Real Talk

'Hundreds of people are coming to my events, many of them Jewish, and they tell me I gave them their ancestors back'
Molly Crabapple is an Emmy Award-winning artist, author and journalist. Her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country, tells the largely forgotten story of the Jewish Labour Bund, a secular, socialist, anti-Zionist mass movement founded in 1897 that at its peak was the largest Jewish political organisation in Eastern Europe.
The Bund believed that Jewish people had the right to stay in their homes, and refused to accept that the answer to antisemitism was a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.
In this conversation on Real Talk, Molly sits down with Mohamed Hashem to talk about her Jewish identity, her 2015 reporting trip to Gaza, seven years of archival research, and what the Bund's story means during this time.

‘I regret losing my job. Not what I said’
Mark Bonnick worked at Arsenal for 22 years. Then on Christmas Eve 2024, the former kitman was fired over posts he made on X criticising Israel over the genocide in Gaza.
Arsenal accused him of bringing the club into disrepute. The case was quickly framed by media outlets as one of antisemitism. But reports later revealed that the Football Association told Arsenal his posts had not breached any of the governing body's rules.
Mark is now suing Arsenal for unfair dismissal.
In this conversation on Real Talk, he sits down with Mohamed Hashem outside the Emirates Stadium, as Arsenal prepare for the Champions League Final, to tell his story for the first time.

"The left loves to lose. They can't get enough of it."
Ana Kasparian has been an influential and prominent voice in US independent media for nearly two decades.
The co-host and executive producer of The Young Turks speaks with Mohamed Hashem on Real Talk to make the case for a left-right coalition on Israel, and why she believes the establishment of both parties has failed the American people.
Kasparian calls out AOC for being outflanked by Marjorie Taylor Greene on Gaza, and explains why she's willing to work with anyone, regardless of politics, to "stop a genocide."
She also opens up on the personal cost of speaking out: lost jobs, death threats, and Israeli soldiers sending her weapons imagery.

"Mom, I'm at our house."
Yousra Elbagir is Sky News UK's Africa correspondent. She has been highly praised for her reporting on a war that's been largely absent from mainstream news coverage: Sudan.
As the fighting enters its fourth year, Sudan has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Millions have been displaced as cities are destroyed by a brutal power struggle and foreign interference. But for Yousra, this isn't just work, or a news story. Sudan is also her home.
In this conversation on Real Talk, she speaks with Mohamed Hashem about her reporting from inside the country, the siege of cities like el-Fasher, the UAE's role in giving the Rapid Support Forces global cover, and Europe’s inaction on the war.
Yousra also reflects on returning to her family home of 25 years in Khartoum, ransacked by the RSF, and what it means to report a war that is also your own.

"My commanders liked the fact I was a Nazi. They saw it as making me a better warrior."
Matt Kennard is a British investigative journalist who co-founded Declassified UK, and is also the author of Irregular Army. It’s a book that uncovers how the US military, desperate to fill its ranks during the War on Terror, began looking the other way on things that would once have disqualified soldiers from serving, such as neo-Nazi tattoos, gang affiliations, and mental illness.
In this conversation on Real Talk, Kennard speaks with Mohamed Hashem about the openly neo-Nazi veterans he met and interviewed, the moral waiver programme that opened the door to convicted felons, and the Rumsfeld Doctrine that was the catalyst.