Arab Digest 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...

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...

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...

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...

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 dail...

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...

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 Endow...

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 ArabDig...

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 star...

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 Ti...

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...

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 Mis...

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 conversati...

We spoke with Chris 11 June 2021. His new book From Sheikhs to Sultanism: Statecraft and Authority in Saudi Arabia and the UAE had just been published by Hurst. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Coming in at number nine in our all-time Arab Digest top ten is Annelle Sheline’s podcast The Weaponisation of Moderate Islam, first broadcast 30 July 2021. Annelle is a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East and North Africa. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join t...

This podcast conversation aired 14 May 2021 as violence flared in the wake of Israeli security forces actions at Al Aqsa mosque and the attempted eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem quarter of Sheikh Jarrah. Jordan’s Prince Hassan has long advocated on behalf of interfaith and humanitarian issues with particular stress on the human dimension of conflicts. Sign up NOW at...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the European Council on Foreign Relations' Tarek Megerisi. Tarek considers the crisis that Putin's invasion has plunged the Middle East and North Africa into and he calls for fresh thinking and urgent action on the part of Europe, acting in concert with international bodies such as the IMF, to avert a human catastrophe on a scale that is unthinka...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the editor in chief of The International Interest, Sami Hamdi. Sami looks beyond the headlines in the Western media about that fist bump. He argues instead that President Joe Biden's trip to Jeddah to meet with the Saudi crown prince had almost nothing to do with human rights and was much more about his own domestic political challenges, his effo...

Writer and journalist Elias Jahshan is Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week. Their conversation focus on the LGBTQ+ Arab community in the Middle East and the diaspora in a powerful new book of 18 essays, This Arab is Queer, which Elias edited. As he says in his introduction: "These writings assert our existence and agency as a community, and also celebrate our varied experiences. This...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Egyptian political analyst and commentator Maged Mandour. Their conversation deals with Egypt's growing economic crisis and how President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is managing it. He may believe that with good friends in the neighbourhood, among them Israel, he has time to spend his way out of economic collapse. But the military-economic dictators...

Author and analyst Matthew Hedges is this week's podcast guest as he joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss his recently published book, an analysis of how Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, has assiduously built a military, digital and economic power base while remaining largely in the shadows. Matthew talks, too, about his detention and abuse at the hands of the UAE's St...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Samuel Ramani. Their conversation focusses on how the Ukraine war is playing out for Vladimir Putin's ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. As Putin continues his war of attrition against a European nation, Middle Eastern countries are weighing up how a Russian drawdown of troops in Syria might serve to tilt the scales either away from or towar...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes top North Africa energy analyst Francis Ghilès to the podcast to talk about the potential energy alliance between Italy, Tunisia and Algeria as the war in Ukraine grinds on and sanctions on Russia begin to bite. Italy is determined to become Europe's energy hub while Tunisia has the geographic proximity to the continent and Algeria the resources for a nexus...