Featuring
Thursday, 9 April 2026
2:30 pm EST | 10:30 pm Tehran
This episode of Media Wars comes on the heels of Israel unprecedented murderous missile attack on Beirut that claimed hundreds of lives and casualties, breaking the tenative ceasefire agreement set the night before by the United States and Iran. Our speakers and hosts will address the reality and media portrayal of the war on Iran and Lebanon, the expansion of settlements and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the precarious situation in the Arab Gulf states, as well as the nature and impact of Al-Jazeera Network.
Media Wars examines the truths and absurdities of our era, centering on the US–Israel war on Iran. Fast-paced and eclectic, it blends media roundups with commentary and analysis to expose the folly and brutality of empire and imperial media. The program moves between granular detail and broad historical and geopolitical context, treating weighty, world-altering subjects in a casual, sometimes irreverent voice. Not suitable for children.
Featuring
Alireza Doostdar is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Chicago
Safa Al Ahmad is an award winning freelance journalist and filmmaker with a focus on Yemen and the Gulf
Jasper Nathaniel is a Brooklyn-based writer and reporter who covers the occupation through regular, on-the-ground reporting in the West Bank. He writes the Substack Infinite Jaz, and his work has appeared in The Drift, The Baffler, The Paris Review, Drop Site News, and elsewhere.
Abdullah Baabood is an academic specialist in IR, Gulf, and Middle Eastern affairs, based in Oman.
Maya Mikdashi is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University, and also holds an MA from Georgetown University and a BA from the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Maya is a scholar of law, the state, sovereignty, religion and secularism, and gender and sexuality. Maya’s first book, Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism and the State in Lebanon (Stanford University Press, 2022), was awarded Honorable Mention by the Michelle Rosaldo Biannual Book Prize at the Association for Feminist Anthropology, and won the Gregory Bateson Book Award from the Society for Cultural Anthropology, the Fatima Mernissi book award at the Middle East Studies Association, the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies Book Award, and the LGBTQ Caucus Book Award at the International Studies Association. Her scholarship has been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, French and German. She is on the editorial boards of Social Text and the Journal of Palestine Studies. Mikdashi is also a co-founding editor of Jadaliyya, an electronic outlet dedicated to public scholarship, and scholarly journalism on the contemporary, transnational Middle East.
Adel Iskandar is an Associate Professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University, where he is the Director of the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies and the Chair of Graduate Studies in the School of Communication. He is the author, co-author and co-editor of numerous works including Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation(University of California Press, 2010). Iskandar is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya.
Bassam Haddad is Founding Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the acclaimed series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Executive Producer of Status Podcast Channel and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book titled Understanding The Syrian Calamity: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).
Mouin Rabbani is a researcher, analyst, and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He has among other positions previously served as Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Head of Middle East with the Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation, and Senior Middle East Analyst and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group. Rabbani is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, where he also hosts the Connections podcast and edits its Quick Thoughts feature, Managing Editor and Associate Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, and a Contributing Editor of Middle East Report.