Quotes from Mehdi Hasan

Like Obama before him, Trump will escalate in Afghanistan. Like Obama before him, Trump will lose in Afghanistan. And the rest of us, shamefully, will continue to look the other way.

The truth is that the dream of 'two states for two peoples,' born in the '90s, died in the noughties. The two-state solution, the popular and principled option for so long now, is neither practical nor possible.

There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

You cannot appease fascism by meeting it in the middle; you cannot beat racism by indulging or excusing it.

There's a general ignorance about how Muslims live and what Muslims believe.

You underestimate John Bolton at your peril.

From a moral point of view, it is wrong... to smear or stereotype minority communities, to pretend or give credence to the idea that the actions of a minority within a community are somehow representative or the fault of the majority of members of that community. That is the very definition of bigotry.

It is man - whether believer or non-believer - who is responsible for global unrest. And it is human beings who have to learn to co-exist in the 21st century, outside of divisive social constructs, religious or otherwise.

To claim that ISIS is Islamic is egregiously inaccurate and empirically unsustainable, not to mention insulting to the 1.6 billion non-violent adherents of Islam across the planet.

I have always regretted the dumb and offensive comments I made in my 20s on atheism and homosexuality.

Homophobia is not the monopoly of any one country, culture, or religion.

The reality is that religion, across the board, and in and of itself, neither provokes war nor promotes peace - and it is childish and naive, not to mention utopian, to believe otherwise.

Islam, for example, like so many other faiths, stresses the importance of mutual solidarity with our fellow man.

To speak of the Muslim world is not to endorse a totalitarian project, nor to bolster an Islamist narrative, nor to suggest that variety, plurality, and diversity are lacking in what Muslims think, believe, speak, and do as Muslims.

The moment has come, as we enter the teenies, to forget the idea of a Palestinian state existing side by side with a Jewish state, and to argue and agitate instead for the only remaining, viable and democratic option: a single, secular and binational state for Israelis and Palestinians.

Every morning, I take a deep breath and then go online to discover what new insult or smear has been thrown in my direction. Whether it's tweets, blogposts or comment threads, the abuse is as relentless as it is vicious.

It isn't only Republicans, it seems, who traffic in alternative facts. Since Donald Trump's shock election victory, leading Democrats have worked hard to convince themselves, and the rest of us, that his triumph had less to do with racism and much more to do with economic anxiety - despite almost all of the available evidence suggesting otherwise.

How is it that labels like 'centrist' and 'moderate,' which common sense tells us should reflect the views of a majority of Americans, have come to be applied to those who represent minority interests and opinions?

Orthodox Islam, like orthodox interpretations of the other Abrahamic faiths, views homosexuality as sinful and usually defines marriage as only ever a heterosexual union. This isn't to say that there is no debate on the subject.

Scepticism may be evidence of a healthy and independent mindset; but conspiracism is a virus that feeds off insecurity and bitterness.