This Palestinian American is 'tired of stupid people' and his post went viral
SEATTLE, Wash. - The Palestinian American who wrote a viral post over the weekend is a former Berkeley resident who cares about Middle East peace, and who is also a quick-witted writer who openly said that he is "tired of stupid people."
Mo Husseini an executive creative director who now lives in the Seattle area, told KTVU on Monday that his Medium post titled, "50 Completely True Things," has roughly been clicked on 250,000 times since he posted it three days ago.
And his followers on Threads (not X), have ballooned from about 50 to more than 16,000.
"I am a Palestinian American who is tired of stupid people," he wrote. "I wanted to share a (not exhaustive) list of 50 useful and indisputable facts on the Palestinian / Israeli conflict."
Among his "facts," which he doled out equally to both sides – and even to others, like Texans, not directly connected to the Israel-Hamas war:
FACT No. 1.
Some Jews are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 2.
Some Muslims are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 27.
Israeli governments have committed acts of terror and violence against the Palestinian people.
FACT No. 28.
Palestinian organizations have committed acts of terror and violence against the Israeli people.
FACT No. 32.
What happened to the Israeli civilians on 10/7 is fucking awful, and Hamas has earned every fucking thing that the Israeli military throws at them.
FACT No. 33.
What is happening in Gaza to civilians is fucking awful, and not the smartest thing for Israel to do, and some aspects of Israeli military activity may be war crimes, and it doesn’t have to be genocide for it to be tragic.
And the list goes on until FACT No. 50, where Husseini quipped "Hummus is Palestinian. I am immovable on this."
Husseini, who attended UC Berkeley and also once worked at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, has been writing about the "delusions" that some Jews and Muslims have for each other since shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
In his interview, he said the "delusions," which exist on both sides," are that there are those on the Israeli side who "somehow think there's a place where the Palestinians just up and leave. And on the Palestinian side, there's a delusion that there's a place where somehow the Israelis just up and leave."
He said what he tries to focus on is not "who is right" but rather how to "create a future where people in the region can live what I call safe, boring lives."
He understands that there is great idealism on the college campuses where some pro-Palestinian protests have gotten violent and ugly, but he believes in a more pragmatic approach to the problem.
"We have tried hating each other for so long," Husseini said. "We've tried it and nothing is fundamentally better."
He is firmly against antisemitism and Islamophobia as two separate nations try to achieve their own statehood – the only way Husseini believes real peace can be achieved.
To date, he's written four opinion pieces on Medium, none of which has garnered the attention as the one he wrote on May 3.
As for pushback on his latest post, Husseini would only say that the response to his latest post has "been interesting."
He received many positive comments, thanking him for his thoughts. One person said they shared his post three times alone. Another person said, "I have never read anything that I agree more with."
But he also got comments criticizing him for not being hard enough on the Israelis.
And in different responses, not hard enough on the Palestinians.
"I absolutely can be wrong, and I'm often corrected," Husseini said during his interview. "And I'm open to it. I welcome feedback and I welcome discussion."
He said he keeps the kind of friends who wouldn't distance themselves from his beliefs, but he did note that some of his pals and relatives might not agree with everything he's saying.
"I don't speak for anybody," he said. "I'm not a representative of the Palestinian people. I'm not even a representative necessarily of the people in my family I speak. Only for myself and offer only kind of my perspective on things."
As for Husseini, he actually sees hope and that the Middle East conflict isn't as intractable as some make it seem.
And he'd point people to his FACT No. 40: Any people have a right to group together and self-identify as whatever-the-fuck-they-want-to-self-identify as. When they get large enough as a group, those people have the right to self-determination and self-respect and a state where they can control their own destinies.
Husseini said what he's trying to do in his own small way is to "create a sense for folks in the middle to see that there is a way out of this."
This story was reported from Oakland, Calif.