Arab Digest podcasts

Number 3 in the top ten is a podcast that aired 28 May 2021. It featured Aslı Aydıntaşbaş and Cinzia Bianco. Aslı is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Cinzia is a Visiting Fellow at the Council. They co-authored the paper, “Useful Enemies – How the Turkey-UAE rivalry is remaking the Middle East”. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

At number 4 in our all-time top ten podcasts is Francis Ghilès’ Algeria and Morocco: neighbours with issues released 23 July 2021. Francis is a specialist on security, energy and political trends in North Africa and the western Mediterranean, and associate senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre for international affairs. From 1981 to 1995 he was a North Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, and has written for numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, and El Pais. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

At number five in the top ten, Beyond the two-state solution was aired 22 October 2021. Jonathan Kuttab is co-founder of Nonviolence International and of the Palestinian human rights group, Al Haq. A well known international human rights attorney, he has practiced in the US, Palestine and Israel. He serves on the board of Bethlehem Bible College and is President of the Board of Holy Land Trust. He is the Executive Director for Friends of Sabeel North America. William Law spoke with Jonathan just after he had published ‘Beyond the two-state solution’ with Nonviolence International. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Sitting at number six in the top ten countdown is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: down but not out with Elisabeth Kendall. Her conversation with William Law was podcast on 17 September, 2021. Dr Kendall is a Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University's Pembroke College and an expert on Yemen and on Jihadist movements. In October she takes up her appointment as Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. Her article, “The Jihadi threat and the Arabian Peninsula”  on which their conversation was based was published in a 9/11 CTC Sentinel special issue. (CTC Sentinel is West Point's Combating Terrorism Center Journal.) Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Our podcast Cairo and Ankara: a new axis? ranks number 7 in the Arab Digest top ten podcast list. It was released 18 June 2021 and features Ali Bakir, a research assistant professor at Ibn Khaldoon center for Humanities and Social Sciences in Doha. Ali is an analyst following geopolitical and security trends in the Middle East, and especially those between Turkey and the Arab world. His conversation with Digest editor William Law focussed on the thaw in relations between Cairo and Ankara. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

We spoke with Chris 11 June 2021. His new book From Sheikhs to Sultanism: Statecraft and Authority in Saudi Arabia and the UAE had just been published by Hurst. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Coming in at number nine in our all-time Arab Digest top ten is Annelle Sheline’s podcast The Weaponisation of Moderate Islam, first broadcast 30 July 2021. Annelle is a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East and North Africa. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

This podcast conversation aired 14 May 2021 as violence flared in the wake of Israeli security forces actions at Al Aqsa mosque and the attempted eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem quarter of Sheikh Jarrah. Jordan’s Prince Hassan has long advocated on behalf of interfaith and humanitarian issues with particular stress on the human dimension of conflicts. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the European Council on Foreign Relations' Tarek Megerisi. Tarek considers the crisis that Putin's invasion has plunged the Middle East and North Africa into and he calls for fresh thinking and urgent action on the part of Europe, acting in concert with international bodies such as the IMF, to avert a human catastrophe on a scale that is unthinkable. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the editor in chief of The International Interest, Sami Hamdi. Sami looks beyond the headlines in the Western media about that fist bump. He argues instead that President Joe Biden's trip to Jeddah to meet with the Saudi crown prince had almost nothing to do with human rights and was much more about his own domestic political challenges, his efforts to reinforce relations with Israel and the attempt to keep alive his hopes for a deal with Iran. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.