CONFLICTED

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to historian Yossef Rapoport about his new book Becoming Arab, and the revolutionary argument at its heart: that Arab identity in Egypt and the Levant was not the result of mass migration from Arabia, but was forged in the medieval countryside between the 11th and 15th centuries.

Rapoport explains:

What the word ‘Arab’ meant in the early Islamic centuries

Why most medieval villagers in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine did not initially think of themselves as Arabs

Why migration models fail to explain Arabisation in the settled countryside

How Islamisation and Islamic governance reshaped rural society

The role of clan genealogies, taxation, and local leadership in creating Arab village identities

The extraordinary 1245 Fayyum survey and what it reveals about rural Egypt

The rise of popular Arab epics and the imagination of tribal ancestry

Ibn Taymiyyah’s critique of manufactured tribalism in the 14th century

How medieval Arabisation reshapes modern debates about identity, belonging, and land

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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With war clouds gathering once again over the Middle East, Aimen takes us behind the scenes of the indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. He narrates the shifting Iranian position, the will-he-or-won’t-he calculus surrounding Donald Trump, and the vital strategic role played by Israel as the White House formulates a way forward. Is this brinkmanship, miscalculation, or the prelude to full-scale war?

They discuss:

Iran’s negotiating position over the past 17–18 days

The domestic factors informing Trump’s thinking

How the IRGC is united around a rejectionist position

How Israel may have helped provide the White House with the narrative it needs to get buy-in from U.S. citizens

What really went on during Netanyahu’s recent visit

The truth beyond Scott Bessent’s claims about causing a dollar crisis in Iran

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to U.S. Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, founder of AfghanEvac, about the fate of Afghans who worked alongside American forces during the U.S. occupation, and how the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions are increasingly freezing them out.

Shawn explains:

Who America’s Afghan allies were and the risks they took

The complex tragedy of the National Guardsmen shooting in Washington D.C.

The Special Immigrant Visa system and why it failed

Trump’s first travel ban and the dismantling of refugee pathways

The Doha Agreement and the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

The creation of AfghanEvac and cooperation with the U.S. government

How Trump’s second term is closing the door on Afghan allies

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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After a tragic shooting in Washington, D.C., Thomas and Aimen trace the story back to Afghanistan and to the CIA-backed Zero Units that carried out some of the coalition’s most clandestine kill-or-capture missions.

They discuss:

The November 2025 D.C. shooting and the alleged link to a former Zero Unit operative

What the Zero Units were designed to do and why they were so controversial

Afghanistan's geography of terrorism and counterterrorism

The lifelong psychological damage caused by black ops

How the Doha Agreement sidelined the US’s Afghan partners

The halfway house vetting pipeline through German

The problem of PTSD, monitoring, and support for both Afghan allies and U.S. veterans

Whether America can fight future wars if local allies believe they’ll be left behind

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to veteran Singaporean diplomat Prof. Kishore Mahbubani about his thesis that the 21st century will be remembered as ‘the Asian Century’, and how the West can prepare peacefully and optimistically for China's return as the fulcrum of world history.

Drawing on his books Living the Asian Century, Has China Won?, and Can Asians Think?, Prof. Mahbubani explains:

Why the 21st century will be the Asian century and why this need not require Western decline

How colonialism shaped Asian self-perception, and the need for intellectual decolonisation

How other countries can adopt Singapore’s model for success

His meeting with Fidel Castro, Hafez al-Assad, and Yasser Arafat

The hypocrisy of Western power and diplomacy

How the United States keeps the UN weak on purpose

Why Pres. Trump’s China realism has been a good thing

The threat of war in Asia

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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