Middle East Forum Podcast

Western intellectuals and public figures like Bill Nye and Ben Affleck respond to attacks on the West with remorse, guilt and self-hate. In so doing, they often internalize Islamist messages that view Israel and the United States as particular enemies to be destroyed. How did this influence come to be? What are its practical effects? How can they be addressed?

Earlier this year, international media uncritically reported that Uthman Ibn Farooq, a prominent Islamist preacher, had been attacked on the streets of San Diego by a knife-wielding "Islamophobe." Investigator and writer Ahnaf Kalam thought the tale a little too neat. In recent series of articles in Focus on Western Islamism, Kalam uncovered compelling evidence to suggest that Ibn Farooq faked his...

Benjamin Netanyahu faces high tensions in putting together a government. What do they suggest about the months and years ahead?

Shurat HaDin (the Israel Law Center) has bankrupted jihadis and their financiers in the courtroom for nearly two decades, resulting in $2 billion in judgments and $300 million collected on behalf of over 450 victims. What lawsuits are currently underway against Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and Iran? What are the complications and challenges in these cases? How does this battle affect the glob...

As Netanyahu's allies pound him with demands, negotiations to form Israel’s next government have reached an impasse. What are his choices?

Contrary to claims propagated for almost 75 years, no massacre of Palestinians by Israeli fighters took place on April 9, 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin, just west of Jerusalem. This false narrative was invented to smear the new-born State of Israel. What actually happened, how did the falsehood spread, and what have the consequences of this calumny been for Israel?

Daniel Pipes will provide a summary of Cynthia Farahat's book, The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood's Industry of Death (2022). Cynthia Farahat will discuss what she means by the "secret apparatus." Jonathan Schanzer will address the ways in which the U.S. government should approach the Muslim Brotherhood.

As Israel's Knesset (parliament) is sworn in this week, what are the implications of the country's prospective most right-wing and religious government ever?

Recently obtained documents reveal that a former CIA officer named Kevin Chalker may have spied on Qatar’s rivals to help it secure the 2022 World Cup and allege he may have offered his services to it to influence U.S. foreign policy. Various questions arise as the FBI determines whether Chalker's activities violated U.S. laws related to foreign lobbying, surveillance, and tradecraft: Why did Chal...

As a growing number of figures on the Right, from mainstream GOP officials to internet "influencers" such as Andrew Tate, align with Islamist activists, American Muslims display unhappiness with their self-appointed leaders' embrace of progressive politics. Why is this re-alignment of Islamists with the Right happening? What does this shift mean for the future of Islam in the West? Sam Westrop, di...

Benjamin Netanyahu's decisive electoral win means he will be invited to form a government. What are its priorities? Who gets which positions?

Assyrians, an ancient Christian community mainly located in Iraq, have suffered enormous hardships since the dual blow of the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of ISIS. What are the chances of Assyrians surviving the current threats? How does their plight fit into the larger predicament of Middle Eastern minorities?

Recent events in northwest Syria included indications that Turkey may currently be colluding or partnering with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a terrorist group closely linked to Al-Qaeda. Under Erdogan, Turkey has long worked in close collaboration with Islamist insurgent groups in its ongoing fight against Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) and its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What woul...

The initial election results of Israel's Nov. 1 election are in. Do they provide an indication of what the next government will look like?

Since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September, 2020, rapid and significant progress has been made in relations between Israel and its Gulf neighbors. More than 150 memoranda have been signed, and trade has increased over 65 percent. What is the historical context of these current developments? What are the possibilities for increased cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia?

Qatar manages to walk the balance beam between powerful actors, maintaining friendly relationships with both the United States and Iran, and efforts to punish the small emirate for its double game have failed repeatedly. This success has made it a model for its neighbors, with the Persian Gulf currently in a process of what might be called 'Qatar-ization.' What are the forces that have combined to...

It's the final week before Israel's elections. Are there likely to be any last minute surprises? Could they tip the balance in favor of either bloc?

Continuing the Middle East Forum’s intense focus on the Israeli strike on a Syrian nuclear plant in 2007 – see the MEQ articles by Ori Wertman and Ehud Barak - Yuval Steinitz will explain his fascinating and hitherto untold story of his battle with the IDF establishment to push it to take steps against Syria’s acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. How did that battle play out? How are its implic...

In his latest book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, Walter Russell Mead argues that myths and conspiracies surround the US-Israel relationship. What are some of those falsehoods, how did they originate, and what do they imply for the future of the relationship?

The U.S. government quietly brokered an agreement to an Israeli-Lebanese maritime border dispute that impeded the flow of natural gas for both countries. Now, that agreement has exploded into the central focus of Israel's election season. How did that happen and what does it signify?

Christopher Holton has spent much of his career working with American state governments to fight the spread of Islamism. He introduced model legislation prohibiting state courts from considering Shariah law in family and civil court cases, and he lobbied state governments to divest their pension funds from state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran. Mr. Holton’s latest campaign seeks to establish a...

The Kurds are among the largest stateless people in the world, spread out primarily among Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Currently, they are central to the mass protests in Iran, under Iranian attack in Iraq, under Assad’s attack in Syria, and under Erdoğan’s repression in Türkiye. Where are these crises heading? What are U.S. relations with the Kurds in these four countries?

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) once flourished as a prominent Islamist organization. Now its membership has plummeted, its leadership is rudderless, and even the U.S. State Department has distanced itself. Middle East Forum investigative reporter Susannah Johnston “crashed” the latest ISNA convention to learn first-hand about its moral and political collapse. Is this a good developmen...

American politicians and elites have increasingly superimposed an American racial ideology onto the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In this view, Israeli Jews are seen as “privileged” and “white,” making them an enemy of the “intersectional” coalition of the oppressed, including the American black community and Palestinians. Where did this idea come? How prevalent is it in universities and Democrati...

Despite scattered successes over the past two decades, the battle to reform Islam from the inside has made less progress than hoped. One of its outstanding American leaders reviews painful lessons learned from struggles inside the "House of Islam," assesses current trends, and asks what the record suggests to be best future strategies against the backward ideology of Islamism.