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 7
The War on Iran
The War on Lebanon
The War on Palestine
Featuring
Samira Mohyeddin
Marc Owen Jones
Sana Saeed
Hosts
Bassam Haddad
Mouin Rabbani
Friday, 6 November 2026
1:00 PM EST
Click here to watch all previous episodes of MEDIA/WARS
Join us at 1 pm for our 7th episode of MEDIA WARS, with Samira Mohyeddin, Marc Owen Jones, and Sana Saeed, in conversation with Bassam Haddad and Mouin Rabbani
In this episode, we address the midterm elections and why Americans aren’t rising up to economic woes, the ramping up of propaganda against Iran, and various significant reports, including The Manufacturing The Great Replacement: How a Covert Far-Right Aligned Ad Campaign Delivered Over Half a Billion Exposures of Racist, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Migrant, and anti-Qatar Propaganda Across Europe, Lebanon, and the United States Between 2023-2026. And, actually, much more.
Also, don’t miss the lower-self, or Rogue Version of Media Wars, after the conversation, where Mouin and Bassam survey the lofty platform of X.
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.
Samira Mohyeddin is a multi-award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has a Master of Arts in Modern Middle Eastern History from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of Genocide Studies from the Zoryan Institute. For nearly a decade, she was a producer and host at CBC Radio Canada's national public broadcaster. She resigned from the CBC in November 2023 and founded On The Line Media, where she brings audiences intimate conversations and informed commentary with a focus on critical and contextual journalism. Samira was the 2024 - 2025 inaugural journalism fellow for the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto and is the 2025 PEN Canada Ken Filkow Prize recipient. She is currently in production on a documentary about the Palestine solidarity student encampment at the University of Toronto.
Marc Owen Jones is an Associate Professor of Media Analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar, where he researches disinformation and digital authoritarianism, especially as it pertains to the Middle East. He is the author of Dysinfluence.com, and a co-author of the recent report “Manufacturing the Great Replacement”. In addition to his other publications, Jones has authored two books: "Political Repression in Bahrain" (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and "Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East" (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2022). His work has earned multiple accolades, including the British Council's UK Alumni Professional Achievement Award and one of Foreign Affairs' 2023 "Books of the Year." His PhD thesis also won the AGAPS award for best thesis in 2016.
Sana Saeed is a media critic and independent journalist. She spent a decade as a correspondent for AJ+, where she produced and hosted the media critique series ‘Backspace’ and ‘The Israeli Occupation Style Guide’. She also had a tenure as the Editorial Director at the Gaza Genocide Center, focusing on building archived narratives on the destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system. Her work focuses on the intersection of U.S. power, foreign policy and the American news media. She writes on Substack, with monthly long-form essays, at Views My Own.
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).