Arab Digest 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 f...

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 unst...

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 Gaz...

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...

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 record...

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 thre...

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...

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. W...

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...

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 poli...

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 refu...

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 Jewr...

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, wi...

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 unlik...

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 tha...

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 ArabDig...

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 P...

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 t...

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 Israe...

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 inva...

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 peo...

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 a...

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 con...

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 th...

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 a...