I sat down with Wael Al Zayat, the CEO of Emgage, an organization working to empower Muslim Americans through civic engagement. We talk about what it means to lead a national organization in this moment—one in which Muslim Americans are becoming more politically active, but also more targeted, as we saw during the mayoral race in New York City recently.

Wael walks us through the trends he’s seeing within the community, how attitudes are shifting and what issues are driving people to the polls. We also talked about Emgage’s experiences engaging with the Biden administration and the Trump and Harris campaigns last year, and about anti Muslim hate and whether it is being normalized. I also asked Wael about allyship across communities: what we can all do as people who care about human rights, equality, and international law to affect a political system that seems to work for the privileged few.

Episode notes:

Emgage USA: https://emgageusa.org/

What Zohran Mamdani's Victory Tells Us About America, Wael Al Zayat https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/zohran-mamdani-victory-america

Muslim Americans Share Political Attitudes With Both THe Democrat And Republican Parties: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/21/muslim-americans-share-political-attitudes-with-both-the-democratic-and-republican-parties/

I wanted to start this season with a topic that has been severely underreported in the media and under prioritized by governments, and that is Sudan.

Sudan has been in the headlines recently after the city of el-Fasher was captured by the RSF, the Rapid Support Forces, one of two parties, the other being the Sudanese Armed Forces, to a conflict that has ravaged the country in unimaginable ways.

More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country, and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

But this didnt happen overnight. For many months, everyone from Sudanese activists and journalists to the UN has been warning of the exact scenario we see unfolding today.

So what happened? Why were all these warnings ignored? And what were some of the historic and structural factors in Suday that led to this moment?

I spoke to Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and the founding director of Confluence Advisory, a "think-and-do" tank based in Khartoum, to unpack the issues for us and tell us what both policymakers and ordinary people can do to help.

This week, the view is from Sudan.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

Episode Notes:

Articles by Kholood:

The World Once Tried to Stop a Genocide in Sudan. Now It Looks Away: https://time.com/7017127/sudan-darfur-crisis/

Sudan's Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism: https://time.com/6342732/sudan-burhan-hemedti-descent-warlordism/

Local Aid Groups Are Keeping Sudan Alive: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2024-12/local-aid-groups-are-keeping-sudan-alive

Article by Ahmed Gouja:

An Atrocity Foretold: How the RSF Seige of Al Fasher Turned Into Genocidal Slaughter: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2025/10/30/atrocity-foretold-how-rsf-siege-el-fasher-turned-genocidal-slaughter

How You Can Help:

Mutual Aid Sudan: https://www.mutualaidsudan.org/

Sudan Solidarity Collective: https://www.sudansolidarity.com/

Sudanese-American Physicians Association (SAPA): https://sapa-usa.org/

In the season finale of "The View From Here," Jasmine reflects on the key themes and lessons learned from season one: the importance of human security and the responsibility to protect;  the role of trust, whether between states or between societies and their governments; why exhibiting empathy in negotiations is not a weakness, but rather, sound strategy; why recognizing and understanding human fear is necessary to breaking cycles of violence; and why accountability in politics is a key factor in a healthy society.

Jasmine highlights the need for a people-centered approach to national security and domestic and foreign policy. She invites audience feedback and encourages listeners to engage with the podcast as it moves into its second season.

This week, the view is from Jasmine.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

Israel's September 9th strike on Hamas leaders in Doha has raised urgent questions about whether any red lines exist anymore. For the first time, Qatar, a major non-NATO ally to the US, host to Hamas’ political office and a key mediator in ceasefire talks, was directly targeted. What does this mean for Qatar’s security, its relationship with Washington, and the fragile regional balance moving forward?

To unpack this unprecedented event, Jasmine sat down with Nawaf Al-Thani, a retired general from the Qatari Armed Forces and former defense attaché at the Qatari Embassy in Washington, DC. They discussed how the attack resonated in Qatar, what it signals for Doha’s role as a mediator, and what broader implications it holds for U.S. policy and regional security moving forward.

This week, the view is from Doha.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

As the Trump administration continues to attack America’s democratic values and institutions, and with political violence on the rise, the Democratic party seems hapless, seemingly unable to offer a real alternative vision. To analyse the current moment, Jasmine sat down with the Vice President of the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor Matt Duss to discuss the Democrats’ shortcomings and why focusing on anti-corruption may just be the one message that unifies voters ahead of the 2026 mid-term elections.

This week, the view is from Washington DC.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

Nearly two years after the Oct 7 attacks on Israel, Jasmine sits down with two Israelis, Etan Nechin and Iddo Elam, who made the rare choice to refuse to serve in the Israeli military.

Etan is a writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, where he has written extensively about the Netanyahu government's policies and Iddo is an activist against the occupation, apartheid and the genocide in Gaza.

She asked them about their decision and how it’s impacted their lives, what their Israeli identity means to them, and what kind of conversations are happening inside Israel right now about the country’s future. She also asked them what messages they had for both Israeli and American/Western policymakers who have so far supported the Netanyahu government almost unconditionally.

This week, the view is from Israel.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

What made Vladimir Putin the person he is today and what does he want out of Ukraine?

Three and a half years on from Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and more than ten years on from annexing Crimea, Jasmine sat down with Russian analyst and the head of the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, Alexander (Sasha) Gabuev, to understand the man behind the villainous character in the headlines.

Sasha and Jasmine spoke about the events that have shaped Putin's world view, the EU and US strategies to end the war, what the viable options are for a peaceful resolution, what China's role is in all of this. Just as importantly, Sasha explained how the war has impacted Russia domestically, including the human cost of the war, for the foreseeable future.

You can find Sasha's recent articles here:

Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/alexander-gabuev

Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/stream/32a18ccd-4ac3-4c89-93eb-068c8630d99a

This week, the view is from Russia.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

Alex Smith is a lawyer, humanitarian, famine expert, and former USAID official who resigned in protest over U.S. policy in Gaza.

Together with Jasmine, they unpack how a famine - so preventable and so widely predicted - was allowed to unfold in Gaza, the first famine ever declared in the Middle East by the UN-backed IPC.

Alex draws on more than two decades of work in conflict zones, from Afghanistan to Sudan, to explain what makes Gaza’s crisis unique: its speed, its deliberate nature, and the silence of policymakers who looked the other way. They discuss the failures of international response, the misuse of food as a weapon of war, and the urgent need for accountability and action.

This week, the view is from inside the US Government.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

Correction: Ron Dermer is the Minister of Strategic Affairs, not the Interior Minister as descibed in the episode.

Resources:

1-The IPC issues its first report on Gaza, warning of potential famine in December 2023: https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Famine_Review_Report_Gaza.pdf

2-Alex's resignation letter to the head of USAID, Samantha Power, and interview on Democracy Now: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/31/alex_smith_usaid_resignation_gaza_war

3-The Gaza Pier Project: https://www.reuters.com/world/how-bidens-gaza-pier-project-unraveled-2024-07-25/

4-Doctors Without Borders statement on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF): https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gaza-humanitarian-foundation-aid-distribution-system-must-be-dismantled

5-Letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israeli Defence Minister Yaov Gallant on aid to Gaza: https://en.majalla.com/node/322651/documents-memoirs/full-text-us-letter-israel-let-aid-gaza-or-face-consequences

It's been four years since the West left Afghanistan in shambles and the Taliban swept back to power. After years of foreign forces in the region, under the stated aim of ensuring peace, prosperity and freedom for Afghan men, women and children, the Taliban reimposed their repressive regime - with horrendous consequences for Afghan women and girls.

Shukria Barakzai is an Afghan journalist, former diplomat/politician and feminist. She joined Jasmine in London to talk about life before and after the Taliban and why she will never stop speaking up for women’s rights - no matter the personal cost.

This week, the view is from Afghanistan.

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.

We are not numbers: A Palestinian story of life under occupation. Ahmed Alnaouq is known for being the Palestinian journalist who lost 21 members of his family in an Israaeli military strike after October 7th.

But he's more than that. He's an author and editor on a mission to push back against the dehumanization of Palestinians in the Western media and by Western governments. He's here to remind us that Palestinians are not just numbers but a people who have suffered under the brutality of Israeli occupation for decades, and whose lives have been controlled, shaped, and cut short by that occupation well before the October 7th attacks on Israel.

He talks to Jasmine about pain, grief, resilience and what he hopes to see for Palestine in the future.

This week, the view is from Gaza.

Purchase Ahmed's book We are Not Numbers here: https://wearenotnumbers.org/buy-our-book/

We want to hear from you! Email us on [email protected]

The View from Here aims to showcase a wide range of views and opinions, which do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast or its host.