction of moral convenience”, as he calls it: “While the terrible thing is happening – while the land is still being stolen and the natives still being killed – any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilisation.”
You may also want to read an extract published in Middle East Eye
LL
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Fri 14 Feb 2025. Read the original here.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad review – a cathartic savaging of western hypocrisy over Gaza
The novelist and reporter delivers a passionate indictment of complacent liberal responses to Israel’s brutal campaign
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Not doing what you CAN to stop the appalling crimes happening now is both a dreadful failing of human morality and near unbelievable stupidity, in my view.
Biden, Trump, Netanyahu and their crowd of fellow-thinkers believe there will be no unwanted consequences of their vicious and unlawful “policies”. I’ve no crystal ball but feel the horrors they’ve brought into being since Oct 2023 risks the implosion of Israel and – along with it – the destabilisation of the Middle East.