Arab Digest 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.

One year on from the launch of Putin's 'special military operation' Arab Digest editor William Law invites the New Lines Institute's Caroline Rose back to discuss how the war is impacting the Middle East diplomatically and politically and what a frontline attritional stalemate will mean for America's relations in the region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The 21 year old Tunisian writer Tharwa Boulifi joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about the young Tunisians who came of age a decade after the revolution only to find the country slipping back into dictatorship under President Kais Saied, a man many of the Gen Zs initially thought they could trust to keep the dream of revolution alive. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest Editor Willliam Law is joined by Dr Lina Khatib. Her research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, Islamist groups and security, political transitions and foreign policy, with special attention to the Syrian conflict. Their conversation examines how last week's devastating earthquakes are playing into the hands of the Syrian dictator. 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 journalist and author Elias Jahshan. Elias, who edited This Arab is Queer, an anthology of LGBTQ+ Arab writers, talks about the power of language and of music and food to hold truth to power, to challenge intolerance and repression and to push forward the struggle for liberation in the Arab world. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

The Baker Institute's Kristian Coates Ulrichsen joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about the extremist regime Benjamin Netanyahu has assembled and how far-right ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir in provoking provocations against Palestinians are creating a dangerous new environment, a tinderbox which needs only a single spark to set off a major regional conflagration. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Kurdish-American journalist Sirwan Kajjo joins Arab Digest editor William Law in this week's podcast. Sirwan is just back from the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI) and he brings to the table his analysis of the current situation, including tensions between Erbil and Baghdad over oil revenues and the ongoing struggle for supremacy between the two families who control the KRI, the Barzanis and the Talibanis. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Palestinian journalist and commentator Nour Odeh to the podcast. A recent UN General Assembly decision to seek an opinion about Israel's occupation has wide-reaching implications, ones that Israel is clearly rattled by. Against the backdrop of the most extreme government in Israeli history, Nour explains the importance of the decision for the cause of Palestinian justice. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Annelle Sheline from the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about US foreign policy in the Middle East. Two years into the Biden presidency perceptions about America and its role have shifted dramatically in the region but the president and his advisors seem locked in a belief that little has changed. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

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 & podcasts.

On 21 January, 2022 we podcast Lina al-Hathloul’s powerful Testament of Courage. She spoke about her sister Loujain, the Saudi women’s rights activist and for all prisoners of conscience and their families. Lina is Head of Monitoring & Comms @ALQST_ORG and co-author of the children’s book Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers. In honouring the courage and resilience of human rights defenders and their families, we are proud to select her podcast for the Arab Digest Editor’s Choice 2022. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Sami Hamdi, the CEO of The International Interest, joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a wide-ranging, fast-paced and thought-provoking review of a tumultuous year for the MENA region as alliances shifted and fissures emerged with new tensions flaring up even as old ones eased. The podcast wraps up with Sami's take on what to look for in 2023. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Gulf State Analytics CEO Giorgio Cafiero. With relations between the US and key GCC players fraying, China has upped its game seizing both economic and diplomatic advantage. But with Washington remaining the Gulf's security guarantor, the GCC will need to tread a balanced line. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law asks Libya expert Tarek Megerisi to give his assessment of the current situation. His diagnosis is that yes the country remains in a downward spiral but with a new UN special representative in place there is some reason to believe that this seemingly intractable conflict may, possibly, be heading into a more positive space. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Helen Lackner, a leading expert on Yemen to talk about her latest book Yemen: Poverty and Conflict, published by Routledge. The book builds on her profound experience in the country over several decades and is an invaluable primer on its extraordinary history and on current issues that threaten Yemen including the ongoing war, climate change and foreign interference. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Egyptian analyst Maged Mandour. Their conversation this weeks looks at how international finance has enabled President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to continue his mega-projects spending binge as the military tightens its iron grip on the economy and ordinary Egyptians are plunged ever deeper into poverty. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Jim Krane to the podcast. Jim is an energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute in Houston. Their conversation focusses on the remarkable partnership that has grown up between Saudi Arabia and Russia and how the Saudis are very effectively using oil and the rediscovered clout of OPEC+ to leverage geopolitical advantages. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor welcomes Qatar University's Dr Ali Bakir as the podcast heads to Doha. In a wide-ranging conversation they talk about how Qatar is responding to the criticism it is receiving ahead of the World Cup, Sharm el-Sheikh and COP27, the implications for the Gulf of the US mid-terms and how Qatar's ally Türkiye seeks to consolidate gains in the region with a soft power agenda. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

RUSI associate fellow Samuel Ramani joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss Putin's flagging image in the Middle East, how his stratagems in Libya and Syria are playing out, relations with the Israelis as Netanyahu returns, Türkiye's role in getting grain moving again and how the Middle East is weighing up its relationship with a leader who in provoking a war has stumbled badly. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Francis Ghilès, associate senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, is Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week. Algeria, like other hydrocarbon producers, has experienced a huge windfall thanks to the war in Ukraine. The question is will the country see itself return to a position of prominence in North Africa and beyond or will it once again squander the opportunity and remain locked in a dysfunctional economy and a frozen political system? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Dr Andreas Krieg, assistant professor at the Defence Studies Department, King's College London. With global turbulence and turmoil running high the Gulf remains an island of stability but faces challenges as the war in Ukraine plays out, relations with Washington fray and the UK, a longtime GCC ally, staggers from one political crisis to the next. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Dr Renad Mansour, senior research fellow and head of the Iraq Initiative at London's Chatham House. He has just returned from Baghdad and this wide-ranging conversation explores Iraq's political impasse and the structure that is responsible for it, the culture of violence and the enigmatic and powerful populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Also on the table: Iran, Gulf neighbours, the JCPOA and climate change. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

As turmoil roils the ruling Conservative party, Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with the Middle East analyst Michael Stephens. They explore how political instability and economic uncertainty in the UK are accelerating the decline of Britain's status in the region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based think tank Chatham House. Their conversation focusses on the political and business elites that are plundering Lebanon. Ordinary people are suffering huge deprivation, with 80% of the population now below the poverty line, as the economic crisis caused by the insatiable greed of the elites grows ever deeper. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

The Arab Digest podcast conversation this week takes a hard look at US foreign policy in the Middle East under President Joe Biden. Digest editor William Law's guest is Jon Hoffman, a geopolitical analyst and commentator. Hoffman sees Biden's approach as a continuation of decades of failed policies that have served neither the US nor the people of the region well. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

After a tumultuous week which saw the death of Queen Elizabeth and the rout of the Russian army in Ukraine, the Middle East analyst and author Kristian Coates Ulrichsen returns to the podcast to discuss in detail his recent tweets with Arab Digest editor William Law. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Yemen and Jihadist expert Dr Elisabeth Kendall. She assesses the enduring threat of AQAP - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - and the extent to which the movement can exploit both the war and the current truce in an attempt to reassert its terror bona fides. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Kicking off a new podcast season, Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with the Palestinian academic Dr Dalal Iriqat. Their conversation examines both the current and the historic situation of the Palestinian people and their resilience in the struggle to secure human rights and end the Israeli occupation. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

On 10 October 2021 we podcast Maged Mandour’s incisive assessment of the military industrial dictatorship President Sisi is building in Egypt. Maged is a political analyst who writes openDemocracy’s “Chronicles of the Arab Revolt” column, covering the affairs of the Arab world with a special focus on social change in the post-Arab Spring Middle East. He is also a Sada writer for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a contributor to Middle East Eye and a regular Arab Digest contributor. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

At number 2 in the all-time top ten is Christopher Davidson’s podcast Putin’s war plays well with MENA authoritarians which aired 1 April, 2022. Chris is an academic and author of several books on the politics and foreign affairs of the Gulf states and a regular contributor to the Arab Digest newsletter. His latest book published by Hurst is titled From Sheikhs to Sultanism. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Number 3 in the top ten is a podcast that aired 28 May 2021. It featured Aslı Aydıntaşbaş and Cinzia Bianco. Aslı is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Cinzia is a Visiting Fellow at the Council. They co-authored the paper, “Useful Enemies – How the Turkey-UAE rivalry is remaking the Middle East”. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

At number 4 in our all-time top ten podcasts is Francis Ghilès’ Algeria and Morocco: neighbours with issues released 23 July 2021. Francis is a specialist on security, energy and political trends in North Africa and the western Mediterranean, and associate senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre for international affairs. From 1981 to 1995 he was a North Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, and has written for numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, and El Pais. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

At number five in the top ten, Beyond the two-state solution was aired 22 October 2021. Jonathan Kuttab is co-founder of Nonviolence International and of the Palestinian human rights group, Al Haq. A well known international human rights attorney, he has practiced in the US, Palestine and Israel. He serves on the board of Bethlehem Bible College and is President of the Board of Holy Land Trust. He is the Executive Director for Friends of Sabeel North America. William Law spoke with Jonathan just after he had published ‘Beyond the two-state solution’ with Nonviolence International. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Sitting at number six in the top ten countdown is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: down but not out with Elisabeth Kendall. Her conversation with William Law was podcast on 17 September, 2021. Dr Kendall is a Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University's Pembroke College and an expert on Yemen and on Jihadist movements. In October she takes up her appointment as Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. Her article, “The Jihadi threat and the Arabian Peninsula”  on which their conversation was based was published in a 9/11 CTC Sentinel special issue. (CTC Sentinel is West Point's Combating Terrorism Center Journal.) Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Our podcast Cairo and Ankara: a new axis? ranks number 7 in the Arab Digest top ten podcast list. It was released 18 June 2021 and features Ali Bakir, a research assistant professor at Ibn Khaldoon center for Humanities and Social Sciences in Doha. Ali is an analyst following geopolitical and security trends in the Middle East, and especially those between Turkey and the Arab world. His conversation with Digest editor William Law focussed on the thaw in relations between Cairo and Ankara. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.