Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest

Arab Digest is where business leaders and experts on the Middle East and North Africa come together to share analysis and insight about the issues in the region that matter most. contact email: editor@arabdigest.org read less

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The US and a pullout from Iraq and Syria

The US and a pullout from Iraq and Syria

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.

Episodes

The US and a pullout from Iraq and Syria

The US and a pullout from Iraq and Syria

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.

Saudi Arabia's dark side

Saudi Arabia's dark side

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.

Mohammed bin Salman discovers the art of diplomacy

Mohammed bin Salman discovers the art of diplomacy

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.

What Iranians Want

What Iranians Want

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.

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated

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.

The Levant in the Gaza war

The Levant in the Gaza war

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.

North Africa: "broken countries in a broken region"

North Africa: "broken countries in a broken region"

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.

Yemen and the Gaza War

Yemen and the Gaza War

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.

Getting it wrong in the Middle East

Getting it wrong in the Middle East

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.

Gulf energy in an uneasy time

Gulf energy in an uneasy time

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.

The Gulf states and the search for security

The Gulf states and the search for security

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.

Assad and the strategy of negative neutrality

Assad and the strategy of negative neutrality

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.

Sleepwalking to WW III?

Sleepwalking to WW III?

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.

Temperature Rising in Gaza War

Temperature Rising in Gaza War

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.

Red Sea reckoning

Red Sea reckoning

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.

Sudan's forgotten war

Sudan's forgotten war

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.

Editor’s choice 2023: Remember Yemen!

Editor’s choice 2023: Remember Yemen!

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's 2023 year end review

Arab Digest's 2023 year end review

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.

Joe Biden's war

Joe Biden's war

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.

The Gaza war and the refugees

The Gaza war and the refugees

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.