‘He lost his legs, and then he lost his balls and his honor,’ Hasan’s guest, Bassem Youssef, said of Rep Brian Mast
To disgraced former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, losing your legs fighting for America is a big joke. Especially if you’re a pro-Israel member of Congress.
During a live taping of his show at the anti-Israel ArabCon conference last week, Hasan burst out laughing when his guest, Bassem Youssef, mocked Rep. Brian Mast’s missing legs, which the Florida Republican lost after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in September 2010 during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Hasan, a British-born Muslim, brought up Mast’s support for Israel, which the lawmaker displayed by wearing an Israel Defense Forces uniform on Capitol Hill after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
“He lost his legs, and then he lost his balls and his honor,” said Youssef, an Egyptian comedian best known for a viral interview after Oct. 7 with Piers Morgan in which he refused to condemn the terrorist group Hamas.
The ArabCon audience laughed at Youssef’s remarks. After recovering from his own laughing fit, Hasan piled on Mast.
“He is one of the most racist people in Congress, and that’s saying a lot,” said Hasan.
Mast’s response included a warning to Hasan and Youssef. “They should be careful, if some of their terrorist friends knew how interested they are in my balls they may be thrown off a building,” Mast told the Washington Free Beacon.
It’s not surprising rhetoric for Hasan or ArabCon, which the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) hosted this year in Dearborn, Mich., which has been dubbed “America’s Jihad Capital” because of its high concentration of pro-Hamas activists. Hasan, who has compared gay people to pedophiles and non-Muslims to “cattle,” had his MSNBC show canceled in November 2023 after his continuously one-sided, often inaccurate coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas. He left the network shortly thereafter.
Several ArabCon speakers and audience members praised Hamas and defended Oct. 7 as an act of justifiable resistance against Israel.
Zahra Billoo, an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, praised the “generous” and “beautiful” leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a charity that funded Hamas. Billoo attacked Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.), a Jewish Democrat, over his views about the Israel-Hamas war, and said his vote had been bought by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbyist group.
ArabCon moderator Amer Zahr, a former Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) campaign surrogate, mockingly asked a panel, “Do you condemn Oct. 7?” Panelist Rabab Abdulhadi replied: “I never, ever condemn Palestinian resistance and anyone’s resistance around the world.”
Audience members at Hasan’s event praised Hamas and Oct. 7, reflecting a broad base of support among ArabCon attendees for the largest terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
“The one thing that irks us the most is when sometimes you start off by saying, ‘I condemn October 7th,’ or, ‘I condemn Hamas,’” an audience member told Hasan and Youssef.
For his part, Hasan said he believes Palestinians had “a right to resist,” but against “combatants” rather than civilians.
“A right to resist doesn’t mean you have the right to do anything you want,” said Hasan. “I don’t believe you should ever target civilians. I do believe in a right to resist, but it has to be against combatants. You have every right to kill combatants. And a right to resistance is there for the Palestinian people.”
Hasan and the ADC did not respond to a request for comment.
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