Arab Digest podcasts

With tensions rising daily in the region, Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Cato Institute's Jon Hoffman to the podcast. As Israel pounds Lebanon and Hezbollah fires rockets back the slide into a full scale war looms but Washington's response is the same as it ever was: call for restraint while backing Israel to the hilt.

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Arab Digest editor William Law speaks with Hasan Ramadan. Before the 7 October war Hasan was a teacher at a school in North Gaza where he lived with his wife and three sons. Now he and his family are among the nearly 2 million IDPs in Gaza. After several attempts we were able to reach him at an IDP camp in the south of Gaza.

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Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Beirut-based author and commentator Amal Ghandour. Their conversation explores the impact of the Gaza war on the Levant and beyond and looks at how young Arabs have been galvanised by Israel's genocidal conduct into a new sense of themselves and the role they will play in securing what Amal calls a "rewrite" of the Middle East narrative. The podcast was recorded before pager attacks occurred across Lebanon leaving 12 dead and nearly 3000 wounded.

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Arab Digest editor William Law kicks off a new season with the editor of a new book titled The Queer Arab Glossary, the graphic designer, artist and writer Marwan Kaabour. Art book, Arab gay slang glossary and essay collection from a diverse and distinguished group of Arab artists, writers and activists The Queer Arab Glossary is both a provocative statement of independence and a declaration of resistance.

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Summary: the IDF’s prosecution of the war in Gaza and attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank have revived popular support in Arab states for Palestine, forcing MENA governments to back away from further normalisation with Israel.

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Summary: Israel with the support of its Western backers consistently violates international law and the rules-based order on which democracies are founded to impose its violent military will on Palestine and the Palestinians.

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Summary: a book published last year explores the way in which the UAE and Israel have weaponised narratives to undermine and sabotage civil society efforts in the Arab world that are aimed at challenging authoritarian rule.

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Summary: a book published last year explores the way in which the UAE and Israel have weaponised narratives to undermine and sabotage civil society efforts in the Arab world that are aimed at challenging authoritarian rule.

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Summary: Saudi Arabia and the UAE have developed a strategy of promoting a version of Islam branded moderate as a soft power tool designed to reassure Western allies while advancing their regional interests and continuing domestic repression.

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Summary: a prescient podcast that detailed the failures of US foreign policy in the Middle East under the Biden administration and correctly foresaw how unqualified military support for Netanyahu and the region’s authoritarian regimes was leading to consequences that would prove disastrous.

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