Today on the podcast three MERIP contributors discuss Lebanon’s tenuous, one-sided ceasefire with Israel. Even as officials in the Lebanese government have entered into negotiations with Israel, an unprecedented diplomatic move with questionable legal status under Lebanese law, Israel has violated the ceasefire numerous times and has continued its efforts to destroy villages south of its unilaterally declared “yellow line” in preparation for expanded occupation and settlement. Some displaced Lebanese from the south have temporarily returned to assess the damage to their homes and villages, and many Shi’a across Lebanon remain under threat. 

Joining MERIP’s executive director James Ryan to discuss this bleak reality and internal Lebanese politics are Susann Kassem, an anthropologist and Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow between Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Geneva Graduate Institute and author of “‘Our Compass is Broken’—Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon,” published by MERIP on April 2; Lara Deeb, a professor of anthropology and Middle Eastern and North African studies at Scripps College and co-author of MERIP’s “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Palestine and Resistance to Israeli Violence;” and Habib Battah, an independent journalist who teaches global studies at St. Lawrence University in New York and whose most recent article for MERIP was “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy.” 

This podcast was recorded on April 22, 2026. 

Further reading: 

Habib Battah, “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy”Middle East Report Online, April 10, 2024

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

Susann Kassem, “‘Our Compass is Broken’–Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon”Middle East Report Online April 2, 2026

Malek Abisaab and Michelle Hartman, What the War Left Behind: Women’s Stories of Resistance and Struggle in Lebanon Syracuse University Press, 2024 

Munira Khayyat, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon University of California Press, 2022

Munira Khayyat, Another Season of War in Lebanon Society for Cultural Anthropology Editor’s Forum, Hotspots April 11, 2025

Amani Rammal, “Crossing the ‘Security Belt:’ A History of the Occupied Lebanese Border Strip” The Public Source, April 16, 2026 

“The War in Lebanon is Existential with Hala Jaber” Makdisi Street Podcast, March 14, 2026 

Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon, Princeton University Press, 2006 

Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi’ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities Columbia University Press, 2008 

Humans of Dahieh (Instagram) 

Glenn Diesen–Greater Eurasia Podcast 

Hadley Suter and Tania El Khoury, “Tania El Khoury’s Soothing ‘Revenge Art’”Hyperallergic, April 17, 2026 

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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