On Tuesday, in a groundbreaking new report, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory officially concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This comes ahead of the members of the commission stepping down later this year, after announcing their resignations this summer amid the US’s escalating attacks on UN personnel.

“The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide, and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the report says.

In this exclusive interview, Mehdi speaks with two of the commissioners behind this report: Chair Navi Pillay of South Africa and commissioner Chris Sidoti, one of Australia’s most prominent human rights lawyers.

In the interview, Pillay – who previously served as president of the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda – immediately draws parallels between genocide in Gaza and the Rwandan genocide.

“It’s when I came to the deliberate shooting of the single standing building where the fertility clinic was and the embryos. That immediately reminded me of the Rwanda genocide where I was a judge and where they ripped the bellies of pregnant women, pulled out the fetuses because they wanted to kill off the entire Tutsi group,” Pillay recounts.

Pillay and Sidoti also both point out that unlike the Rwandan genocide, Palestinians in Gaza do not have neighboring countries they can escape to.

“There is nowhere that the people of Gaza can go to escape this slaughter,” Sidoti tells Mehdi. “And yet the slaughter has continued.”

The commissioners also address criticism that their report does not cover Hamas’s war crimes, with Pillay noting that the commission has addressed Hamas’s war crimes in previous reports.

“It doesn't mean to me that every time you have to strike some kind of balance as if the parties are equal,” she explains. “They are not equal. One is the occupier and the other is occupied.”

You can watch the full interview above to hear Mehdi press the commissioners on why it has taken almost two years for them to declare that Israel is committing a genocide, and why Israel prevented their commission from investigating claims of rape and sexual violence from both sides. He also asks whether they fear retaliation from the US for their report, after the Trump administration’s sanctioning of ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

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In this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by Syrian official Qutaiba Idlbi, who discusses Al-Sharaa’s upcoming appearance at the United Nations, responds to Israel’s relentless assault on Syria, and defends the new Syrian government’s track record. 

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In this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by Sudan experts Nesrine Malik and Neimat Ahmadi to discuss the dire situation in Sudan. 

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In this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who calls Trump’s presidency a ‘fascist authoritarian takeover’ and reveals what he will do if the president tries to send the military to Minneapolis.

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In one of Zeteo’s most heated back-and-forth interviews yet, Mehdi presses former Israeli ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon on how on earth he can possibly try and defend Israel’s heinous actions in Gaza.

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Where does ICE deport a stateless immigrant to? Wherever they want, apparently. In this segment of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi speaks to Ward Sakeik, a stateless Palestinian whom the Trump administration tried to illegally deport not once, but twice.

“‘I can send you to China, I can send you to Somalia, I could send you to Congo, I can send you wherever I want to send you,’” Sakeik recalled one ICE official telling her during 140 days in detention, even though she is protected by a Deferred Enforced Departure order that makes removing her from the United States illegal.

Sakeik’s attorney, Maria Kari, says “Americans need to wake up to the lie that ICE is taking ‘criminals’ off the street because they're not. As of June, 70% of the people that ICE has arrested had no criminal history, just like Ward,” and adds that ICE took extra steps to make sure the attempts at deporting Sakeik would go unimpeded.

In one attempt, ICE tried to deport Sakeik in the middle of the night to the border of Israel, of all places. They got as far as bringing her to the tarmac before calling it off as a result of Israel’s bombing of Iran. “Why do you put somebody on a Boeing in the middle of the night? That's because their family's likely not awake, their lawyers likely not around, and the courts are not there to give you emergency relief. So all that is happening by design,” says Kari.

Paid subscribers can watch the full interview above to hear Sakeik detail the conditions she was detained under, how some ICE officials told her she shouldn’t have been detained in the first place, and whether she could be detained yet again.

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In this segment of Mehdi Unfiltered, George Conway, former Republican and Lincoln Project co-founder, talks to Mehdi about how the media continues to normalize Trump, and the double standards on covering his mental fitness.

 

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Are you one of those people still arguing about the 2024 election? Who can’t help but wonder how Trump got away with staging himself as the “peace” candidate, convincing so many Muslim and Arab Americans to vote for him, as he promised to end the war in Gaza?

Well, then this interview is for you!

In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ segment, Bishara Bahbah, the founder of Arab Americans for Trump (now renamed Arab Americans for Peace) and Trump’s unofficial mediator with Hamas, tells Mehdi that he still believes, “that the president wants to end this war.”

Mehdi presses the Palestinian-American businessman and activist on Trump’s unfettered support for Israel’s genocide and mad starvation, asking him that if he called Biden ‘Genocide Joe’, “would you also call Donald Trump ‘Genocide Donald’?”

"No, I wouldn't," Bahbah tells Mehdi, who then pushes back against Bahbah in what becomes a tense exchange on partisanship and double standards.

Mehdi also challenges Bahbah on what he makes of Trump’s use of the word ‘Palestinian’ as a slur; Bahbah defends his relationship with Trump as “a partnership,” and the two also discuss the latest round of ceasefire talks with Israel, where Bahbah served as a mediator between the US and Hamas.

Bahbah explains why he believes Hamas does want “to reach a ceasefire agreement” – and reveals what it’s like negotiating with the group.

Paid subscribers can watch the full 30-minute wide-ranging interview above, and hear why Bahbah thinks a permanent ceasefire is still “months” away.

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In this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who claims that his firing was a part of Trump’s scheme to, “enrich his billionaire besties.” 

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In this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha to discuss the latest on Gaza and the genocide denialism from media organizations covering it. 

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