Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Jon Hoffman from the Washington libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. Their conversation focuses on the growing rift in American right wing circles about ongoing US support for Israel. Jon Hoffman also reflects on his recent visit to Israel and the Occupied West Bank and he delivers a simple message: America walk away.

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In 1986 Soraya Antonius published a devastatingly powerful novel about the brutality of the British Mandate in Palestine. The book quickly slipped into obscurity. But now 8 years after Antonius' death it has been rescued from oblivion and republished. William Law's guest this week is the writer Selma Dabbagh who authored the introduction to a new edition of The Lord.

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William Law's guest this week is Caroline Rose, an expert in tracking the production and distribution of Captagon. The fall of the Assad regime and its Captagon empire has opened up new hubs for the drug. One of those is Sudan. In a country trapped in a vicious civil war there is growing evidence that one side in the conflict, the UAE-backed RSF, is exploiting the Assad overthrow and a Captagon hungry Gulf market to become an emerging hub.

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The arrest of the journalist and Arab Digest contributor Sami Hamdi in San Francisco is an attempt to silence criticism of Israel's genocidal war against Palestine and the Palestinians. William Law's guest this week is Hussam Ayloush the head of CAIR-LA. CAIR is the organisation that had invited our contributor to the US to speak for the Palestinian cause.

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Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair. With the RSF conducting a massacre in the city of El Fasher in Darfur questions need to be asked and answered about the role the United Arab Emirates is playing in supplying weapons to the RSF. And Western governments including the UK need to bring pressure on both warring sides - the RSF and the SAF- to secure a meaningful ceasefire as the world's worst humanitarian disaster continues to unfold.

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William Law's guest this week is Alastair Newton. In a wide ranging conversation Arab Digest's energy analyst reflects on the likelihood of a huge glut of oil on the world market, how Gulf energy producers will play their hand in the coming months, Chinese dominance in critical minerals and how that will impact on oil, the Trump factor as he announces sanctions on Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil and Alastair's call on the price of oil at the end of 2025.

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Yemen expert Helen Lackner joins William Law in this week’s Arab Digest podcast. A country caught in a frozen war faces further threats from Israel and Emirati efforts to stymy Riyadh’s attempts to secure a peace deal that would extricate the Saudis from the quagmire in which they have been stuck for more than ten years.

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Libya expert Tarek Megerisi joins William Law to discuss the plundering of the country's energy wealth by external players and foreign commercial entities aided and abetted by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh and Khalifa Haftar. As these two corrupt leaders chase wealth and strive for dominance in a fractured Libya, countries like Türkiye, Russia and the UAE seize the opportunity to entrench themselves and further their influence at the expense of the Libyan people.

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William Law's guest this week on the Arab Digest podcast is the Gulf analyst and author Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. As talks continue in Cairo on President Trump's 20 point plan to end the Gaza war much rides on the pressure Washington will bring to bear on the participants. Meanwhile the Gulf states watch and wonder whether Benjamin Netanyahu has replaced Iran as the gravest threat to regional security.

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William Law's guest this week is Renad Mansour director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House. With the annual Iraq Initiative conference getting underway under his leadership Renad discusses the many challenges as well as the opportunities the country faces as it strives to move forward in an uncertain and unstable neighbourhood. Details on the two day conference are found here -

https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/research-event/iraq-initiative-conference-2025

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