'Intifada is used for peaceful uprisings as well,' said Mehdi Hasan, a staunch critic of Israel
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Liberal journalist Mehdi Hasan clashed with Piers Morgan Wednesday during an interview over protesters shouting "intifada" during anti-Israel demonstrations across college campuses.
Hasan, who recently left MSNBC and created Zeteo, a new media company, joined "Piers Morgan Uncensored" for a discussion about the Israel-Hamas war, and the anti-Israel protests, specifically at Columbia University. Morgan said Hasan, a staunch critic of Israel, had also been critical of anyone trying to "suppress" the demonstrations.
"If people are going to do things like chant about an intifada," Morgan said, noting that he absolutely supported peaceful protests and free speech, "there have been two intifadas involving the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they led to many thousands of deaths. But both were driven by violence, I mean they weren't peaceful intifadas. By very definition, these uprisings were violent and involved extreme violence, particularly the second one which involved blatant acts of terrorism."
He asked Hasan to explain when the last "entirely peaceful intifada" was. The term is Arabic for resistance against oppression.
Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan joined Piers Morgan on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Screenshot/PiersMorganUncensored)
"In 2011 in the Arab Spring, the Tunisians rose up peacefully, I'm sure you supported them, I did, against their dictator, Ben Ali. The Egyptians rose up in Tahrir Square, I think you supported them, I certainly did, against [Hosni] Mubarak, against these dictators that we in the west had been supporting. Those were referred to, you can go back and look at the Arabic press, you can look at the BBC Arabic coverage, as intifadas," Hasan said.
Hasan suggested going back even further to a "violent uprising," the Warsaw Ghetto.
"Polish Jews standing up against the Nazis," Hasan said. "Do you know how the U.S. Holocaust memorial museum describes the Warsaw Ghetto on its Arabic page? It calls it the Warsaw Intifada."
Hasan said the term itself was not violent.
Mehdi Hasan appears on stage at 2022 VidCon at Anaheim Convention Center on June 24, 2022 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images) (David Livingston/Getty Images)
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"So just to be clear, that's what intifada means, uprising. These students are not calling for violence. They're not, if they wanted to, they would call for violence, they'd call for suicide bombers. They're calling for an uprising, Piers," Hasan said.
"Intifada is used for peaceful uprisings as well," Hasan asserted.
Morgan again noted that there were two violent intifadas in the ongoing Middle East conflict, referring to the First and Second Intifadas that included years of violence. They began in 1987 and 2000, respectively.
"When those protesters chant about intifada, if you are a Jewish student on that campus, and you see people chanting in a mob, ‘intifada,’ you know what that means. Those people want to do you physical violent harm, that's the problem," Morgan said. Hasan disagreed and said he's spoken to both Jewish students and professors who believe the protests have been peaceful.
Piers Morgan and Mehdi Hasan debated whether students who were chanting "intifada" during the anti-Israel protests were calling for violence. (Left: (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage) Right: (Photo by Ilya Savenok/Variety via Getty Images))
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Hasan accused Morgan of ignoring violence carried out against anti-Israel student protesters. Morgan shot back that it worked both ways, arguing Hasan had not brought up any instances of violence or intimidation of Jewish students.
"I've seen many Jewish students talking about how intimidated they've been feeling, how harassed they've been feeling. I've seen video footage that supports their reason for feeling that way. I've seen the mob chanting ‘intifada,’ the mob chanting ‘from the river to the sea.' Now we can argue about the subtle nuances of these words and phrases. But if you're a Jewish student and you're not allowed to go in and study because you're being harassed by a mob chanting ‘intifada,’ I'm sorry, I think that crosses a line," Morgan said.
Hasan went on to call out police presence and their response to the protests on college campuses and argued that the chaos at universities was largely being caused by police.
Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.
