The return of Israeli hostages marked an emotional turning point—and the clearest sign of Donald Trump’s renewed influence in the Middle East. His intervention pushed Israel toward a fragile peace that trades withdrawal for relief, as Hamas reasserts control in Gaza and global leaders remain hesitant to condemn it. With Netanyahu absent from the talks, Israel’s strategy and Hamas’s future hang in the balance. Has Israel traded security for symbolism? Can Hamas be disarmed through diplomacy? What...
Oct 15, 2025•31 min
The Houthis (Ansar Allah), entrenched in Yemen’s highlands and backed by Iran, have resisted years of military campaigns and efforts to dislodge them through diplomacy. Controlling key territory, including the Yemeni capital and a large part of the coastline, and exploiting the humanitarian crisis, they wield growing power and regional influence. The Houthi campaign against shipping on the Gulf of Aden-Red Sea route has effectively shuttered a key global maritime artery. Can local resistance, re...
Oct 08, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 379
Dearborn, Michigan, long celebrated for multicultural harmony, now faces scrutiny for suppressing dissent under claims of fighting Islamophobia. Mayor Abdullah Hammoud’s public attack on Christian critic Ted Barham coupled with the city council’s silence on Hamas and Hezbollah, raises alarms about radical Islamism’s influence. Dexter Van Zile, on a recent visit to Dearborn, observed further evidence of Islamism and support for terror in other forms. What future awaits non-Muslim voices in Dearbo...
Oct 08, 2025•31 min
The Druze of southern Syria, long known for their pragmatism, now face an uncertain future as the country’s landscape fractures. Caught between Islamist factions, Iranian-backed militias, and shifting Western interests, they are increasingly vulnerable to sectarian violence. On two occasions since the fall of the Assad regime, the community has faced attacks from forces associated with the new authorities in Damascus. Many lives have been lost. What path forward remains for this small but resili...
Oct 03, 2025•30 min
The dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in late 2024 promised an end to decades of tyranny. The new government of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement, however, appears to be in the process of reshaping Syria into a Turkish satellite. The new government is sidelining the U.S.-aligned Kurds and igniting sectarian strife in the south and west of the country, under Ankara's shadow. Turkey, meanwhile, is building a military infrastructure in Syria, while maintaining control over it...
Oct 02, 2025•41 min
The October 7, 2023 Hamas assault on Israel shocked the world with its brutality. While many condemned the attack, others rapidly rushed to blame Israel, framing the Jewish state as an oppressor through the lens of Marxist ideology and critical race theory. In The Battle for the Jewish State, Victoria Coates examines how Hamas’s atrocities, Iran’s role, and America’s cultural drift have imperiled Israel and the U.S. Is this conflict truly about land, or is it part of a broader civilizational str...
Sep 15, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 375
For years, the Department of Homeland Security has funneled millions in taxpayer funds to organizations tied to foreign terrorists and extremist ideologies, undermining America’s safety from within. In "Homeland Insecurity," Benjamin Baird and Anna Stanley expose this chilling betrayal, detailing how over $25 million has flowed to groups linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. How did this funding scandal persist unchecked? What must be done to stop it?Benjamin Baird is director ...
Aug 20, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 374
The Israeli government has made an official decision to conquer Gaza. Is this really the goal or is it just another negotiating tactic?Ashley Perry is an advisor to the Middle East Forum’s Israel office. He served as adviser to Israel's minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister in 2009-15, and has also worked with Israel's Ministers of Intelligence, Agriculture and Rural Development, Energy, Water and Infrastructure, Defense, Tourism, Internal Security, and Immigrant Absorption and a...
Aug 13, 2025•31 min
For two decades, Iran’s regime pursued a clandestine nuclear agenda, aiming to unleash apocalyptic devastation on Israel. Israel’s response, the daring Operation Rising Lion, sparked the intense 12-Day War, reshaping the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape. How did this high-stakes clash unfold, and what does it mean for the region’s future.Edwin Black is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of numerous books translated into 20 languages across 190 countries, with his latest bein...
Aug 12, 2025•34 min
Buoyed by diplomatic gains, Hamas has now walked away from negotiations. What are Israel’s options in the next period?
Aug 07, 2025•32 min
Iran has for centuries constituted a resilient multi-ethnic empire, dominated by Persian imperial ambitions. It survived the 20th-century collapse of similar realms like the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. Today, this imperial nature persists, though it is now cloaked in Islamist garb. The Tehran regime perpetuates subjugation through ethnic apartheid, proxy militias, and the expansionist Iranshahr ideology—mirroring historical quests for dominance akin to Russia's "Russian World" or Nazi ...
Aug 05, 2025•43 min
College campuses have become ground zero for the world’s antisemites to take advantage of democratic norms to espouse their hatred of Jews and the Jewish homeland while coupling their vitriol with physical acts of abuse and intimidation not seen in the West since the years leading up to the Shoah. After many years of both Democrat policymakers and progressive university administrations ignoring the impending explosion of Jew-hatred brewing under their leadership, the atrocities of October 7th sh...
Jul 28, 2025•1 hr 13 min
In Jordan, King Abdullah II has steered a delicate course through a turbulent region, balancing global alliances with domestic pressures, as vividly captured in The Most American King , the first comprehensive biography of the king. Drawing on over 100 interviews with Abdullah’s classmates, former Jordanian ministers, and CIA directors, author Aaron Magid, a former Amman-based journalist, traces Abdullah’s journey from a Massachusetts prep school and British military academy to the throne. Abdul...
Jul 28, 2025•31 min
In southern Syria, the Druze community—split between pro- and anti-Damascus factions—has long navigated alliances amid local Sunni Arabs and shifting regime forces, all entangled in the remnants of Iran's "Axis of Resistance." Yet, Israel's evolving policies over the past few months, from its support for religious and ethnic minorities to tentative outreach toward Damascus's new government, have complicated efforts to dismantle Iranian influence via Hezbollah and lingering Assad loyalists. With ...
Jul 21, 2025•43 min
Rising antisemitism, multiculturalism, and postmodern relativism currently threaten the well being and security of Israel and the Jewish people. Josh Hammer argues that the West’s survival hinges on Israel’s strength and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. From the trauma of October 7, 2023, to global anti-Israel sentiment, the stakes are clear: a proud Jewish heritage is vital to the West’s endurance. How does Israel stand as the West’s bulwark against Islamist terrorism and secula...
Jul 18, 2025•28 min
What will Happen Next in Gaza? Is the war coming to an end? Is another temporary ceasefire imminent? Might the long declared IDF military surge to conquer the Gaza Strip be about to begin?Ashley Perry is an advisor to the Middle East Forum’s Israel office. He served as adviser to Israel's minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister in 2009-15, and has also worked with Israel's Ministers of Intelligence, Agriculture and Rural Development, Energy, Water and Infrastructure, Defense, Touri...
Jul 16, 2025•31 min
For decades, Iran's theocratic regime has wielded unyielding control, fueling regional instability through its nuclear ambitions, proxy militias, and ideological fervor, casting a shadow over the Middle East. Yet, amid escalating internal protests, economic collapse, and external pressures from Israel's precision strikes on key military targets in 2025, whispers of regime change are growing louder. How might a post-regime Iran redefine its role in the region? What opportunities and risks would t...
Jul 14, 2025•27 min
The Middle East has been transformed by the recent Israel-Iran war, with profound strategic, diplomatic, and military consequences. The war was the culmination of the contest which commenced with the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023. How will this conflict reshape the Middle East’s power dynamics? What are the prospects for peace or for further escalation? Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh is the director of Eastern Mediterranean Policy at the Middle East Forum, and the founder of GKM Global Consulting. She ...
Jul 10, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 367
For decades, evangelical Christianity championed Israel and religious freedom. As a result, it often found itself clashing with supremacist strands of Islam. Deep concern over Christian persecution—largely in Muslim-majority countries post-Soviet collapse—fueled wariness of political Islam’s aggressive forms. Recently, things have begun to shift. Some evangelical institutions in the US have begun to embrace woke ideologies, softening their stance on Islamism. Meanwhile, as evangelicalism wanes i...
Jul 10, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 367
As Israel’s battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran continues in its new phase of direct conflict after four decades of proxy wars, numerous questions remain. How is Israel defining victory and what means does it have to attain its goals? What role with the U.S. play militarily, diplomatically and politically? What does defeat look like for Iran and what does the future hold for its citizens? What does all of this mean for the Middle East more broadly, including new alliances and the prospects ...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 3 min
For decades, Iran’s network of proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and others—formed a formidable "Axis of Resistance," projecting Tehran’s influence across the Middle East. Yet, Israel’s 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and IRGC leadership, followed by devastating retaliatory campaigns, have left these groups reeling. From Hezbollah’s decimation in Lebanon to Hamas’s weakened grip in Gaza, Iran’s once-mighty proxies face an uncertain future. How did Iran’s strategy of proxy warfare ...
Jul 10, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 366
In a perplexing twist, segments of the LGBTQ+ community have aligned with Islamist terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, despite these Islamist groups’ brutal persecution of individuals from this community. From Pride parades chanting “Queers for Hamas” to slogans like “Gays for Gaza,” some activists champion pro-Palestinian causes while ignoring the imprisonment, torture, and execution of LGBTQ+ people in territories governed by these groups. In Gaza, Ham...
Jul 10, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 365
For many years, the Lebanese Hezbollah organization was widely seen as the most powerful non-state military force in the world. Hezbollah’s ascent from a militia to a dominant political and military force in Lebanon captivated the world. But after entering the war with Israel on October 8, 2023, the organization suffered a series of devastating blows, leaving it severely diminished. The Middle East remains a crucible of global tensions, and Hezbollah’s trajectory—from Iranian-backed insurgency, ...
Jun 12, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 364
The Turkish state is currently engaged in an initiative to address the Kurdish question. This effort, marked by symbolic gestures like the recent handshake between ultranationalist leaders and pro-Kurdish MPs, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s statements announcing the dissolution of his movement, and the PKK Congress confirming this, is unfolding amid shifting domestic and regional dynamics. This presentation will explore the context, conditions, and timing of this process, tracing the historical fa...
Jun 12, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 363
The Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza have exposed a fissure within the “America First” or MAGA movement. A new cadre of anti-Zionist voices, led by figures like Tucker Carlson and amplified on X and TikTok, has emerged, wielding leftist-style tactics—identity politics, cancel culture, conspiratorial antisemitism, and historical revisionism—under the guise of conservative values. Dubbed by many the “woke right,” they champion America’s adversaries, from Putin’s Rus...
Jun 12, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 362
In a world facing a resurgence of jihadist ideologies, the concept of dhimmitude—rooted in Sharia law and tied to historical jihad—casts a long shadow over modern societies. From blasphemy laws stifling free speech to the erosion of Judeo-Christian cultural identities, dhimmitude’s mechanisms are increasingly visible in the West. Unexpected alliances between jihadist movements, the anti-Christian Left, and antisemitic factions further complicate this global ideological war. How do these historic...
May 16, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 361
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party has won a decisive victory in elections in Australia. The Middle East looks set to be an issue dividing Australia in the period ahead. Albanese’s Labor Party is vague on the Iran issue, and supports recognizing Palestinian statehood. The (Center-right), opposition Liberal-National Coalition has a firmer stance on Iran, in line with current U.S. policy. The anti-Israel Greens and ‘Teals’ (independent liberals) will be seeking to influence the new gove...
May 15, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 360
Mental illness in the Islamic world is often perceived differently than in the West. Spiritual healing, jinn possession, and communal stigma shape responses to psychological distress, sometimes sidelining medical intervention. At the same time, untreated mental illness, social isolation, and identity crises can make individuals more vulnerable to radical interpretations of Islam. Contrary to popular belief, radicalization is rarely a product of poverty alone—it is often fueled by personal instab...
May 15, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 358
Bangladesh’s political landscape is unraveling after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in August 2024, with rising Islamism threatening the nation’s secular fabric. Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, once celebrated as a global icon for microfinance, has faced criticism for enabling extremist parties like Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam, whose growing influence—marked by attacks on Hindus, Ahmadis, and secular traditions—has shattered initial optimism about his leadership. Yunus’s decision to l...
May 15, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 358
Islamism today casts a troubling and widening shadow over Canada, sowing division and threatening national cohesion. From university campuses to clandestine gatherings, both homegrown and global Islamist currents are gaining traction. At the University of Quebec in Montreal, a pro-Palestinian group, Solidarité Palestine à l’UQAM, recently screened Gaza Ghetto Uprising, a film glorifying the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks as “urban guerrilla tactics.” Simon Fraser University hosted Othman Hamdan,...
May 15, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 357
