“It’s my moral and religious duty as a Muslim – to testify about what happened here.”

“I would not have been able to live with myself if I had stayed in the United States and not come to Israel after I learned about the events of October 7. It was important to me that at least one Muslim woman, who has been fighting radical Islam for about two decades, would come to see what happened here and testify to the same crimes against humanity. This is my moral and religious duty as a Muslim.”

These words were said this week at the Technion by Dr. Qanta Ahmed – a Muslim doctor of Pakistani origin, and an honorary fellow of the Technion from 2015. Dr. Ahmed, who currently lives in the United States and defines herself as an “anti-Islamist Muslim”, said in her lecture at the Technion that “I am not fighting Muslims, but rather, murderous Islamism. Being a Muslim means, among other things, exposing injustices even when they occur in your family, your tribe or your community. In our sources, it is written that if you witness an injustice you must try to stop it with your own hands; If you cannot use your hands, you must use your voice; And if you can’t use your voice – you must mark it in your heart as an injustice you witnessed.”

Dr. Ahmed visited the Technion for the first time in 2013, after contacting the Technion’s president at the time, Prof. Peretz Lavie. Already in 2014, Dr. Ahmed pointed out the falsity of talk, in the academic world, about Israel’s “arbitrary violence,” which is motivated by “false and evil propaganda” and manifests itself in a “brutal attack that is not limited in time.” Even then, she described the reluctance of the Hamas organization, its stated desire to eliminate the State of Israel, and the incitement it conducts against the residents of Israel and the Jews in general.

In 2015, she received an Honorary Fellowship from the Technion “in recognition of her courageous and tireless fight for human rights in the Muslim world and for her active and persistent opposition to radical Islam and anti-Semitism; and in thanks for her friendship with the State of Israel and the Technion.”

In her lecture this week at the Technion, she talked about the visit she made about ten days ago to Kibbutz Beeri and the body identification centers in Shura Camp and Abu Kabir. She presented her understanding of the events of October 7 in the broad context of radical Islam, global anti-Semitism and Israel’s relations with its neighbors.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan thanked her for the lecture and said: “It is very exciting to host you here, especially in these days, which are among the most difficult moments in our history as a nation. The actions of the Palestinian terrorist organizations exclude them from the human community, and the same is true for their supporters and anyone who does not distinguish between the atrocities that occurred on October 7 and the ongoing conflict between Israel and its enemies. It was not ‘another event in the history of the conflict’ but something completely different, and I hope that everyone who belongs to the human race will forever remember this event.”

“We are all looking for words for what happened here,” Dr. Ahmed said in her lecture. “We are all thirsty for language. Many use terms such as ‘massacre’, ‘Holocaust’, ‘second Holocaust’ and ‘Israel’s 9/11’. These associations are clear, but not precise: something more horrific happened here than 9/11, not only in terms of the number of victims in relation to the size of the population, but also in terms of the intimacy of the killing. The association with the Holocaust is also clear, because once again, the goal is the extermination of Jews, and yet, it is very important to use the exact terms – ‘genocide’ and ‘crime against humanity’ – without considering the reactions in global public opinion.

“These terms are important because here was a planned, calculated and deadly event designed to destroy people because of their identity – their Jewish identity. It is important to note that Bedouins also lost their loved ones in the attack, and I met some of them during a visit to the south, but the goal was to kill Jews.

“I was in Rwanda. I was in Pakistan. I was in post-ISIS Iraq, where genocide was committed in the Yazidi community – a genocide that has not ended to this day. The world was horrified by the genocide in Iraq and came out against it, but many of those who condemned Daesh now actually support Hamas, sometimes under the guise of a pro-Palestinian protest. That is why it is important to clarify that there was genocide here in all its characteristics – an attack that was carefully planned and, moreover, carefully documented, in order to break the spirit of the Israeli public with horrific videos of children and babies. Pregnant women were murdered here and their fetuses were also murdered.”

Dr. Ahmed said that after the visit to Kibbutz Beeri, she went to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir and the Shura camp, which was adapted to receive the bodies and their remains and to identify them due to the burden on the institute in Abu Kabir. “In the Shura camp, I entered the containers, each of which contained 48 bodies or the remains of bodies. There were 25 such containers.”

“The investigators, police officers and doctors who work in the Shura camp spoke of the Israeli public as an ‘ orphan nation ‘. One of the policemen told me that since he has been serving there, he cannot hold his son in his arms. Another said that when he opens the refrigerator at home, he smells death. When he closes the refrigerator – the smell disappears.”

Along with exposing the barbaric murders, said Dr. Ahmed, “it is important that we also show the world that denial as a barbaric act . I learned a lot about Holocaust denial, and now I understand how much denial hurts the families of the victims. Therefore, our basic duty as human beings is to be witnesses and tell the truth. The events of October 7 were documented by the killers in countless videos, but it turns out that the clearer the evidence, the more vicious the denial. We have to recognize that ignorance often moves farther and faster than facts. There are factors that cultivate deliberate ignorance, and consumers today can choose the news and fake news that suit them.

“The American universities have been used for many years as an incubator for anti-Semitism. There is a collision between the murderous Islamism, the ultra-progressive leftist, anti-Semitism and what I call “the neo-orthodox woke”. This view holds that every person is either an oppressor or a victim, and precisely the Jews, the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust, are today seen as Nazis. This is the background to why many elements in the universities are now siding with Hamas. This position is consistent with the perception of Israel as a colonialist power and ignores the fact that the Palestinians are indeed occupied – not by Israel, but by murderous Islamism. However, there is an opportunity here: anti-Semitism is now being exposed in its nakedness, which may allow us to fight it.”

For the full lecture: