Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Nick McGeehan director of FairSquare. Their conversation focusses not just on football and Manchester City but on the wider effort by Abu Dhabi's ruling family to destroy political Islam, a campaign that has armed a genocide in Sudan and embraced Nigel Farage's Reform UK as a useful ally. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Gulf banking and finance analyst Andrew Cunningham. Their conversation focusses on the impact on Gulf financial sectors as the Iran conflict enters its eighth month and Saudi Arabia is forced back into a hot war against Yemen’s Huthis. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law brings the Syrian pollster and analyst Malik al-Abdeh onto this week’s podcast to talk about the pressure that Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa is facing from growing protests on the economic front to the menacing presence of Israeli troops in southern Syria. Al-Abdeh argues that time is running short for the president to deliver solutions that will move the country forward. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The Iran expert Trita Parsi joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss the direction the Iran war is heading towards. With the Trump administration insisting the Iranians will buckle and capitulate and Iran standing firm will Israel take matters into its own hands, including using nuclear weapons, as Netanyahu seeks an election victory? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law’s guest this week is the Digest’s energy analyst Alastair Newton. With the war between the Huthis and Saudi Arabia flaring up and continued uncertainty over what steps Donald Trump will take in the Iran war the outlook remains bleak over the next several months that any relief will come on the price of crude and refined oil with the result that economic hardship will spread across the globe. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is caught in a vice: US bases there are the target of Iranian missiles and influential Jordanians are calling for the removal of the bases but the US presence is part of the 1994 peace deal with Israel which is now threatening to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank and into the kingdom. Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the journalist Nour Halabi to discuss Jordan’s dilemma. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Brooking Institution’s Aslı Aydıntaşbaş as his guest this week. Their conversation focusses on the Mecca Pact, the defence deal signed by the Saudis, Pakistan and Türkiye. The pact is designed to provide security against threats from both Iran and Israel in a neighbourhood where increasingly war, rather than diplomacy, is the weapon of choice. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law kicks off season 8 of the Arab Digest podcast with the Gulf analyst and author Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. As the war with Iran settles into no war no peace the Gulf states find themselves caught in an insecure landscape facing both Iran and Israel and unsure what President Trump will say or do from one day to the next. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Coming in at number 1 in our top five is the 6 May 2026 podcast with the North Africa analyst and ECFR visiting fellow Tarek Megerisi. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Coming in at number 2 in our top five is the 14 April 2026 podcast with the Gulf security and defence analyst Andreas Krieg. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Coming in at number 3 in our top five is the 19 May 2026 podcast with the Gulf banking and finance analyst Andrew Cunningham. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Coming in at number 4 in our top five is the 15 May 2026 podcast with Nick McGeehan, the director and co-founder of the non-profit organisation FairSquare which focuses on sport to promote systemic change and stop human rights abuses. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Today we launch our top five podcast countdown. Coming in at number 5 is our 29 April 2026 podcast with the Levant expert Dr Lina Khatib. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Gulf security analyst Andreas Krieg back to the podcast to discuss the ongoing escalation of the Iran-US war. Recent events have further underscored the vulnerability of the Gulf states as both sides seek to inflict damage on the other. But as he points out Iran’s pain threshold is much higher than either the Gulf states or the US. With diplomacy taking a back seat the likely scenario is no all out war but equally no peace with damaging consequences that go well beyond the region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Gulf analyst Giorgio Cafiero. Donald Trump blundered into the Iran war. He wants to bully and bluff his way out but Iran is holding firm. This leaves the Gulf states in an increasingly vulnerable and dangerous predicament caught on the frontlines of a war they were not consulted about and never wanted. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the writer Amy Abdelnoor. Ever Land, her debut novel, explores the Palestinian resistance against Israel's brutal colonisation through the eyes of two young women. One is a murdered Palestinian, the other a Jewish teenager from North London who with her family emigrates to Israel. The seamless interweaving of their stories creates a stunning and disturbing narrative. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Iran expert Dr Sanam Vakil. Their conversation focuses on the challenges facing any sort of a peace deal that emerges from the current talks. There are many pieces to the puzzle and a long and challenging road to finding a solution that works for the parties concerned. And then there is the missing piece to this complex puzzle: Palestine. Without a fair solution to the Palestinian struggle the region will remain a dangerous tinderbox. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Syrian analyst and pollster Malik al-Abdeh. With reconstruction of a war ravaged country still not effectively under way Syria's president Ahmed al-Sharaa faces multiple challenges both from within the country and from external players including Iran which my guest argues poses an even greater threat than Israel. He also urges the government to build a narrative that tells the Syrian people positive change is on the way. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Iraq expert Renad Mansour. With a new prime minister in place Iraq still faces severe challenges both domestically and regionally. A country that had successfully avoided being pulled into Israel's war against Palestine has since the February 28 attack by the US and Israel been dragged into a conflict that remains unresolved and threatens its hard won stability. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

With the Ukraine war and the conflict in the Gulf, Algeria finds itself well placed to benefit economically. So Arab Digest editor William Law asked the North Africa and Western Mediterranean energy and security analyst Francis Ghilès to talk about how Algeria can exploit the opportunities and whether a country facing structural economic challenges can get past those challenges to realise the windfalls that wars in Europe and the Middle East are creating. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Quincy Institute's Annelle Sheline. Their conversation explores the damage that the Iran war is doing to Donald Trump's MAGA base and what the casual and contemptuous manner in which he treats his Gulf allies will mean for present and future relations with the GCC as Netanyahu strives to further exploit the president's guileless acceptance that Israel with America's backing is winning wars that are in fact already lost. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

William Law, editor of the Arab Digest newsletter, welcomes the Egyptian political and economic analyst Maged Mandour on to this week's podcast. Their conversation focusses on the trap that Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has built for himself and his country. With America, the UAE and Israel determined to reshape the Arab world to fit their own purposes Sisi is caught in a debt trap with the Emiratis being his biggest financial backer while the Israelis with the support of Donald Trump push forward to become the Middle East's new hegemon. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Gulf banking and finance analyst Andrew Cunningham onto the podcast to talk about the extent to which the Iran war is impacting the economies of the GCC states. They discuss the metrics used to measure economic damage and explore just how quickly Gulf economies can rebound once the war has ended. Given that the regime in Tehran has survived and will continue, both the West and the GCC will need to find what Andrew Cunningham calls a grand bargain with Iran. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week on the podcast is the analyst and rights expert Nick McGeehan. The subject is football and how the owner of Manchester City FC is the subject of a complaint about his relationship with the Rapid Support Forces conducting a genocidal campaign as the Sudan civil war rages. Their conversation also explores FIFA's response to issues raised by the Palestinian Football Association about racism and matches being played in illegal West Bank settlements. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law invites the North Africa specialist Tarek Megerisi onto this week’s podcast. The starting point for their conversation is Tarek's take on the EU's "Pact for the Mediterranean" and how a fresh approach to North Africa could shape positive outcomes in a region urgently in need of them. They explore the threat that Israel and Trump's America pose regionally as well as globally and what Europe could do to ease that threat. Tarek concludes with his assessment of the current situation in Libya. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back the Levant expert Dr Lina Khatib to discuss the war in Lebanon. Dr Khatib argues that Hezbollah though significantly degraded continues to play a spoiler role and that until a solution is found that ends the Israeli-American war against Iran Lebanon will continue to suffer further collateral damage. She also argues that with the war over Israel will have no choice but to pull out of Lebanon. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

To discuss the current situation in Syria Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Syrian analyst Malik al-Abdeh.The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and president of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa has been embraced by Washington but he has faced multiple challenges, including assassination attempts, as he works to balance pressure from Israel and Türkiye with internal threats and ISIS re-emerging in a bleak economic landscape. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The Gulf states are on the frontline of a war they worked hard to prevent. Once it began they find themselves facing a prime minister who uses permanent war to survive politically, a president who increasingly seems out of touch with reality and a regime that those two, Netanyahu and Trump, said they would replace but which has become only more hardline and more threatening. To help explain the challenging landscape the Gulf states are staring at, Arab Digest editor William Law has brought the defence and security expert Andreas Krieg back onto the podcast. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law has invited two top energy analysts - the Baker Institute's Jim Krane and Arab Digest's Alastair Newton - onto the podcast to discuss the implications and the impact for energy markets as Donald Trump vows to use force to open the passage. Iran’s Gulf neighbours and the wider region wonder, as does the rest of the world, how the war will end and where markets are headed once it does. The podcast was recorded 7 April at 1500 GMT Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the conservative analyst Jon Hoffman. Amidst conflicting reports that Trump's base is or is not fracturing over the US-Israel war against Iran Jon Hoffman argues that the longer the conflict continues the greater the rift will grow between Trump's hardcore MAGA supporters who back his war and young disillusioned American Firsters who see continued support for Israel as a betrayal of his promises to them. The podcast was recorded 30 March. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the Iraqi-American writer Sinan Antoon. The podcast focusses on his latest novel which interweaves the stories of two Iraqis in America , one a retired surgeon slipping into dementia, the other a young torture survivor but their conversation also ranges into the attempt by Israel to obliterate Palestinian culture and the impact of the current Iran war on Iraq. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest on this week's podcast is the Iran expert Sanam Vakil. As the war continues and Donald Trump flounders the Islamic regime is conducting its fight for survival with a tenacity that neither the Israelis or the Americans anticipated. Should the regime survive the majority who want change will lose but if it falls the likeliest outcome is chaos with further suffering inflicted on the Iranian people. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Turkish analyst and writer Aslı Aydıntaşbaş. President Erdoğan's efforts to adopt a neutral stance while urging de-escalation are challenged by events on the ground and in the neighbourhood as Israel with Trump's backing moves to reshape the map of the Middle East. The Israeli tactic of using maximum kinetic force to achieve regional hegemony is raising fears in Ankara that the next target will be Türkiye. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the defence and security analyst and Gulf specialist Andreas Krieg. The US/Israel war against Iran is upending security in the Gulf states and creating global anxiety and uncertainty. Donald Trump entered the war with no exit strategy. Now he and his administration are wavering. However, Benjamin Netanyahu has an end game: to create chaos in the neighbourhood believing it will give Israel security at home and dominance in the region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes author and analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen to the podcast to talk about football in Mohammed bin Salman's Saudi Arabia. The crown prince who was an international pariah just a few years ago has rehabilitated his image using the world's most popular sport as his road back. Kristian's book, just out, is called Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer and it's the centre piece to their conversation. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Sudanese researcher and policy analyst Hamid Khalafallah. It was nearly three years ago that two generals went to war and plunged the country into what has become the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Outside players such as the UAE which has armed one of the sides have played a significant role in prolonging the war and causing enormous harm to the people of Sudan. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the lawyer Sara Segneri, an expert in sanctions law, war crimes and international financial crime. Israel with the support of the US, the UK and other Western governments acts with impunity as it prosecutes a genocide but as Segneri succinctly argues ignoring national and international law puts foreign investors in illegal settlements and in the broader Israeli economy at risk of bottom line losses to accompany the reputational damage they will inevitably incur. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the security and energy analyst Francis Ghilès onto the podcast. With European states needing to escape their reliance on Russian gas they explore opportunities for the energy rich Maghreb countries of Libya and Algeria to meet Europe's requirements. In doing so a new relationship based on energy links could evolve but big obstacles remain on both sides of the Mediterranean. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Kurdish American journalist Sirwan Kajjo. With the sudden defeat of the SDF the Kurds who had hoped for autonomy are seeing those hopes evaporate. At the same time the abandonment of ISIS prisons and camps in North East Syria and the presence of their supporters in the Syrian army resurrects the spectre of a jihadist war in Syria and Iraq and renewed terror attacks elsewhere in the world. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law invites Sanam Vakil director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at London’s Chatham House onto the podcast to discuss the current situation in Iran. Yet again another uprising has been brutally suppressed but as its Arab neighbours breathe a sigh of relief that a war has been averted the regime itself, assailed from within and without, is severely weakened. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

This week's podcast looks at recent events in Yemen that have severely damaged the reputation of the UAE as a wily and pragmatic regional powerhouse. Joining Arab Digest editor William Law is the Yemen expert and author Helen Lackner. They explore the quick and humiliating defeat of the UAE-backed southern Yemen STC forces as Saudi Arabia delivered a powerful military punch that routed the secessionists. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş from Washington's Brookings Institute joins Arab Digest editor William Law for the first podcast of 2026. Barely a week in and with Donald Trump's seizure of the Venezuelan president and his wife it is already a year that has upended the old world order. Where that leaves the volatile and violent Middle East is a question their conversation grapples with. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

The editor's choice for 2025 is our 26 February podcast 'A small town in Lebanon' with George Kanaan. 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 Lebanon and what he calls Trump's 'cruel idea' for Gaza. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes Tarek Megerisi and Annelle Sheline to this week's podcast. Their conversation reflects on the big stories of the year just passed - those that made the headlines and those that didn't - and looks ahead at what 2026 will bring to a region beset by terrible wars and facing great uncertainty in a world turned upside down by the antics and actions of Donald Trump and by a belligerent Israeli war machine. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

William Law's guest this week on the Arab Digest podcast is the European Council on Foreign Relations' Kelly Petillo. Their conversation focusses on three countries - Syria, Sudan and Palestine - and the challenges and obstacles they face both external and internal in managing the millions who have been displaced by years of wars. Petillo argues that Europe must step up and provide humane solutions. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

On 8 December last year the Syrian capital Damascus fell to rebel forces. Arab Digest editor William Law has invited Syrian analyst and writer Malik al-Abdeh on to this week's podcast to discuss how the country is faring under the leadership of its president Ahmed al-Sharaa and how outside forces remain significant players in shaping the direction Syria will take in 2026. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

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. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

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. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

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. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.

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. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.