The War in Lebanon

The War in Lebanon

Author: The London Review of Books April 17, 2026 Duration: 48:11
Lebanese and Israeli delegations met in Washington this week for their first direct talks in 33 years. On 15 April, with talks underway, the IDF’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, designated all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River a ‘Hizbullah kill zone’. In this episode, Adam Shatz is joined by Joëlle Abi-Rached and Mohamad Bazzi to discuss life on the ground in Lebanon, Israel’s strategic objectives in the region and Hizbullah’s relationship to the the Lebanese state. This episode was recorded shortly before Trump’s statement announcing the agreement of a ten-day ceasefire. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Is ‘Wuthering Heights’ amoral? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:38:56
Emily Brontë died on 19 December 1848. As Patricia Lockwood said in an episode of Close Readings, there is evidence that Brontë was writing a second novel to follow ‘Wuthering Heights’, but if she was, it has been lost,…
Who owns Judy Garland? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:56
For a century, Judy Garland’s joyous and vulnerable singing voice has captivated audiences at the theatre, over the airwaves and in the cinema. Camille Paglia wrote of her that she ‘became an emblematic personality of he…
On Politics: Inside Britain’s Asylum System [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:52
The politics of migration have driven some of the most consequential changes in Britain’s recent history and look set to dominate the next general election. Since the end of Rishi Sunak’s government, the crossings of ‘sm…
The Life and Death of a Photographer in Gaza [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:45
Fatma Hassona was a Palestinian photographer from Gaza City who was killed with her family by an Israeli airstrike in April 2025. A year earlier, the Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi began recording video conversations wi…
On Politics: The Bust-up at the BBC [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:48
The BBC is in crisis, again. A leaked dossier alleging a lack of impartiality in its reporting on Trump, Israel, race and gender has felled its director general and drawn threats of a defamation lawsuit from the White Ho…
Aftershock: The War on Terror – Episode 1: With Us or Against Us [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:54
In the days after 9/11, George W. Bush declared a state of emergency and initiated what would become an unprecedented expansion of US power. Public debate narrowed: there were new limits on what was acceptable, and not a…
Where does our waste go? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:10
Since the 1980s, Brett Christophers wrote recently in the LRB, ‘firms have made vast amounts of money by sending the rich world’s waste to the global South’ – hazardous waste at first, joined more recently by discarded e…
Introducing ‘Aftershock: The War on Terror’ [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:57
After 9/11, George W. Bush launched a global War on Terror. What followed was an unprecedented expansion of American power, from Guantánamo Bay to drone strikes, mass surveillance to the weaponisation of the financial sy…
On Politics: Latin America’s Right-Wing Shift [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:32
At the end of the 20th century and across the first decade of the 21st, a swathe of countries across Latin America elected left-wing governments in what became known internationally as the Pink Tide. In more recent years…