Posted on | October 29, 2025 | No Comments
“Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is a Fellow in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Sociology. His work focuses on the history of the international regulation of war and political violence, from a postcolonial perspective. Prior to joining LSE, Alonso worked at King’s College London, Oxford University, the University of Michigan, and the University of the Pacific. He is a contributing editor for the international law blog Opinio Juris and a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force. “
For more than 30 years — going back to a time when research involved sifting through card catalogs, poring over indexes of reference books and cross-referencing titles found in bibliographies, etc. — it has been my habit to begin any argument by seeking an answer to the question, “Who am I arguing with?” If a person’s argument is so unusual as to attract my attention, it is likely that this person has an unusual biography, a background that may explain why they are making whatever claim has inspired me to consider a response. This habit has served me well over the years, and there have been occasions when I found myself chuckling like Patton: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!”
The online argument that brought Alonso Gurmendi to my attention began with him endorsing a video by Zohran Mamdani:
“This is exactly what is needed. To stop. Take a step back. Break the flow of the news cycle and speak the truth: that Islamophobia is socially accepted in the West. That these people are racist. And deserve to be treated as such. That this racism needs to end. Now.”
As might be expected, critics slammed Gurmendi’s justification of the Jew-hating Mamdani’s sophistry, and (also not unexpectedly) Gurmendi then smeared these critics as mercenary trolls:
“I gotta say, the completely ridiculous amount of super aggressive racist trolls in this specific tweet on this specific day feels completely fabricated and paid for“
So, if you criticize Alonso, you’re a “racist troll,” and he suspects that your online activity is “paid for” — by whom? When you see that kind of insinuation, certain questions ought to immediately arise. Seldom have I ever accused anyone of being bought off, even though that it’s widely known that some online activity is subsidized by various entities, foreign and domestic. Such names as Pierre Omidyar, George Soros and the Koch brothers are often bandied about as funding pay-for-play activism online.
However, the specific nature of Alonso Gurmendi’s rhetoric — accusing Mamdani’s critics of being racist Islamophobes — casts a certain light on his claims that those who disagree with him are “paid for.”
This suggested a query: Has Alonso accused Israel of genocide in Gaza? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. He wrote an entire article about it!
I’m very excited to share with you my latest article, “How to Hide a Genocide: Modern/Colonial International Law and the Construction of Impunity”, just published @JournalGenocide.
I apply the modernity/coloniality framework to argue that, since Lemkin’s original proposition,…
— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) January 23, 2025
Published in January 2025, Gurmendi’s article assumes as a fact that Israel’s war in Gaza was an act of genocide:
“This process of hiding genocide has become painfully visible nowadays throughout the unfolding obliteration of Palestinians in Gaza. Despite repeated attempts at stopping the violence through various international institutions, international law appears powerless, with commentators repeating, almost as mantra, just how difficult it is to prove genocidal intent.”
Recall that the Gaza War began with Hamas launching a mass terrorist attack against Israeli civilians, murdering more than 1,200 and kidnapping 250. Recall also that the people of Gaza elected Hamas as their government with the full knowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to killing every Jew in Israel.
All of which is to say, it is not “difficult . . . to prove genocidal intent” on the part of Hamas. Israel is defending itself against genocidal enemies, and the only reason “the obliteration of Palestinians in Gaza” continued as long as it did is because Hamas refused to surrender. Yet somehow this reality is invisible to Alonso Gurmendi, whose motives seem rather obvious: He agrees with Hamas that Israel should be destroyed.
Alonso Gurmendi is a native of Peru who currently lives in London, and good luck getting him to explain why he’s obsessed with helping Hamas annihilate Jews in Israel, or why (to return to the original topic) he considers himself obliged to act as a campaign cheerleader for Zohran Mamdani in New York. Meanwhile, he’ll write entire articles to explain that anyone who disagrees with him is a Nazi.
“Modern right-wing rhetoric is essentially the same as Hitler’s 1925 rhetoric”@Alonso_GD writes about fascist takeover of the global right and how it’s basically just a rebranding of Hitler’s ‘superior race’ argument. pic.twitter.com/bwOb5JxZMp
— Zeteo (@zeteo_news) October 28, 2025
Ah, but what about our headline question: Who is paying the “racist trolls”? What sinister force could be funding the “super aggressive” and “completely fabricated” criticism of Alonso Gurmendi?
Are his enemies being paid in shekels, perhaps? Isn’t that really what Alonso Gurmendi intended to insinuate, that anyone who objects to his anti-Israel propaganda is a hireling of Zionist Jews?
Well, I haven’t checked my PayPal balance lately, so maybe the Mossad is secretly paying me — keeping it a secret even from me — but I would gladly hate this particular son of a bitch for free. Anyone who wants to join the Volunteer Troll Army can just look at Alonso Gurmendi’s timeline on X and jump into the fight. Tell him the Mossad sent you.
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