Shadi Hamid

For so many of us, the event we discussed earlier this month with the writer and political scientist Shadi Hamid, namely the attacks of September 11th, 2001, were a defining event in our political consciousness.

And it was supposed to be so.

Those attacks were designed to shock, to awe, to create terror.

But he's actually been interviewed by the press that had previously just played clips of him and said, isn't this bad? Well, now they actually have to interview him.

And it's very interesting to me that everyone from Axios to Derek Thompson to Shadi Hamid, they're all sort of clutching their pearls.

And James Surowiecki, to name another guy.

And here's just 50 seconds of the Axios appearance before we get into the MS Now, which I think is actually even more interesting.

Look at the attacks.

Mehdi Hasan and, and Peter Beinart and Shadi Hamid and an Egyptian American and all these anti-Zionist Jews, and, like, all of this.

And also, but, but, but by, like, like, crappy Palestinian voices, whether they be, uh, folks from the West Bank or folks from the diaspora communities, um, who have never set foot in Gaza, okay? Palestinian public opinion is so highly fragmented, whether it be people in Gaza or people versus people in the West Bank versus people in Jerusalem versus people in, in inside Israel versus the Arab, uh, countries like Palestinians in Syria or Lebanon or Jordan versus Palestinians in Europe versus in America and South America.

Did you know that Chile has a massive, m- gigantic Palestinian community-

It also changed the course of the lives of individuals.

That was absolutely the case for the writer and political scientist Shadi Hameed.

Shadi was in college at the time of the September 11th attacks.

His identity up until that point, as he tells me, included the fact that he was Muslim.

But after the attacks, Shadi, as well as many other Muslims throughout America, found himself defined by that fact.

I've found Shadi's personal and intellectual journey in the years since fascinating.

We had him on the podcast two years ago to discuss how, despite his commitment to left-wing activism in his college years and, after the War on Terror, having witnessed the Arab Spring, he came to be convinced of the necessity of American power.

That was set out in his book The Case for American Power, in which Shadi, as he told me at the time, had come to accept American power as a fact, even essential.