***I apologize for the length, but this book deeply concerns me.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, author and narrator
The author was born in Egypt. His father became disillusioned with their way of life as it became increasingly dangerous even for Egyptians, so after several unsuccessful attempts to relocate, when he was offered a job in Qatar, they resettled there. Omar lived there until the age of 16. Then the family moved to Canada. His political views were formed in a place that supports Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood, which should tell you all you need to know and understand about the premise and purpose of this book. The book has been described as creative non-fiction. It is a story based on the sole opinions of the author without accurate or verifiable sources. There are no footnotes. That makes it more like science fiction.
Why would an esteemed committee choose a book that satisfied their personal political views instead of valid literary standards? I listened to the book from beginning to end, hoping for it to have some redeeming feature, but I could not find one. Sadly, it is going to be read by far too many because of the award and accolades it has received. It will misinform those with predisposed viewpoints, those who are eager to read the inaccurate portrayals put forth by this author without proof. It will enrage those who disagree with and can provide the facts to disprove his assertions. For instance, are Gaza and other areas where the Arabs live walled off or guarded for no other reason but to harass the people? I think not. They constantly attack and terrorize Israelis, although this author seems to ignore that truth. The untruths that this book may promulgate because of this National Book Award are incalculable. It has been called “creative non-fiction” which is closer to science fiction than anything else. We know that fake newsreels depicting death, destruction and injuries have been produced by supporters of Hamas, lies about the number of casualties have been spread, and the sources that cite these fake pieces of information are compromised because they actively support the end of Israel, from “the river to the sea”! Omar trashes FOX News as purveyors of lies, but makes no mention of the misinformation and hoaxes promoted by Al Jazeera, MSNBC and CNN, or other networks that support his ideas.
Omar expects Israel to follow the rules of war, but does not expect the Gazans, Arabs, Hamas, or enemies of the West, etc., to obey them. For instance, he does not condemn the placement of the air-conditioned tunnels under hospitals and schools, even with entrances to them placed in homes under the beds of children. He did not mention that they were military installations used to stage invasions of Israel. These tunnels had sleeping quarters, plumbing and could accommodate trucks and store the food and supplies stolen from the people. Weapons were stored there, as were the hostages. Hamas tortured and sexually abused the hostages, used them as human shields, yet he did not accuse them of war crimes or barbarism. Israel alone was condemned for being forced to attack those locations.
Omar never mentioned that the Red Cross was not allowed to visit the hostages nor that the sound of silence from Gazans trying to help the hostages escape was deafening. Not one ever risked their life to save a hostage, rather if one escaped, they recaptured them and were only too happy to spit on and beat them, as dead or alive they were paraded into Gaza on that fateful October 7th, 2021 day of infamy. How can this author or the committee voting his book as the winner of a non-fiction prize want me to believe that Israel and the West are the victimizers and the invaders who committed the atrocities are the victims?
The author glossed over 10/7, as if it was not worthy of too much attention. It is indicative of his bias which negates this as non-fiction completely. If you disagree with his ideas, he labels you a fascist, nihilist, racist, etc. If I were to write a similar book, using the same “creative non-fiction”, I could also negate anyone who disagreed with me and/or Israel, by shaming them with name-calling to silence their rebuttals. My book would also be science fiction, unless I cited sources with footnotes and proof, not innuendo and opinion, because that by its very nature is fiction. Yet I could just as easily smear the author and anyone like him and call it the truth. Would this biased committee allow me to condemn the Arabs the way El Akkad has condemned Israel and the West. I think not. This award sanctions a hateful view of Jews, Israel, White people, the West, Republicans, America, and though rarely, even at times, Democrats. Omar mentions other conflicts that he believes we and/or the Western world have botched. He believes we have abused those we deem less worthy. He does not explain why the conflicts began. The fault always lies with us. By and large, our enemies are innocent.
While Omar mourns the dead Gazans, concentrating on the victims who were children, though there is no proof that the events he cites are presented accurately, he pays no mind to the babies the Gazans gleefully cooked in the oven while their parents watched and then brutally slaughtered them as well. He does not mention the breasts torn from the bodies of women and used as footballs while they writhed in pain or those raped by multiple men while tied to trees. He does not mention the sodomizing of the men or the cold-blooded murder of the young concert attendees who were trying to escape their barbarism. He does not mention those murdered in their beds, dragged from their safe rooms, or even the pets that were murdered as well. He does not mention their war crimes, their taking of hostages, nor does he mention the Gazans who phoned home gleefully to report the number of murders they had committed. I don’t recall any Israeli phoning home during the war to proudly admit how many Gazans they had killed on any particular day.
He complains that growing up he was teased as a brown person. Well as a Jew, I and my family have experienced the name-calling and hate that comes from people like him, people whose behavior he condones and actively is promoting. Further, I would like to know what he means by “inspired swastikas”, since when they were drawn on my property, I did not consider them inspired, nor did I appreciate when the haters he seems to support called my children “dirty Jews”. In spite of all that, I did not call for a boycott of all Arab businesses, nor did I encourage anyone to parachute into communities to murder citizens in their homes. Yet this book, masquerading as non-fiction, supports the protesters demanding the annihilation of Jews from “the river to the sea” and expects sympathy to be aroused and support to rise for those who supported the massacre of Jews on Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday, when they knew they would be caught off guard. They murdered those very Jews that they knew, the very Jews who had tried to live and work with them in peace..
As Omar criticizes the United States, a country that treats all people in its hospitals, as his child was treated when seriously ill, did he wonder why Dora Bloch, a Jewish hostage who was on a plane that was hijacked by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in 1976, was taken to a Ugandan hospital and was murdered there, or why a Jewish man named Klinghoffer, helpless in a wheelchair, was shot and thrown overboard to drown in front of his family when the Achille Lauro cruise ship he was on was hijacked by the Palestinian Liberation Front in 1985? This hatred of Jews by the Palestinians is not new or benign.
This book promotes false ideologies and maligns innocent people. Omar doesn’t demand that Russia fund Ukraine or feed the people they unjustly attacked, yet he seems to believe that the Gazans, who actually were the unjust attackers, should be taken care of by its victims, the very people they tried to slaughter, the Israelis.
Omar is fluent in the English language, and he uses its expressive vocabulary to incite discontent, disappointment, fear of a future so bleak if the right is in control that it is hardly worth facing. He disrespects President Trump, calling him names, accusing him of reprehensible behavior like bankrolling the Israeli war, which is untrue. He accuses Trump of stealing children at the border as they are separated from their parents, but makes no mention of Obama/Biden who started the policy and opened the borders. He condemns the West. He makes false equivalents, assumes what others are thinking, decides what is right or wrong and accuses those who disagree with him of egregious behavior, negating their right to an opinion or their own truths as he smears them with pejoratives. He rejects any idea that doesn’t agree with his own, which makes him equal to or worse than those he considers his enemies.
Israel is fighting a war, not committing genocide. There is no apartheid in Israel either, but I daresay if you are Jewish, you had better not step into Bethlehem or Ramallah. Areas controlled by the Arabs are unsafe for Jews. That is apartheid in living color. Arabs live comfortably in Israel, even elected to their Knesset holding leadership roles. Omar delegitimizes my fear as a Jew, and insists that only his is real.
When Omar met with his publishers, he wondered whether his book would cause them problems because he knew full well what his true intent was. He intended to foment activists to rise up against the ways of the West, the Jews and Israel. He approves of BDS to try and destroy Israel’s economy, of the university protests, even though they often blocked Jewish students from attending class. He believes you must speak out anywhere and you must fight back in any way you can, but only on behalf of his own ideas which are so biased as to be hateful and dangerous.
Not once does he address the fact that Arabs were offered statehood and never accepted it. He simply blames Israel and the West for their situation. He has turned common sense on its ear. If he relies on unreliable, biased information, his conclusions are unreliable and cannot be labeled non-fiction. He is merely telling a story that can mislead and misinform. It is not a memoir so he cannot merely recite his views and call them facts. His anecdotal references have not been supported. He relates his stories in a way that props up his biased opinion, but is not necessarily based on truth. Since the book received the non-fiction award, it will be accepted as fact, unjustly, and that will unfairly and dishonestly influence many readers. Arabs are only kept out of Israel because they really are potential threats. They have entered with suicide vests, bombed buses, attacked innocent people at dinner, and of course, they staged 10/7/21. That is why there is a long wait at the border. Omar pretends that they are not an active or real threat. He is not telling the truth.
A committee that gives a non-fiction award to a book that pretty much calls for or insinuates that the entire right-wing, all the Republicans, and President Trump are morally diseased, guilty of blood lust, racist, nihilist, fascist, etc. is not a valid committee making a rational choice. Rather it is a committee blinded by personal animus and political views that are not aligned with those who disagree with this author. They have possibly destroyed the legitimacy of the award. Let me remind them and the author that those who think that brown people are resented and abused in America and are thought of as less than, that Obama was elected President and he is brown, So is Kamala Harris, the recent Vice President. The people Omar has maligned, the Jews, have never been elected to the White House or adjacent to it.
This author narrates the book with a melodramatic, somber and expressive voice, but regardless of his use of vocabulary and flowery metaphors, there is no way to make this sow’s ear a silk purse. Omar mostly advances his own ideas of what Brown people and Muslims are entitled to and what White people are guilty of, making it a sham as non-fiction. The book encourages anger, hate, resistance, antisemitism, anti-Americanism and anti-Western civilization by any means possible. This is not a book I would grant an award to or want to be in the general population because it is meant to incite, not unite.