On this week’s episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Mehdi Hasan exposes the details of “The General’s Plan”:
"Israel enjoys such impunity on the international stage - thanks to the blind support it gets from the United States - that its political and military leaders don’t just bomb, besiege, starve, and ethnically cleanse civilian areas, they brag about it. They advertise it. They give their genocide a name. The General’s Plan."
Watch Mehdi’s monologue above to learn who Giora Eiland is, how this plan came to be and how, despite Israelis openly bragging or discussing it, there’s been very little coverage of it in Western media.
Joining Mehdi on the show is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California’s 17th congressional district. Khanna was recently part of a Congressional delegation that traveled to the Middle East and also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I think it's important for progressive voices to be in the room, and I was very, very, candid with him,” says Khanna.
Mehdi pressed Khanna on several topics, including the options the US has when it comes to holding Israel accountable and why it doesn’t use them.
Khanna said: “Should the United States have done more, and should we do more, to hold Netanyahu accountable? The answer is absolutely yes… if I were to say, look, you know, we're going to continue to not give you offensive weapons, etc., he will say you were on the losing end of that [Congressional] vote.”
Watch the full interview above to hear more from Khanna about what Democrats are and not doing in the campaign, and why he thinks Elon Musk could have been on the side of the Democrats this election.
In the show, Mehdi reminds us of the Biden administration’s terrible record so far, but also of the awful policies that Donald Trump (and the people around him) implemented in Israel and Palestine when he was president. He is joined by Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar to discuss this and what a potential Trump presidency might mean for Palestinians.
“Donald Trump by the time he left office, was indisputably the most pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian president in US history. We don’t need to rehabilitate or whitewash Donald Trump in order to critique Biden or Harris,” says Mehdi.
Baddar adds that “The Biden Harris policy so far on Palestine and Israel has been just a despicable horror from beginning to end. It's been a year now of watching this genocide unfold day after day on our phones.” And, on Trump’s recent assertion that Biden is holding Netanyahu back, but that he would allow Bibi to ‘finish the job’, Baddar says: “That could be the significant escalation and flat out endorsement from the White House of Israel taking over all of North Gaza and pushing Palestinians completely out of it and beginning that process in the West Bank as well, and saying that we recognize, you know, Trump already recognized the legitimacy of Israeli settlements and what that expansion looks like.”
Listen to the full conversation above where they also cover the current situation in Northern Gaza, Trump’s anti-Palestinian track record, and why there’s even an illegal Israeli settlement named after him.
DON’T MISS THIS LIVE EVENT TOMORROW:
The F Word: Fascism, Trump, and the Threat to American Democracy
In a special event organized by Substack, Mehdi and Steve Schmidt of The Warning with Steve Schmidt will discuss the political dynamics surrounding Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, consider the broader implications for US democracy, and won't shy away from tough questions about the movement’s ideological direction.
When: Wednesday, October 23, 8 p.m. ET
Where: Only on this link, for the Substack App
'The General's Plan': Meet the Man Behind Israel’s Genocidal Attack on Northern Gaza