An outspoken critic of Hamas has told a London audience that while he did not claim to speak on behalf of all Palestinians, he was confident thousands of Gazans were similarly critical, adding — “I see the seeds of transformation on social media”.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is a phenomenon — a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza, but quit the Strip in 2005 as an exchange student in the United States, where he continued his education. Now a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, Alkhatib, still only 34, has become one of the most interesting commentators on the Israel-Palestinian conflict — the more so since he sincerely advocates for peace, despite losing more than 30 members of his family to Israeli attacks.
He was in Britain on a whirlwind tour organised by Jewish News, during which he outlined his ideas to MPs and peers, addressed a crowded group of high-level clergy at Westminster Abbey, held a briefing meeting at the Foreign Office, visited a Leeds mosque, addressed a Yachad meeting and the annual conference of the Union of Jewish Students.
Alkhatib is bursting with ideas, talking enthusiastically of his long-term plan to build a proper functioning airstrip in Gaza. Now, he says, his ambition is to use “the rubble of Gaza to create an artificial peninsula off the main seashore, and build there a small airport and a seaport. We need more than just reconstruction, we need to open Gaza and offer rejuvenation and hope”.
He is well aware that he is viewed by some Hamas supporters as “a sell-out” or a Zionist. But in his mile-a-minute presentation, Alkhatib does not hide his contempt for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he described as “a war criminal”, or that he has “grievances with the Israeli government to the moon and back”.
At the same time, however, Alkhatib is contemptuous of “diaspora non-Palestinians, who are talking over the Palestinians, speaking on our behalf, telling our story, acting as if they know what’s best for us. We also have a lot of passionate voices in the diaspora communities who mean well, but their energies have not been meaningfully harnessed and placed in an appropriate channel that really gets us somewhere — beyond the slogans and the demos and the protests and the encampments”.
Critics have condemned him as someone who does not speak for the Palestinians, he says — “but neither are the imbeciles running around with Hamas or Hezbollah flags. Neither are the people on social media who are claiming that ‘resistance is not terrorism’ —a.k.a. ‘October 7 was good, Hamas is ok, we support what took place…”
Alkhatib became an American citizen in 2014 and made it clear that financial support from members of the Jewish community, including a Holocaust survivor, had enabled him both to continue his education, but had also shaped his views about Jews and Israelis. He noted that “70 per cent” of Palestinians had never left the Gaza Strip and had rarely had the opportunity to encounter “normal” Israeli Jews.
Jewish philanthropist Scooter Braun and Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
In discussion with the Jewish News columnist Josh Glancy at JW3, Alkhatib, a Muslim, expressed shock at some of the responses to the 7 October attacks, given the frequent strictures in Islam about the way to treat women, children and the elderly. But he believed that Hamas had been responsible for “reversing the trends” of a largely secular Palestinian society and “Islamising” Gaza, working in tandem with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
He insisted that it was “Hamas’s actions” which had led to the imposition of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, not the other way around, describing this latter argument as “a revisionist attempt to absolve Hamas from its responsibility”.
Israeli security chiefs meet on April 6, 2023. From left: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Mossad chief David Barnea and then,Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (Ariel Harmoni / Defense Ministry)
But he pointed to a crucial error made by Netanyahu, in his approach to dealing with Hamas. In June of 2023 the Qataris were ready to cut off funds to Hamas. “We now know that it was Netanyahu who sent David Barnea, the head of Mossad, to Doha, in September, to tell the Qataris not to stop the funds, and we know about the suitcases of cash that Netanyahu allowed to go into Gaza, thinking that this was the way to buy off Hamas”.
Alkhatib also highlighted the pre-October 7 prospect of Saudi-Israel normalisation, seen as a major threat by “Hamas’s main benefactor, Iran, which was worried that an Arab NATO-like alliance was emerging to isolate it”.
He believed, he said, “that this is Gaza’s last war. Through the death and destruction… I do see on social media the seeds of transformation like I have never seen before. I am far from alone in expressing the sentiments out there. There are thousands of Ahmeds out there: and I am trying to create a new political home for that narrative. There will never be another time when Hamas, or anybody else, is going to be able to mass manipulate the Palestinian public in Gaza.
“I think that Gazans have had a terrible and bloody awakening, not just because of the consequences of October 7, but because of the behaviour of Hamas’s political leaders and their statements in Arabic. The avalanche of crap coming out of the mouths of Hamas leaders has infuriated the people of Gaza like nothing I have ever seen before”.
Just because “Israeli propaganda says it doesn’t mean there aren’t kernels of truth in it. Hamas does fight among civilians, places its infrastructure, its tunnels and its launchers, it rigs buildings and conducts its fighting in a really reckless and dangerous manner that places civilians at risk. And Palestinians know this happens all the time: and if they speak out about it, in English, they are told to shut up — often by a bunch of white people in London and San Francisco”.
He viewed “a shutdown of legitimate grievance from Gaza that says, Hamas is terrorising us”. There was, he said, “a realisation of the fraud that is the armed resistance narrative”.
Alkhatib’s hope now, he said, was “to wean Gazans off aid dependency” and to make them more self-sufficient”. Judging by the enthusiastic response to his JW3 appearance, his plans will certainly receive support in the UK.
