Piers Morgan just can't stop himself inciting against the Palestinian people

Through his dehumanisation of Palestinians, his racist incitements and mindless conflation of “Israelis” and “Jews”, Morgan continues to add fuel to the fire of genocide

I already had a very low opinion of Piers Morgan. But I was stunned by his display of racist ignorance last night while interviewing the Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq, who showed great fortitude and dignity throughout.

Outrageously Morgan berates Alnaouq, whose entire family in Gaza was wiped out by Israel early on in its genocide, for insisting that there is a distinction – recognised by Palestinians, if not Israel – between Israelis and Jews.

Alnaouq points out that Palestinians have a problem, not with Jews, but with Israelis for violently occupying and colonising their land for many decades, and for putting Palestinians in Gaza under a brutal 17-year siege that has now been transformed into campaign of starvation.

The exchange has to be heard to be believed, starting at 59 minutes and 50 seconds.

"How can you say you have no problem with the Jews, but you have a problem with the Israelis, given that most Israelis are Jewish?" Morgan asks incredulously.

Alnaouq: "I am simply astonished that you can't make the difference between the Jews and the Israelis, Piers."

Morgan: "I am astonished you would try to draw a distinction."

Morgan then insists that Hamas is a "death cult" determined to kill all Israelis because they are Jews.

Alnaouq: "It's dangerous when you make this [out to be] a religious war."

Morgan: "It's dangerous when you try to pretend that they’re not after killing Jews...

"You don't think Hamas target Jews because they are Jews."

Alnaouq: "Of course, not."

Morgan: "It's nonsense."

Alnaouq: "I am surprised that you are saying this, Piers. Genuinely I am surprised."

Morgan (again incredulous): "You're surprised that I think Hamas target Jewish people."

Alnaouq: "Of course."

Morgan: "I find that staggering, Ahmed. It's obviously a ridiculous thing to say."

Alnaouq: "Why?"

Morgan: "Because obviously they target and murder as many Jewish people as they can get their hands on. And you say it's because they are Israelis, not Jewish."

Alnaouq: "Because they are occupiers, because they occupied our country."

Morgan: "And because they are Jewish."

Alnaouq: "No. Because they occupied our country, and colonised our country. Because they came to our country and kicked us out in 1948 and they killed thousands of Palestinians, including my grandparents."

Morgan: "But you know why Israel was set up after World War Two. Because Jewish people were the victims of an appalling Holocaust by Hitler and the Nazis where 6 million of them were exterminated purely for their ethnicity and for being Jewish. So the Jewish people were given the state of Israel."

Alnaouq: "My country."

Morgan: "I understand that argument, but it wasn't 'Israelis' given that land. It was the Jewish people."

Alnaouq: "Who are you to give the Jewish people my country?"

You can learn much from this exchange about why the western political and media class have been so comfortable watching Israel commit a genocide against the Palestinians.

Journalists like Morgan are so immersed in their own confected narrative bubble, they have so bought into the dehumanisation of Palestinians, that Israel’s brutal, illegal occupation, colonisation and apartheid system is invisible to them – and therefore any resistance from Palestinians to their oppression by Israel can only be understood as an attack on Jews, as evidence of antisemitism.

Illustrating the trap faced by Palestinians, Alnaouq’s very attempts to make a clear distinction between “Israelis” and “Jews” is turned against him – becoming evidence for Morgan of his antisemitism.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

Morgan introduced Alnaouq by pointing out that the Palestinian journalist had written on X / Twitter last year, after his family in Gaza were killed: “I blame you, Piers Morgan, for their murder and the murder of all innocent people in Gaza.”

Morgan’s subsequent exchange with Alnaouq proved precisely his point. Through dehumanisation of Palestinians, through racist incitement, through mindless, antisemitic conflations of “Israeli” and “Jewish”, Morgan continues to add fuel to the fire, he continues to give succour to the genocide apologists 20 months into that genocide.

His sudden, extremely belated reversal over the past two weeks about whether Israel has “overstepped the rules of war” – conveniently coinciding with a similar reassessment in European capitals – should be welcomed. It may finally help to turn the tide on Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. But let us not forget that, had Morgan and others decided to turn that tide sooner, many thousands of Palestinian children might still be alive.

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