Hold Your Fire!

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood talks to Tareq Baconi, Crisis Group’s senior Israel/Palestine analyst, about Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that governs Gaza. They talk about how Hamas views the latest bout of violence which saw the group fire more than 4,000 rockets at Israel, provoking Israel’s bombardment of the strip. Tareq looks at how Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere view the movement, its relations with its main Palestinian rival Fatah and its efforts to navigate geopolitical changes in the Middle East. They also discuss the conditions imposed by the Quartet (the European Union, Russia, the UN and U.S.) on Hamas after it won elections in 2006: that the group recognise Israel, as well as previous agreements with Israel, and renounce violence. They discuss debates within Hamas about those conditions and about its use of tactics that target civilians. They talk about whether, after this latest bout of fighting, there is any prospect of moving beyond an uneasy ceasefire punctuated by outbreaks of Hamas rocket fire and Israeli bombardments that perpetuate suffering in Gaza. For more information:Tareq Baconi, “Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance”, Stanford University Press Explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Israel/Palestine page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood talks to Crisis Group experts Azmi Keshawi, Tahani Mustafa and Mairav Zonszein, respectively based in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, about the latest war – the fourth between Hamas and Israel in the past fifteen years. Azmi talks about his experiences in Gaza under intense Israeli bombardment, what Hamas hopes to achieve with its rocket fire into Israel and whether anything will change for Gaza after a ceasefire. Tahani and Mairav discuss how the war and the events that led to it have looked from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and from Israel. They discuss how Israeli and Palestinian leaders have responded and what Israel hopes to achieve with the bombardment of Gaza. They describe the violence between Palestinians and Israeli Jews in Israel and the West Bank and how much that is a game changer for Israel. They also talk about the shifting terms of the debate in the U.S. within the Democratic party and what that might mean for American policy. They reflect on how much a ceasefire would change the conditions that led to the fighting and what the longer-term implications of this latest war are for Israelis and Palestinians.  For more information:Read our recent Q&A: The Israel-Palestine Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Portents. Hold Your Fire! E34: Delayed Palestinian Polls, Israeli Politics and U.S. Middle East Policy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Crisis Group’s UN Director Richard Gowan. They reflect back on Antonio Guterres’ first term as UN Secretary-General now that he is seeking a second. They discuss his approach to crisis diplomacy, some of the challenges and some of the successes over the past five years. They also talk about Security Council dynamics, particularly the fraught relations among its most powerful members, and what those mean for its role and that of the Secretary-General in peacemaking. They look ahead to the big challenges Guterres is likely to face in the next five years. For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Multilateral Diplomacy page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, which works in partnership with Crisis Group on Israel/Palestine. They talk about why President Mahmoud Abbas indefinitely postponed Palestinian elections, and why not holding the vote is a wasted opportunity and a disappointment to many Palestinians. They discuss recent Israeli elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s struggles to form a government and whether those make any difference to Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians. They also talk about what the Biden administration’s Israel/Palestine policy might entail, prospects for a “rights-based” approach and the recent Human Rights Watch report that labels Israeli policies toward the Palestinians as “apartheid”. For more information,  explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Israel/Palestine page.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Crisis Group’s Project Director for Central Africa Richard Moncrieff and Crisis Group’s Libya expert Claudia Gazzini about what the death of Chadian President Idriss Déby means for the country and for the Sahel region and the connection between Chadian rebel groups and Libya. They unpack possible scenarios now that Déby’s son, Mahamat Déby, has assumed power and formed a transitional military council, provoking popular protests in response. They look at what drove the Front for Change and Concord’s (FACT) recent rebel incursion from Libya into Chad that led to Déby’s death. They also discuss Chad’s military engagement against jihadist groups in the Lake Chad basin and the Sahel, and what the future might hold for those operations. For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Chad page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Crisis Group’s program director for Europe and Central Asia, Olga Oliker, about rising tensions between Russia, on one hand, and Ukraine and Western capitals on the other, over Moscow’s recent military build-up at the Ukrainian border. They talk about the motives behind Russia’s deployments, how they are being perceived in Kyiv, the situation in separatist-held parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and why the peace process has stalled. Olga describes the broader standoff between Russia and the West, of which disagreements over Ukraine are an important – but far from the only – factor. They also look at how U.S. and European leaders should respond and what might help reverse the dangerous escalation in Donbas, with a view to returning to the 2020 ceasefire agreement and peace talks. For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Ukraine page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Crisis Group’s Senior Adviser for the Middle East and North Africa, Dina Esfandiary, about what drove Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among other Gulf states, to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in 2017, why the Gulf Arab countries announced an end to the crisis in January 2021 and whether the rift is truly over. They reflect on what this means for the foreign policies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and how their leaders see their priorities and challenges in the region. They also discuss what the spat has meant for crises across the region where the GCC countries are involved.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Afghanistan, Andrew Watkins, about the fast-approaching 1 May deadline for U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, the stalled peace process and ongoing violence across the country. In February 2020, the U.S. struck a deal with Taliban leaders. It entailed the U.S. pledging to withdraw its forces and the Taliban agreeing not to allow Afghanistan to be used for international terrorism and to enter talks with the Afghan government. Those Afghan peace talks have made little progress, even as the deadline for the U.S. drawdown looms. Andrew talks about how Afghan factions view the U.S. withdrawal, what neighbours and other regional powers think and dangers for the country in the months ahead. For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on Afghanistan page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Naz Modirzadeh and guest co-host Comfort Ero, our Interim Vice President and Africa Program Director, talk to Nelleke van de Walle, Crisis Group’s Central Africa Deputy Project Director, about the challenges preventing the Democratic Republic of Congo from moving forward. They discuss President Tshisekedi’s consolidation of power and the still strong influence of former President Joseph Kabila. Nelleke says that President Tshisekedi needs to step up and make sure he doesn’t become what he replaced. She also warns about the fraught security landscape in eastern DR Congo, where the recent U.S. designation of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) as a foreign terrorist organisation could have unintended consequences for peacemaking and humanitarian efforts.For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our DR Congo page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood, Crisis Group’s interim president, and guest host Comfort Ero, our interim vice president and Africa Program director, talk to Murithi Mutiga, Crisis Group’s Horn of Africa director, about the fighting in Tigray and its implications for regional politics. Murithi sheds light on the calculations of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, rebel Tigray leaders and Eritrea, which has also sent forces into Tigray. He talks through the Horn of Africa’s evolving geopolitics, growing friction between Ethiopia and its neighbours, and the state of play of both Ethiopia’s and Sudan’s transitions. He looks at what continental and world leaders need to do to end the Tigray crisis and calm escalating regional tensions. For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Ethiopia page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.