In this episode of The Middle East Breakdown, Hayvi Bouzo sits down with Hussain Abdul-Hussain, Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, for a clear and urgent conversation about the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist ideology, Iran, and Hezbollah—and why these forces matter far beyond the Middle East.

Hussain explains how the Muslim Brotherhood operates not just as an organization, but as a global ideology that adapts, rebrands, and embeds itself inside democratic systems. He breaks down why targeting individual groups misses the bigger picture, how state sponsors like Qatar and Turkey fuel Islamist influence, and why Western societies often misunderstand the threat.

The discussion also examines Hezbollah’s role as Iran’s most powerful proxy, Lebanon’s fragile moment of transition, and how Israel’s post–October 7 strategy has reshaped the regional balance. Throughout, Hussain draws a sharp distinction between Islam as a faith and Islamism as a political project built on rejecting liberty, democracy, and individual rights.

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In this episode of The Middle East Breakdown, Hayvi Bouzo and Dan Feferman sit down with Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, for an in-depth conversation about the Muslim Brotherhood, the US executive order launching investigations into its branches in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, and what these moves could mean for US policy and global security.

Mariam Wahba is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on Egypt, Arab politics, and Middle East minorities. Previously she worked in FDD’s communications team and served as associate director of advocacy with the Philos Project. Mariam holds a BA in Middle East studies, Arabic, and Jewish studies from Fordham University and is a vocal commentator on Middle East affairs.

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They discuss:
🕌 What the Muslim Brotherhood is and why it is not a single centralized organization
📜 The new US executive order and why it directs investigations rather than immediate designations
🇪🇬 🇯🇴 🇱🇧 Why Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon were named first
💣 Links between Brotherhood branches, Hamas, and regional militant activity
🧠 Patient extremism and how the Brotherhood’s long game works
📺 How Brotherhood aligned media narratives spread influence
🌍 Why the West should pay attention to these developments
🧾 What FTO and SDGT designations mean in practice
🔍 What could come next if investigations meet legal standards

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In this episode of The Middle East Breakdown, Hayvi Bouzo and Dan Feferman sit down with Dr. Einat Wilf and Samer Sinijlawi for one of the most direct, detailed conversations yet about what Israelis and Palestinians actually want and what a real path forward could look like after two years of war and upheaval.

About the guests:
Dr. Einat Wilf: Former Member of Knesset, author, political thinker and one of the clearest voices on Zionism, antisemitism, and the roots of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She holds degrees from Harvard and Cambridge, has authored several best-selling books including The War of Return, and recently launched a new political movement focused on Zionism, democratic strength and long-term regional peace.

Samer Sinijlawi:Palestinian political activist, reform advocate, and Chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund. A former Fatah leader for Israeli and international relations, he is one of the most prominent Palestinian voices calling for internal reform, democratic elections, and coexistence. He studied conflict resolution at Hebrew University and is widely published, with op-eds in the NYT, Newsweek, Haaretz, Le Figaro, and more. He was the only high-profile Palestinian figure to visit the Gaza Envelope after October 7 and publicly condemn Hamas.

They discuss:
🇮🇱 How October 7 reshaped Israeli society and why many Israelis now see the conflict through an ideological rather than territorial lens
🇵🇸 How Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora think differently, and why support for Hamas inside Gaza is far lower than assumed
📚 UNRWA and the refugee narrative, and why Wilf describes it as the institutional engine sustaining rejectionism
🗳️ Palestinian elections: why Sinijlawi says the first real change must start at the ballot box
🧭 A viable two-state framework: redefining “right of return,” safeguarding minorities, and securing mutual recognition
🌍 Arab public opinion after the Abraham Accords and how the region is shifting toward integration over rejectionism
🏛️ Why past peace efforts failed, and Wilf’s call for “constructive specificity” instead of diplomatic shortcuts
🤝 Can Israelis and Palestinians imagine a shared future? Sinijlawi outlines why persuasion, not pressure, must drive progress
🔍 Identity, trust, and leadership failures on both sides, and why both guests argue the real battleground is ideological, not geographic

A rare, unsentimental conversation between two thinkers who disagree on key issues but share a commitment to clarity, honesty, and new political imagination.

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In this episode of The Middle East Breakdown, Hayvi Bouzo and Dan Feferman sit down with Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, the “Imam of Peace,” to unpack the difference between orthodox Islam and political Islam, and to track how the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran’s regime, and their allies built a global extremist network.

They discuss:
🕌 What “orthodox” Islam means to Imam Tawhidi, and why he rejects both liberal theology and Islamist ideology
🇮🇷 How Iran’s “Islamic regime” turned seminaries in Qom into political factories and weaponized Shia clerical authority
⚔️ Why Hamas, al-Qaeda, ISIS and similar groups are political organizations, not legitimate Islamic schools of thought
📖 How extremists cherry-pick Quranic verses, and why Tawhidi insists real interpretation must align with logic and original sources
☪️ The Muslim Brotherhood as the “mothership” of modern Islamist movements, from the Middle East to Western capitals
🌍 How Brotherhood affiliates and Iran’s proxies burrow into Western democracies using NGOs, lobbying, legal tools and identity politics
📚 The Global Imams Council (GIC): 1,600+ Sunni and Shia imams, their work with the UN, EU, Vatican and governments, and their “Symbols of Terror” guide for law enforcement
🤝 Why the Abraham Accords and a stronger UAE–US–Canada economic bloc threaten Islamist influence and empower moderates
🧭 Practical steps for Western policymakers, law enforcement, and communities to identify and push back against Islamist networks

The hosts and Imam Tawhidi lay out a clear distinction between Islam as a faith and Islamism as a political project, and explain why confronting the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s proxies is now a shared interest for Arabs, Israelis and the West.

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Imam of Peace on Political Islam, Iran’s Regime and the Muslim Brotherhood

In the bonus of The Middle East Breakdown, Dan Feferman revisits a powerful conversation with Islamabad based journalist and analyst Ahmed Quraishi. They unpack how narratives about Israel and the Palestinians were built, sold, and challenged, and what it costs to speak openly.

They discuss:
🧠 Growing up with the Palestinian narrative in Kuwait and unlearning indoctrination
✈️ How he became the first prominent Pakistani to publicly visit Israel
🏛️ Jewish and Arab history that gets erased including the Jews of Baghdad and Babylonian scholarship
🕌 Faith and facts on Jerusalem what the Temple Mount was and why language matters
🗳️ Arab citizens inside Israel politics participation and boycotts
🧨 Regimes and movements that hijacked the Palestinian cause from Gaddafi to Khomeini
⚖️ The personal risks to journalists who break with the party line and why truth telling still has a price
🧭 What a pragmatic regional future could look like after the Abraham Accords

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In Episode 8 of The Middle East Breakdown, Hayvi Bouzo, Dan Feferman, and Abdulaziz Alkhamis examine a fast moving week across the region, from the ceasefire’s first phase to high level visits in Israel, and what all this means for Gaza, Saudi Israel normalization, and Iran’s network of proxies.

They discuss:
🇮🇱 What “day after” could look like in Gaza, expanding Hamas free zones, rebuilding with security and education
🇸🇦 How a US visit by the Saudi crown prince could unlock a broad regional framework
🇮🇷 Where Iran’s proxies still have capacity and where they have been degraded
🇾🇪 The Houthi risk to derail progress and how to counter it
🇱🇧 Hezbollah’s losses, public pushback inside Lebanon, and the danger of rearmament
🧭 Why Arab capitals must lead on confronting Islamist militias for their own security
🛡️ A practical model, think global and act local with Arab partners, US backing, and targeted operations
🧑‍⚖️ Turkey and Qatar pressure on Hamas and how real leverage works
🕌 Options for multinational policing support, including training pipelines outside Gaza

The hosts lay out clear metrics for success, secure zones that grow, outside support tied to governance and deradicalization, and a coordinated effort that denies Iran and Hamas the space to regroup.

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In Part 2 of Episode 7 of The Middle East Breakdown, Dan Feferman continues his powerful conversation with Pakistani journalist and regional expert Ahmed Quraishi, diving into the aftermath of the Israel–Hamas war and the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan that reshaped the region.

They discuss:
🇮🇱 The destruction of Hezbollah and Iran’s loss of influence
🇪🇬 How Arab and Muslim nations are now backing peace with Israel
🇵🇰 Pakistan’s secret role in training Palestinian forces
☪️ The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s last militant arm, Hamas
🕊️ And the urgent challenge of deradicalization across the Arab world

Ahmed explains why the Trump plan was never meant for Hamas, but for the entire Muslim world , a strategy that united Arab nations with Israel against extremism.

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History has been made. After two years of brutal war, Israel and Hamas have reached an end to hostilities, culminating in a Donald Trump–led peace summit in Egypt that united eight Arab and Muslim nations behind a new vision for the Middle East.

In this exclusive episode of The Middle East Breakdown, host Dan Feferman sits down with veteran journalist, war correspondent, and Middle East analyst Ahmed Quraishi, speaking live from Islamabad. Together, they unpack the geopolitical earthquake now reshaping the region.

They explore how the Abraham Accords paved the way for this unprecedented coalition, how Arab leaders quietly backed Israel’s victory over Hamas, and why countries like Pakistan and Indonesia are now offering troops for Gaza’s stabilization. Quraishi, who has reported from conflict zones across the Muslim world, offers rare insight into what this means for the future of jihadist movements, the Iranian regime, and U.S. influence in the region.

The conversation goes deep into:

How the war changed the Arab world’s perception of Hamas and Iran

Why the Abraham Accords were the turning point in Arab–Israeli relations

How Trump’s direct diplomacy outmaneuvered decades of failed peace efforts

What it means when even Muslim-majority states now say “Israel must win”

The failures of Western media narratives that ignored Arab pragmatism

And what’s next for Gaza, peacekeeping, and the future of Palestinian leadership

Ahmed Quraishi explains how Arab governments—once Hamas’s loudest supporters—privately urged Israel to finish the fight, fearing the spread of Islamist militancy to their own countries. This marks the first war in history where most of the Arab world did not side with the Palestinians, and instead saw Israel’s fight as their own.

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