Mouin Rabbani (host) 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, and a Contributing Editor of Middle East Report.
Media Wars
Episode 6
The War on Iran
The War on Lebanon
The War on Palestine
Featuring
Martin Asser
Said Arikat
Hosts
Bassam Haddad
Mouin Rabbani
Tuesday, 13 October 2026
1:00 PM EST
Click here to watch all previous episodes of MEDIA/WARS
Join us on Tuesday, October 13 at 1 PM EST for episode 6 of MEDIA WARS, featuring Martin Asser and Said Arikat, hosted by Mouin Rabbani and Bassam Haddad.
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.
Said Arikat has been the Washington Bureau Chief of the prominent Al Quds Daily Newspaper and an adjunct professor at American University. Currently, his reporting centers around the United States Department of State. He is a frequent guest on Arab Satellite TV as commentator on U.S politics, and its foreign and security policies. From the summer of 2005, he served as the United Nations Chief Spokesman for Iraq and was based in Baghdad 2005-2010. He traveled and worked in every region/city in Iraq and became intimately involved with the Constitution and the 10 different national and regional elections that occurred during his tenure there. Said holds a B.S degree from the University of San Francisco and an M.S degree from California State University in Long Beach.
Martin Asser is a freelance journalist specialising in West Asia. He spent 22 years with the BBC (1995-2015 and 2022-2024) with a stint at the American University of Beirut (2015-2021) as its head of communications. He has won several awards (aside from Honest Reporting's "Dishonest Reporter of the Year", twice) including a Cutting Edge Award (2007) from the Next Century Foundation for his reporting at the BBC News website.
Bassam Haddad (host) 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).