Hi Mehdi – good of you to unblock me on Twitter a month ago after blocking me 2 years ago for I don’t know what reason. If you recall, soon after dozens of my family members were killed in Gaza in Israeli airstrikes, I messaged you and asked for your help in elevating my voice and telling their story, but you ignored me completely. I see you’ve been talking to Peter Beinart, and I had wanted to respect that he reached out to me privately 2 days ago, but since he’s spilling the beans, I’ll take the liberty of telling you what I told him. I fail to understand why an anti-Zionist Jew, and in your case, an Indian-British man, see yourselves as the most suited arbiters or facilitators for such conversations. I don't get the point of having a debate with other Palestinians with someone like yourself being a moderator. Why can’t you speak with me, and you’re welcome to speak with any of the others on your own time? I told your producer that I don’t want a debate, but rather a discussion and conversation, one that is elastic and doesn’t necessitate a “winner” and “loser,” but creates an opportunity for mutual learning and exploration. It seems that this has never been your interest, and your whole shtick is trying to ambush, dogpile, and play your clever, manipulative gymnastics to make a point, not make a difference. The points of view that most of your supremely “representative” Palestinians guys want to yell and scream at me are staples in the "pro-Palestine" industrial complex, so ubiquitously stated and repeated as part of a stale and useless diet for all to feast on. Though I speak for myself, my perspectives are rarely heard even though they are so prevalent among so many Gazans, the majority of whom are singularly focused on Hamas and blame it for their misery, both contemporarily and historically. Therefore, I'm not interested in talking to your pals - what I would be interested in is having a 1-on-1 conversation with you about the New York Times article and other topics that we can raise relevant to Gaza’s conditions and pathway forward. Please stop this elitist and horrifically pompous attitude that you, Peter Beinart, and countless others display as if you are the “truth tellers” when it comes to Israel and Palestine or as if you can proclaim who is a real or authentic Palestinian. Palestinians and their views/opinions are so deeply divided between Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, inside Israel, Arab & Muslim countries, and the Western world. The few Palestinians that you and Beinart love to salivate over are ultimately an irrelevant drop in the ocean. If you want to kill a civilization, Mehdi, keep suppressing opposition and dissent like you’re doing – seemingly to gather likes and shares on social media. I hope you’ll change course.

Imagine [hopefully] reading a piece that calls for Gaza to become the pride and joy of the Palestinian people and a hub of compelling Palestinian national identity by rejuvenating the territory, embracing peace, and rejecting a terror organization that admitted to refusing Gaza development offers worth billions, including an airport and seaport, only to proclaim that the op-ed is "pro-genocide." And how was this brilliant conclusion reached? Because the article I published in The New York Times didn't do the ubiquitous "everything has to be Israel's fault" that seems to be the only line of thinking within the supposed "pro-Palestine" camp. Speak to Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t Hamas or making content for the “pro-Palestine” community abroad, and you hear the same thing again and again. They describe, plainly and without theatrics, how Hamas halted Gaza’s development and crippled the broader Palestinian national project since its founding in 1987. They do not need to mention Israel in every sentence to sound authentic to outsiders, including other Palestinians or non-Palestinians alike. They simply recount their lived reality. For Gazans, Hamas is the central problem. There were no Israeli soldiers inside Gaza before October 7. The blockade that everyone loves to speak about was imposed after Hamas’s cross‑border abduction of an Israeli soldier in June 2006 and tightened after the group’s violent takeover of the territory on June 14, 2007. From that point forward, Hamas massively built tunnels, fired rockets, smuggled weapons, waged repeated rounds of conflict, and declared its intent to “destroy” Israel, while turning Gaza into a fortress of armed “resistance” that got Gaza destroyed, tens of thousands killed, millions displaced, and wasted billions of dollars. Hamas imposed punishing taxes on Gazans to fund its terror; stole diesel from Gaza’s only power plant and caused chronic power outages; suppressed women’s freedoms; blocked travel for anyone it disliked; and routinely killed, tortured, jailed, beat, and humiliated countless Gazans. Research the political and cultural divides between Gaza and the West Bank, and you quickly see how many Gazans resent West Bankers for cheering Hamas and October 7. These dynamics are complex, real, and central to understanding Palestinian politics, yet they are brushed aside or overlooked to satisfy low‑information audiences who consume the toxic narratives produced by the "pro-Palestine" industrial complex. Some people are simply uninformed. Some are unsophisticated. And then there are those who know exactly what they are doing and deliberately twist, manipulate, and distort reality to manufacture ignorance and maintain obedience and Orwellian-grade compliance among the crowds.