This War is All About the Palestinians

This War is All About the Palestinians

From The Beinart Notebook by Peter Beinart

April 13, 2026 · 8 min

About this episode

Peter Beinart interviews Mehdi Hasan about journalism, progressive identity, and the Palestinian issue.

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Mehdi Hasan, formerly of MSNBC and now founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo. It’s a little unnerving to be interviewing Mehdi, who may be the single best political interviewer in America. We’ll talk about why American journalists don’t ask tougher questions. But we’ll also talk about more personal things. Mehdi isn’t only one of the most important progressive voices in American media. He’s also a Muslim who cares deeply about his faith, and about reconciling it with his progressive principles. For several years now, we’ve held a running conversation, mostly in private, about what it means to be a progressive Muslim, or a progressive Jew, when many of the people who speak for our faiths scorn the principles of human equality, and when white Christian nationalists run the United States. I’m looking forward to continuing that conversation in public this Friday. Please join us. Cited in Today’s Video A few articles on South Africa’s attacks on its neighbors in the 1980s. In 2003, Iran offered to endorse the Arab peace initiative. Hassan Nasrallah’s 2024 statement about reaching a ceasefire…

People in this episode

Host: Peter Beinart

Guest: Mehdi Hasan

Topics covered

  • Palestinians
  • American journalism
  • progressive voices
  • Muslim identity
  • human equality
  • political interviewing

Keywords

  • Palestinians
  • journalism
  • progressive
  • Muslim
  • interview
  • politics
  • human equality

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MSNBC, Zeteo

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