Arab Digest 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 justif...

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...

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 clu...

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 governan...

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 Ira...

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 nee...

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 receivi...

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...

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...

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 joi...

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...

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 Talib...

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 Pa...

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...

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 eco...

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 fami...

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 th...

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 rec...

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 j...

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...

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...

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 A...

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 N...

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 NO...

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 opport...