Mehdi Hasan, an empty chair and Israel's list of 170 reporters
No one from the Israeli military joined the Piers Morgan Uncensored debate on its list of journalists it says were militants, and Zeteo's short of Hasan's answer drew a crowd far beyond its usual.
Zeteo
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 244,859 views a day, 8 times a normal first day on this channel (30,504).
Total Bullsh*t From a Lying Military: Mehdi Calls Out Israel
The Israeli military has put out a list of 170 journalists it says were militants. Mehdi Hasan's reply to it is blunt: no, we don't trust you. The short's description says it comes from a Piers Morgan Uncensored debate that no one from the military joined to defend the list. Hasan argues the list should not be taken on trust, pointing to what he calls the military's history of lying.
The short went up on Monday as "Total Bullsh*t From a Lying Military: Mehdi Calls Out Israel" and passed 300,000 views in its first 29 hours. A new short on Zeteo usually ends its first day at around 30,000. Comments came in more than five times faster than usual. The detail viewers return to most is the empty chair, and several compare it with debates where one side simply does not show up.
Hasan built his reputation on confrontation. He hosted Al Jazeera's Head to Head and debated at the Oxford Union, then left MSNBC and founded Zeteo in 2024. Viewers know him best with an opponent across the table. Here the opponent never arrived.
It was not the channel's only busy upload. On the third anniversary of October 7, Zeteo posted "The Hannibal Directive: Mehdi Hasan Asks 'Why the October 7 Media Cover-Up?'" It asks why Western outlets have said little about Israeli deaths that Israeli media have linked to the directive, and it started almost as fast. A town hall with Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, recorded with Zeteo's paid subscribers, also opened well above the channel's usual pace.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Zeteo
- Subscribers
- 2,270,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 6,228,565
- Channel views, pace per day
- 948,993 (on a normal day: 1,045,149)
- Video published
- October 5, 2026
- Video views so far
- 301,488 (2 days online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 258,958
The numbers
Three Zeteo uploads on the war ran far ahead of the channel's usual first day, and this short led them.
