Journalist Mehdi Hasan criticized over post about Ed Sheeran — Jerusalem Post
The Israeli outlet Jerusalem Post published an opinion column by Micha Danzig, in which he criticized journalist Mehdi Hasan over his post about singer Ed Sheeran. According to Danzig’s account, Hasan reproached Sheeran for speaking about Russia’s war against Ukraine while not commenting on the situation in Gaza.
Danzig considers it inappropriate to compare Russia’s war against Ukraine with Israel’s war against Hamas. In the column, he called Israel’s military campaign a defensive war that began after Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. According to the data cited by the author, about 1,200 people were killed then.
Previous statements
The columnist referred to Hasan’s speeches in 2009 in which, according to Danzig, he compared non-Muslims to animals and linked homosexuality to sexual deviance. In 2019, Hasan apologized for those remarks, calling them offensive and thoughtless words from when he was 20 years old.
Danzig also mentioned that in 2019, Hasan defended Congresswoman Ilhan Omar after the recirculation of her 2012 post claiming that Israel had allegedly hypnotized the world. The column’s author described this wording as an antisemitic trope about alleged hidden control over public perception.
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Assessments of the war in Gaza
According to Danzig, in October 2023, Hasan suggested that Israel was responsible for the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. The author wrote that U.S. intelligence later concluded that the explosion was caused by a rocket unsuccessfully launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
The column also discusses a post by Hasan in which he compared the war in Gaza with previous genocides, including the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda. According to the Jerusalem Post text, Hasan deleted the post after criticism and said that he had expressed himself poorly. Danzig rejected such comparisons and questioned the use of data from Gaza’s Health Ministry, which, he said, is controlled by Hamas and does not distinguish between civilians and fighters among the dead.
Separately, Danzig mentioned Hasan’s work as a host at Al Jazeera English from 2012 to 2020. He noted that the TV channel is owned and funded by the Qatari government, which for years hosted Hamas’s political leadership in Doha. In the byline to the column, Danzig is described as a lawyer, former Israel Defense Forces serviceman, and former New York police officer.
