Award-winning author tells MEE he would not urge people to vote for Kamala Harris, labelling the Democrats 'cold and inhumane'

“I was just dumbstruck,” he told MEE when describing his May 2023 visit to the occupied West Bank. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Coates said that he was shocked by seeing enforced segregation and hearing testimonies from Israeli soldiers about the violence they perpetrated against Palestinians. He recalled that he was even stopped by a soldier who demanded to know if he was Muslim.

But the 49-year-old said that what shocked him the most was the tomb of Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli settler who gunned down between 30 and 54 Muslim worshippers in Hebron in 1994.

Coates said that he was stunned to see that Israelis visit the tomb “and they honour him for murdering Palestinians while they prayed.”