The Field Between

Journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy joins us again to talk about the makings of counterrevolution in Egypt, the topic of his newly published book, out on May 5th with Verso. This is a must-listen episode for anyone who wants to understand what revolutionaries in Egypt, and the rest of the world, are up against. Hossam's reporting on Egypt's security state is available on Substack @3arabawy.

While the cat's away, the sewer rats will play... All-time favorite guest Corey joins me to take seriously the issue of white genocide, and we decide which incorporated entity we want to pledge our fealty to after the coporate balkanization of the U.S..

Muhammad and Hiba join us to talk about Muhammad's 1.5-year-long battle in court with prosecutors and University of Pittsburgh Police. Muhammad continues to face felony-level charges after being suspended by the University of Pittsburgh, which has been designated as one of the worst university campuses when it comes to free speech. Additionally Pitt has selectively singled out advocacy for Palestine as a threat, and even attempted to suspend the campus's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine before an ACLU lawsuit forced it to reverse the decision.   We talk about all this and more. Please take the time to share this episode with your networks.

We talk to investigative journalist Mehr Sher about her piece about Muhammad Ali, recently published with Dropsite News. Muhammad faces up to 34 years in prison after an interaction with University of Pittsburgh police outside of a Palestine solidarity encampent two years ago. This episode was originiallygoing to be merged with the interview we did with Muhammad back in November, but we decided to publish them as two separate episodes in the same week. This is an important epsidode to listen to before listening to our discussion with Muhammad and Hiba.

The audio quality is lacking because SOMEONE left their microphone in NYC. In fact, it was so bad that I had to completely cut the first 10 minutes, which is sad because we had some good riffs about Dubai.    

My wife came back.

My wife left me.

Please forgive my wife for the mic rubbing noise.

We were so lucky to have Rusha Latif, author of Tahrir's Youth: Leaders of A Leaderless Revolution, speak to us for this special episode which coincides with the 15 year anniversary of the Egyptian revolution that resulted in the removal of dictator Hosni Mubarak. Rusha's book provides an intimate account of the years, months, weeks, and days leading up to the revolution, and focuses on the perspectives of youth leaders. Her work challenges the notion that Egypt's revolution was a spontaneous and unplanned moment which spilled from social media platforms and onto Cairo's streets. This is a must-listen episode, as there are many lessons to learn from Egypt's revolution for people in the United States who now find their cities under occupation by the federal government.   Rusha's book is available for purchase from AUC Press here: https://aucpress.com/9781649030207/  

It's a scary world,  but rest assured the Democrats are going to say "fuck" and "piss" until it stops.

We react to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela, kidnapping of Maduro, the U.S. media narratives, and the potential geopolitical fallout from this attack — including how it affects the Middle East. We then get to a review of "The Feeling of Being Watched" -- a documentary that we've been meaning to get to for a while about the surveilance state's targeting of U.S. Muslims/Arabs. We end on a quick reflection on the Mamdani inauguration.

Lots in this episode.

Mass shootings Anti-Muslim stories Affordability & single-income households Is Mamdani sheepherding for Dems?

Clairvoyance is the word I was thinking of.

We talk about the genocide in Sudan, how it's being financed by the UAE, and how it's tied to normalization with Israel.   Other topics: NYC Mayoral Election Erica Kirk tour JD Vance Articles discussed: https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/why-uae-involved-sudans-bloody-civil-war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDfhxMwoyWo https://substack.com/@sudanwar

We discuss a Harpers story about "gooners," before Ahmed introduces Yasmine to Kylies.muse -- an influencer who transcends categorization and may or may not be a CIA opp.

We recorded this on October 15 (just to contextualize the discussion about the "ceasefire"). We then discuss two articles:  Malala's piece about smoking weed and reliving her trauma, and we also discuss the ire she inspires in leftists, the scond article is by an Israeli who tries to "escape the genocide" by going to a paridisal Greek island where you can remove your clothes, but not your shame. 

I can't believe they would body shame our beautiful generals like that.

If you guess what Ahmed said you win an all-expenses-paid meet-and-greet with your two favorite podcasters. 

We recorded this on the 13th, so some stuff has happened since then. We discuss the attempts to censor people for speaking about Charlie Kirk, we discuss the right's attempt to sieze on other tragedies in order to create a more violent society. We try to end on a somewhat lighthearted note by answering some Dear Prudence questions.

This is an Ahmed solo episode, so Yasmine can't be held liable for anything said here. I listen and respond to Glenn Greenwald's take on the situation and then analyze some of Trump's rhetoric about the murder.

In this episode we thoroughly reckon with our AI futures through a comprehensive series of stories, ranging from GPT-assisted suicide to men deluding themselves into thinking they're the next Ibn Sina. We think we lay out a pretty good case for a license requirement before people are able to operate or be exposed to AI. Stories discussed: A story about a teen commtting suicide after disclosing his plans to ChatGPT A Pakistani content mill Beauty pageants Physics breakthroughs Ahmed's conversations with a Zionist An Islamic perspective on artificial inelligence

Lawyer and human rights advocate, Tina Al-khersan stops by to talk to us about an article she recently co-authored titled "The Colonial Order Prevails in Palestine: The Right to Self-Determination from a Third World Approach to International Law."  We talk about what it means to have self-determination, and how the post-WWII international legal order upholds colonial systems over people seeking to free themselves. Tina also hosts a podcast, The Stories of Ourselves, in which she discovers and documents her own family's history, as well as those of immigrant and refugees.

Ahmed gives a quick update on his daytrip to Erie, PA. We mostly discuss the newly revived King of The Hill and how it compares to the original.

We talk to Julia Mason Wedgle about the Jewish Left, Anti-Zionism, and the similarities between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Palestinian resistance. We close out with a more lighthearted trip to Cape Cod, where Alan Dershowitz is standing up to poisonous Polish pierogis. 

Mostly just yapping on this one.

It's MEGA episode to make up for the one we missed.

We also discuss the conservative meltdown over Zohran Mamdani eating with his hands.

This is a BIG BEAUTIFUL episode. We debut a new movie trailer before we discuss Mamdani's win, and speculate how the ruling class will attempt to stop him, then we discuss the Bob Vylan protest in the context of the ongoing Nakba.

Muhammad (AKA @sharghzadeh AKA @persianpoetics) joins us to discuss the insane moment, in which we find ourselves careening into a war with Iran at the behest of Israel. In the second half of the episode we turn to a discussion of Persian culture, poetry, and influence, as well as Muhammad's recently published book, The Flame of Love, a translation of Rumi's 100 most passionate poems.   The song at the end is 'Seeb' by Simin Ghanem.

Hossam el-Hamalawy returns to the show to talk to us about Egypt's response to the March To Gaza, an internationally coordinated effort by activists to break Israel's siege of Gaza. We also discuss Israel's latest escalation in Iran.   Make sure you check out Hossam's work on Substack: https://3arabawy.substack.com You can also find him @3rabawy on social media Bluesky Twitter

Rishi Gandhi is an award-winning filmmaker. A first-generation immigrant of Indian descent, Rishi has moved between the Côte d'Ivoire, the UK, and the US. Though he has spent years traveling the world, he ultimately decided to make film his home. He joins Ahmed on this special episode to talk about his new project titled 'The Beasts We Carry'.   Please support the project on Kickstarter: Click here to pledge your support You can follow Rishi and his work on social media: @senor_rish on Instagram and @rishjg.bsky.social on Bluesky

We do a little bit of everything on this one, including ask 'Can a woman find a husband if she has ever been photographed?'   Here's an article that is relevant to our discussion of the ADL: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/emmaia-gelman-anti-defamation-league/

Closing in on 100 episodes! This one is pretty packed. I'm sick, so the editing is haphazard.    We talk about Hamza Yusuf working with the Trump Administration, then we go on to discuss the outcome of Pittsburgh's mayoral primary and why a forceful stance on Gaza should be a litmus test for progressive politicians. We close by briefly discussing the shooting that happened in DC last week, and unexpectedly veer into an update on The West Wing.   PLEASE leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to our show!

We talk about a lot here: India & Pakistan warring in Kashmir Trump's Middle East tour and why leftists shouldn't be so quick to praise him for "sidelining Israel" Kanye Grok's obsession with white genocide and Holocaust denial Thomas Friedman's beautiful tribute to Joe Biden

Yasmine lets Ahmed ramble about Dave Portnoy for 20 minutes. Mostly we just build a case that Dave (and other rich elites) seem less concerned with actually existing anti-semitism, and more concerned with disciplining those who they want to control.

Glad to be back after a little break! We catch up on life. Yasmine gives us an update about the Facebook tell-all story 'Careless People', we discuss a Supreme Court case in which a Muslim family joined two Christian families to ask the Court to protect their kids from... books? Lastly, we discuss Ruth Wisse's column in the WSJ titled 'Harvard is an Islamist Outpost'. It seems like you can just email the WSJ opinion editor and it just gets automatically published. Pretty neat!

Addy Lord from Pittsburgh's Not On Our Dime returns with an update about the ballot referendum initiative, and how Zionist groups in Pittsburgh (including elected officials) rallied to keep the measure off the ballot. This is an important episode for those who want to understand how to start similar initiatives in their cities.

We're back! This is a pretty packed episode. We discuss Mubarak coin, John Fetterman, and how things are going over in NEOM before Yasmine takes us through some updates on the continued targeting/deportation of students.

We discuss episode one of the Saudi funded Ramadan series Muawiya.

Just before recording this, Mosab Abu-Toha reported through his Instagram page that Israel murdered hundreds of people as it resumed its genocide in full force and reports from Gaza have only gotten worse since then.   Yasmine carries most of this episode with discussion of what's happening at Columbia and the reverberations for academia in general. Be safe, everyone.

We really enjoyed our conversation with two people who are doing incredible work in their respective fields: Hamid Bendaas, formerly in comms for Bernie Sanders and current communications director for IMEU Policy Project,  and award-winning journalist/media critic Sana Saeed.   We discuss the question of whether Muslims (and other people) should continue abandoning the Democratic Party as well look toward future elections. This was already an ongoing strategy in some states in 2024, but we felt it's worth seriously revisiting the question now that we know a bit more about how the second Trump administration is shaping up.   We hope you enjoy the episode, and we'd be especially interested in heard more thoughts on the topic. Feel free to drop us a comment on Youtube, or DM us on Instagram @the_field_between_pod

We discuss Noura Erakat's article, 'The Boomerang Comes Back', in Boston Review, as well as some of the articles linked in the citations. We then quickly reflect on the one-year mark since Aaron Bushnell's self immolation. We highly recommend reading Ryan D'Souza's article about Aaron.  

We weigh in on the news of the week, primarily on the murder and martyrdom of Imam Muhsin Hendricks in South Africa, and why Muslims need to keep pushing for queer Muslim spaces.

Professor Yasmine gives her perspective and insight on the cuts in education spending. We then discuss Trump floating his plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine and how no one in the opposition party or press is embarrassing him for continuing the longstanding tradition of U.S. Presidents being Netanyahu's lapdogs. Lastly, we discuss the sovereign wealth fund order Trump signed, and why we're CAUTIOUSLY hopeful.

We have a delightful conversation with Hoda Abrahim (@watshoodie), half of the matchmaking duo on Hulu's forthcoming show Muslim Matchmaker, about her journey as a Muslim matchmaker, love, courtship, and more.  You can watch Muslim Matchmaker on Hulu starting February 11th and, if you're a single Muslim looking for that special someone, you can find out more about Hoda's matchmaking service here: https://www.findloveia.com    

We discuss the IHRA definition of antisemitism and what it means that Harvard adopted it.

We spend most of the time discussing the ceasefire on this one. We hope to do another episode in which we can bring on an expert who can help us cut through some of the noise.  Help us out by subscribing/rating our show wherever you listen to podcasts (it really does help us improve our reach), and follow us on Instagram @The_Field_Between_Pod. We also launched our Youtube channel! We hope to have some video content soon. You can find that at @TheFieldBetween.

We talk about Nosferatu (no spoilers, but the story is also more than a century old, so c'mon), Ramaswamy & Musk's support of the H1-B program, and a medical article that has rocked Yasmine's world in the last month.    

We are joined by Hossam El Hamalawy, a revolutionary socialist and journalist. You can find his work on Middle East Eye and his Substack 3rabawy, where he provides commentary on Egypt's military, security services, foreign policy, and local dissent.   Links: Hossam's Substack newsletter 3arabawy  https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/hossam-el-hamalawy Rosa Luxemburg Foundation