In this video, Mehdi Hasan says:

In 2011 in the Arab Spring, the Tunisians rose up peacefully against their dictator Ben Ali and the Egyptians rose up in Tahrir Square against Mubarak. We supported that in the West and those were referred to, in the Arabic press, as Intifada. In fact, we can go back to the uprising that we supported, Warsaw Ghetto which was by Jews standing up against the Nazis; Do you know how the US Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Warsaw Ghetto on its Arabic page? It calls it the Warsaw Intifada, so we're not calling the Jews in Poland who stood up against the Nazis as terrorists. So no, I don't believe that Intifada in itself is a terroristic or violent phrase

The first Intifada was largely nonviolent for the first year. Palestinians were killed at a rate of 27 times the number of Israelis that were killed. Yitzhak Rabin, do you remember Rabin, the Nobel Peace Prize winner? he said break their bones the violence came largely from the Israeli side in the first Intifada. So just to be clear that's what it means: Uprising. These students are not calling for violence. At Colombia University in New York, the police arrested 108 students many of them are Jewish. Let's talk about Jewish students. I've actually spoken to Jewish students and to Jewish professors. Columbia's Jewish professors have come out to condemn media coverage of what's going on and say this isn't anti-semitic. The Jewish professors said that these protests are not violent, they're not anti-semitic. My New Media Company, Zateo went and asked a Jewish student on campus who's part of these protests to write a piece for us and he did and he said the real threat is coming not from Palestinian protesters but from the police who were assaulting and arresting Jewish students on campus.

Mehdi Hasan said in this video which was discussing whether Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism:

Let's be clear about what this motion is. The motion says "Anti-zionism is anti-semitism". It doesn't say some anti-zionists are anti-semites which is true, it doesn't say anti-zionism can sometimes turn into anti-semitism which is true, it doesn't say that anti-semites often use anti-zionism as cover as an excuse for their bigotry and racism which is true. I wouldn't oppose any of that but that's not what the motion says. The motion says, ridiculously sweepingly offensively ahistorically, that anti-zionism is anti-semitism that merely being opposed to zionism as a political ideology is inherently by definition: ant-semitic which is absurd think about the implications of voting for that tonight you'd be saying every anti-zionist every anti-zionist is a bigot a racist and an anti-semite.

By definition, even the many Jewish and Israeli anti-zionists so Ilan Pappé, a Jewish historian born and raised in Israel, served in the Israeli military, he's an anti-semite that's what they want you to believe. So is the former speaker of Israel's own parliament the Knesset Avraham Burg melody, they would say he's a self-hating jew so is my The Intercept colleague Naomi Klein the acclaimed author and climate change activist so is Noam Chomsky he's an anti-semite as well. They want you to vote for them and say that the thousands of Haredi ultra-orthodox anti-zionist Jews who oppose Zionism for religious theological reasons they're anti-semites too that's what they want. Don't take my word for it listen to the 35 top Israeli Jewish scholars and academics historians of the holocaust who came together and published an open letter in which they wrote: "many victims of the holocaust opposed Zionism, on the other hand, many anti-semites supported Zionism it is nonsensical and inappropriate to identify anti-zionism with anti-semitism". are they anti-semites too really all 35 of them by the way in terms of the history they refer to in their letter it is an undeniable indisputable fact that many many European anti-semites did support Zionism at the outset they did embrace the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl because, for their own selfish racist reasons, they shared his goal of treating Jews as a foreign separate nation and getting them out of Europe take British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour author of the 1917 Balfour declaration. In favour of Zionism, Balfour dismissed jews as "an alien and hostile people". He sponsored legislation to keep Jewish refugees out of the UK. The only Jewish member of the cabinet at that time Edwin Samuel Montagu opposed the Balfour declaration and called Zionism a mischievous political creed yet apparently according to the proposition tonight Montague's the anti-semite and Balfour isn't.

We've heard tonight that it's anti-semitic to suggest Israel is born in sin. Every black American I know says to me and says to everyone else that the United States were born in sin slavery was a sin at the start of the United States no one accuses them of being anti-white racist or anti-american racist it's just a statement of historical fact they say the proposition that when you oppose Zionism you're denying Jews and no one else a right to self-determination which is just flat false not every nation or ethnic group wants a state gets a state.

Mehdi Hasan mentioned in this video:

First, for everyone who believes that Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of far-right fascists and racists are fighting their war in Gaza in order to rescue the hostages, how do they explain the fact that Netanyahu had a chance to bring all of the civilian hostages home right at the very beginning? It's the view of Rubinstein who was a spokesman for the families of the Israeli hostages and said "we learn that Hamas offered on October 9th or 10th to release all the captive civilians in its hands if the IDF did not enter the Gaza Strip but the government rejected the offer". In fact, the Washington Post reported on a similar proposal at the end of October saying "Hamas was proposing to release all foreign civilian hostages in exchange for a 5-day ceasefire Israeli civilian hostages would be released if additional demands were met including the release of Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons and the opening of the Rafah border crossing".

Second, Israeli officials have said time and again that the war won't end until Hamas is destroyed regardless of whether the hostages are released. Smortich, Israel's Finance Minister, made clear that he was opposed to any hostage release deal that stopped Israel from going into Rafah now you might say that's just smoke TR he's not in charge well prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said this week that he would invade Rafah with or without a deal on the hostages.

Third, the hostages at the core of this conflict at the heart of this current round of killing and violence aren't just Israelis, they're Palestinians too because while we're all aware of the fact that around 250 hostages were taken from Israel by Hamas and other armed groups on October the 7th including, shamefully, children and around 130 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza we don't really mention the thousands of Palestinians who have been rounded up detained held without trial tortured sexually abused without any charges let alone any convictions in Israeli prisons and I'm not even talking about just since October the 7th I'm talking about before October the 7th.

When the bad faith apologists for Israel pop up on TV or online to justify that violence and to robotically and cynically repeat "what about the hostages" ignoring all of the three things that I just pointed out to you, treat that dishonest refrain with the contempt it deserves.