The MERIP Podcast

Episode 20: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part III

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Today’s episode is the third installment of our MERIP Roundtable discussing the war on Iran, instigated by the US and Israeli on February 28, 2026, and its regional reverberations. This episode focuses on Israel’s expanded war on Lebanon. Following the assassination of Ali Khamanei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hizballah fired six missiles into Israel, its first offensive move since a ceasefire was signed in the fall of 2024. Israel, meanwhile, has violated the ceasefire on a near daily basis over the past year and a half through missile and drone strikes. In the past weeks, Israel has issued mass evacuation warnings across the entire area south of the Litani river, in Dahiyeh south of Beirut and in the Bekaa valley. Invasions, including a commando raid through Syria into the Bekaa followed, as have the near daily barrage of missile and drone attacks. In a matter of a couple of weeks, over one million people have been displaced—representing a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

The renewed assault has raised the stakes of long running issues in Lebanon around national sovereignty and self-defense, and wider questions about how both Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression in the region can be constituted in the face of its overwhelming military and technological advantages. To discuss these issues, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan was joined by Rima Majed, an associate professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, whose work has focused on sectarianism, social movements and conflict in Lebanon. Rima Majed is a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and also the author of a short essay on the war on Lebanon that appeared as part of our collection “War Across Boundaries–Perspectives on Iran and a Region Under Siege,” published on March 19, 2026. Also joining the podcast is Ali Musleh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California-Davis, whose research focuses on the effects of automated warscapes on everyday life and resistance in Palestine.

This conversation was recorded on March 23rd, 2026.

Further Reading:

Laleh Khalili (interview) Democracy Now “The End of the Petrodollar? How Iran War Is Reshaping the Global Economy: Author Laleh Khalili” March 19, 2026

Joseph Daher, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God (Pluto Press, 2016)

Abdaljawad Omar, “Gaza Faces the World” Turbulence Podcast Episode 10, January 20, 2026

Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War On Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (Macmillan, 2020)

The Material Politics of Normalization Middle East Report Summer/Fall 2025, Issue 315-316

Munira Khayyat, “Dispatch from South Lebanon–Life as Resistance at the End of the World” Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313

Lara Deeb, Maya Mikdashi, Tsolin Nalbantian and Nadya Sbaiti, “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Politics and Resistance to Israeli Violence” Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313

The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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Episode 19: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part II

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On today’s episode of the MERIP Roundtable our discussion focused on people’s experiences of the war on Iran and throughout the region two and a half weeks in. Much of the discussion of this war in the western media has centered on the strategic calculus of the United States and Israel in deciding to go to war, how long it may endure and what that means for Americans. Despite the fact that Iranians are withstanding a bombardment that is comparable in scale to Israel’s initial assault on Gaza in October 2023, the immense damage being done to the country is less prominent in the discourse. According to official Iranian sources, there have been over 1,400 civilian casualties, 18,000 injuries and 61,000 civilian structures damaged. According to the UN, approximately 3.2 million people have been displaced. Given these facts, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan asked our roundtable how Iranians are dealing with the US and Israeli siege. How are they getting information in and out, and how should those of us outside of Iran contextualize what we’re hearing and seeing? Also, since he was joined by fellow historians, they discussed how we can begin to see this war’s many dimensions in a longer historical trajectory.

This edition of the MERIP Roundtable features Naghmeh Sohrabi, a frequent MERIP contributor, the Charles Corky Goodman Professor of Middle East History at Brandeis University and the director of research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies; Kaveh Ehsani, associate professor of international studies at DePaul University and a member of MERIP’s Board of Directors and Toby Craig Jones, associate professor of history at Rutgers University and a member of MERIP’s editorial committee.

This discussion was recorded on March 18, 2026

Further Reading:

Nashraasoo (@nashraasoo on Instagram)

Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New York, Simon and Schuster)

Kaveh Ehsani, “Voices from the Middle East: US Sanctions on Iran Devastate the Health Sector” Middle East Report Online March 31, 2020

Costs of War Project (Brown University)

Joy Gordon ed., Economic Sanctions from Havana to Baghdad (Cambridge, 2025)

Joy Gordon, “The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions” Middle East Report Spring 2020

Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón, Mark Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis” The Lancet Global Health, 13, e1358-e1366

Noura Erakat, Luigi Daniele, Shahd Hammouri, Ata Hindi, Maryam Jamshidi and Darryl Li, “Roundtable on the War on Iran and International Law” Jadaliyya, March 13, 2026

Firoozeh Kashani Sabet, “Iranicide: the Genealogy of Hate” The Tempered View, March 14, 2026

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Episode 18: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part I

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 11:00:00 GMT

On today’s episode we have an installment of our MERIP Roundtable series, where members of our editorial committee, recent contributors and close comrades discuss current events. In this episode, we centered our discussion on the social dynamics and impacts of the current war on Iran and consider how the regional political order may be shifting as a result.

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel began a massive air war against Iran, which has now impacted up to 12 countries in the region. Many of Iran’s political leaders, including the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been killed and replaced, oil infrastructure in Iran and across the Gulf has been severely damaged or production halted and retaliatory Iranian missile and drone strikes have hit both military and civilian targets in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates and Oman. The closing and apparent mining of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices over $100 a barrel, pushing the global economy to the brink of a recession. All of this is happening under the direction of a US administration whose war aims appear opaque and in cooperation with an Israeli government bent on sowing regional chaos, inflicting misery on ordinary Iranians, accelerating devastating attacks on Lebanon, closing Gaza to all aid and severely restricting movement within the West Bank.

Joining Executive Director James Ryan for the roundtable are Ida Nikou, a sociologist and author of a recent MERIP article “Governing Crisis–Sanctions, Austerity and Social Unrest in Iran”; Arang Keshavarzian, professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at NYU, a long time MERIP contributor and editor and author of Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East, published by Stanford University Press in 2024; and Sean Yom, a member of our editorial committee, associate professor of political science at Temple University and author of Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible, published in 2025 by Oxford University Press.

This episode was recorded on March 11, 2026.

Episode 17: Niema Alhessen

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with Niema Alhessen, a Sudanese researcher based in Cairo who is focused on urban conflict and displacement. She is the author of “Burri Under Siege—How War Remade Everyday Life in a Sudanese Neighborhood” in our Winter 2025 issue of Middle East Report, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” Burri, a neighborhood in central Khartoum that houses key political and military institutions, was under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from the beginning of its war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April 2023 until the SAF regained control of the city in March 2025. Alhessen spoke with residents of Burri about living in their neighborhood during the siege, how they sustained life through makeshift institutions and mutual aid and negotiated with both the RSF and SAF in order to procure aid. Alhessen’s article also delves into the deeper colonial history of Khartoum’s urban fabric, detailing how the militarization of Khartoum’s streets has its roots in the colonization of Sudan under the Anglo-Egyptian condominium in the late nineteenth century.

For this episode, MERIP’s Executive Director James Ryan was joined by co-host Deen Sharp, an LSE Fellow in Human Geography in the department of geography and environment at the London School of Economics, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and an editor on the issue “Reconstruction and Ruin.”

This interview was recorded on March 4, 2026

Niema Alhessen, “Burri Under Siege–How War Remade Everyday Life in a Sudanese Neighborhood” Middle East Report 317 (Winter 2025). https://www.merip.org/2026/02/burri-under-siege-how-war-remade-everyday-life-in-a-sudanese-neighborhood/

Episode 16: Iman Ali

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:04:23 GMT

In today’s episode Iman Ali talks about her recently published article, “Repair and Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding the Dahiyeh Once More,” which appeared in our Winter 2025 issue, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” Iman Ali, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Cornell University, has been conducting fieldwork in Lebanon to investigate the impacts of Israel’s war in the fall of 2024 and the ongoing,almost daily, Israeli drone and missile attacks since the November 2024 ceasefire agreement. Her article closely examines the immense material and political challenges faced by Lebanon’s Shi’i community in the last year and a half. She also compares the current struggles to rebuild Beirut’s southern district of Dahiyeh with the vastly different political, funding and leadership landscape following the 2006 war between Hizballah and Israel. After that 2006 campaign, Hizballah was successful in rebuilding the neighborhoods of the Dahiyeh with the aid of funding from several regional and global partners, and under the leadership of Hizballah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. Today, the challenge of rebuilding could not be more different – the financing is not forthcoming, Hizballah’s leadership is decimated and the spectre of continued or renewed Israeli aggression is pervasive.

For this conversation, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan was joined by Najib Hourani, a member of the editorial team for “Reconstruction and Ruin,” as cohost. Hourani is an associate professor of anthropology and global urban studies at Michigan State University and now an emeritus member of MERIP’s editorial committee. We spoke with Iman Ali about her piece, the longer history of the Dahiyeh and the intense burden that resistance to Israeli aggression has placed on Lebanon’s Shi’i communities.

This episode was recorded on February 25, 2026.

Support MERIP by making a donation: www.merip.org/donate

Read Iman Ali’s piece here:

Iman Ali, “Repair and Ongoing Ruination – Rebuilding the Dahiyeh Once More” Middle East Report 317, Reconstruction and Ruin Winter 2025 https://www.merip.org/2026/02/repair-amid-ongoing-ruination-rebuilding-dahiyeh-once-more/

Further Reading:

Hiba Bou Akar, “Urban Interventions for the Wars Yet to Come” https://www.merip.org/2019/07/urban-interventions-for-the-wars-yet-to-come/

Tamara Chalabi, The Shi ‘is of Jabal ‘Amil and the New Lebanon: Community and Nation-State, 1918–1943 Springer, 2006 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781403982940

Lara Deeb, An enchanted modern: Gender and public piety in Shi'i Lebanon Princeton University Press, 2006 https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691124216/an-enchanted-modern?srsltid=AfmBOoqcTpqKMA4-KFqziKFdTLlEygTlQrSB8axSVs0hrFN0MaUORMZi

Mona Fawaz "Hezbollah as urban planner? Questions to and from planning theory" Planning Theory 8.4 (2009): 323-334 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26165922

Mona Harb and Lara Deeb. "Culture as history and landscape: Hizballah’s efforts to shape an Islamic milieu in Lebanon" Arab Studies Journal 19.1 (2011): 12-45 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23265810

Najib B. Hourani "People or profit? Two post-conflict reconstructions in Beirut" Human Organization 74.2 (2015): 174-184 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.17730/0018-7259-74.2.174

Munira Khayyat "Dispatch from South Lebanon—Life as Resistance at the End of the World." Middle East Report 313 (Winter 2024) https://www.merip.org/2025/01/dispatch-from-south-lebanon/

Salim Nasr, “The Roots of the Shi’i Movement” June 24, 1985 https://www.merip.org/1985/06/roots-of-the-shii-movement/

Salim Nasr, “Backdrop to Civil War: The Crisis of Lebanese Capitalism” Middle East Report No. 73 Winter 1978 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012262

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Episode 15: In the Archive with Brahim El Guabli

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On this episode of our In the Archive series, MERIP’s Executive Director, James Ryan, speaks with Brahim El Guabli about his essay, “The Sub-Saharan Turn in Moroccan Literature,” which appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Middle East Report, “Maghreb from the Margins.” El Guabli speaks about how migration from sub-Saharan Africa reshaped Moroccan politics and identity over the course of the last 30 years and how he read those changes through recent Moroccan novels. We discussed how the piece has been received and how its ideas contributed to El Guabli’s development of the concept “saharanism”—the subject of his newly published book, Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences.

You can check out our earlier In the Archive segment, with Beshara Doumani here: https://www.merip.org/2025/11/the-merip-podcast-episode-11-in-the-archive-with-beshara-doumani/

MERIP is accepting pitches for our summer issue on visual art and cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa until February 23rd for more information click here: https://www.merip.org/2026/02/call-for-pitches-visual-art-cultural-production-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/

Brahim El Guabli is an associate professor of comparative thought and literature at Johns Hopkins University.

Further Reading:

Abdel Rahman Munif, Cities of Salt ( New York: Vintage, 1989) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/118591/cities-of-salt-by-abdelrahman-munif/

Brahim El Guabli, “The Sub-Saharan Turn in Moroccan Literature” Middle East Report Issue 298 Spring 2021 https://www.merip.org/2021/04/the-sub-saharan-african-turn-in-moroccan-literature-2/

Brahim El Guabli, Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2025) https://www.ucpress.edu/books/desert-imaginations/paper

Brahim El Guabli, “Forgettable Black and Amazigh Bodies: Boujemâa Hebaz and the Moroccan Racial Politics of Amnesia” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 44(2) 2024: 303-316 https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-11233072

Brahim El Guabli, “The Idea of Tamazgha: Current Articulations and Scholarly Potential” Tamazgha Studies Journal Vol 1. Issue 1. Fall 2023, 7-22 https://www.tamazghastudiesjournal.org/articles-fall2023-issue-01-article02

Ghislaine Lydon On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth Century Western Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/on-transsaharan-trails/B6AB08C0940DBAF3370045EA702E84D1

Shamil Jeppie, Writing Timbuktu: The Book in West African History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2026) https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691273853/writing-timbuktu?srsltid=AfmBOorqYdHD-ksEASj0rR-5TBFwqVQPM-Rj-sV-o5pO2dHeMGaTdRaD

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Episode 14: The MERIP Roundtable, On Iran's Protests

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:00:00 GMT

In this installment of the MERIP Roundtable podcast, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan is joined by a panel of MERIP comrades to discuss the latest wave of protests in Iran. The protests began on December 28, 2025, as merchants and bazaar workers reacted negatively to new budgetary measures announced by President Masoud Pezeshkian. The protests snowballed in the first week of January, reaching a peak on and shortly after January 8, after which the government instituted an internet blackout. The protests have been intense, widespread and increasingly cross-sectoral. They’ve also been met with harsh repression by the IRGC and its affiliates, with reports of clashes and summary executions resulting in thousands of casualties. The panel discussed the protests, how they compare and contrast with prior waves, and how regional and global politics are influencing both the regime and its opposition. Participants in the panel are Kaveh Ehsani, a member of MERIP’s board of directors and a professor of international studies at DePaul University; Maziyar Ghiabi, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and an associate professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter; and Asma Abdi, an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, also at Exeter’s Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies.

This conversation was recorded on January 21, 2026.

Further Reading:

Setareh Shohadaei, Nazanin Shahrokni, Peyman Jafari, Kaveh Ehsani, Arash Davari and Maziyar Behrooz, “Echoes of a Short War: Critical Reflections on Israel’s Attack on Iran” Jadaliyya roundtable, September 23rd, 2025 https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46907

Arang Keshavarzian, “An Explosion Long in the Making” Equator January 17, 2026 https://www.equator.org/articles/iran-explosion-long-in-the-making

Naghmeh Sohrabi, “We Can’t Live Like This Anymore” Equator January 18, 2026 https://www.equator.org/articles/messages-from-iran

Yassamine Mather, “Seeds of Revolt: Iran’s Economic Collapse and Inflation” Counterpunch January 16, 2026 https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/16/economic-collapse-and-inflation/

Gal Beckerman, “The Silence of the Left on Iran” The Atlantic January 16, 2026 https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/01/the-iranians-who-feel-betrayed-by-the-left/685644/

Asma Abdi, “A feminist international political economy of sanctions: crises and the shifting gendered regimes of labor and survival in Iran” International Feminist Journal of Politics August 15, 2022 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2025.2454462

Iman Ganji and Bahar Noorizadeh, “Iran’s Three Body Problem” N Plus One January 16, 2026 https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/irans-three-body-problem/?fbclid=PAdGRleAPY0pBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAaflBX0em6er1z0KbzOClKd6DOApTeHXqHWUwi43cCt9p_j8yZur4Ipw7RGZSQ_aem_5uz1JbQNzT2KXqezqXAUqw

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Scylla and Charybdis” New Left Review January 20, 2026 https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/scylla-and-charybdis

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Episode 13: Ned Leadbeater

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Today on the podcast we have an interview with Ned Leadbeater, a researcher and analyst based in Britain who recently wrote an article for our Summer/Fall double issue on the material politics of normalization titled, “Fiber Optics and the Hidden Politics of Connectivity.” His article explores the politics surrounding undersea fiber optic cables in the Red Sea and plans for possible overland cable routes through the Middle East. Currently, the vast majority of internet traffic between Europe and Asia flows through the Red Sea—as much as 90 percent, making it vulnerable to cargo ship accidents and Egypt’s high installation and transit fees. Before October 7, 2023, major tech companies like Google and Meta were developing plans to bypass that Red Sea bottleneck by creating new overland and undersea cable routes from the Mediterranean across Israel and Jordan to the Gulf states that would necessitate new forms of normalization, particularly with Saudi Arabia. James Ryan, MERIP’s executive director, spoke with Ned Leadbeater about the actors involved in fiber optic cable politics, the longer geopolitical history of telecommunications infrastructure in the region and how states and corporations may be rethinking their security strategies in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.

This conversation was recorded on December 16, 2025.

Further Reading:

Ned Leadbeater, “Fiber Optics and the Hidden Politics of Connectivity” Middle East Report Fall/Summer 2025, https://www.merip.org/2025/10/fiber-optics-and-the-hidden-politics-of-connectivity/

Paul Cochrane’s reporting at Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/paul-cochrane

Submarine Telecoms Forum, https://subtelforum.com/

Nicole Starosielski, The Undersea Network Duke University Press, 2015 https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-undersea-network

Pauline Lewis, “Wired Ottomans: A Sociotechnical History of the Telegraph and the Modern Ottoman Empire, 1855-1911” Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 2018 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/985895xr

Support MERIP by making a one-time or monthly donation at www.merip.org/donate

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Episode 12: Honoring Joe Stork, Live in Washington, DC

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:00:00 GMT

On this episode of the MERIP Podcast we're sharing highlights of our live event Honoring Joe Stork, held at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. on November 22, 2025. The event featured reflections and reminiscences about Joe Stork, our co-founder and longtime editor who passed away October 23, 2024. Featured speakers included Sarah Leah Whitson, Lisa Hajjar, Mouin Rabbani, Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman, Rick Reinhard, Andy Shallal and Joan Mandel. The event was MC'd by Joost Hiltermann, a MERIP contributor and analyst at the International Crisis Group. All of the speakers shared stories of their experience working with Joe, from the founding of MERIP in the 1970s through his work with Human Rights Watch later in his career.

MERIP is grateful to the staff at Busboys and Poets for hosting us, and Andy Shallal, the owner of Busboys and Poets, for joining the proceedings to share a few words.

To support MERIP's work so that it continues to be paywall-free, please visit www.merip.org/donate today to make a one-time or monthly donation.

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Episode 11: In the Archive with Beshara Doumani

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 13:01:33 GMT

Today we have a very special episode, part of a new occasional series that will highlight some of the truly great work MERIP has done over the last 50-plus years, all of which is free to read in our archive. In the first of this series, we’re featuring the landmark essay “Abu Farid’s House” written by Beshara Doumani and published in March 1989 as part of Issue 157, “Israel Faces the Uprising.” The essay encapsulates the history of working class struggles in Palestine up to and during the First Intifada through the family of the titular Abu Farid in Salfit, a small village located between Ramallah and Nablus.

The author, Beshara Doumani, went on to become a leading historian of Palestine in the Ottoman era. He served as the President of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank from 2021–2023 and is now the inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies at Brown University. This episode features an interview with Doumani by MERIP Executive Director James Ryan recorded on October 30th from the West Bank, where Doumani is currently on sabbatical conducting research in some of the same villages he visited when he wrote “Abu Farid’s House.” The conversation covers his experience in Salfit and its surroundings before and during the First Intifada, as well as how he understands the changes in Salfit and across the Occupied Territories, from the Oslo Accords through the present genocide in Gaza.

Further Reading:

Beshara Doumani, “Abu Farid’s House” Middle East Report 157, March-April 1989 https://www.merip.org/1989/03/abu-farids-house/

“Israel Faces the Uprising” Middle East Report 157, March-April 1989 https://www.merip.org/issue-157/

Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley, University of California Press 1995) https://www.ucpress.edu/books/rediscovering-palestine/paper

Support MERIP: https://www.merip.org/donate/

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Episode 10: Raouf Farrah

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

On this episode of The MERIP Podcast we are featuring an interview with Raouf Farrah, an Algerian activist and researcher based in Tunis, about his article "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" which appears in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization (Summer/Fall 2025). In the interview, Farrah and MERIP Executive Director James Ryan discuss Farah's experience traveling with the Sumud Convoy across North Africa in June and July 2025, and the efforts to reconfigure their mission in the months after being turned back in Sirte by forces allied with Khalifa Haftar. Farrah reflects on the lessons of the Convoy and the later Global Sumud Flotilla in light of the present ceasefire in Gaza, and how those experiences are informing new ways of thinking about Palestinian solidarity, and political activism.

This conversation was recorded October 14, 2025

Further Reading:

Raouf Farrah "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization https://www.merip.org/2025/10/on-the-road-to-rafah-the-sumud-convoy-and-new-maghrebi-geographies-of-resistance/

Raouf Farrah and Suraya Dadoo, eds., Rising for Palestine: Africans in Solidarity for Decolonization and Liberation (Pluto Books, forthcoming 2026): https://www.plutobooks.com/product/rising-for-palestine/

The Hague Group: https://thehaguegroup.org/

Middle East Report, The Material Politics of Normalization, Summer/Fall 2025 https://www.merip.org/issue-315-316/

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Episode 9: The MERIP Roundtable "On The Regional War"

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

On today's episode we are providing another installment of our MERIP Roundtable, where members of our Editorial Committee discuss recent developments in the region. Today's roundtable, "On the Regional War" focuses on the fallout from Israel's September 9th strike on Qatar, a failed assassination attempt targeting the Hamas delegation that is involved in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The panel also discusses the Iran-Israel War, which has been frozen since June but is approaching a period where tensions seem to be quietly ratcheting towards more conflict. Joining the panel are Kevin Schwartz, Deputy Director of the Oriental Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Maziyar Ghiabi, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, Shana Marshall, Assistant Research Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University, and James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director.

This conversation was recorded on September 23, 2025.

The panel provided the following further reading recommendations:

Maziyar Ghiabi -- Trita Parsi's 2008 book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300143119/treacherous-alliance/

Kevin Schwartz -- "Echoes of a Short War: Critical Reflections on Israel's Attack on Iran" (edited by Nazanin Shahrokhni and Arash Davari) at Jadaliyya https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46907/Echoes-of-a-Short-War-Critical-Reflections-on-Israel%E2%80%99s-Attack-on-Iran

Shana Marshall -- The American Prestige Podcast (https://americanprestige.supportingcast.fm/listen) and Adam Hanieh's collected works (latest book here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/2760-crude-capitalism?srsltid=AfmBOoryMbUuLhOyieEStgex70POT89GPm-pCOv57EOU269THYdNYhbd)

James Ryan -- Arang Keshavarzian's review of Elham Fakhro's The Abraham Accords at MERIP, "The Limits of Protections and Profits, Five Years Into the Abraham Accords"

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Episode 8: Helen Lackner

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This episode of the MERIP podcast features an interview with longtime MERIP contributor and noted journalist Helen Lackner on the state of Yemen's Houthi movement. The conversation with MERIP Executive Director James Ryan follows up on her essay, "Yemen's Ansar Allah" that was published in our Winter 2024 Issue of Middle East Report on "Resistance: The Axis and Beyond." We discussed the increasingly aggressive posture of the United States and Israel against the Houthis since the Trump administration took office, the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Yemen following the dismantling of USAID, and the status the Houthis now occupy following the fall of Bashar al-Asad and the recent attacks by the US and Israel against Iran.

For more reading, check out:

Helen Lackner, "Yemen's Ansar Allah" Middle East Report Issue 313 Winter 2024: https://merip.org/2025/01/yemens-ansar-allah/

Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis (Verso Books): https://www.versobooks.com/products/914-yemen-in-crisis?srsltid=AfmBOoolUV-kV830hOECamRpfgkWhQJBq06JU2YzV9wT8Z5lAGXv28mi

Stacey Philbrick Yadav, "The Houthi's 'Sovereign Solidarity' with Palestine" Middle East Report Issue 309 Winter 2023: https://merip.org/2024/01/the-houthis-sovereign-solidarity-with-palestine-2/

To support MERIP please visit www.merip.org/donate

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Episode 7: Syria at the Crossroads III

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:00:37 GMT

This week in the feed we have the audio from our August 14th, 2025 event "Syria at the Crossroads: Unpacking Sectarianism and the Crisis in Suweida." The conversation features perspectives from Syrian journalists, scholars, and activists Sara Ajlyakin, Sana Mustafa, and Yasser Munif, and was co-moderated by James Ryan (MERIP) and Shireen Akram-Boshar (SPECTRE). This is the third event in our series on Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Asad, and is co-produced with SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal.

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Episode 6: The MERIP Roundtable, "On Recognition"

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:00:00 GMT

The MERIP Roundtable is a new format for the MERIP podcast featuring conversation on urgent issues in the Middle East with members of MERIP's Editorial Committee. The theme of this episode's conversation is "Recognition" -- both the widening circle of Israeli, diaspora, and Jewish figures and institutions that are belatedly recognizing the facts of the genocide in Gaza and the recent wave of G7 states who have committed to recognizing the State of Palestine. On the podcast are MERIP Editorial Committee members Lisa Hajjar, Jacob Mundy, and Sean Yom, and the conversation is led by MERIP's Executive Director, James Ryan.

Further reading recommended by the panel:

Jacob Mundy recommends Benjamin Claude Brower's A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902

Lisa Hajjar recommends Noura Erakat and Shahd Hammouri "The Statehood Trap" on Jadaliyya, Rabea Eghbariah "Toward Nakba as Legal Concept" in the Columbia Law Review, Mouin Rabbani's Substack and Sherene Seikaly's Editor's Note in the latest issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

James Ryan recommends Esmat Elhalaby, "Nakba Denial: On the Politics and History of Genocide" in Parapraxis Magazine

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Episode 5: Syria at the Crossroads II

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on the MERIP Podcast Feed we have the audio recording of our June 23rd event "Syria at the Crossroads: Regional Politics and the Movement for Palestine." This conversation was the second in our series jointly produced with SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal. It featured a discussion of the wider regional politics shaping the dynamics of the transitional regime in Syria -- including the early efforts at normalization with Israel, and the long history of solidarity between Syrian and Palestinian popular movements. Joining the conversation were Joseph Daher, Ramah Kudaimi, and Yasmeen Mobayed. The conversation was moderated by Shireen Akram-Boshar (SPECTRE) and James Ryan (MERIP).

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Episode 4: Syria at the Crossroads I

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on the feed is the audio recording of our zoom event "Syria at the Crossroads: Popular Revolt, Counterrevolution, and Regional Transformation" featuring Leila Al-Shami, Wafa Mustafa, and Djene Bajalan. Syria at the Crossroads is a special event series co-produced by MERIP and SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal. This event took place May 7, 2025 and was co-moderated by James Ryan (MERIP) and Shireen Akram-Boshar (SPECTRE).

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Episode 3: Habib Battah

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on the MERIP Podcast we're featuring an interview with the Lebanese journalist Habib Battah, author of "Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy" which was published in Middle East Report Online in April 2024. Battah has recently returned to Lebanon for the first time since we published his investigation, and he spoke with MERIP Executive Director James Ryan about the role of the US Embassy in Lebanese political, cultural, and social life in the wake of Israel's ongoing war on Lebanon and in the light of the second Trump administration. This interview was recorded July 15, 2025.

Read "Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy here: https://merip.org/2024/04/beirut-and-the-birth-of-the-fortress-embassy/

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Episode 2: New Gender Frontlines Launch

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week in the MERIP Podcast feed we have the audio recording of our launch event for the latest issue of Middle East Report, New Gender Frontlines. Hosted by MERIP Executive Director, James Ryan, and featuring a panel with MERIP Editorial Committee member and issue editor Sabiha Allouche (University of Exeter), Rahaf Aldoughli (University of Lancaster), Paniz Musawi Natanzi (University of Pennsylvania, and Hala Shoman (University of Newcastle). The event was originally recorded on June 26, 2025. The conversation covers gender dynamics in Syria after the fall of Bashar al Asad, Afghan workers in Iranian tennis clubs, and the struggle of ordinary Gazans to conceive and bear children in the midst of Israel's genocidal war. Links to the relevant articles below:

New Gender Frontlines: https://merip.org/magazine/314/

Rahaf Aldoughli, "Syria's New Men": https://merip.org/2025/06/syrias-new-men-2/

Paniz Musawi Natanzi: "Courts of Exclusion: Working Class Masculinity and Anti-Afghan Racism in Iran" https://merip.org/2025/06/banned-from-the-game-working-class-masculinity-and-anti-afghan-racism-in-iran/

Hala Shoman: "Israel's War on Reproduction in Gaza": https://merip.org/2025/06/israels-war-on-reproduction-in-gaza-2/

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Episode 1: Mona Tajali

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

The first episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with Mona Tajali, a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law about her piece, “Women and Politics in Post-Jina Iran” which was published in our latest issue “New Gender Frontlines.” Interview was recorded June 24, 2025. The MERIP Podcast is hosted by James Ryan, Executive Director of the Middle East Research and Information Project. Production assistance provided by Jacob Mundy, and editorial work on MERIP's latest issue provided by Sabiha Allouche, Fida Adely, Hesham Sellam, Katie Natanel and Marya Hannun.

You can read Mona Tajali's piece here: https://merip.org/2025/06/women-and-politics-in-post-jina-iran/

You can find the latest issue of Middle East Report here: https://merip.org/magazine/314/

To support our work please visit: https://merip.org/support/

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Sneak Preview

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 15:11:31 GMT

This is a sneak preview of our forthcoming podcast from MERIP! Stay Tuned and subscribe!

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