Whataboutism is usually a logical fallacy. It is a fallacy if someone highlights a wrongdoing and you respond with “but what about this…” just to avoid accountability or derail the discussion. It is also fallacious to use “what about…” to justify your wrongdoing by referring to the wrongdoing of others. Whataboutism, if used to make a comparison that has no real bearing on the matter at hand, is an illegitimate logical move.
However, in some contexts it is a legitimate strategy. If used to expose double standards, provide context, or highlight selective outrage, it can be an effective method. And during an ongoing genocide, it is not only effective, it may be morally necessary.
BACKGROUND
- On Wednesday 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk, the American right-wing political activist and writer, was killed after being shot in the neck
- He had been speaking during an event held on the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, Utah
- While a motive is yet to be determined, many have deemed his death a political assassination
- Kirk, 31, was known for extreme views such as blaming Japan for the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as believing that gun-related deaths are required so that Second Amendment freedoms are retained
- He was also a staunch supporter of the Zionist regime; many senior Zionist leaders expressed their sorrow upon his passing
Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, was fatally shot during a campus event in Utah yesterday. Notwithstanding the horrific nature of his death and many mourning what has happened, I believe we have an obligation to use this incident to point to something of greater moral significance: the genocide in Gaza. [1]
In fact, Kirk himself was a proponent of such moral reasoning: tolerating a lesser evil to preserve a greater good that leads to preventing a greater evil.
I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” [2]
Exposing double standards
Do all lives matter?
On the killing of Kirk, Shaykh Dr. Haitham al-Haddad said,
The same people who have spent the last two years justifying the slaughter of nearly 100,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank (and thousands before) by arguing that it was an acceptable loss have now exposed their flagrant hypocrisy. Suddenly, they cherish the sanctity of one human life.” [3]
Let’s unpack this further to understand why highlighting “what about the genocide in Gaza?” rightly exposes the immoral double standard and hypocrisy.
The narrative at the moment is “how can someone be killed just for their views?” However, the same people have been justifying the killing of thousands, merely for the fact that they exist in a land under unjust and illegal occupation. If killing someone for their views is wrong, what about killing them for the fact that they happen to live in a land that people want to steal? [4]
Charlie Kirk was an advocate for the Zionist Israeli regime that has been responsible for thousands of deaths. He was an advocate for a regime that has trained IDF soldiers to kill thousands of innocent women and children, many times through the use of snipers.
The very fact that the genocidal maniac Benjamin Netanyahu wrote this about Kirk on X is enough to highlight this point:
Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization.
I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place. We lost an incredible human being. His boundless pride in America and his valiant belief in free speech will leave a lasting impact.
Providing context
Is it moral to mourn the death of Joseph Goebbels?
Generally speaking, killing someone for their political views is morally abhorrent. However, a correct use of whataboutism provides moral context to elevate our moral thinking.
Dr. Joseph Goebbels (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a Nazi official and philologist who served as Gauleiter of Berlin, chief propagandist of the Nazi Party, and Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 until 1945.
A loyal associate of Adolf Hitler, he gained notoriety for his powerful oratory skills, unshakeable devotion to the regime, and intense anti-Semitism. Goebbels promoted increasingly severe policies of persecution, ultimately supporting and advocating the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
It is unlikely, and rightly so, that anyone mourned Goebbels’ death. As one of the highest-ranking figures in the Nazi hierarchy, he may have been privately grieved by party loyalists or the SS. However, open displays of mourning were unlikely, given the collapse of the regime and the chaotic circumstances at the war’s end.
In the postwar period, with Nazi crimes universally condemned, any public expression of sorrow for leaders like Goebbels would have been both socially unacceptable and potentially dangerous. Contemporary press coverage in Allied-occupied Germany concentrated on his suicide and the fall of Nazi leadership, rather than on mourning or commemoration.
Charlie Kirk was supporting genocide. Although we pray for his family’s wellbeing and guidance, mourning the death of a genocidal propagandist is not moral. To do so is morally equivalent to mourning the demise of Joseph Goebbels — such a thing is anti-Semitic, anti-human, and pro-genocide. To frame it as anything else is moral hypocrisy.
Selective outrage
A sniper killing an unarmed person is wrong; killing hundreds the same way is also wrong
The Qur’ān makes it clear: killing one person unjustly is like killing the whole of humanity.
Allah says,
That is why We ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever takes a life — unless as a punishment for murder or mischief in the land — it will be as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity.” [9]
Unfortunately, this is something that Charlie Kirk did not ascribe to.
On X, he supported collective punishment. He implied that the nuclear attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the fault of Japan. In other words, he seemed to be saying that slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people is fine if their government are the aggressors.
The deaths of women and children in Gaza are the fault of Hamas, not Israel, just like the deaths in Japan during World War 2 were the fault of Japan, not America.
When a government engages in unprovoked, murderous aggression, they are to blame for everything that results.” [10]
We should be outraged by the death of one person. However, not being outraged by the death of many, due to our ideological and pro-genocidal stance, is worse. Why the selective outrage?
Many of the people who are outraged by the killing of Charlie Kirk — who was most likely killed by a sniper 142 yards away — have not been outraged or expressed the same when many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli snipers. This has been reported by Western news agencies, human rights organisations, and medical workers on the ground. [11] [12] [13] [14]
What is more, his killing has drawn far more widespread sympathy and condemnation than the brutal killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab, who was fired upon 335 times by an Israeli tank in Gaza. [15]
Are the lives of murdered Palestinians — and the anguish of their families — deemed less valuable than those of others? Such selective outrage reveals not only moral inconsistency but also the entrenched ideological loyalties of many.
Conclusion
Whataboutism is not always a fallacy; it can be an indispensable moral tool when it exposes hypocrisy, double standards, and selective outrage.
The horrific death of Charlie Kirk demands reflection, not in isolation, but in relation to the far greater and ongoing tragedy of the genocide in Gaza; an atrocity Kirk himself defended.
To mourn his death without simultaneously recognising the thousands of lives extinguished under Israeli snipers and bombs is to perpetuate moral blindness. Just as few would morally justify mourning Joseph Goebbels, so too should we question the ethics of mourning those who actively supported or justified mass killing.
The Qur’ān reminds us that the unjust killing of one life is akin to killing all of humanity. If we truly believe this, our outrage cannot be selective. If we weep for one life, we must weep for every innocent life. To fail in this consistency is not only intellectually dishonest but spiritually corrosive.
The real test of moral integrity lies not in how we respond to the death of one man, but in how we respond to the slaughter of an entire people.
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[2] 5 April 2023. TPUSA (Turning Point USA) Faith event at Awaken Church, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[3] https://www.instagram.com/islam21c/p/DOda-M0DBQe/
[4] Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Territories, rejected Israel’s claim of self-defence by noting the status of Gaza as an occupied territory:
Israel cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory that is under belligerent occupation.”
[5] https://x.com/netanyahu/status/1965888327938158764
]7[ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
[9] al-Qur’ān, 5:32
[10] https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1714352386465284495
[13] https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_snipers_target_palestinian_children_in_gaza
[14] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war
[15] https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-of-hind-rajab
Very nice bro. Maybe someone should tell kirk’s mourners to look at the bright side: he was killed doing something he loved with a full stomach and didn’t look uncomfortable or afraid. We cannot say the same for the women and children of Gaza who are killed while starving and risking life and limb to fill the stomach of their loved ones who they are watching starve while the Arab and Muslims abandoned them.
Yes, we find it apropos that the man who claimed the Japanese deserved to be incinerated and school shootings are a necessary evil was served a nice cold plate of his own ethos. Bravo.
Looking at your comparisons objectively, I must admit that they define a more than reasonable logic. As a South African who has observed close up the blindness and ugliness of racial hatred, I cannot condone/support the murder of innocent men, women and children. Anyone who perpetrates these abominations is, in my eyes, a terrorist and tool of Satan.