“What Did You Just Say?” : Introducing The New MM Open Letter Series I Dear Mr. Fareed Zakaria

[“What Did You Just Say?“, MuslimMatters’ new column, is a space for people to respond to corporate media and its shills. Our voices are often muzzled and views on their coverage are not published. 
So, if you’ve read or watched something that made you do a double take or have shredded a publication’s piece with your critique in a Letter to the Editor or Op-ed and it wasn’t published, do send it to us for consideration via our submission form link.

All opinions are the views of the writer alone and not representative of MuslimMatters.org.]

***

Dear Mr. Fareed Zakaria, 

I felt compelled to write this response to your segment “Israel’s response in Gaza isn’t genocide, but is it proportionate?” for a number of reasons. 

Most glaring to me is the complete dissonance in your take. 

You begin your segment stating you are a “supporter of Israel” and end with “friends of Israel should help it ask [if it acted appropriately in the heat of its anger and sorrow after October 7th] now, so it does not look back on this episode with shame and regret.” 

Yet, you fail to do more than ask the same questions at the beginning and end of the segment – completely ignoring the evidence and the never-before-seen death and destruction Israel is raining down upon the civilian population in Gaza. 

You mention Israel’s sorrow and anger after October 7th. What then of the Palestinian’s sorrow and anger, Mr. Zakaria? 

On October 6th, when 19-year-old Labib Dumaidi was murdered by Israeli settlers when they attacked a town in the West Bank. Or October 5th, when four Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers. 

As we all know, there is no Hamas in the illegal military occupation of the West Bank. Instead, there is 75 years of systematic oppression and inhumane treatment of the indigenous Palestinians. Does this not lead to sorrow and anger, Mr. Zakaria?

We can also discuss the sorrow and anger of the civilians trapped in the world’s largest “open-air prison” in Gaza, under an illegal siege that cuts them off from the world. And the most innocent of all; the children of Gaza who, as you mentioned, make up half of the population. They were born into this prison, they will be raised in this prison, and will most likely be murdered on that very strip of land. 

Did you know the children of Gaza have only known suffering, loss, and military assaults? What of sorrow and anger then?

We can also talk about how these children, women, and men have witnessed dozens upon dozens of military operations at the hands of the Israeli military in the past 16 years. This process, in case you were unaware Mr. Zakaria, is barbarically called mowing the grass – or, as we have witnessed time and again, indiscriminate carpet bombing to quell the population under the guise of reducing militant’s strength. 

This brings us to the point in which you call Israel the only democracy in the Middle East, one thriving despite the general ill-will it is surrounded by. 

I would challenge you to reflect on your definition of “democracy”. 

Real democracy should not, and would not, condone the current famine that is being imposed on millions of Palestinians –  including newborns and children. Democracy would not condone implementing a military occupation, or displacing indigenous people and annexing their terrority. And, most glaringly, democracy cannot exist when a subset of the population – the indigenous portion – is treated as a different class of people who do not have the right to vote, walk on certain roads, have a daily curfew of 10 pm, require visas for movement within their own lands, are subject to checkpoint upon checkpoint, and are tried under military law in court.

As for the questions you pose: normally, when one is attempting to analyze a state’s actions, one must critically look at the facts that are presented, not just the claims that are professed. In the case of Israel, both its actions and its words speak volumes about the true intent of Israel’s objectives in Gaza. 

Regarding its claims, the narrative of self-defense becomes asinine when the world has heard the true intent of Israel from the very mouths of its leaders. You mentioned Netanyahu’s biblical reference to the sons of light’s fight against the Amalek – a call to murder every man, woman, child, and infant in Gaza.  

Other Israeli officials have called Gazans human animals (Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant), claimed any Palestinian who fails to leave their place of residence deserves death (MP Tali Gottlieb), called for Gaza to be wiped off the map (MP Krozier), promoted ethnic cleansing (Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich), and claimed there are no innocent civilians in Gaza (Issac Herzog, Israel’s President). 

Historically, states that are still embroiled in the process of ethnically cleansing an indigenous population are not quite as vocal about it as Israeli officials have been. This has led people to question if these are extremists who do not reflect the view of the majority of Israelis. Therefore some may claim, as you have, that this is an extreme government, one that is losing popularity. 

Israel’s history is rife with these comments. In 1992, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabina said “I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found.” I think the irony in calling for a ‘solution’ to an ethnic population is clear – not long before 1992, the world witnessed the near destruction of an ethnic population at the hands of Hitler’s solution. 

This rhetoric of ethnically cleansing Gaza has been mainstream long before Netanyahu, so to pin it on his government as though it doesn’t reflect the popular sentiment of Israelis is misleading. A recent poll on January 11th showed 77% of the Israelis polled were in favor of expanding settlements into Gaza, 76% believed ‘voluntary emigration’ was the solution, and 74% were against a two-state solution.

Other than the quote above, one must now analyze the crimes Israel is committing for the world to see: do the actions of the state and military reflect the genocidal intent of these comments or the rhetoric of self-defense?

This is perhaps where the dissonance in your segment is most obvious. 

You calmly list many of the crimes Israel is accused of, highlighting that each and every statistic surpasses any previous ‘war.’ And in that, we find the answer.

Because this is not war. In order for it to be a war, both states would need to be independent, sovereign, and possess a military. If it was a war, military bases would be targeted instead of hospitals. Militants would be shot instead of journalists. This is an occupier intent on eliminating the occupied. 

Your single argument against labeling this a genocide is an irrelevant and insulting logical fallacy. I would ask you, Mr. Zakaria, how many Palestinians need to be blown to pieces before you would classify this as genocide? 

Instead of 200 children dying a day, should it be 500? 1000? 10,000 or more? At what number do Palestinian lives begin to finally shift the question away from proportionality? Because the fact that we are still discussing proportionality in light of these facts indicates the number slaughtered is not enough to sway you.

And what credibility do you possess, that emboldens you to declare this is not a genocide? Your pontification is not only inhumane, it is dangerously promoting an anti-Palestinian narrative and further dehumanizing the indigenous Palestinians.  

Let me answer the questions you postulated, Mr. Zakaria.

You’re right. One day, the world will look back at this moment in time. At that time, they will not be wondering if Israel’s friends and supporters asked it tough questions. 

They will be asking why you, and all those still supporting this genocide, were knowingly complicit. They will be looking for retributions and justice. 

Related:

– Activism for Palestine in the West: Understanding the Agreement of Joe Biden and Jordan Peterson on Israel

– Open Letter to J.K. Rowling From a Palestinian Fan – MuslimMatters.org