'I deny the killings, I deny the rape,' Palestinian ex-prisoner tells Zach Sage Fox

"In Islam, they can't kill babies, they can't kill women, they don't kill innocent Israelis," Daoud claimed. "Hamas is an Islamic movement, Hamas not like Daesh, like Isis."

By MATHILDA HELLER JANUARY 22, 2025 14:17 Updated: JANUARY 22, 2025 14:19

Zach Sage Fox in Ramallah (photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X)

Seated at a table with Palestinian ex-prisoner Arafat Mudar Mohammad Daoud, American comedian and entrepreneur Zach Sage Fox asked, "Do you like Hamas?"

"Of course, they are heroes. Freedom fighters," Daoud replied.

The interview was published this week as part of Fox's Wild West Bank Series, filmed during his trip to Ramallah over the summer. Fox spoke with The Jerusalem Post in July about his trip to the West Bank city, to which entry is forbidden for Israeli citizens.

“It was shocking,” he told the Post, “There was not one person who didn’t like Hamas - not even - I didn’t meet one person who didn’t love Hamas I think.”

“It was unequivocal. All of them hated Jews with every bone of their body.”

Fox was accompanied by a translator, producer, and cameraman. He did not reveal his Jewish identity.

I interviewed a freed TERRORIST, 4X arrested & released Palestinian prisoner in the West Bank, undercover to hide my Jewish identity. With a hostage deal here that will release 1000+ more like him, we thought it was important for the world to see this rare conversation NOW.… pic.twitter.com/eyMKPm0n2o

— Zach Sage Fox (@zachsagefox) January 15, 2025

Denialism 

In the current interview, the final chapter of the series, Fox interviews Daoud, who has been arrested, imprisoned, and released four times by Israel for 'security threats.'

The conversation covered important topics under the bracket of achieving peace, including the presence of Jews in the land of Israel, the real goals of Hamas, and the denialism of terror.

Fox mentioned that Hamas “killed innocent Israelis,” to which the man shakes his head and says no.

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"I deny the killings, I deny the rape, we have a right to resistance," said Daoud.

“Give me a picture for rape,” Daoud responded, to which Fox showed the video footage of hostage Naama Levy being led away, blood on the crotch area of her clothes. Fox told the Post that the man said nothing further on the subject.

In the US, when people saw the photos of the hostages smiling when being released, they thought it was because of the “psychological torture these people were under,” Fox told the Post. "But this man, he actually believed [they were smiling]; he was using that as evidence.”

Daoud told Fox that when Israeli prisoners were released from Gaza, “they were smiling, they were healthy."

Fox asked if they were genuinely smiling or if they were scared for their life. “Who put this in your brain?” Daoud responded.

“It’s not like these were stupid people,” Fox told the Post. “It’s just how indoctrinated they are. This man had a master’s degree.”

Fox asked Daoud outright, "Don't you consider Hamas a terrorist group?"

"No, of course not," Daoud responded, adding that Hamas was democratically elected.

October 7

"Hamas [did what they did on] October 7 because they have 70 years of injustice," he continued.

Fox queried how the response to injustice could involve killing babies and women.

"In Islam, they can't kill babies, they can't kill women, they don't kill innocent Israelis," Daoud claimed. "Hamas is an Islamic movement. Hamas is not like Daesh, like Isis."

Fox interjected that Hamas, in many ways, seems worse than ISIS, which Daoud replied was because the Israeli media and the American media make them like ISIS.

"October 7 made people stop and think," Daoud continued. "Before October 7, in the media, "Israel is the victim and Palestinians are terrorists."

October 7 flipped the narrative, Daoud explained.

"I think you are in denial about Hamas," Fox told him. "And we are probably a lot further along from peace because of what Hamas did on October 7. If we deny what Hamas did on October 7, it feels like we are just going to cause more friction, more denialism."

Daoud said that the Israeli hostages were prisoners in jails in Gaza and that focusing on this distracted from the oppression of Palestinians.

"If you want to speak injustice," he added, "you need to speak about the bigger problem. The Palestinians were here for many thousands of years."

Fox asked Daoud if he agreed that "the Jews were the first people in this land 3,000 years ago?" He responded that he didn't know.

Two state solution 

Fox dedicated time to addressing future options for peace between Israel and Palestine, suggesting that a two-state solution may be the only viable path to regional security and freedom.

"Why do you want to give the Jews a land from us?" Daoud responded. "Why? There are many lands in the world."

"We can take this land and give it to Palestinian refugees," he said.

"Hamas will make peace with Israel more than any other Palestinian parties," he added.

He further noted that he believed that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians, to which Fox responded, "If Israel wanted to genocide Gaza, they could; they have the weapons to do it. They could do what we [US] did to Japan."

"Hamas's number one goal is to kill Jews," Fox added. "It's in their charter."

Even though Daoud vehemently denied this, Fox showed him the quotes from Article 7 of Hamas's founding charter, which read:

The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." (Article 7)

Article 7, Hamas charter

Daoud's response was that if Fox were to interview a Hamas leader and ask him the difference between a Jew and a Zionist, he would give a simple answer. 

"The Jew is not our enemy; he will say that," he said.

"Do you think Hamas is going to win?" Fox asked him.

"Yes - because many of the Palestinian people like Hamas now."

Daoud's final words: "When Hamas controls all of Palestine, I will come to America."

Indoctrination

Daoud also spoke of his time in Israeli prison.

“I felt sympathy for him,” Fox told the Post. “But he didn’t feel the slightest drop of sympathy in his heart.”

Fox told the Post that the man showed him his phone, his feeds, his algorithms. “He’s seeing Hamas propaganda being fed to him because of his algorithm.”

Fox mentioned that he even saw posts on the man’s phone praising Putin; “it’s the internet ecosystem that scared me the most, it made me realize that with a big enough misinformation campaign you can indoctrinate people globally.”