One day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This: on Gaza, Hypocrisy and the West

On October 25, 2023, three weeks after the war in Gaza started, 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.” Together with Omar El Akkad, Sinan Çankaya and Mohamedou Ould Slahi we talk about moral failure and Western complicity.

Western governments often present themselves as defenders of human rights, international law, and democratic values, but have often held a double standard. El Akkad argues in his latest book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This that the moral failure in Gaza is not sudden, but an exposure of long-standing contradictions. He describes this from his experiences in war reporting in Afghanistan and reporting on the trials of Guantanamo Bay. Mohamedou Ould Slahi has experienced first-hand what this meant during his 14 years imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay without a trial. Anthropologist Sinan Çankaya analyzed Dutch double standards in his latest book Galmende geschiedenissen. All three voices remind us that history tends to be rewritten after the fact, that silence is often bought with convenience, and that complicity wears many faces.

These failures are not confined to distant battlefields. Under President Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carrie out mass deportations that tear families apart and subject countless people to detention in inhumane conditions. The EU, at the same time, intends to pursue more migration deals like the controversial agreement with Tunisia, which has been criticized for violating human rights. Where can we look for moral justice today?