Are Western leaders sleepwalking into a disaster in the Middle East?

As regional tensions surge amid Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, its allies in the US and Europe have refused calls to de-escalate the conflict and prevent the staggering toll on human life from spiralling further.

Western countries vowed to stand by Israel as it responds to the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas, with many invoking the language of the ‘War on Terror’ and a ‘Clash of Civilisations’. But unlike conflicts in the past, these countries have increasingly found themselves isolated on the world stage, at the United Nations and on the streets of major cities.

This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with Palestinian thinker and political strategist Wadah Khanfar, the former director general of Al Jazeera.

Khanfar says Israel and its allies are desperately trying to maintain Western hegemony in the Middle East and beyond, but they cannot see that the world has already moved on.

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