Mehdi Hasan

“To pretend that there is no such thing as the Muslim world is specious, self-deluding, and - frankly - plain silly.”

“I love my job... but I find myself awkwardly straddling the divide between British Islam and the British media. I get pretty exhausted of having to constantly endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations, and often inaccurate and baseless stories.”

“Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic.”

“Some have argued that the United States was designed to block majority rule; to be a 'republic, not a democracy.' This is ahistorical nonsense.”

“The rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been a disaster for the public image of Islam - and a boon for the Islamophobia industry.”

“Let's start with the euro. What on earth were we thinking? How could anyone with the faintest grasp of economics have believed it was anything other than sheer insanity to yoke together diverse national economies such as Greece, Ireland, Germany and Finland under a single exchange rate and a single interest rate?”

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

“I'm a fan of robust debate, and I'm not averse to engaging in the odd ad hominem attack myself.”

“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.”

“The reality is that far-right extremism is no longer dominated by loners.”

“There are no authentic reports in any of the Muslim books of history of the Prophet Muhammad punishing anyone for same-sex acts.”

“Millions of ordinary Americans may suffer from a toxic combination of ignorance and amnesia, but the victims of U.S. coups, invasions, and bombing campaigns across the globe tend not to. Ask the Iraqis or the Iranians, ask the Cubans or the Chileans. And, yes, ask the North Koreans.”

“We have to find a way to try and reconcile our beliefs - and Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, has traditionally seen homosexuality as a sin - with the reality of life in modern, pluralistic, secular societies in which gay people cannot be wished away or banished from sight.”

“In theory, the filibuster helps whichever party is in the minority in the Senate. In practice, it is the Republicans who have disproportionately used it to engage in cynical and anti-democratic obstructionism whenever they find themselves in the minority.”

“I will call out someone if he's Islamophobic, and I will also call out anti-Semitism. It's immoral to call out one and not the other.”

“There are two Tory parties: the trendy, socially liberal Notting Hill set which dominates at the national level, and the unreconstructed, reactionary, and often bigoted members of Conservative associations at the local level. The latter have yet to reconcile themselves to the reality of modern, multiracial Britain.”

“I've lost count of the number of websites that try to 'out' every Muslim in public life as an extremist or Islamist of some shape or form.”

“I'm the first person to say don't equate between terrorism and Islam. But at the same time, I'm not going to pretend that there isn't a threat from some British Muslim homegrown extremists.”

“I think that the anti-Semitic problem in the British Muslim community is worse than among the community at large.”