Arab Digest podcasts

Mar 04 2025 269 ep. 31 mins 847

Arab Digest podcasts artwork

Arab Digest is where business leaders and experts on the Middle East and North Africa come together to share analysis and insight about the issues in the region that matter most. contact email: [email protected]

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Assad is gone, Captagon hangs on

Mar 04 2025 29 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the New Lines Institute's Caroline Rose an expert on the illicit drug Captagon. With the fall of Bashar al-Assad his family's hold on the lucrative trade has suddenly evaporated but the drug hasn't disappeared from Syria and other actors and other countries are eying up opportunities as the Trump administration freezes US engageme

A small town in Lebanon

Feb 24 2025 32 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes George Kanaan to this week's podcast. His book Beyond Lebanon's Peaks: An Odyssey is a fascinating memoir of a businessman and banker who though he has travelled the world in a storied career has never left behind Suq el-Gharb and his Levantine roots. In a wide ranging conversation he reflects on the book and on the current situation in Leban

Morocco's economic express

Feb 18 2025 30 mins

In this week's podcast Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the North Africa expert Francis Ghilès to discuss the reasons why the Moroccan economy is in good health while its Maghreb neighbours Algeria and Tunisia are struggling. Part of the answer is its geography: Morocco sits as a linchpin between Europe and Africa. The rest though has to do with strong macroeconomic pol

The Gulf's Islam rebrand

Feb 11 2025 29 mins

William Law, Arab Digest editor welcomes the Cato Institute's Jon Hoffman to the podcast to discuss his just released book Islam and Statecraft. Jon lays out how the Gulf ruling families have used Islam as a political tool to enhance foreign policy thrusts, ensure regime security and project power. With the West embracing the Gulf's so-called "moderate Islam" and Donald Trump in th

Refugee crises in the Levant

Feb 04 2025 32 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the European Council on Foreign Relations' Kelly Petillo. While the world is fixated on Trump and tariffs the refugee crisis in the Middle East gathers pace as Europe pushes to remove Syrian refugees under the assumption that now that Assad is gone Syria is safe. Meanwhile President Trump muses on relocating Palestinians to Egypt

Yemen: the Huthis and Al Qaeda

Jan 28 2025 30 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the jihadist extremism expert Dr Elisabeth Kendall. Their conversation focuses on Yemen's Huthis and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP.) Both have benefitted from the Gaza war in terms of popular support and propaganda messaging while a peace deal to end the nearly ten years of civil war slips further and further away. Sign

A ceasefire and the gap between hope and reality

Jan 21 2025 32 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes analyst and author Andreas Krieg back on the podcast to discuss the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Both sides claim a victory but unless the ceasefire holds and until it moves into the second phase and beyond that into its third phase of full withdrawal of the IDF and the beginning of reconstruction of war-destroyed Gaza fear and anxiety

Israel, war crimes and a case to answer

Jan 14 2025 33 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the director of Airwars Emily Tripp. Airwars has methodically detailed the civilian casualties caused by the thousands of air strikes carried out by Israel on Gaza in its prosecution of the war against Hamas. The body of evidence assembled tells a story unprecedented in the annals of contemporary warfare with the killing of civili

Syria: caught between Türkiye and Israel

Jan 07 2025 29 mins

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Turkish writer and analyst Aslı Aydıntaşbaş. With the victory of the Salafist HTS in Syria both Türkiye and Israel see opportunities to accelerate their regional ambitions but the two may be heading toward an intense new rivalry as Netanyahu woos the Kurds of Northeast Syria and Erdoğan weighs up whether to offer them th

Editor's choice: Amal Ghandour

Dec 31 2024 34 mins

The editor's choice for 2024 is our 18 September podcast Palestine and a new awakening with the writer and commentator Amal Ghandour. When we spoke with her then 41000 Palestinians had been killed and 96000 wounded. As Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people continues that number has now reached more than 45000 killed and 107000 wounded. The podcast aired before the assass