Dr. Qanta A. Ahmed
Dr. Qanta A. Ahemd is a British-born Pakistani Muslim who today lives in New York. She is a staunch defender of Israel, who has been accused by her critics of being a “Zionist in a Muslim guise”. She is firmly opposed to the boycott against Israel, saying that the movement attempts to vilify Israel in almost every argument. While opposing the continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Ahmed admits that she doesn’t know how Israel can currently relinquish control over a region hosting “a virulent Jihadist ideology” and leaders calling for her own destruction.
- She believes Israel is required as a place of refuge for Jews fleeing antisemitism
- She believes Muslims have an disproportionate interest in the Israel/Palestine conflict above all conflicts
- She believes that Hamas are a fascist regime with no regard for life
- She affords huge respect to Jews and Judaism
- She will side with Israel and Islam, over Hamas and injustice
On Israel being a refuge from antisemitism
Call me an Accidental Zionist, if you must, but Eretz Yisrael is a vital shelter, an only shelter, from lethal, genocidal anti-Semitism.
If we care for wider humanity at all, we must all be ‘accidental’ Zionists and want for the Jews, for the Israelis, what each Muslim already has for themselves: a future, a nation and a faith, secured.
On the hypocrisy of the Muslim interest in condemning Israel
Israel’s eight-day operation “Pillar of Defense” sought to dismantle the Hamas apparatus from within Gaza. The predictably seamless alignment of the Muslim world against Israel was even more breathtaking than usual in the face of Syria’s 22 months of systematic genocide, one which has consistently failed to trigger unanimous Muslim protest. What does this say about us as Muslims?
We are hypocrites.
On Hamas
To Hamas, a Palestinian life is worth more when “martyred,” a dead child more of a blessing than one living. “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds [martyrs] of tomorrow,” reads a sign displayed at a Hamas-run kindergarten. The martyrdom mantra is their anthem.
Coloring their [Hamas] fascism with Islam, Hamas claims religious legitimacy to openly seek destruction of the Jewish state and eradication of the Jewish people. By grafting themselves onto Into Islamic ideals – the vertebral column of that which is most sacred to Muslims – they render Islam itself heinous, representing their true ruthlessness: theirs is a willingness to sacrifice anything –including Islam – to portray Israel as evil.
This ethos was captured in a single unprecedented obscenity: Hamas’ morbid motorcade. Cocksure thugs, defiantly cruising on motorcycles trailed exposed cadavers of Palestinians – Muslim men – trousers pooled at dead ankles. To chants of ‘Allah-hu-Akbar’ as dozens of Palestinian onlookers silently watched, Hamas took its ghoulish victory lap explicitly to show Gazans how they execute ‘suspected informers to Israel’. This is the Islam of Hamas.
This is why Hamas does not represent me, or other believing Muslims. This is why Israel’s battle is mine. This is why Israel’s struggle – Israel’s jihad – is mine. These are the ‘Muslims’ that Israelis must confront and these are the “Muslims” who intimidate innocent Palestinians into subjugation to their monstrous political Islamism.
On siding with justice
During Operation Pillar of Defense, Jewish friends said “this must be such a difficult time for you, but I am glad of our friendship” implying that because I am Muslim, my loyalty must surely be to Gaza, my enmity automatically aligned with Israel.
Not so. As a Muslim, I am clear: my loyalty is with Islam, and therefore explicitly with justice, justice for all humanity, a humanity that must include Jews. Hamas is obscenely unjust, so how can my loyalty be with them? To be loyal to Hamas is no less than to abandon Islam. To be loyal to Hamas is the ultimate blasphemy.
On respecting Judaism
Followers of Judaism embody the oldest form of monotheist, Abrahamic faith. Jewish scriptures, commandments, traditions and rituals are inextricably woven into the fabric of faiths which would follow in Judaism’s wake. Muslims, particularly so, are immersed in this fused engraftment. When I bend at the hip during supplication and pause in ruku, I move according to a legacy of Judaic prayer. When Muslim women enforce their Islamic rights to an independent inheritance, they do so just as the Daughters of Zelophelad once claimed of behalf of their brethren. While we would be guaranteed our inheritance through Mohammed, these six Jewish sisters were guaranteed theirs through Moses, millennia earlier.