# Mehdi Hasan: “We Don’t Value Palestinian Life”  ## Metadata - Author: [[Harry Lambert]] - Full Title: Mehdi Hasan: “We Don’t Value Palestinian Life” - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: Mehdi Hasan, a prominent figure in new media, values Palestinian life and criticizes mainstream media's coverage of Gaza. He founded Zeteo, a successful media company, to address these issues. Hasan's outspoken views and fluency in debates have garnered him a strong following online. - URL: https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2024/05/mehdi-hasan-interview-we-dont-value-palestinian-life-gaza-abortion-trump-hitchens - Source File: web-only ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > He has not always had such good press. The *Spectator* (and Hitchens’ son) tried to get Hasan fired from the *New Statesman* in the early 2010s after a clip was unearthed of him at a mosque speaking disparagingly of non-believers. A *New York Post* reporter posted the clip in November after Hasan started speaking out on Gaza. It duly went viral. Hasan shrugged it off. “People try and throw that at me as some kind of gotcha. I wrote a long Twitter thread about it five years ago. No one actually thinks that I’m some kind of secret Islamist.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hyayd24334gde280y5vsrnkb)) > Hasan’s formerly “pro-life” views on abortion are more interesting. He wrote in favour of halving the British abortion limit to 12 weeks in a 2012 *New Statesman* piece, stating that “a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body – but a baby isn’t part of her body”. That is anathema to progressives, but the issue hasn’t hurt Hasan’s standing. He told me that “people misunderstand the piece. I support a women’s right to choose as I don’t see a legal set-up that correlates with my moral views.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hyaydg9g3a2aj959vd89ja0n))