ZIAD MAJED - The Limited Leeway of the Lebanese Government (chap. 6/12)

Описание: Find the entire interview in this video [url here] and its explanatory dossier at https://www.diagrammes.fr/en/

Ziad Majed is a French-Lebanese political scientist, born in Beirut in 1970. He is an Associate Professor and the Program Coordinator for Middle East Pluralities at the American University of Paris. His research focuses on the study of democratic transitions, political reforms, and the role of civil society in Lebanon, Syria, and more broadly across the Arab world. He was a founding member of the Democratic Left Movement in Lebanon and participated in the Independence Uprising of 2005. Ziad Majed’s books include Syrie, la révolution orpheline (Actes Sud, 2014), Dans la tête de Bachar Al-Assad (Actes Sud, 2018 and 2025, with S. Hadidj and F. Mardam Bey) and more recently Le Proche Orient, miroir du monde. Comprendre le basculement en cours (La Découverte, 2025).

In this video, we explore the unfolding and the implications of the epochal crisis confronting the Middle East. Though the genocidal war waged by Israel in Gaza is the dominant factor of the ongoing catastrophe, Ziad Majed’s privileged vantage point is neither Israel nor Palestine but the neighboring countries – Lebanon and Syria in particular – that have been engulfed in Israel’s fateful attempt to “solve” the Palestinian question. We thus asked him to ponder the leeway that the Lebanese and Syrian might have at their disposal to regain a modicum of autonomy, but also to examine the agenda of powerful regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to assess the role of brokers assumed by Qatari officials and the Egyptian military leadership, and to reflect on the options still available to the Iranian regime. As our discussion illustrates, much will depend on the willingness of the United States to keep enabling Israel’s hubris, but also on whether social movements, both in the Middle East and beyond, succeed in dissuading their governments from turning a blind eye to the annihilation of the Palestinian people.

Our interview with Ziad Majed took place in Paris in two sessions. We first talked to Ziad on May 9, 2025. A month later, however, Israel launched what came to be known as the Twelve-day War against Iran, which the Trump administration seconded. We thus decided to update our interview with a second exchange, which took place on August 30, 2025.

Interviewed by Michel Feher
Conducted on May 9, 2025 and August 30, 2025
Directed by Thierry Corroyer (May) and Jean-Charles Ho Van Cam (September)
Edited by Thierry Corroyer
Produced by Aurélie Windels
Dossier by Thomas Gmür, Michel Feher and Tom Novak
Visual Research by Sophie Liner
Translation and subtitling : Aurélie Windels and Clara Beccaro
Music by Laz Lo, Eeryskies, Damiens Simons
Voice by Amanda Bay

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