Omar El Akkad on How Gaza Has Exposed the Hypocrisy of the West

Egyptian-American-Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad is somewhat of a hero of mine, primarily because, in the words of Benn Crader, he is a “man of great, palpable integrity, honesty and vulnerability.” El Akkad makes me want to be a better man; a more thoughtful, deliberate, and grounded man.

Novara Media introduces its October 18 conversation with El Akkad with the following:

Three years ago, just weeks after the Gaza genocide began, writer Omar El Akkad posted a tweet, attached to some footage showing the extent of the ruin that Israel had already visited on Gaza. The compelling thought, crystallised in that viral tweet, would go on to become the name of his bestselling book: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Steven Methven recently sat down with El Akkad to try to make sense of three years of horror.

Why did Omar write his book focusing on the West’s role in the violence, rather than centring Palestine? What would meaningful accountability and justice for Palestinians look like? How does he think Hamas will be remembered? And has he found any source of hope amid the events he describes?

Following is Novara Media’s full 1-hour and 45-minute conversation with Omar El Akkad.






Following are two quotes by Omar El Akkad that I find particularly meaningful.

I doubt most things. I don’t doubt that Palestine will be free; because I think the natural state of colonization is to get up every morning and tell yourself a lie. And however brutal the treatment of the colonized, there are few things more brutal than having to get up every day and tell yourself a lie. It’s unsustainable in the long run, as it’s been in the case of every colonizer, ever.

– Omar El Akkad
October 18, 2026

It is particularly infuriating to see [with Democrats] the gap between the performance and the reality; in a way that [the Republicans’] open monsterousness can’t recreate. . . . The Trump administration is monumentally, historically corrupt. It’s in the middle of bombing, I think, 10 different countries right now at last count. . . . But because I live in this binary country, there’s this notion of Oh, you don’t support this, therefore you must be in this camp.

This entire infrastructure needs to come down. This entire notion of some people get what they want but the vast majority of us have to pick whoever’s going to hurt us less is fundamentally unsustainable. Gaza is a crystallizing moment, I think, for that. But this has been going on for a very long time,

If you’re a person who fears for their lives under a Republican administration, who the hell am I to tell you, Hey, don’t vote Democrat. You vote for who the hell you want. I’m trying to explain that I am personally done with this idea that I am obligated in some way to support – be it with my vote or rhetorically or whatever the case may be – a politician, a political party, any sort of system that in any other context if I judged them purely by what they were doing, would be reprehensible to me.

Even if we set aside the arguement that a moral red line has been crossed, if I am rewarding the lesser of two evils, and the greater of two evils is becoming more evil, what am I actually rewarding? What is the trajectory of the entire system of lesser and greater evil? We're all moving in the same direction.

But this has been the arguement that’s gone back and forth, over and over and over. And we end up in this ridiculous cycle where the worst possible outcome happens and we have a quasi or openly fascist party in power. They behave so terribly that people, while they still can, assuming that the entire infrastructure doesn’t just dissolve, vote them out. They vote in the lesser of the two evils and we get such a chasm between what these people say they believe in and what they actually do that a portion of that same electorate becomes so disillusioned that they actively work against this party or just decide to stay home. And the quasi fascist or fully fascist party takes over again.

And we end up in this spiral while all the while the things we are doing as a society are rendering the planet more and more uninhabitable. We have a limited amount of time to get out of this spiral.

I submit to you that one of the ways to get out of this spiral is to stop rewarding the people from whom we should expect better until they do better. But I might be completely wrong. Maybe we just hold our noses and just vote for the least worst option and put up no resistance at all, I don’t know that you’re going to convince me of that, which is a strange thing to say because I was that person for most of my life. You know, Who’s got the “R” next to their name? Who’s got the “D” next to their name? Fill in the circle that has the “D” . . . Who cares, right? I just don’t feel that is a way out of this mess. I think it’s a slower way into this mess.

– Omar El Akkad
October 18, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
• Something to Think About – September 26, 2024

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).
“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”: Omar El Akkad on Gaza and Western Complicity – Democracy Now (April 17, 2025).