It’s actually an excerpt from a lengthier interview focused on Omar’s latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This . . . with the “this” being the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza.
Here is how the book’s publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, describes Omar’s latest work:
On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human – not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.
This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.
I conclude this post with part of what Omar El Akkad said in a March 28 interview with David Murr of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Late Night Live show.
The mode [we’re told we] have to be operating in has to be pragmatic and to think in terms of "real politics" or however else you want to describe it. Yet when I’ve just seen a kid shot in the head, I can’t operate in that mode. It’s not so much that I disagree that being pragmatic can be at times effective, I just don’t know what remains effective after watching a kid get killed. That’s what it’s up against.
I know how the world works. I get it. But this isn’t that moment; it just isn’t. Because no matter what political or rhetorical device you throw at me, it is not going to compare to the weight and to the impact of watching a child get killed and knowing that . . . my tax dollars did that.
Related Off-site Links:
Omar El Akkad on Genocide, Complicit Liberals, and the Terrible Wrath of the West – Dan Sheehan (Literary Hub, February 25, 2025).
In His New Book, Omar El Akkad Examines the Dangers of Passivity During Israel’s War on Gaza – Andrew Jankowski (Willamette Week, March 18, 2025).
Omar El Akkad's Powerful Confrontation of the West’s Gaza Hypocrisy in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – Sarah Shaffi (The New Arab, March 19, 2025).
Reckoning With the West – David Marr (Late Night Live at ABC Radio National, March 27, 2025).
Omar El Akkad: Gaza War Made Me “Deeply Cynical” About the West – Channel 4 News (February 14, 2025).
“This Is Not a War – It’s a Genocide”: The Brutal Truth No One Wants to Admit – Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (Ahmed’s Perspective, March 22, 2025).
“Every Atrocity Imaginable”: Litany of Israeli War Crimes Continues – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, March 31, 2025).
Taxpayers Submit U.N. Report Charging U.S. Officials With Genocide in Gaza – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, April 7, 2025).
Israeli Troops Blow Whistle on War Crimes in Gaza “Kill Zone” – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, April 7, 2025).
The Dead Children We Must See – Jay Caspian Kang (The New Yorker, April 7, 2023).
UPDATES: Trump Hosts Netanyahu at White House, Reiterates Plan to Expel Palestinians from Gaza – Democracy Now (April 8, 2025).
“Not in Our Name”: Protesters Decry U.S.-Backed Assault on Gaza – Democracy Now (April 8, 2025).
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 58 Palestinians in a Day, Including Journalist Ahmed Mansour – Democracy Now (April 8, 2025).
Today’s “Death Squad” Dems Enable the Trump-Backed Slaughter in Yemen, Gaza, and Beyond – Stephen Zunes (Common Dreams, April 14, 2025).
“Only Hellfire”: Israel Says Lifesaving Aid and Troop Withdrawal Are Off the Table for Gaza – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, April 16, 2025).
Israel’s Genocidal Attacks on Gaza Continue, Slaughtering Children and Displaced Palestinians – Democracy Now (April 17, 2025).
“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”: Omar El Akkad on Gaza and Western Complicity – Democracy Now (April 17, 2025).
See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
• Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
• Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
• Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• “A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
• “This Is a Genocidal Project”
• Outrage and Despair
• Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
• Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
• Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
• Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
• Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
• John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
• Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
• Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
• Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
• “It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
• Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
• Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
• “A Year of War Against Children”
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
• Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
• Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
• The Only Difference
• Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
• Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
• Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
• Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
• For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
• Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
• David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014
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