Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Jon Hoffman a research fellow in defence and foreign policy at Washington's Cato Institute with a particular specialism in US policy in the Middle East. Donald Trump's emphatic victory in this week's presidential election comes at a time when the MENA region is convulsed by war. In his triumphal victory speech Trump promised peace but will his erratic and transactional approach drive the region ever closer to all out war? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Kurdish American journalist Sirwan Kajjo. A recent parliamentary election in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq featured a high turnout and a strong showing by a new party, both indications that the grip of the two families that have controlled the region for decades is beginning to slip. Meantime Iraqi Kurdistan continues a delicate balancing act as the war in the Levant between Israel and Iran's proxies burns on. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair. Their conversation focusses on a war that has gone on for 18 months and has caused the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. Sudan's people are the victims of two generals vying for dominance backed by outside players who like the generals have no concern for them. Nor judging by its silence does the rest of the world. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Quincy Institute's Annelle Sheline who quit the US State Department in protest at her government's Gaza policy. She argues that rather than restraining Israel the Biden administration is backing Netanyahu's efforts to provoke a major war with Iran in order to redraw the map of the Middle East. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the head of the Middle East programme at London's Chatham House Sanam Vakil. Their conversation focusses on Iran and Israel as the confrontation between the two edges ever closer to a hot war. Also on the agenda are Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the efforts they are making to avoid such a war. What too should the UK be doing to champion diplomacy rather than weaponry in the search for regional security and peace? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the security and defence analyst Andreas Krieg. As the intensity of Israeli attacks increases Dr Krieg - who has written a groundbreaking book on the weaponisation of narratives by state and non-state actors - details how such narratives are driving the Middle East toward all out war and he offers proposals about what the UK and the Starmer government could do right now to help avert a looming catastrophe. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

With tensions rising daily in the region, Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Cato Institute's Jon Hoffman to the podcast. As Israel pounds Lebanon and Hezbollah fires rockets back the slide into a full scale war looms but Washington's response is the same as it ever was: call for restraint while backing Israel to the hilt. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law speaks with Hasan Ramadan. Before the 7 October war Hasan was a teacher at a school in North Gaza where he lived with his wife and three sons. Now he and his family are among the nearly 2 million IDPs in Gaza. After several attempts we were able to reach him at an IDP camp in the south of Gaza. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Beirut-based author and commentator Amal Ghandour. Their conversation explores the impact of the Gaza war on the Levant and beyond and looks at how young Arabs have been galvanised by Israel's genocidal conduct into a new sense of themselves and the role they will play in securing what Amal calls a "rewrite" of the Middle East narrative. The podcast was recorded before pager attacks occurred across Lebanon leaving 12 dead and nearly 3000 wounded. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law kicks off a new season with the editor of a new book titled The Queer Arab Glossary, the graphic designer, artist and writer Marwan Kaabour. Art book, Arab gay slang glossary and essay collection from a diverse and distinguished group of Arab artists, writers and activists The Queer Arab Glossary is both a provocative statement of independence and a declaration of resistance. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: the IDF’s prosecution of the war in Gaza and attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank have revived popular support in Arab states for Palestine, forcing MENA governments to back away from further normalisation with Israel. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: Israel with the support of its Western backers consistently violates international law and the rules-based order on which democracies are founded to impose its violent military will on Palestine and the Palestinians. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: a book published last year explores the way in which the UAE and Israel have weaponised narratives to undermine and sabotage civil society efforts in the Arab world that are aimed at challenging authoritarian rule. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: Saudi Arabia and the UAE have developed a strategy of promoting a version of Islam branded moderate as a soft power tool designed to reassure Western allies while advancing their regional interests and continuing domestic repression. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: a prescient podcast that detailed the failures of US foreign policy in the Middle East under the Biden administration and correctly foresaw how unqualified military support for Netanyahu and the region’s authoritarian regimes was leading to consequences that would prove disastrous. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: backed by Western democracies, Arab Gulf states and a steady flow of weapons dictatorships and warlords are flourishing in MENA and creating new and dangerous levels of instability in an already deeply unstable region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: a recent book by a leading Gulf analyst argues that the Gulf monarchies have successfully ridden out threats posed by the Arab Spring to their autocratic rule with an adept use of multipolar alliances and effective governance. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: a new book by Maged Mandour details the ways in which President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has used hyper nationalism and the military to create a new form of dictatorship, hitherto unseen in Egypt. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Summary: Iraqi Kurdistan remains at odds with the central government in Baghdad over oil revenues and within KRG two families tussle for power and divide the spoils between them with ordinary citizens continuing to be denied their rights as corruption runs rife. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

This Arab Life: Author and blogger Amal Ghandour joins editor William Law as his guest on the Arab Digest podcast. Their conversation about Lebanon, Jordan and the wider Arab world takes as its point of departure Amal's latest book This Arab Life which is both an intensely personal memoir and a ruthlessly honest assessment of the past, the present and the near future of a region riven by social, political and economic crises. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Editor William Law is joined by Arab Digest's resident energy analyst Alastair Newton. Their conversation drills down on the current state of the oil market and where it is headed in the second half of 2024 ranging across peak oil, grey rhinos, net zero, the looming possibility of a war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Biden decision to stand down, the state of the Gulf's national oil companies, China. And yes Alastair is standing by his call of $70 a barrel at year's end. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Annelle Sheline. She quit the US State Department in protest at the Biden adminstration's unqualified support for the Israeli government's ongoing war of genocide in Gaza and she tells Arab Digest that the road on which America is embarked could spark a wider catastrophic war in the Middle East. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the North Africa energy and political analyst Francis Ghilès. Their conversation looks at the Maghreb states of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya and explores how each one is delivering on the economic opportunities the current global geopolitical landscape is offering up. Morocco is proving both adept and resilient in seizing those opportunities while the other Maghreb countries lag far behind. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined from Washington by the Middle East analyst and writer Aslı Aydıntaşbaş. The focus is on Türkiye's President Erdoğan and how he has positioned himself in the Gaza war and in his relations with Middle East states. In a US election year when the signs are growing of a Trump return to the White House Aslı Aydıntaşbaş reflects on what that will mean for the Middle East and for President Erdoğan. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Defence and security analyst Andreas Krieg is Arab Digest editor Willliam Law's guest this week. The Gaza war has laid bare a regional security and stability crisis, one that impacts Middle East states as much as it does Israel. It is a crisis that the Biden administration has allowed to burgeon as state and non-state actors vie for ascendancy in the vacuum caused by a collapsing US hegemon and Israel's blind pursuit of a war it has already lost. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the New Lines Institute's Caroline Rose. The trade in the illicit synthetic drug Captagon continues to boom and much of it is run by Syria's Assad family. The Assads have built up a manufacturing and distribution network that brings them more than $2 billion a year. Despite Bashar al-Assad's promise to curtail the trade in return for being allowed back into the fold of the Arab states, captagon remains king as the Middle East's drug of choice. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Egyptian journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy. Their conversation traverses the relationship between Egypt and Israel from the point of the signing of the 1979 peace deal to the present Gaza war. With each passing decade Egypt's influence has waned to the point that, as the Gaza genocide continues, Cairo is forced to bow to Israel while playing second fiddle to tiny Qatar in peace talk negotiations. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes Gulf analyst and author Kristian Coates Ulrichsen back to the podcast. Their conversation is a preview of Kristian's latest, soon to be released book The Kingdom of Football. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has used the purchase of Newcastle United FC and the stocking of the Saudi premier league with expensive foreign talent to refurbish an image badly tarnished by systematic human rights abuse and the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The broadcaster, journalist and filmmaker Zeinab Badawi joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about her new book An African History of Africa which charts the history of Africa from the very beginnings of human life on earth to the present. In a wide-ranging conversation with a focus on North Africa and Sudan Zeinab Badawi explores the history of the continent from an African perspective embued with her own deep knowledge. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics. The Washington-based geopolitical analyst considers how America's enemies are strengthening their presence in the Middle East even as President Biden weakens his bid for re-election by continuing to back Israel as voters who would otherwise support him turn away angered that he is allowing and arming a genocide in Palestine. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor Wiliam Law's guest this week is the Kurdish American journalist Sirwan Kajjo. Their conversation focusses on the Kurds in three countries - Syria, Iraq and Iran - as they explore the impact of the Gaza war and the ongoing pressures Kurdish people are experiencing from both outside forces and in the case of Iraq and Iran the governments that rule over them controlling so many aspects of their lives while delivering so little to them. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about the war in Sudan which has become the world's worst humanitarian disaster. While global attention has focussed on Ukraine and Gaza a vicious civil war grinds on with outside players becoming increasingly prominent and the people of Sudan paying an appallingly high price. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Renad Mansour joins Arab Digest editor William Law as his podcast guest this week. Renad is a Senior Research Fellow and the Project Director of the Iraq Initiative at London's Chatham House. Their conversation looks at the flaws in US and other Western nations' managing of the challenges posed by the Axis of Resistance and notes that even as the region descends further into instability sparked by the Gaza war there are signs in Iraq that progress toward a stable and secure state, albeit limited, is starting to happen. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Dania Akkad, Senior Investigative Editor at Middle East Eye. Their conversation focusses on the extraordinarily high death toll of aid workers in Gaza and the claim by the IDF that it does not target aid organisations or their employees, a claim the facts belie. Dania examines the recent attack on World Central Kitchen that killed seven and notes the simple steps the IDF could take were it to be seriously committed to the protection of humanitarian aid workers. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Caroline Rose, the Director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at Washington's New Lines Institute. In the midst of the Gaza war America continues to weigh up whether to remove its remaining troops on the ground from Syria and Iraq. A difficult call at any time but with growing uncertainty about the direction the Middle East is headed towards and in an election year that could return Donald Trump to the White House whatever the US decides will have profound implications for the region and beyond. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the human rights campaigner Areej al-Sadhan. Her brother Abdulrahman al-Sadhan languishes somewhere in a Saudi jail. Forcibly disappeared for more than six years, his family have had no word of him save for a one minute phone call. He is but one of thousands of prisoners of conscience detained in the kingdom. Meanwhile the world's democracies embrace a rehabilitated Mohammed bin Salman choosing to ignore the gross human rights violations carried out under his leadership. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the European Council on Foreign Relation's Cinzia Bianco. After a tumultuous and violent start to his de facto leadership of Saudi Arabia the crown prince has pivoted the kingdom toward a new diplomacy at a challenging and dangerous time in the world's most volatile region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Iranian historian Arash Azizi whose latest book What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom has just been published. Their conversation focusses on the struggle of ordinary Iranians against a theocratic dictatorship and how it is in the interests of both Arab states and America to rethink strategies in order to defuse the multiple threats the Khamenei regime poses to the region and to the world. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Mona Seif is the sister of the jailed Egyptian-British writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Her audio profile of him speaks of the person that he is, the injustice of his sentencing and incarceration and the inept failures of the UK government to support efforts to secure the release of a British citizen whose name has been described as synonymous with the 25 January 2011 Egyptian revolution. She concludes by reading his evocative call from prison to Gaza and to the Palestinian people. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Middle East analyst and Chatham House Associate Fellow Lina Khatib. With so much focus on the war in Gaza little attention has been paid to how the conflict is affecting the countries of the Levant. The conversation reflects on impacts in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and, as Israel weighs up a northern front engagement, what could happen should the war against Palestine widen out into the greater Levant. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The European Council on Foreign Relations' Tarek Megerisi joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about North Africa. The people living in the Maghreb and Egypt are facing severe challenges but their governments, supported by Western institutions and political leaders, are disconnected from the citizens they rule over. Nowhere is that more starkly clear than in how North African regimes are responding to the war in Gaza. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The Yemen expert Helen Lackner joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss the ways in which the war in Gaza have impacted on Yemen including the Huthis targeting of Red Sea shipping, the impact on efforts to finally secure a peace deal in Yemen's nearly ten year old war and how the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well as crises elsewhere have placed Yemen's people into an even more precarious position than they found themselves in before 7 October. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back the Middle East and North Africa analyst Francis Ghilès. Their conversation focusses on how persistent misreadings of the Middle East over decades have lead both America and Europe down a road that has repeatedly led to disasters culminating in the current war in Gaza where, unless rational thinking prevails, an unimaginable bloodbath will follow with the potential to engulf the region in an all-out war with enormous consequences for the world. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the energy analyst and author Jim Krane. In a wide ranging conversation they discuss how shifts in global energy patterns are altering relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, how Gulf hydrocarbon producing states' move towards transition is proceeding and how the Gaza war is impacting the Gulf energy sector. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Middle East security, foreign affairs and defence analyst Tobias Borck joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about his new book Seeking Stability Amidst Disorder, an examination of how Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have used foreign policy sometimes to good effect, sometimes not, to attempt to secure stability in a volatile neighbourhood that with the war in Gaza has become ever more unstable. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Syrian analyst Malik al-Abdeh. As with the earthquake that devastated northwest Syria one year ago Bashar al-Assad is once again using disaster to strengthen his grip on the roughly two-thirds of the country he controls. Carefully steering his regime clear of any support for Hamas or for the Palestinians trapped and being massacred in the Gaza Strip, Assad is securing growing acceptance of his regime in Europe. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest Editor William Law is joined by Middle East analyst Sami Hamdi to talk about the growing threat to the region and the world as Israel continues its brutal prosecution of the Gaza war.Their conversation looks at outside players and how they are responding to the scorched earth policy the IDF is carrying out. Will diplomatic pressure and the world's outrage be enough to stop the Israeli onslaught or will this war continue down an apocalyptic road? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes Sanam Vakil director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.Their conversation focusses on the role of Iran and the Axis of Resistance in the Gaza war. As Israel continues its brutal assault there is a growing risk that tit for tat responses in other theatres of action will blend into a full-blown regional war. The podcast was recorded 22 January before the UK, for the second time, joined the US in strikes on Yemen's Huthis. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the author and Gulf states analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. Their conversation focusses on the cycle of violence that has hit Red Sea shipping lanes as the region slips into a wider arena of conflict with the Gaza war as a catalyst. They interrogate the assumptions in Washington, London and other Western capitals that bombing the Huthis will end the threat rather than escalate it. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Sudanese political analyst and broadcaster Kholood Khair. Sudan's civil war has been ongoing since April as two generals battle to see who will prevail in a brutal struggle that has shown no regard for the people of Sudan. Their peaceful revolution of 2018-19 that threw a dictator out has been usurped by two men driven by greed and a lust for power contesting between them to see who will become the country's next dictator. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

On 27 September we podcast Helen's Lackner's insightful analysis of Yemen as the now almost nine year conflict continues to ravage the Yemeni people. Helen, a regular AD newsletter contributor is one of the world's foremost Yemen experts and the author of several books on a country she has worked in over several decades. Her most recent book published by Routledge is Yemen: Poverty and Conflict. We are proud to select her podcast for the Arab Digest Editor's Choice 2023. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Brooking Institute's Aslı Aydıntaşbaş for a look back at a tumultuous and violent 2023. It was a year that has seen the Middle East and North Africa riven by multiple wars that challenge not only the region but the world's security. Aydıntaşbaş concludes our year-ender with her predictions for 2024. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Washington-based CEO of Gulf State Analytics, Giorgio Cafiero. When Joe Biden arrived in Tel Aviv on 12 July this year he said "you don't need to be a Jew to be a Zionist." The podcast examines the president's unwavering support for Israel in the face of the IDF's continuing onslaught on the people of Gaza and considers other critical US policy failures in the Middle East and North Africa in 2023. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

While the war in Gaza rages on, little thought is being given to the impact it is having on refugees across the Middle East and North Africa. Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the European Council on Foreign Relations Kelly Petillo. She discusses efforts by extremists in the Netanyahu government to carry out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, examines the impact of the war on refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and considers efforts by Europe to buy its way out of the migrant crisis. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the historian Avi Shlaim to talk about his latest book Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew. Professor Shlaim was just five when he and his family left a comfortable middle-class life in Baghdad for the newly emerging state of Israel. It was a country, he argues, that was dominated then, as it is now, by the politics and Zionist ideology of European Jewry. The opportunity to use Arab-Jews as a bridge between two peoples was never taken up with decades long and terrible consequences that today are being played out in the violent destruction of Gaza. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the North Africa analyst Tarek Megerisi. While the world has been focussed on the Gaza war competing kleptocrats in Libya have gotten on with plundering the country while Europe and the rest of the international community look away and the UN fumbles opportunities to move the country and its people toward security and peace. We begin, however, with Tarek’s thoughts on Gaza. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by regular AD newsletter and podcast contributor Maged Mandour. His book Egypt under El-Sisi: a Nation on the Edge will be published by I.B. Tauris 25 January and is the subject of today's conversation. Maged tracks Sisi's trajectory since orchestrating the 2013 coup that overthrew Mohammed Morsi and he argues that the Egyptian president is a dictator unlike any that have come before him. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Lina Khatib the director of the Middle East Institute at London's SOAS joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss how the Gaza war is impacting Lebanon. With its economy in ruins and the government paralysed the last thing Lebanon needs is for the war to spill over. But with Iran-backed Hezbollah the dominant force and Israel continuing its strikes into the country the threat remains high that a regional war that begins in Lebanon could engulf the region with far reaching and disastrous consequences.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Turkish analyst and writer Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC. Their conversation focusses on the efforts that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made to position himself as a leading voice in resolving the Gaza war, efforts that have thus far backfired badly for him. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the analyst and commentator Sami Hamdi, editor in chief of The International Interest (intlinterest.com). As Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip, Middle East regimes are scrambling to come up with responses that both accommodate Israel and respond to popular support for Palestinians amidst concerns in some countries that street protests in support of Palestine could quickly turn on the regimes. The podcast was recorded 27 October. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Jon brings to the table insights into President Biden's handling thus far of the Gaza-Israel war and argues that Israel's military battering of Gaza offers no long-term solutions that will bring about security for Israel and end the suffering of the Palestinian people. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the British-Arab writer Layla Maghribi. Like many citizens of Arab descent in the UK and Europe Layla speaks out in defence of Palestinians as the bombardment of Gaza continues and civilian casualties continue to mount. And as she speaks she voices the fear that many Arabs feel that they are no longer safe in their own countries as their leaders give Israel unconditional support. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the defence and security analyst Andreas Krieg, author of Subversion: the strategic weaponization of narratives. Their conversation explores how prevailing narratives in the Gaza - Israel war are driving the region and the world into an evermore dangerously lethal situation even as civilian casualties continue to mount and Israel prepares for a land invasion that regardless of the outcome it cannot win. The podcast was recorded before news broke of the bombing of a hospital in Gaza City that has left 100s of civilians dead. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Kurdish writer and academic Choman Hardi. A distinguished poet, Choman has just had her debut novel Whispering Walls published by Afsana Press. It is an absorbing and powerful account of an Iraqi Kurdish family grappling, on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with their own history, entangled as it is with the history of the Kurds as a people without a country. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the energy analyst Alastair Newton. Alastair, a regular contributor to the AD newsletter, takes a long hard look at the way the future of oil is playing out in the Gulf. Peak oil is coming and it may be sooner than Gulf oil producers think. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the key players and between the two Alastair examines who is better prepared and what happens if the Saudis stumble at a time when the region and the world is gripped by a climate crisis caused in no small part by the addiction to oil. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Yemen expert Helen Lackner. In a wide-ranging conversation they look at the situation on the ground, how negotiations between the Saudis and the Huthis are progressing, the role the UAE is playing in the south and the acute humanitarian situation as leaders of various factions inside the country and outside players jostle while the people continue to suffer in a largely forgotten war that has now gone on for more than 8 years. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

William Law's guest this week on the AD podcast is the Libyan analyst Anas El Gomati. As the warlord Khalifa Haftar and his sons spin a web of deceit and attempt to shirk responsibility for the massive flood that killed thousands, El Gomati strips away their lies to reveal how the Haftars' greed and incompetence are at the heart of the disaster and how the support of foreign players has enabled the family to plunder Libya. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Renad Mansour, a Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme and the Project Director of the Iraq Initiative at London’s Chatham House. Their conversation ranges widely, looking at the current government in place for nearly a year, the continuing role of Iran, what needs to happen to curb the corruption throttling the country and the determination of young Iraqis to replace a system that denies them with one that empowers their hopes and enables their aspirations. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Middle East policy analyst Jon Hoffman from the Washington-based Cato Institute. Hoffman argues that Biden and his advisors are poised to make the gravest foreign policy blunder in the region since the Iraq war as the president pushes forward on securing a deal that would see Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords and recognise Israel. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Reinventing the Sheikdom: how MbZ has shaped the UAE Top of our New Top Ten Podcast Countdown is our 1 July, 2022 podcast with Matthew Hedges. Matthew is an academic focusing on authoritarian regimes with an emphasis on the monarchies of the Gulf states. He's the author of Reinventing the Sheikhdom: Clan, Power and Patronage in Mohammed bin Zayed’s UAE published last year by Hurst. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The MbZ and Erdoğan embrace Number 2 in our NEW Top Ten Podcast Countdown is our 18 February 2022 podcast with Sami Hamdi, Editor in Chief of the International Interest and a regular Arab Digest newsletter and podcast contributor. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Today’s New Top Ten entry is our 8 July 2022 podcast with Maged Mandour. Maged is a political analyst and a regular contributor to Arab Digest and to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is also a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal. Maged is the author of an upcoming book, Egypt Under Sisi (I.B.Tauris) which will examine the social and political developments in Egypt since the coup of 2013. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Number 4 in our new Top Ten is our 9 September 2022 podcast with Dr Elisabeth Kendall. Dr Kendall is an expert on Yemen and militant jihadist movements. Prior to her appointment as Mistress  of Girton College, Cambridge University she was a senior research fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University's Pembroke College. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

America and the Kais Saied coup Number 5 in our new Top Ten is our 11 March 2022 podcast with Amy Hawthorne. At the time Amy was the Deputy Director of Research at POMED, the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington, DC. She is a Middle East expert with many years of experience working on Arab politics and US Middle East policy in the NGO sector and think tanks and in the State Department during the Obama administration. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Iraq in a suddenly changed world Our 25 February podcast was with Renad Mansour, a Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East and North Africa program and project director of the Iraq Initiative at  London’s Chatham House.  It was recorded a little less than a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Macron’s missteps in the Middle East Francis Ghilès is a specialist on security, energy and political trends in North Africa, and the western Mediterranean. He's a Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs and a visiting fellow at King's College London. The podcast was first broadcast 28 January 2022 ahead of the French presidential election in April. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The UK’s declining status in the Middle East Amidst domestic political uncertainty and a lack of coherent policy formulation in the autumn of 2022 the UK found its presence in the Gulf and the wider Middle East in danger of slipping further into decline. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and the JCPOA Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Middle East Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, Texas. His most recent book published by Hurst is Qatar and the Gulf Crisis. This podcast was first broadcast on 14 January 2022, six weeks ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It focussed on the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, at a point where Iran was claiming agreement was close to hand. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

A Palestinian village you’ve probably never heard of The untold story of a small Palestinian village split in half and fighting quietly and with great determination for its survival. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Gulf security expert David Roberts. He has just published a book that examines the six Gulf monarchies through five security lenses: political, societal, economic, military and environmental. He argues that the monarchies have shown a remarkable resilience and defied repeated predictions of their demise. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Elisheva Goldberg, media and policy director for the New Israel Fund. Their conversation is about a crucial West Bank Bedouin village, Khan al-Ahmar, and why the extremists in Netanyahu's government are pushing hard for its destruction as a key to achieving their ultimate goal of driving Palestinians out of what they call Greater Israel. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Editor William Law welcomes Isobel Archer to the Arab Digest podcast. Isobel is the Senior Researcher, Labour & Migrant Worker Rights for the London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. The centre has just released a report on the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar during and after the football World Cup that shows, with numerous abuses uncovered, the Qataris and FIFA still have serious questions to answer for despite their claims of significant improvements in advancing the rights of migrant labourers and service workers. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

As part of the Arab Digest Egypt week interrogating the 3 July 2013 Egypt coup that overthrew Mohamed Morsi, the country's only democratically elected president, Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the Egyptian writer and analyst Maged Mandour. Their conversation begins with the revolution of 2011 and traces the circumstances that enabled the coup, follows the tightening vice of the Sisi dictatorship and his destruction of the economy and ends with Maged's thoughts on when and how a democracy could emerge in Egypt. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

An Emirati businessman who holds Turkish citizenship has disappeared from the Amman prison where he was being held by Jordanian authorities at the behest of the UAE. Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by Dania Akkad, a senior investigative editor with Middle East Eye to discuss how a warrant issued by the so-called Arab Interpol has trapped Khalaf al-Romaithi. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Jim Krane. An ex-journalist and an author of several books dealing with energy and the Gulf States, Jim is an energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. Their conversation today is all about Abu Dhabi and OPEC+. Will constraints imposed on the UAE by the cartel cause a rupture and the departure of the Emiratis or will they weigh up the options and bide their time? Will they go or will they stay? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the British-Sudanese student and activist Hadeal Abdelatti. While two power-hungry generals fight for control and devastate Sudan and its people, the courage and determination that saw the 2019 overthrow of the Omar Bashir dictatorship remains and is captured in the TikTok videos of Hadeal. Her voice is the voice of young Sudanese within the country and in the diaspora for whom the call for democracy will not be silenced. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Francis Ghilès joins Arab Digest editor William Law in this week's podcast. Francis is a visiting fellow at King's College London and an expert on North Africa politics, energy and security. He argues that what has been called Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution has failed despite the overthrow of Ben Ali in 2011 because the structure of dictatorship has remained essentially unchanged thus enabling a new dictator, in the shape of Kais Saied, to emerge. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the New Lines Institute's Caroline Rose. Caroline has been carrying out ground-breaking investigative analysis of Captagon, the drug of choice in the Gulf and the wider Middle East. With the Arab League normalising relations with the Syrian regime and welcoming Bashar al-Assad back into the fold, the head of the family narco business has scored another coup but it is one unlikely to stop the flood of Captagon into the region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Middle East analyst Jon Hoffman joins Arab Digest editor William Law from Washington D.C. Their conversation is a look at how Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used religion to drive forward their domestic and foreign policy initiatives of silencing dissent at home while subverting democracy efforts in the wider Middle East and North Africa, all the while gaining plaudits from the West for buttressing so-called moderate Islam and encouraging interfaith dialogue. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The Turkish writer and analyst Aslı Aydıntaşbaş joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about Türkiye's 14 May election. With a battered economy and a growing sense that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's increasingly centralised and repressive rule is failing the country, his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu leads the polls. But as the region and the world watches, the outcome remains uncertain. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

It is a sweeping epic that travels through time and space to tell the interlinked and intergenerational stories of five powerful, determined and gutsy women. Their narratives are woven into and entwined with the history and the challenges of the Gulf state of Kuwait. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the ECFR MENA specialist Tarek Megerisi. With Sudan sliding towards civil war as two generals vie for power, the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar winning Western backing and Kais Saied the president of Tunisia tightening his grip on power as he restores one-man rule in Tunisia Tarek argues that the West's support for dictators will only serve to further instability and heighten insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

While the world looks elsewhere, three countries are hosting at a conservative estimate 5.4 million Syrian refugees. Arab Digest editor William Law 's guest this week is Kelly Petillo, a Middle East and North Africa specialist with the European Council on Foreign Relations. The European hard right is scapegoating Syrian refugees while at the same time Syrians in Türkiye, Lebanon and Jordan are facing increasing hostility as those countries struggle with weak economies and political insecurity. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

William Law's guest on the podcast is the Palestinian academic Dalal Iriqat. This week marks the first 100 days of the latest Netanyahu government, the most extreme in Israel's history. Acting with impunity, a Fascist coterie of his ministers has stepped up a vicious campaign aimed at removing whatever rights Palestinians might still have while using violence to provoke violence in order to justify apartheid. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Saudi human rights activist Areej al-Sadhan. Her brother Abdulrahman is one of many held in Saudi Arabia's labyrinthine prison system whose only crime was to criticise the regime of Mohammed bin Salman. The crown prince spends billions to promote an image of reform in the kingdom but behind the expensive PR and his lavish giga-projects lies a brutally repressive dictatorship. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest regular contributor Francis Ghilès joins editor William Law in a wide ranging conversation about the economic and political outlook emerging from the constitutional coup being carried out by Tunisian President Kais Saied. Francis notes the support that Saied is receiving from powerful MENA allies, chief among them gas-rich Algeria. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Andreas Krieg joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about his just released book Subversion. Andreas looks at how weaponised narratives have been used in the Middle East to sabotage and subvert the Arab Spring and efforts to empower civil society. Key players in the game are the United Arab Emirates and Israel who share a common goal: to subvert democratic engagement and governance in the Middle East and North Africa. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Chatham House Iraq expert Renad Mansour joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss the impact of America and the UK's 2003 decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Faulty assumptions, false claims and the decision to dismantle the armed forces and the civil service coupled with the imposition of a sectarian governance structure led to chaos, corruption and violence that scars Iraq to this day. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Zoe Robbin, an Amman-based analyst on climate change and water issues joins Arab Digest editor William Law on today's podcast. Their conversation is about water and how it is a little-reported on but extremely powerful weapon. While cutting Palestine out of climate change talks, Israel is using water to further settlement plans in the West Bank while using Jordan's increasingly desperate water needs to push the kingdom into a corner. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.