Yasmine Mohammed Podcast Yasmine Mohammed

Gad Saad is a professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada - one of the cities that has seen the biggest eruption of antisemitism since Oct 7th. Gad was born in Beirut, Lebanon to a Jewish family with roots in Syria. As a child, the antisemitism his family encountered is one of the reasons why they fled from Lebanon to Canada. And now in Canada, he has to hear professors telling students to “go back to Poland” in reference to Auschwitz and the Holocaust where millions of Jewish people were murdered. Gad and I spoke about antisemitism in the Arab world and how disorienting it is for us to see it so naked in the west today, with students in Columbia University in NY asking for Hamas to make them proud and burn Tel Aviv to the ground. As one of the few voices who was warning about where this capitulation to extremism could lead, we will find out how Gad feels now that he is being ‘vindicated’ and how he thinks we can move beyond this crisis.

Golsa Golestaneh is an Iranian-Canadian woman whose main passion is challenging misinformation, bias, and propaganda. Having a background in both Iranian and Canadian activist circles has helped her in analyzing sociopolitical issues factually and independently, rather than by relying on the mainstream narrative. Golsa will be joining us to talk about how she has been forced to attend diversity and inclusion reprogramming at her job because speaking up against the regime she escaped is socially unacceptable in Canada.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is an American writer and analyst who grew up in Gaza City which he left in 2005 as a teenage exchange student. He writes extensively on Gaza’s political and humanitarian affairs and has been an outspoken critic of Hamas and a promoter of coexistence and peace as the only path forward between Palestinians and Israelis. Alkhatib has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a Master’s in intelligence and national security studies. His writing has been published in U.S. and Israeli outlets, and his opinions and comments have been featured in international press.

Sam Harris has a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He is the author of five New York Times best sellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance. He also hosts the Making Sense Podcast, which was selected by Apple as one of the “iTunes Best” and has won a Webby Award for best podcast in the Science & Education category. As well, Sam has created the Waking Up app for anyone who wants to learn to meditate in a modern, scientific context. On top of all this, Sam is an incredibly kind, thoughtful, and generous man that I am so grateful to call a friend. Sam and I will be discussing the current state of discourse around Islam in the US, UK, and globally and how/if things have changed since his infamous exchange with Ben Affleck on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2014. We will, of course, be discussing October 7th and the global ripple effects from that day. I generally speak a lot about my mother, but in this conversation, I will be sharing about my father, a man born and raised in Gaza. We will also talk about how we envision going forward from this point. Will things continue to get worse before they can ever get better? 

Unlike my regular interviews, this podcast is a discussion between myself and my friend Jay Shapiro. Jay grew up as a Zionist and I grew up as an Islamist. We will be discussing October 7th and the aftermath... and you are welcome to join us.
 Jay Shapiro is a writer and documentary filmmaker with a focus on philosophy and intellectually challenging subjects. He wrote and directed the film adaptation of the collaboration between philosopher Sam Harris and former imprisoned Muslim extremist turned reformer, Maajid Nawaz entitled Islam And The Future of Tolerance. He has also directed successful films which dive into the complexities of International Law as well as inspiring sports documentaries.
 Recently he wrote and produced a 10 part series for the widely listened to Making Sense Podcast where he compiled a decade of conversations by Sam Harris and his varied guests into audio-documentaries on topics such as Free Will, Violence, Existential Threat, Belief and Unbelief, and more. He is currently producing a 10 part audio-series with the philosopher Annaka Harris on the topic of Consciousness and Fundamental Physics.
He writes essays and hosts a podcast entitled Dilemma which explores topics of philosophy and politics and is currently releasing episodes in The Palestine Series which focus on the conflict which has erupted after the October 7th attacks in southern Israel.
 

Deepti joins us to speak about the organization she runs with a dedicated group of volunteers called CHINGARI. The organization aims to bring awareness to the world about the Hindu girls who are kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, forcefully married, and who face countless other atrocities in Sindh, Pakistan each day. Through informative advocacy, CHINGARI seeks to make local U.S. representatives aware of the unstable religious situation in Pakistan. Join us to speak to Deepti about her work, to understand how this could be such a common phenomenon, and to learn what must be done to protect the girls.