An episode discussing the pending gap law, corruption, army spending, rebuilding trust in the banking sector, prospects for Lebanese-Israeli relations and America's diplomatic role at large.
With economist and Arab News columnist Nadim Shehadi.
Check out Nadim Shehadi's article 'Lebanon is not resilient, it is traumatized':
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2144181
and Michael Young's piece 'A Mechanism of Coercion':
https://carnegieendowment.org/middle-east/diwan/2026/01/a-mechanism-of-coercion
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
4:36 Protecting the criminals
7:08 Diversion from the real issues
9:05 Gap Law
14:43 Minimizing the state
20:30 Defending unpopular figures
22:18 Corruption in Lebanon
24:24 Investigations
30:38 Constant battering
33:10 Army spending & budget
38:10 Key element is trust
42:23 Discussion on Israel
44:29 Michael Young
46:29 “A Mechanism of Coercion”
51:12 Normalization - an internal matter
1:00:25 American positioning
1:06:07 “We’ll just go”
1:13:00 Turning 70