Woke activist author Ta-Nehisi Coates suggested Wednesday that he would not have been above participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel had he been born and raised in Gaza.
Speaking on Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast, Coates said he didn’t know if he was “strong enough or even constructed in such a way” to say that the attacks of October 7 were “too far.”
“I haven’t said this out loud, but I think about it a lot,” Coates said.” Were I 20 years old, born into Gaza, which is a giant open-air jail…if my mother picks the olive trees and she gets too close to the wall, she might be shot…and I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far? I don’t know that I am,” Coates said.
Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests he’s not above taking part in an October 7-style attack:
“And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far, I don’t know that I am.” pic.twitter.com/KTXALjCyM2— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 10, 2024
None of what Coates describes about life in Gaza is accurate. Thirty-six hospitals were operating in Gaza prior to the October 7 attacks on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 and wounded more than 5,000 more. Palestinians didn’t need a permit to go to these hospitals, as they were controlled by authorities in Gaza, most of whom were members of Hamas, the terrorist group that has held power in Gaza since 2006. In addition, the international community — including doctors in Israel – sent billions of dollars to these hospitals.
There’s also no evidence that a fisherman or an olive picker would be shot simply for getting too close to the border, and Coates’ claim that Gaza is essentially an “open-air jail” is false on its face. Were Gaza truly a prison, it would be impossible for Hamas to build underground tunnels and place rocket launchers throughout the area, as the have done for years.
Coates also said during the podcast that wanting to attack alleged oppressors was “not unique to Palestine” and compared it to slavery in the United States.
“The example I think about all the time is like Nat Turner, right? Like Nat Turner launches his rebellion in 1830. This man slaughters babies in their cribs. You know what I mean? Like, and I’ve done this thought experience experiment for myself over and over. Does the degradation and dehumanization of slavery make it so that you can look past something like that?” Coates asked, according to Fox News.
Coates has been at the center of a scandal at CBS News, after employees objected to anchor Tony Dokoupil’s questioning of Coates about his stance on Israel. At one point, Dokoupil told Coates: “I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”
Now, amid the network’s denigration of Dokoupil, Coates has admitted he may have gone along with the extremists who slaughtered Israelis on October 7, 2023.
