I spoke with my friend, political analyst, and president of The Agora Initiative, Khalil Sayegh. Questions included…
How are you able to face this unending horror and maintain such gentleness and generosity?
What do you think of the “perfect victim” critique?
After all this time, what gives you confidence that persuasion is possible, and that changing minds can lead to real-world change?
How do you maintain your faith in God in the midst of so much suffering?
How do you find the right balance between criticizing Hamas and criticizing Israel, given their great power disparity?
How do you respond to the argument that Hamas’s authoritarianism and violence shows Israel can’t afford to give Palestinians equal rights?
Do you believe Hamas accepts the idea of a two-state solution?
What was your response to the assasinations in Washington, DC?
What do you think of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”?
(Recorded May 25, 2025)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Peter Beinart: I’m really, really pleased to be joined by Khalil Sayegh, someone who I’ve learned a tremendous amount from, who I admire very, very deeply. Khalil is the director of the Agora Initiative, which is an organization that seeks to mobilize the public for a peaceful solution in Palestine and Israel. He’s a political analyst based in Washington, D.C. He is originally from the Gaza Strip. Khalil, thank you so much for doing this.
Khalil Sayegh: Thank you for having me, Peter. Looking forward to our conversation as usual.
PB: So, Khalil, I follow you on social media a lot. And sometimes I watch your social media and I see how closely you are following what is now, I think, harder and harder to deny is a genocide in Gaza. And yet, I also see your tone, which is not just gentle, but I would say often generous and also often very self-critical when it comes to Palestine, Palestinian politics, and activism. And I sometimes think to myself, I don’t think that if I were in your position, being from Gaza, your own father was killed, I don’t think I would be able to maintain that that tone. I don’t know what the hell I would be thinking or doing. But I don’t think I would be able to act the way you are. And so, I just wonder if you can talk a little bit at a personal level, how you absorb this unending horror and handle it the way you do.
KS: Sure, yeah, to start with, I mean, the reality is very harsh. The reality is very difficult to witness every day. And as you just described, I mean, someone like myself, who has not only lost his father and sister in Gaza, but also countless friends and relatives, looking and watching over what’s going on is quite harsh. Just like few hours ago, we’ve witnessed the destruction of a school in Gaza. And literally the bodies were taken out, really burned alive, children and women burned alive in the school. Yesterday, we’ve witnessed the murder of al-Najjar family, kids, the doctor at Nasser Hospital, who was surprised that her kids were brought murdered by the Israeli military. So, in face of all of that, it is really difficult for someone like me to just be here from the outside and looking. You know, there is a constant feeling of guilt that you are not there. There is constant feeling of hopelessness that whatever I do, it seems to not be stopping. And I’ve been trying over and over to do something about it, but it’s not stopping. So that’s how I’d like to start it is that on the emotional level, this is how I feel in a constant way. I am angry. I am outraged. I feel like I scream. I sometimes, you know, close the room or I’m in my car and I just find myself screaming for minutes or two. But when it comes to my contact in public and when it comes to my social media interaction or my personal interaction beyond friends, like my professional interaction, because with friends, you’re more open and you’re intimate. I tend to think twice before I say anything. And that’s something I had to learn over the years. You know, I wasn’t always this way. I had to learn it over the years. And I think always constructively on what this could achieve and how would the other side, the West, that being since we are in the West, can perceive that and how it would change them or not. My perspective has always been that the idea that we can shame the other to feel, you know, pointing out to them and saying, you are so racist and you shouldn’t be racist, it doesn’t really help because once you say someone is racist, you already block the entire conversation. Instead of saying, you know, the Americans always didn’t care about Palestinians, whatever, my approach would be more the Americans don’t know enough and therefore don’t care about what’s happening to the Palestinians because they don’t know. So, I always approach it with this charity, if you wish, that if I teach enough, if I tell them enough, that things would change. That being said, I am not in denial of the reality that we have been saying what we are saying. We have been doing what we are doing, you know, at the Agora Initiative. Our very focus is to break down the story, the story of Palestine in a very mainstream language, in a language that a conservative Christian could understand, an Orthodox Jew could understand, and your average white liberal or a person of color who is also liberal could understand. And still, we are not seeing change. And it is very frustrating. Yet, I don’t see another solution. I don’t see how anger and shouting at the other and calling the other’s name could help change anything.
PB: But do you ever wonder about, I’ve never been in your situation, so, you know, Mohammed el-Kurd has written about this book about being a perfect victim. And if I understand his argument partly is that he thinks that there is a cost to trying to be a perfect victim, right? To containing one’s anger, to trying to always be the kind of take the higher road or something like this, never to scare people by showing that, you know, and I wonder, do you worry that somehow that having to put on this face you know um in the while you’re watching your people and even your own family and friends being killed whether that has its own cost?
KS: I don’t think so. I tend to disagree with Mohammed deeply, and I’ve read his work. I mean, I would even argue more that Mohammed’s position comes from privilege and not the other way around. People like myself are interested in stopping the genocide today. I have to stop it, no matter what. If that will cost me my feelings, my emotion, how I would feel, and how I’m comfortable at college campus here, that’s fine. I’m willing to compromise it. As Mohammed is more interested in how Palestinians in the diaspora generally feel. And he’s not from the diaspora he suffered he had his own share his home was stolen etc., but so our family’s life were stolen so our homes were stolen etc. So, I understand. I empathize deeply with people like Mohammed. But to me, Palestinians cannot have the privilege of just caring about this emotional posture of how we have it inside. We care more about the impact. So, if things are measured by their effects in my point of view, then that’s how I measure it. On perfect victimhood, I am not trying to be a perfect victim. I am not by any means. I’m trying to be a rational person. Now, people like Mohammad would look at me and they would say, even rationality is a Western construct. And I would look back and say, no, it’s actually an Arab construct in the same way. Philosophers like, you know, al-Farabi to Ibn Sina to others to Al-Ghazali, have written about rationality. And it’s not always a trend concept in any sense. So that’s, I think, how I differ with people like Mohammed. I think that rational and measured conversation is much better, and it’s not perfect victimhood. But I would also turn the table and say, on the Zionist side, there is the same problem. Since October 7th have happened the entire rationality morality conversation etc. was shut down by them. And they became similar to Mohammed el-Kurd. We don’t care about your emotions. We don’t care about how you feel. We don’t care etc. I just want to be a proud Zionist Jew, whatever. And the implication for that whenever you try to talk to them of morality, they’ll say, oh there were babies beheaded or there were babies killed, etc. All of which turns out not to be true to an extent, although they were atrocities committed against the Israelis, etc. But that kind of moral panic that these people want us to be in, I don’t think it brings any good outcome. That being said, I will conclude by saying it’s not, you know, I don’t dismiss Mohammed’s notion of perfect victim completely. I don’t think Palestinians should try to be perfect victims, but I reject the fact that Mohammad has been going, actually he came after me and others by claiming that all of us, everyone is trying to be a perfect victim when we’re not. We ’re just trying to be rational and reasonable in a way that the others could hear.
PB: So, on the question of persuasion, what gives you your confidence that persuasion is possible? That if you present people information about the Palestinian experience, if you give people the chance to encounter Palestinian humanity, that it will change their minds or beyond that, they will change their minds and get them to do something, you know, that would ultimately lead to a change in U.S. policy. Because I think, you know, after more than a year and a half of this, there may be some who are growing despairing of that.
KS: And that’s totally understandable. When I talk to, you know, my friend who lost all her family, Hala, and she’s just like shouting and saying, you know, fuck everyone, basically, you know, fuck the West, fuck the Americans, fuck Hamas, fuck everyone. Like that’s a feeling of someone who lost all his family. I cannot look at them and say, listen, we’ve got to be persuasive or whatever. I really cannot, and I don’t. I tell people, you know, I sometimes tell people from Gaza who are my family and friends, if it takes that I sacrifice my comfort and my emotions and the fact that I cannot shout like you in public etc., I would do it. Now, how do I measure it and why I know it’s effective? I think I look around me and I assess what changed people’s mind. You know, I’ve spent time talking to Israelis when I was at Ramallah, and I’ve seen those who’ve changed and those who’ve not. I’ve been even to settlements, actually, to talk to Israelis. That’s how far I went with my mind to see. And I’ve been with many Israeli, sorry, Jewish Americans here, like, you know, yourself and other people who you see in “Israelism.” And you see their process. And it’s very clear that they had to encounter Palestinian humanity and that’s what changed them. I am not to see someone who was bullied into becoming pro-Palestine. I’m not yet to see someone who is called, oh why don’t you give me the right to hijack your planes or have random act of political violence that was persuasive to them. I haven’t seen. Maybe there are some minority out there that I haven’t encountered, but as far as I know, I didn’t see them. But I’m not only dealing with Israelis or Jewish Americans here. I’m dealing with the general public that tend to be not Jewish nor Israeli, a lot of whom are Christians as well. And I myself happen to be a Christian Palestinian. And thus, you know, I have a special place in my heart for Christians, even those who are from White heritage here in the U.S. And I spend my time talking to them. And I also seen the persuasion. I’ve seen the persuasion when I tell personal story and I’m very careful how I communicate it to them. And I’ve seen others who tried to do the same, but yet with anger, with frustration, with shaming, and it didn’t work. I was in Indiana a few months ago speaking at a conservative conference. And I just, you know, in 15 minutes presented my story, the story of my family, the killing that happened to us, the bombing of our church, etc. And toward the end, one guy, just a priest, actually, a Catholic priest, very conservative, stands up and he says, listen, when I hear you, I’m very much sympathetic with your story. But I don’t want to be aligned with all these anarchists who are in the streets, etc. And I said to him, listen, first of all, I don’t think they’re anarchists, but I understand. You don’t have to stand in the streets with people who you don’t align with them on other issues politically in order for you to be with the Palestinians. As I’m leaving the room, another white lady showed up, an older white woman. She showed up and she shaked hands and she looked at me and she actually told me, you know what, I’ve always heard that Bibi was the good guy and you guys are the worst, or the terrorist. She didn’t even say Israel. She said Bibi, which is that intimate relationship the conservative movement in the US have with Bibi, really strange and in a way cultish. But yet, she said, I am not here to say I’m convinced of what you said, but I think I cannot believe that someone like you who spoke in this passion could be lying, she said. She said, at least I left with more questions. And that’s what I’m after. If that’s uncomfortable for people on my side, I am okay with that. But I don’t think it’s in general as uncomfortable. I do think that generally we have few figures in the diaspora who are popular, who have certain power, and they try to dominate the conversation. But when it comes to numbers, and you look at what the Palestinians actually want, or if you look at what Gazans want in terms of reality, I think that their approach tend to be like mine despite the emotions. Because I think it’s logic, from my point of view at least, it’s logical that this is what needs to be done.
PB: Khalil, how do you talk to white American Christians as a Christian without playing into
this, to their Islamophobia, their idea that, okay, so maybe you’re the good Palestinian because you’re Christian, but most of the Palestinians who are Muslim, they’re bad?
KS: I think that’s an excellent question. I think we start by emphasizing our Palestinianhood, not only our Christianity. And, you know, the Palestinian identity is unique in the sense that, in a way, it was invented by Christians. More or less, the Palestinian and Arab nationalism generally, many of the founders were Christians. And it’s an invasion that—or not invasion—it is more or less an ideology that was born out of the idea that Christians and Muslims could be equal in a post-Khalifa world, right? And that’s I always emphasize.
PB: You want to explain what is a post-Khalifa world? Some people might not know that reference.
KS: Yeah, for sure. So, when the Islamic Khilafah, or the pan-Islamist state of the Ottoman Turks
collapsed, or before it even collapsed, once it started getting weaker and weaker and the system started collapsing on itself, many Arab nationalists start thinking out of the box. How do we coexist, how do we live, etc.? And the people who brought these ideas of nationalism were majority Christians. Of course, they were Muslims from prominent families, you know, Hosseinis, Nashishibis, and others, who were able to educate themselves and learn, you know, French and bring these ideas of nationalism etc., secularism from outside. But majority were Christians due to their privilege of going to missionary schools and others and they educated themselves. So, by no means is the Palestinian identity is a Muslim identity. Then, the second thing I do emphasize always the fact that who my friends are. You know, the majority of my friends, Peter, were Muslims, all my life because of the ratio. We are 1000 in Gaza before the genocide. Now we are 600, the Christians. When I was at school, out of the 1200 in my school, I was the only Christian. So, you could imagine that majority of my friends are Muslims. And I always tell them that two of my dearest losses this year was a classmate of mine, who was killed with his wife, a new wife, in a bombing in November 23. And the second was my best friend growing up at school, al-Jazeera journalist himself, was killed with his baby and his wife in a bombing in the Nuseirat camp. These are the people who were closest to me, more than even my brother or my family. These are the people I went through everything with them. So, I always emphasize this point. And I always, you know, in a way that is really careful. But at the same time, you know, I don’t tend to like, you know, when someone like, for example, point out to like, oh, Muslims are the problem, etc. Or I tend to like not allow this kind of conversation to go on. But at the same time, I don’t deny that Hamas and the Islamists are problem. Because the illiberalism of Hamas or Islamist is a threat to Christians and threat to any minority generally. In the same way, illiberal groups here in the US, like Christian nationalists, who scares me myself, although they would be scary more to our Jewish brothers and sisters and Muslims, are a problem. So, we don’t deny that. But the distinguish of why it’s a problem and the illiberalism is very important. Otherwise, there is, as you said, a really widespread Islamophobic problem in this country.
PB: One of the questions that I wanted to ask you is, you know, for many Jews, the Nazi Holocaust was a tremendous spiritual crisis in which many people, some people lost their faith in God. And many theologians, Jewish theologians, for decades were having an argument about how to make sense of how God could have allowed this to happen. I would just love to ask you, I know that being a Christian is very important to you. How do you maintain your faith in God in the midst of this, watching it being allowed to happen? And when you talk to other Christians in Gaza, how do they make sense of this theologically?
KS: I can tell you the following. My opinion, theologically, the people in Gaza surprise me. Christians and Muslims alike with their really steadfastness in faith. The fact that they just stand and they say, that’s God’s will and we take it no matter what. It’s something that really, really, really is similar to the story of Job in the Hebrew Bible, right, where he stands and he accepts the will of God. And I would be lying if I say I’m the same. I’m not the same. I’m perhaps similar to Psalm 73, where the writer or the author looks at God and he says, God, you are good to those who are evil, and you are bad to those who are not evil. And that you are not really good to Israel. That’s the word he starts the Psalms with. And that’s how I feel, Peter. I feel that God has in a way betrayed us, that God hasn’t really stopped what’s going on. And I feel anger and I feel a sense of like really betrayal by God. And it’s not an easy feeling. So, that’s on one level how I feel. And that leads me to think theologically. I mean, I studied theology, that was my undergrad before I switched to study politics. And it makes me question all sorts of concepts, as you said, about the sovereignty of God, how sovereign he is, what does it mean to have the will of God, etc. And I mean, I’m careful how to say it, but I think I am leaning more and more to the theologians who don’t really believe in the full sovereignty of God in a way. That’s where I think my mind is going. And that’s still something developed. I’m not sure if this will continue with me or not, because that’s not the focus of my life now, but it’s something in the background I’m thinking of. But I think the more important part, and Christian element that brings comfort to someone like myself, it’s the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ. I think that’s the center of Christian faith. But also, from Eastern Christian point of view, the crucifixion of Christ is not about the atonement in the sense that he died to pay the price of your sins, if your sins in the justice sort of thing. But rather it’s empathetically more that God has died on your behalf to show you love, to show you what love means. And whenever you suffer, you can look and understand the empathy of God and that this is sort of like a therapy to you and to heal to your wounds and to your pain. And I think I tend to take this view more and more whenever I feel you know forsaken by God, I remember that God himself incarnated was crucified and then you know he was resurrected too. But it is difficult. And I totally understand that how the Jewish people felt. We feel the same way. And I don’t want to also minimize the fact that, you know, I was in Egypt for six months interviewing different people from Gaza who survived the genocide, a lot of them. Some were used as human shields, others were seeing their kids dying in front of their eyes, etc. And there is faith crisis among Muslims and Christians. There are people who increased their faith and became more religious, but there are many others who wonder whether God even exists or not. And I totally understand their doubts and their struggle.
PB: You mentioned earlier Hamas. You are very publicly critical of Hamas. How do you weigh the right balance between criticism of Hamas and criticism of Israel? I mean, I share your criticisms of Hamas, although I don’t know Hamas as well as you do because I didn’t grow up in Gaza. But I personally struggle to get the right balance, not because I think Hamas is benevolent and benign in any way, but just because there’s a massive power disparity between Israel and Hamas. So, even if I believe that they were equally immoral, that one has 10,000 times more power than the other. So, how do you figure out when you’re engaged in public commentary, how much time to spend focusing on the authoritarianism, the willingness to commit war crimes of Hamas versus the Israel committing this genocide?
KS: So, to start with, as you said, that’s what matters is to understand that there is no equality. And Hamas, in a way, is a symptom of a bigger problem that is the occupation. So, by no means do I equalize or do I both sides it or whatever. My criticism of Hamas when it’s there, obviously my criticism of Israel is much more, and it goes before Hamas even existed. My criticism of Hamas has to do with the fact that they are, whether I like it or not, my government. Whether I like it or not, they’re there. Now, if it was up to me, I would get rid of Hamas yesterday, obviously, if it’s possible without violence and bloodshed, etc. I don’t like them. But since they’re my government, I have to deal with them as my government and hold them accountable. My critique of them also has to do with the fact that the people in Gaza see them as a problem. Today we had a protest. Yesterday we had a protest. The day before yesterday we had a protest. And to be honest, I think like I was telling a friend this week. If I see more and more Palestinians in the West speak against Hamas, most likely I’ll spend less time talking about Hamas. Because I would see someone else discovering it. But because there are not enough people talking about Hamas, I feel more responsibility. You know, the other day when Uday al-Raba’i was killed, who is a Palestinian, wasn’t even an activist, just participated at one protest. And I think on social media, he posted something against Hamas, was kidnapped and beaten to death by al-Qassam fighters, or I call them thugs.
PB: Hamas’ military?
KS: Yeah, that is Hamas’ military. And I call them thugs because of the actions they commit against the Palestinian people like Uday. They killed him while beating him up to death and dragging his body in front of Al-Quds Hospital in Tel al-Hawa. When he died, I received so many messages from friends in Gaza telling me Khalil, for God’s sake, write about it in English. No one was writing about it in English. The journalists in Gaza are terrified to write about it, etc. And when I receive messages like that, I feel the urge and the need to do so. The other reason why we criticize Hamas as Palestinians, because Hamas has been destructive to the national project. There is no doubt in my mind that Hamas has contributed to the Israeli right plan of wiping the Palestinians off the map. They did that in the 90s when they sent their suicide bombers during negotiation. They did that early 2000s whenever there was even conversation, they did it even harder and harder, trying to themselves replace the Palestinian Authority because that was always their goal. And at the time, in the 90s, they polled in surveys less than 10%. So, it’s not like, oh, they’re powerful, we should give them the power. No, they were less than 10%, willing to send suicide bombers, willing to commit horrific crimes in order to take power. In 2000s, they did the same. And then we’ve seen their rule for 18 years authoritarian against the Palestinians in Gaza, usage of revolution and resistance to justify this authoritarianism, dragging Gaza to war every two years because of goals like airport and seaboard etc. We’ve got nothing from them. The situation keep decreasing and decreasing. And today, during this genocide, all what the Palestinians in Gaza are saying, surrender your weapons, surrender your power completely. And we know that Israel wouldn’t stop. We know they are interested in our genocide. We know they’re interested in our ethnic cleansing. But let’s take off these excuses and let’s put the word to a test. Because here’s the thing, if Hamas give up all its power tomorrow, and all the hostages, what likely happens is A) Israel will continue, but B) the world will wake up. I think a lot of leaders in the world—I cannot imagine a world in which the entire European, and even Mr. Trump—looking at Gaza and looking at what’s happening in Gaza without Hamas, no hostages, no weapons, and saying, well, that’s okay. I cannot envision a world in which. But Hamas is not even willing to do that. And in my mind, they say, oh, well, we’ll leave you defenseless. Well, aren’t we defenseless right now? What is your weapons doing? Nothing. And if you give up your weapons, it takes two months to build them again if we needed them again. But the thing is, we don’t need them. So, we have a feeling that these weapons are directed at us. That these weapons that Hamas is not using today and hiding, according to all reports, Hamas is hiding weapons and not using it. It’s preparing for the day after in Gaza to use it against us, against anyone who is criticizing Hamas. So, that’s my criticism of Hamas. It does not replace the criticism of the apartheid, does not replace the criticism of the state of Israel that sponsored Hamas in the 80s and in the 70s, by the way, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and those in order to divide them between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the rest of Palestinians.
PB: So, Khalil, I’m sure sometimes you get responses from Israelis or pro-Israel people and they say, I agree with everything you’ve said about Hamas, and this is why we can’t allow the Palestinians to have their own state or to have equality inside of Israel because Hamas is the most powerful Palestinian faction. You have just described how terrible they are, how authoritarian they are. And their first charter says, you know, is antisemitic, and they’ve committed all these violent accidents against Jews. So, if we listen to you talking about Hamas, how could we then do what you want in terms of giving Palestinians their freedom, given that Hamas is the most powerful political movement? What do you say to that?
KS: So, two things. To start with, when I say Hamas is horrible, I’m not saying Hamas is Daesh or ISIS, right? I’m saying Hamas is Hamas, right? There is a unique circumstances under which Hamas is extremely awful, yet they don’t have, you know, they’re not ISIS. They are as awful as Hezbollah in Lebanon, a little bit more radical when it comes to morality maybe, or actually similar if you look in the south of Lebanon. And they’re as awful as Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, but they’re not ISIS and they’re not, you know, Jabhat al-Sham or Jabhat al-Nusra or others. So, I’m not trying to say they’re unique evil. They’re my problem.
PB: What’s the distinction that you’re drawing between the ideological or theological vision of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas and Hezbollah?
KS: The main elements is between you know ISIS and Hamas is the Jihadi Salafism that has no limits over borders and meaning the ISIS and others believe in declaring jihad and establishing Khalifa all over the world, and thus, you know, terrorism is justified all over. Until now, I’m not aware of Hamas using one act of terrorism outside of the boundaries of Palestine. And that’s something that we have to give them credit for, that they are quite unique in the fact that they have been limited to the national statehood and to the borders, which is unique for many Muslim Brotherhood movements in that area because they were all born out of the idea of Khalifa too, but they limited themselves to nation states. They accepted nation states, more or less. That’s, I think, the biggest distinguish there. And then when it comes to freedom, there is a little bit more freedom for women in Gaza, freedom of expression, etc. under them than would be under ISIS or under Jabhat al-Nusra or others. Now, when it comes to Hezbollah, I think they’re very similar in ideology when it comes to resistance, etc. I think Hezbollah is less interested in trying to breach morality to the rest of Lebanon. They’re more segregated and staying in their own areas in the south. Hamas is interested in Islamizing the society. That is part of being a Muslim Brotherhood and their founders. And thus, you know, there is, you know, continuous Islamization. But again, my problem with Hamas being Islamist is only minor, as I always explain. I have less problems, for example, with Ahmed al-Sharaa, despite that he’s more Islamist than them.
PB: The newest leader of Syria.
KS: Yeah, the newest leader of Syria. My problem with Hamas is it’s committing to an ideology of resistance that prioritizes the resistance over the lives of the Palestinians and also its connection with Iran, etc. And thus, it doesn’t make strategic decisions. You know, when October 7th happened, I thought it was a horrific idea. Obviously, the crimes that were committed against the Israelis were horrific. But it was horrific because of the cost that I envisioned would happen. But in my mind, I kept giving them the benefits of the doubt. I kept saying, I’m sure Hamas has a plan. I’m sure they will just, you know, give up power and say to Abu Mazen or to another Palestinian leader, come take over. We just wanted to pave a way to the state. That’s how I felt. Such an operation with this human cost on the Israeli side, on the Palestinians, for sure they must have a plan over it. But they proved me wrong. And they proved the old Khalil, who always thought they are irrational, right. And there is nothing in me right now that has 1% faith in Hamas leadership or their ability to provide any concrete thing. And if I had faith in anyone, it would have been Ismail Haniyeh and he’s not here anymore.
PB: And what about your argument to Israelis or others who say because Hamas is the powerful Palestinian faction, it’s too dangerous for us to basically, you know, to give Palestinians their freedom because look at what Hamas might do with it?
KS: Hamas is not the most powerful Palestinian faction in numbers. It’s actually small. It’s equal to Fatah. Fatah has, you know, up until this war and before, Fatah would have more numbers of memberships, but in votes it will get less. But in membership it still have more. But the biggest number of Palestinians are the independents, those who don’t identify with any faction. This makes usually 45%. Hamas right now is 30-35, etc. Now, they’re the most powerful in Gaza because monopoly over weapon. I think if Israel was interested in ending Hamas, truly, I believe in 2024 it would have been done in January 2024. That’s how early I would think. Because all what you need to do, you already did what you did, diminish their power, their weapons, etc. You have to introduce a new policing system in Gaza, and this policing system will take care of them. Israel is not interested in that, from my point of view. They’re interested in the ethnic cleansing. So, what I say to these people, Hamas exists—truly, and I believe it with all my heart, not as an emotional argument, as an analytical argument—because of Israel. If Israel chooses that Hamas shouldn’t exist, they would just follow, you know, don’t follow me. Follow what the IDF suggests to you. The IDF generals and intelligence themselves have suggested you need a political solution, have suggested that you need to introduce a new Palestinian party that can control, etc. And why the IDF is suggesting the same thing that Khalil suggests? Not because they’re good guys, just because they’re military experts and they’re rational about it, and so am I. I mean, we’re enemies, right, in every way. But when it comes to this issue, we’re both thinking in a way rationally, more or less, analytically. And they’re saying to Bibi, you have to do that in order to get away. Other groups here in the U.S. who are Zionist, right, like think the same, you know, Israel Policy Forum, J Street, etc. They all know it. Why? Because they like us? I mean maybe they do, but I don’t think they like us that much. I think they like Israel so much that they want to get rid of Hamas. And I think it’s just like you just have to be rational about it.
PB: There are some people who believe that, I’ve heard this debate that some people believe that Hamas, at least at a certain point, was accepting of the idea of two states. Do you think that’s true or not?
KS: I’m not, and I’ve told you that. I don’t believe it. I think that some people in Hamas are open to it. Again, Ismail Haniyeh, I think of him as the most, my perspective, he was the most moderate. Still not moderate enough as Mahmoud Abbas or even Yasser Arafat, but he’s the most moderate among Hamas. So is Khalid Mish’al, both of whom were sidelined by Sinwar and by Khalil Hayya and Hamdan. These are the people who are leading the thing, I mean, Sinwar is gone. Hamdan is there, Khalil Hayyad. These are the most radical in the movement, and they are the most hawkish. Hamdan makes repetitive statements on YouTube and in podcasts, etc., we don’t accept two-state solution. He insulted, just a few months ago, Yasser Arafat for compromising historical Palestine. Despite that, you know, that their own charter says that they’ll do the same thing. The other thing, and I’ve said that many times.
PB: Sorry, what do you mean when you say their charter means the same thing?
KS: The new charter says that we accept a two-state solution. But as I explained to you before, and that’s a smart move by Hamas, once they published that charter, the day after on their website, they published an interpretation of the chapter in Arabic that denies the two states. Now, I tried to pull this document, actually. Right after I’d said that in the interview, one of our common friends reached out and he said, can I see the document? I tried to get it. And it seems like since October 7th, they took down Hamas’s website. You cannot from anywhere in the world access this document. But I found a document in Ar-Risala. This is Arrisala.net, I believe, which is Hamas official newspaper that has the document. So, I have it on Arrisala.net where Khaled Mishal explained the interpretation of it. It doesn’t mean we accept two states and it means we don’t accept that Jews should stay here. We encourage them to leave. What encourage them to leave means, I really don’t know.
PB: I wondered what your response was when you heard the news of these assassinations in Washington.
KS: I obviously felt sad. I felt horrified. And it doesn’t have to do with their identity and who they are, whether they worked as diplomats or not. I was terrified because I’m seeing the conflict start coming to America in a violent way. And that’s something that terrifies me. I was always against that. I was always against importing it to America. And the fact that this thing happened right in front of a Jewish center has scared me even more. The last thing I want to see is Jewish Americans feeling more or less safe to go to work to their center or to their synagogue or to their school. And this fear is our biggest enemy from my point of view. It will produce more and more hate. It will produce more and more anger. And maybe, a response that is violence. What would we do, what would I act if someone walks to my church or to a mosque and do something similar in front? Now, also, you used the word assassination. Until now, we don’t have evidence that there’s an assassination. It could be pretty much a random act of political violence. We have absolute evidence that it was political violence because of the genocide. The person have been following, and he decided to go and attack. But we are not sure if he knew these people work for the embassy or not. It might be that he just shot people because they’re right in front of a professional gathering. So, that also terrifies me, the fact that someone did that. And what’s more terrifying is that when you read the statement, because at the beginning I was in denial, like everyone else, you’re skeptical because there’s so many lies, right? Like in so many lies of antisemitic attacks, etc., the Zionists would go out and say, oh, they said free Palestine. Oh, they were wearing keffiyeh. It turns out it’s a lie. So, the first thing, the prudent thing to do also, what I did, I was skeptical. I said, okay, I’m not going to comment. Then I went and it turns out the guy is not only a pro-Palestine, but a known one in Washington. The pro-Palestine folks know him. He hung out, he’s been in the protest, he’s here and there. And then he published a statement that everyone was sharing. And it’s very clear that he’s pro-Palestine and very clear that he did it due to the genocide, due to not being able to handle the amount of kids, etc. that were killing there. Yet all of that obviously does not justify. And that made me self-reflect that the pro-Palestine movement have to address these questions very clearly, has to address the question of usage of political violence outside of the border of Palestine. It’s a very dangerous thing when you are. And I’ve seen many people close to Hamas, like members of Hamas, praising it. Hamas did not praise it officially because they never adopt something outside of the borders. But people who are close were adopting it. That’s a dangerous thing. I think the pro-Palestine movement need to reflect and need to be careful. When we use, for example, that any Zionists, like many pro-Palestines say that any Zionist is a legitimate target. What do you mean by Zionist? What do you mean by legitimate target? And where are you talking about that? These are dangerous, dangerous terminology that are being used lightly. Because once you start that road, A) the first step that happened was start seeing attacks on Israel that target civilians. There is a lot of debates about that, right? But the second step from that to see violence outside of Palestine targeted against Jews or against even Israelis, we don’t know still whether they targeted them because they thought they’re Jewish Americans or pro-Israel, Zionist, or they targeted them because they are Israeli. That’s an escalation. That is very dangerous. And I personally tend to believe that the leaders of the pro-Palestine movement, I really appeal to them also on your show that they need to self-reflect on that. Because if this happens once more or two more times, it will be, obviously, it’s very bad for our Jewish brothers and sisters. And I personally want to go even to the Jewish center and pay my condolences. I truly want to. But beyond that, I am, for selfish reasons, it’s very bad for us, for Palestinians in the West. And it will create even more fissures and divisions between the Jewish and Palestinian community and that’s not way to have safety.
PB: One of the things that I’ve seen almost instantly on the kind of in pro-Israel circles is basically to say that essentially to say anyone who used the phrase globalize the intifada essentially has blood on their hands, is responsible for this. I’m suspicious of that, partly because I feel like there’s such an effort to delegitimize the movement for Palestinian freedom under any circumstances that it’s hard for me to believe that these criticisms are in good faith. Although I also have to say that I do have problems with this phrase, globalize the intifada, because I’m not sure exactly what people mean by it, because intifada can mean so many different things. But tell me what you think of this line of argument.
KS: I think it’s bad faith argument. I can say it clearly and loudly. I think these people would even probably think that someone like myself is a terrorist in the same way others. I truly think there is no doubt in my mind, that I’ve encountered these people. Yes, globalizing intifada, generally the people mean just revolution in general. They’re not thinking the same thing. And if they were thinking the same thing, we would have seen much higher numbers of attacks and we haven’t seen any until now. Only one. And generally, every pro-Palestine person I talk to says that this is not okay, generally, but they’re not willing to go in public and condemn it, which is I personally think is a problem. I think it should be condemned unequivocally, etc.
PB: Can I just stop to you there? People are against it. I have, first of all, I have seen a lot of people publicly even condemn it. But why do you think it would be that someone would feel privately that it was wrong, but not want to publicly condemn it?
KS: I think there are two arguments people make. A friend of mine who’s in Washington, she said to me, listen, I hate it. I think it’s dangerous, but I refuse to just, you know, make them the center of attention when our kids are being slaughtered. And I said, you know what? That’s valid. I get it on an emotional level. And the second line of argument is just simply people don’t want to feel pressure from the community, don’t want to feel that they are centering the other people’s lives when are people being killed. And obviously the third thing, that there is this theory that was spread that this was a targeted assassination against diplomats who are genocidal, etc., you name it, and former Israeli soldiers, etc. The truth is the people actually, both of them who were killed, were members of an Anglican church here in Washington, D.C. So, they’re a Jewish convert to Christianity who worked at the Israeli embassy. And apparently friends of mine who are Christians know them. So that’s not even part of the argument. I don’t even look at that, whether they were Jews, whether they were Christians, they were Muslims. It does not matter. It’s a random act of violence that is condemnable. And even if it was an assassination, it’s still a different conversation. It’s bad still. But this was a random act of violence. That’s what the evidence I have. And that’s dangerous. That’s very, very dangerous. And thus, it is, I think, condemnable. And it’s condemnable for our own sake because these people used free Palestine, because this person was part of the movement. Now, have he been not part of the movement and he went and did it and said free Palestine? I would have said, yes, I condemn it, but I don’t feel it’s our responsibility. But since he was part of the movement, no, I do think that there need to be that. But more importantly, the people who went out to justify it, from the movement are also danger. They’re danger. I mean, we brought Mohammad el-Kurd. He went out and justified. So is Susan Abulhawa. And I personally think, and I say this on the record, and it’s that secret, I wrote it on Twitter, that if I was Israel, I’ll try to invent these figures. Figures who are willing to justify that. Figures who are willing to say, oh, well, no, they do it so we can do it. What type of moral reasoning is that? That’s literally what Mohammed wrote. They did it in Syria when they targeted the Iranian diplomat, so we can do it in Washington. What kind of moral reasoning is that they killed our kids and we kill their kids? I know other people who do the same. They’re the Zionists right after October 7th. They killed our kids so we can kill their kids. They killed our women so we can kill them. They destroyed our kibbutzim so we can destroy their villages and towns there. So, it doesn’t help. It’s morally, I think, problematic. And it’s time for people of reason, who I know for sure the leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement are against it, and I know them personally, to say it unequivocally publicly.
PB: So, I wanted to just ask you one last question, because I know you talk to people in Gaza a lot. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s been like to live in Gaza for the last—frankly, I couldn’t imagine what it was like to live in Gaza before October 7th, but certainly not for the last months of this genocide. How is it that people in Gaza go on? And is there anything that is done around the world, that gives people in Gaza a sense of hope, that this could end, that there could be some fundamental shift so that they have the right to live?
KS: There is a general sense of despair. There is no question in that. My general sense of despair that things are going worse and worse, especially, you know, that people didn’t have access to bread for the last month. They’ve been eating, you know, other stuff that is nutritionally not very healthy, including my sister who’s still in Gaza and her family. So, it’s been very, very, very harsh for them. So how do you go about it? I truly don’t know. I see faith. I see resilience. I see just still love for life, love for life, that they want to live, they want to survive that. What gives them hope is whenever they hear about news or even rumors or lies even about a possible ceasefire, even temporary one, this gives them hope that we can live few normal days. You know, the dreams for Palestinians in Gaza today is to sleep without the air force or fear that they will bomb them at any moment. It’s to sleep while your stomach is full of food. These are the hopes and these are very small dreams that the people of Gaza have. But I do think that they also see hopes in the protest movement around the world. And that’s why I think the protest movement is very important and essential because it pushes the government, of course, but it also gives hope to the people in Gaza. The message to them is that we care about you. We see you, we love you, and the entire world has forgotten you. We are here and we are seeing you and we are demanding justice for you. Hear it from people in Gaza that they do see that and they’re very, you know, proud of seeing other Palestinians protesting outside. But at the same time, you know, as the time grow more and more, there is more and more disillusion. You know, my friend, an academic in Gaza, Hossein Jamal, told me the other day, what does this anything mean? Well, truly, I told him, you know, and he meant the protest and everything, like just like politics. And I told him, you know what, Hossein, what does anything mean? Because I truly feel the same way as you do.
PB: Khalil, thank you so much for spending this time with me. I truly appreciate it.
KS: Thank you, Peter.
PB: Thank you. Be well.
