Note from our Editor-in-Chief: This interview essay is part of our special week-long coverage marking three years since the horrific Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza that followed. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, become one today to get full access to all of Zeteo’s Oct. 7 coverage and more. – Mehdi
Macklemore
Zach Bryan
Angelina Jolie
Even Megyn Kelly
Today, Palestine can be seen and heard everywhere. For the first time, supporting Israel is costly and staying “neutral” is not an option – just ask Ed Sheeran, whose ticket sales have plummeted for his mealy-mouthed bothsidesism and “it’s complicated” stance. Palestine marches continue to attract thousands, and even in the United States, public opinion polls are showing that Israel is not liked – so much so that Megyn Kelly, a woman who, just a year ago, said that we Palestinians were “fine” having our children starve just so that we “can put them on camera,” has begun to change her tune.
It’s not that I couldn’t have imagined criticizing Israel publicly – or at the very least calling for a “free Palestine” – in the West would no longer be taboo; I just never thought it would take so long and come at such an enormous cost to Palestinians. In just three years, over 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured, or are missing; children are being starved, and their limbs blown off; Israeli bombings have not stopped; and Israel continues to use Palestinian bodies to test out the latest AI mass-killing invention.
And while global public opinion has shifted, we still have not seen this translate into a shift in policy. Bombs are still being sent to Israel; trade is still flowing with Israel (despite proclamations that they will stop), and Benjamin Netanyahu (and his entire cabinet of war crimes supporters) is still roaming freely, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.
Israel continues to speak very openly about ethnic cleansing, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank and in Lebanon, and the Israeli public continues to deny (or not care) that it has carried out genocide. In Gaza, Israel steals more and more land, kills more Palestinians, and has, one year into a so-called ceasefire, not allowed any reconstruction material to enter the Strip because it has made clear that it aims to ethnically cleanse. It’s no longer a secret – and the global public is catching on, but why haven’t the decision-makers? Why haven’t the bomb shipments stopped?