Page 25 - Issue 70
P. 25
Vol 1 - issue 70 ELITE
Dalia Ziada built her reputation in Ziada's public statements have
Egypt as a human rights advocate, triggered outrage in Egypt,
looking for a permanent peace in the culminating in legal complaints
Middle East. accusing her of endangering national
security and calling for the revocation
of her citizenship. To her supporters,
she is a visionary seeking coexistence.
To her critics, she is a symptom of a
new colonial order: one where the
price of Western approval is the
abandonment of your own people’s
dignity. Now living in exile, Ziada
However, in recent years, Ziada's continues to share her vision of a
voice has become unmistakably world where Saudis, Turks, Iranians,
aligned with Israeli narratives, and Israelis enjoy cafes together under
calling October 7 a “massacre” and a clean sky. Yet, what’s missing from
describing Israel’s relentless assault her vision are the ruins of Gaza, the
on Gaza as “self-defense.” But such children left without parents, and the
framing erases history. No Arab, places where schools used to be.
even those critical of Hamas, can
speak of that day without recalling
decades of siege, occupation, and
dispossession. To justify Israel’s
actions while over 50,000
Palestinians lie dead, many of them
women and children, is a blatant
betrayal. Ziada dismisses Arab
media as “biased” and reduces the
killing of civilians to unfortunate but
necessary “collateral damage,” all
while portraying Israel as a
democracy under threat. But what Thousands of miles away, another
kind of democracy imposes an Arab woman was making a different
apartheid system, blockades an kind of choice.
entire population for nearly two Ibtehal Abou El Saad grew up in the
decades, and has been condemned by Maghreb. She has accomplished a lot,
major international bodies for war including graduating from Harvard
crimes? with a focus on artificial intelligence,
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