Former MSNBC Host Mehdi Hasan Returns to Slam Israel’s Netanyahu: He ‘Doesn’t Care About the Hostages’ | Video
Former MSNBC host and current Zeteo editor-in-chief and CEO Mehdi Hasan came out swinging against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Saturday conversation with MSNBC’s Joy Reid. In his first return visit to the network since leaving at the beginning of this year, he delivered an energetic takedown and said Netanyahu has “abandoned the hostages” and “doesn’t care” about the up to 130 people still held captive by Hamas.
After Reid said of Netanyahu that it “does seem to me that what he wants is for the war to go on… forever would be perfect,” Hasan agreed.
“Netanyahu is counting down the days to a Trump presidency where he knows he’ll have much more freedom,” Hasan said. “He knows that he’s got a trial coming up. This is about him personally. Like Trump, he cares about himself more than anything else.”
“He’s got a coalition that will collapse if he agrees to any kind of ceasefire,” Hasan continued. “And he’s abandoned the hostages, Joy. I always hear from people saying, ‘You don’t care about the hostages.’ You know who doesn’t care about the hostages? Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Hasan cited protests by the family members of those still held in Gaza as proof. On Tuesday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it asked the governments whose citizens are still among the kidnapped to “exert your influence on the Israeli government” to reach an agreement that will return the hostages home. A total of 252 people were kidnapped.
The families also organized protests in Israel ahead of the country’s Memorial Day, which begins at sundown on May 12. The protests will focus on the 38 hostages who are believed to have been killed since Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza began.
The families, Hasan said, “want a deal. They want to end the conflict. They want their people home as we should all want.”
Reid also asked Hasan about the “sea change” in public opinion toward Israel, something he attributed to generational differences. “It’s partly partisan in the sense that Democrats have become more quote-unquote ‘pro-Palestinian,’ which is interesting when you look at the polling, but mainly it’s generational,” he explained.
When compared to people over 65, Hasan added, the gap in opinion is massive. “It’s all pro-Israeli, over 65. It’s all pro-Palestinian under 35,” he said. “So the generational shift is what’s making people go crazy about college campuses and TikTok.”
Watch the interview with Hasan in the video above.
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