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Gaza-raised Palestinian-American writer Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib became the target of a wave of online attacks and false allegations after publishing a September 4 New York Times op-ed calling on Palestinians and their Western supporters to resist Hamas and reject armed “resistance” as a path forward for Gaza.
The attacks followed Alkhatib’s public rejection of Hamas and his call for Palestinians to pursue a future based on self-government, economic development and coexistence with Israel.
Alkhatib is founder and director of Realign for Palestine and a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Backlash Over Breaking With Hamas
The response to Alkhatib’s op-ed quickly moved beyond arguments over Hamas and Gaza’s future into attacks on his motives, affiliations and personal character.
Some critics sought to portray Alkhatib as compromised, bought or secretly controlled by Israel rather than engaging with his call for Palestinians to reject Hamas.
The large pseudonymous X account @zei_squirrel made false allegations that Alkhatib was secretly gay, had been recorded sexually abusing boys and was being blackmailed by Mossad into serving as an Israeli “propaganda puppet.”
Historian and pro-Palestinian activist Zachary Foster launched a personal attack on Alkhatib while also disputing several of the essay’s claims. Foster called him the “darling of the American Jewish-Zionist establishment,” accused the piece of being “littered with lies” and concluded by describing Zionism as a form of “brain cancer.”
Mehdi Hasan told his more than two million X followers that some of the platform’s “worst,” “most dishonest” and “most fanatical pro-genocide” users were sharing Alkhatib’s article.
Alkhatib said the reaction had developed into a broader smear campaign, with fabricated posts and AI-generated material portraying him variously as Jewish, connected to Jeffrey Epstein, blackmailed by Mossad, secretly gay and paid by Israel.
Much of the material sought to explain away his opposition to Hamas by portraying him as secretly working for Israel or compromised in some other way.
“It is time to delegitimize, call out, resist, and dismantle the current “pro-Palestine” movement and build an entirely new apparatus that rejects the hateful, bigoted, racist, homophobic, Jihadi, violent, and antisemitic voices that have become mainstream within this failed environment.”
— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on X
How Dissent Gets Pushed Out of the Debate
Those attacks move the debate away from what Alkhatib actually said and toward whether he can be dismissed as illegitimate for saying it. Arabic political discourse has a term for this practice: takhwin, the transformation of political disagreement into accusations of betrayal or treason.
Human Rights Watch has documented Hamas authorities arbitrarily arresting and abusing peaceful critics, including journalists, activists and people targeted for critical social-media posts. That environment, combined with ostracism and reputational attacks online, can discourage Palestinians from publicly rejecting Hamas or armed “resistance.”
Alkhatib’s case leaves an uncomfortable question about the priorities of parts of the movement that claim to advocate for Palestinians: whether their primary concern is improving the lives and future of Gazans, or defending Hamas and the political framework built around “resistance” when Palestinians themselves challenge it.