One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad tweeted: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” The tweet went viral, viewed by over 10 million people.

An immigrant who came to the West believing in freedom and justice, El Akkad has spent the past two decades reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter, and the unrelenting slaughter in Gaza. His conclusion is stark: much of what the West promises is a lie. Certain groups—Arabs, Muslims, immigrants, and anyone outside the bounds of privilege—have never been intended to be treated as fully human.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, a raw, vulnerable reckoning—a moral and emotional meditation on what it means, as a citizen, as a parent, to seek hope and justice in a world scarred by violence. It is a heartbreaking, brilliant, and urgent book for our time.