Salman Rushdie has said that the formation of a Palestinian state âright nowâ would mean a âTaliban-like stateâ is created.
Commenting on the US campus protesters calling for a free Palestine, the author said that while he has âargued for a Palestinian state for most of my life â since the 1980s, probably â right now, if there was a Palestinian state, it would be run by Hamas, and that would make it a Taliban-like state, and it would be a client state of Iranâ.
âIs that what the progressive movements of the western left wish to create? To have another Taliban, another Ayatollah-like state, in the Middle East, right next to Israel?â said the Indian-born British-American author on a podcast run by German broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg which was released on Thursday.
âThe fact is that I think any human being right now has to be distressed by what is happening in Gaza because of the quantity of innocent death. I would just like some of the protests to mention Hamas. Because thatâs where this started, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Itâs very strange for young, progressive student politics to kind of support a fascist terrorist group.â
Rushdie said that there has been âstudent upheavalâ at New York University, where he a faculty member. He said that he has mixed opinions on the protests â while students have the right to demonstrate, he said, it is also necessary to ensure that other students donât feel unsafe as a result. He added that while unleashing armed police on students is not a good idea, neither is occupying and damaging buildings.
âI feel that thereâs not a lot of deep thought happening. Thereâs an emotional reaction to the death in Gaza, and thatâs absolutely right. But when it slides over towards antisemitism and sometimes to actual support of Hamas, then itâs very problematicâ.
Rushdie appeared on the Orte und Worte (âPlaces and Wordsâ) podcast to discuss his latest memoir, Knife, in which he recounts his recovery after being attacked on stage in New York state in August 2022, 33 years after Iranâs then leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdieâs death in the aftermath of the publication of The Satanic Verses, which was deemed blasphemous.
A video clip of Rushdieâs comments was shared by the official X account for Israel and Israeli diplomat David Saranga.