English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 02/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Waking the Widow’s Only son from death: Jesus touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’The dead man sat up and began to speak
Luke 07/11-17: “Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us! ’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 01-02/2025
Nawaf Salam does not deserve Saudi Arabia's warm welcome/Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Mini-States and Hotbeds for Terrorist Organizations, Islamists, and Fugitives from Justice/Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
Israel strikes a building in southern Beirut, killing at least 4 people
Israel kills Hezbollah operative in Lebanon’s Dahieh district/Joshua Marks/Israel Today/April 01/ 2025
Hezbollah official among four dead in Israeli strike on Beirut
Aoun says Israeli strike 'a dangerous warning' of intentions against Lebanon
Salam says Israeli strike 'clear breach' of ceasefire deal
Who Was Hassan Bdair, Target of Israel’s Beirut Suburbs Strike?
Spain Arrests Three Suspects Linked to Hezbollah
Southern Lebanon Rocket Attacks: Retaliation, Diplomacy and Arrests
5,000 Syrian Refugees Flee to Northern Lebanon in 24 Hours
Beirut International Airport Fully Secured, Says Minister of Public Works
Pretending to Disarm Hezbollah Won’t Work/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Lebanon Eyes Long-Awaited Judicial Appointments/Michael al-Andary/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
The Municipal Elections Bazaar/Johnny Kortbawi/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Rocket Strikes Signal Reaction to Iran's Exclusion from Regional Settlements/Philippe Abi-Akl//This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Fishermen Voice Concerns Over Economic Hardships
Devastated Lebanon village marks Eid among its dead
A Sign of Faith:' Annaya, Charbel and the Breath of the Miracle/Bélinda Ibrahim/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 01-02/2025
Iran complains to UN about Trump's 'reckless, belligerent' remarks
Trump says 'real pain is yet to come' for Houthis, Iran
US adding second aircraft carrier in Middle East: Pentagon
There Will Be a Bombing’: Trump Threatens to Attack Iran if No Nuclear Deal Reached
Supreme Court may open door to US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
UN agency closes the rest of its Gaza bakeries as food supplies dwindle under Israeli blockade
Israel says plenty of food in Gaza, UN says that's ridiculous
At least 322 children killed since Israel's new Gaza offensive, Unicef says
Two arrested as investigation into ‘QatarGate’ in Israel deepens
Health ministry in Gaza says 1,042 killed since Israel resumed strikes
Amnesty International calls on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu
Destroy and Devastate Zionist Israel’: Turkish President Prays for Jewish State’s Destruction Amid Mass Protests
U.S. lists Quebec's language law in annual report on 'foreign trade barriers'
Democrats push vote on tariffs targeting Canada as Trump calls for Republican support
US military announces more air assets for Middle East
Three injured in Iraq when an axe-wielding man attacks an Assyrian Christian new year parade
Trump to visit Saudi Arabia in May, White House confirms
Egypt’s El-Sisi, Trump discuss regional mediation efforts in phone call
Nationwide power outage in Syria due to malfunctions, energy minister’s spokesperson says

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on April 01-02/2025
Instead of Rewarding Qatar With Weapons Sales, Washington Should Use Them as Leverage/Natalie Ecanow/FDD/April 01/2025
Does the US Government Have the Right to Condition Funding to Universities?/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute./April 01/2025
Trump admin ups the tempo of airstrikes against jihadist groups in Somalia/Caleb Weiss/FDD's Long War Journal/April 01/2025
Netanyahu Takes On Israel’s Deep State/Gadi Taub/The Magazine/March 31/2025
A bad week for the Muslim Brotherhood/Ben Cohen/ Jewish News Syndicate/April 01/2025
The Neo-Ottoman Moment/Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMR/April 01/2025
Is the US heading toward Big Brother-style oppression?/Ray Hanania/Arab News/April 01, 2025
Europe’s security depends on a European energy union/Ana Palacio/Arab News/April 01, 2025
Time for Israeli opposition to show its mettle/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/April 01, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 01-02/2025
Nawaf Salam does not deserve Saudi Arabia's warm welcome.
Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141764/
In both the political and national spheres, with a loud voice and firm conviction, and based on Nawaf Salam’s history, practices, positions, and dealings, it is evident that this Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated, leftist, and spiteful figure harbors a deep-seated complex toward Rafik Hariri and Riad al-Solh. He is entirely undeserving of the warm reception he received in Saudi Arabia. As we and many others see him, he is ungrateful and unworthy of trust. Politicians like him are nothing but treacherous snakes, ruled by their deceitful and destructive instincts—no matter how many times they shed their skins. Simply put, one who lacks something cannot give it.

Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Mini-States and Hotbeds for Terrorist Organizations, Islamists, and Fugitives from Justice
Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141716/
Refugee Camps or Armed Strongholds?
No country in the world—especially within Arab and Islamic nations—permits refugee camps to transform into armed mini-states beyond the authority of the state. However, in Lebanon, the 13 refugee Palestinian camps have been a glaring exception since the 1970s. These camps have become lawless zones, controlled by armed groups that operate beyond state control. They serve as hotbeds for terrorism, extremism, fugitives from justice, smuggling networks, and illicit drug trafficking.
A Historical Attempt to Occupy Lebanon
Since the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, armed Palestinian factions allied with leftist and Arab nationalist forces attempted to impose their control over Lebanon, seeking to replace the Lebanese state with a Palestinian entity. These groups waged brutal wars against state institutions, security forces, and particularly Christian areas, turning Lebanon into a regional battlefield. Despite the official end of the war, the Taif Agreement, and the forced disbanding of Christian, Druze, and Sunni militias, Palestinian camps remained militarized strongholds. Similarly, terrorist factions such as Hezbollah, Amal Movement,, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Ba'ath Party, and radical Islamist organizations never surrendered their arms. This was due to the influence of the Syrian Assad regime, which occupied Lebanon until 2005. After Assad's withdrawal, Hezbollah—an Iranian armed terrorist proxy—took over, ensuring that Palestinian camps remained armed and outside state authority, perpetuating the same destabilizing agenda. What were supposed to be humanitarian refugee settlements instead became closed military zones.
Palestinian Camps: Epicenters of Terrorism and Crime
The Palestinian camps—most notably Ain al-Hilweh in Sidon and Rashidieh in Tyre—have become safe havens for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and Al-Nusra Front. These factions stockpile weapons inside the camps, turning them into direct threats to Lebanese security and regional stability.
The 13 Palestinian Camps and the Armed Organizations that controls them
Lebanon’s Palestinian camps are distributed across various regions:
Sidon: Ain al-Hilweh, Mieh Mieh
Tyre: Rashidieh, Burj al-Shamali, Al-Bass
North Lebanon: Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi
Beirut: Burj al-Barajneh, Shatila, Mar Elias
Metn: Dbayeh
Baalbek: Al-Jalil, Wavel
Several armed organizations operate within these camps, including:
Hamas
Islamic Jihad Movement
Abdullah Azzam Brigades
ISIS
Al-Nusra Front
Jamaat Ansar Allah
Fatah Movement (armed factions)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
Fatah al-Islam (eliminated after the Battle of Nahr al-Bared but left a dangerous security legacy)
The Battle of Nahr al-Bared: A Case Study in Armed Anarchy
In 2007, a fierce battle erupted between the Lebanese army and the terrorist group Fatah al-Islam, which had entrenched itself inside the Nahr al-Bared camp. Hundreds of Lebanese soldiers were martyred, and numerous civilians lost their lives. The Syrian regime, which was still exerting control over Lebanon, provided political cover, weapons, and funding to the militants, obstructing state efforts to restore sovereignty.
The Taif Agreement and the Failure to Disarm the Camps
The Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese Civil War, stipulated the disarmament of all militias and the extension of state control over all Lebanese territory. However, under Syrian occupation, this was selectively enforced—only Christian and Druze militias were disarmed, while Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Ba'ath Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and Islamist factions were allowed to keep their weapons. Palestinian camps also remained outside state control, despite national consensus on the need to disarm them.
The Lebanese National Dialogue: A Useless Exercise
In 2006, the Lebanese National Dialogue, chaired by Nabih Berri and attended by Hassan Nasrallah and other political leaders, agreed on the necessity of disarming the camps. However, Hezbollah deliberately obstructed any implementation, as it benefits from the continued existence of these armed enclaves, which serve as rear bases for its fundamentalist allies.
UN Resolutions Ignored
United Nations Resolutions 1559, 1701, and 1680, as well as the Lebanese Armistice Agreement, mandate the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon. However, Hezbollah’s dominance, along with continued chaos in the camps, has prevented any enforcement. As a result, these camps remain breeding grounds for extremism and organized crime, endangering Lebanon and its people.
Palestinian Authority’s Calls for Disarmament Ignored
For years, the Palestinian Authority has urged Lebanon to disarm the camps and reassert full state control. However, Lebanon—whose political and military decisions are controlled by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy—has failed to act. Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime have exploited these camps for decades to serve their expansionist and terrorist agendas, at the expense of Lebanon’s security and sovereignty.
The Only Path Forward: Restoring Lebanese Sovereignty
Lebanon cannot achieve stability and sovereignty unless it decisively disarms Palestinian camps—just as Christian and Druze militias were forcibly disarmed after the war. The continued existence of these lawless enclaves ensures that Lebanon remains a hostage to armed chaos, foreign interference, and perpetual instability. The Lebanese people must demand an end to this dangerous anomaly. The state must reclaim its authority and enforce a monopoly on arms to build a sovereign, independent nation capable of protecting its citizens and ensuring lasting peace.

Israel strikes a building in southern Beirut, killing at least 4 people
The Associated Press/BEIRUT/April 01/2025
The Israeli military struck a building in Beirut's southern suburbs early Tuesday, killing at least four people, as the military said it had targeted a member of the Hezbollah militant group. The airstrike came without warning days after Israel launched an attack on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday for the first time since a ceasefire ended fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group in November. The Israeli military then had warned residents in the crowded suburbs before the attack after two projectiles were launched from southern Lebanon, which Hezbollah denied firing. At least seven other people were wounded in Tuesday's airstrike, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The Israeli military said in a statement the latest strike targeted a Hezbollah member who had been helping the Palestinian Hamas group in the Gaza Strip in planning an attack “against Israeli civilians.” It said the airstrike was “under the direction of the Shin Bet,” Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the airstrike.
“We must prevent any violation of sovereignty from abroad, or from infiltrators within who provide an additional pretext for aggression,” Aoun wrote in a statement posted on X. The former military chief vowed after his election in January that all weapons would be at the hands of the Lebanese state, indirectly referring to Hezbollah's arms. Among those killed in the airstrike were Hezbollah official Hassan Bdeir and his son, Ali, according to a Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of not being authorized to speak publicly to the media. The official said that the two other people killed were their neighbors: two siblings, a young man and a woman. Another Hezbollah official denied Israeli military statements that Bdeir was preparing an attack against Israel, adding that one of his jobs was to meet with Palestinian officials. Bdeir was not a senior official within Hezbollah and did not take any precautionary measures, the official said, adding that Bdeir was moving around and residing in his home normally before Tuesday’s airstrike. Senior Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar said the group does not want war. “But at the same time, if war is imposed on Hezbollah … then Hezbollah is fully prepared to deter any assault," Ammar said in a statement to the press at the site of the airstrike. Photos and videos widely shared on local and social media showed the top three floors of an apartment building damaged following the strike. Piles of debris on cars below the building can be seen. Jets were heard in parts of the Lebanese capital before the strike near the Hay Madi neighborhood. During Israel's last war with Hezbollah, Israeli drones and jets regularly pounded the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has wide influence and support. Israel sees the area as a militant stronghold and accuses the group of storing weapons there.“We were at home. It was Eid al-Fitr,” said Hussein Nour El-Din, a resident in the neighborhood, referring to the Islamic holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. “We didn’t know where it happened, but once the smoke cleared we saw it was the building facing us.”The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, Sheikh Naim Kassem, warned Saturday that if Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continued and if Lebanon's government does not act to stop them, the group would eventually resort to other alternatives. Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw from all Lebanese territory by late January, while Hezbollah had to end its armed presence south of the Litani River along the border with Israel. Israel has launched daily strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire went into effect, saying it targets Hezbollah officials and infrastructure. The Lebanese military has gradually deployed in the country’s southern region, and Beirut has urged the international community to pressure Israel to stop attacks and withdraw its forces still present on five hilltops in Lebanese territory.
**Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
**Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press

Israel kills Hezbollah operative in Lebanon’s Dahieh district
Joshua Marks/Israel Today/April 01/ 2025
The precision strike in Beirut’s Dahieh targeted a terrorist accused of plotting an imminent attack on Israeli civilians. Israel carried out a precision airstrike in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut, Lebanon in the predawn hours of Tuesday. According to Israeli officials, the target of the strike was a member of Hezbollah who had been collaborating with Hamas affiliates to organize an imminent attack on Israeli civilians. Authorities stated that the individual posed a direct threat, prompting immediate action to neutralize him. Both the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) reaffirmed their ongoing efforts to thwart potential dangers to Israeli citizens. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that at least three people were killed and seven wounded in the strike. The incident occurred just days after another Israeli airstrike in the same area—the first such operation since a ceasefire concluded hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in November. That earlier attack reportedly targeted a Hezbollah facility used for storing drones, following Israeli accusations that the group had launched rockets into northern Israel. In response, Lebanese government officials and military leaders urged the international community to pressure Israel to stop its military actions and withdraw from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah has yet to issue a formal statement regarding the latest incident. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Saturday accused Israel of violating the November ceasefire agreement, warning that the terror group would act if the Lebanese government failed to resolve the matter diplomatically. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam voiced strong objections following the latest Israeli attack. In a statement issued by the presidential office, Aoun characterized the incident as a “serious escalation” and called upon the international community to reaffirm Lebanon’s sovereign rights. He emphasized the need for renewed diplomatic engagement, urging Lebanon’s allies to take a definitive stance against actions that threaten the country’s territorial integrity. Salam, in a separate address, warned that the attack jeopardizes the fragile ceasefire currently in place between Israel and Hezbollah. He argued that the strike constitutes a direct infringement of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, the agreement that ended the 2006 conflict and laid the groundwork for the truce brokered in November. Salam described the strike as “a blatant disruption to regional stability,” underscoring the need for international oversight and restraint.

Hezbollah official among four dead in Israeli strike on Beirut
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/April 01, 2025
BEIRUT: Hassan Bdeir, a key Hezbollah official from Nmairiyeh in southern Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli airstrike carried out without warning on Beirut’s southern suburbs at 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The attack, which struck an upper floor of a nine-story building at the intersection of the Sfeir and Mouawad neighborhoods, also killed the target’s son, Ali Hassan Bdeir, and two others, one of them a woman. Seven others were wounded, according to the Ministry of Health. The attack caused significant damage to surrounding buildings and dozens of parked cars were damaged by falling debris. This is the second Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in less than a week since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah took effect on Nov. 27, 2024. Media outlets close to Hezbollah reported that the target was the “deputy head of the Palestinian affairs file within the party.”According to sources, Hassan Bdeir, known as “Hajj Rabih,” was “a key figure in the party’s structure related to the Palestinian cause and its relations with various factions.”Al Arabiya reported that Bdeir “had previously coordinated with former Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Arouri, who was assassinated by Israel in Beirut’s southern suburbs.”An Israeli statement claimed that “under the direction of Shin Bet, the Israeli air force carried out a strike in Beirut’s southern suburb, targeting a Hezbollah operative who had recently directed Hamas operatives and assisted them in planning a major and imminent attack against Israeli civilians.”Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee alleged that “Bdeir was a member of Hezbollah’s Unit 3900 and the Quds Force and was planning an imminent attack on Israeli civilians. He was targeted immediately to eliminate this threat.”No details of the alleged planned attack were provided.
Israel’s Channel 14 reported that “Israeli security services had received information that Bdeir was planning an operation against an Israeli aircraft in Cyprus.”Residents of the affected street were in shock because the airstrike was the first launched without without prior warning.During the recent war, Adraee had typically announced target locations with an evacuation warning at least half an hour in advance.
Haitham, a resident of a nearby building, said: “People were asleep when the explosion shook the area. We did not expect an airstrike on the second day of Eid Al-Fitr. Screams erupted among the people and children. We did not know what to do: flee or stay where we were? What is happening? How can we continue living in this area now that it has become a target again?”A resident in his fifties, who preferred anonymity, expressed his outrage. “People’s lives and livelihoods have become worthless in the absence of any local or international protection against the enemy that exploits everything.” he said.
According to a security source, the strike with two guided missiles “targeted the top floor of the building where Hassan Bdeir and his family live …This led to the complete destruction of two apartments and damage to two additional floors.”
Reuters reported a US State Department spokesperson, who said: “Israel was defending itself from rocket attacks that came from Lebanon.”The spokesperson said that “hostilities have resumed because terrorists launched rockets into Israel from Lebanon,” and that “Washington supports Israel’s response.”Lebanese officials swiftly condemned the attack. President Joseph Aoun said: “It is a serious warning of intentions lurking against Lebanon, especially given its timing, which came after the signing of an agreement in Jeddah to control the Lebanese-Syrian border, under the ... sponsorship of Saudi Arabia. It also came following our visit to Paris and the complete convergence of views we witnessed with President (Emmanuel) Macron.”Aoun added: “Israel’s persistence in its aggression requires us to make more effort to address Lebanon’s friends in the world, and to rally them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our land and to prevent any violation from the outside or inside infiltrators, who provide an additional pretext for aggression. It also calls for greater internal unity.”
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the airstrike was “a blatant act of aggression against Lebanon and an Israeli attempt to sabotage the ceasefire agreement and derail its implementation — an agreement to which Lebanon has remained firmly committed.”He urged the countries sponsoring the ceasefire agreement to pressure Israel into “halting its aggression against Lebanon and ending its violations of Lebanese sovereignty, and to withdraw from its occupied territories.”Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the strike as “a blatant violation of Resolution 1701, which affirms Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a direct breach of the arrangements for the cessation of hostilities.”After visiting the site of the attack, Hezbollah MP Ibrahim Al-Moussawi held “the international community, the US, and the Western nations” responsible for the strike. “Nothing justifies the killing of civilians. Even if Israel claims a Hezbollah member was present in a civilian residential area, such an attack is legally indefensible,” he added. Al-Moussawi urged the Lebanese state to take action beyond issuing statements. “Those who place their faith in diplomacy must demonstrate their ability to assert influence on the international community,” he said. “The resistance remains committed to the ceasefire agreement. We are not warmongers. Hezbollah will announce, at the appropriate time, whether it intends to change its stance.”

Aoun says Israeli strike 'a dangerous warning' of intentions against Lebanon
Agence France Presse/April 01, 2025
President Joseph Aoun condemned an Israeli strike early Tuesday on Beirut's southern suburbs, calling on international allies to support the country's right to full territorial sovereignty. "Israel's persistence in its aggression requires more effort from us in addressing Lebanon's friends around the world and rallying them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our land," Aoun said in a statement released by the presidency. Aoun also called the strike "a dangerous warning" about Israel's intentions against Lebanon.

Salam says Israeli strike 'clear breach' of ceasefire deal
Agence France Presse/April 01, 2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said an Israeli strike early Tuesday on Beirut's southern suburbs was a "clear breach" of a ceasefire that largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. In a statement issued by his office, Salam condemned the strike as "a clear breach of the arrangements of the cessation of hostilities" and a "flagrant violation of United Nations Resolution 1701," a Security Council decision that ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and served as the foundation of the November truce.
Israel said the strike, which came without a warning, had targeted a Hezbollah official who allegedly aided Palestinian group Hamas in plotting a "significant" attack on "Israeli civilians."

Who Was Hassan Bdair, Target of Israel’s Beirut Suburbs Strike?
This is Beirut/April 01/2025
The Israeli airstrike that rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut at dawn on Tuesday targeted Hassan Bdair, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Palestinian Affairs unit. What do we know about him, and why was he targeted? According to a source quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Hassan Bdair was at his family home when the strike occurred. He and his son Ali were among the four killed in the attack.
“Hostile Activities Against Israel”
Following the strike, Israeli Channel 14 reported that Israeli intelligence services had information indicating that Bdair was planning an attack on an Israeli aircraft in Cyprus.
In a joint statement, the Israeli army and the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service) confirmed that the operation “targeted a Hezbollah operative coordinating with Hamas.” According to Israeli authorities, Bdair—also the brother of Hezbollah’s war media chief—had recently overseen Palestinian operatives and assisted in planning a major and imminent attack against Israeli civilians.
A Photo Fueling Speculation
Shortly after Bdair’s identity was revealed, a photograph of him began circulating on social media. The image shows him aboard a plane with Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces—both of whom were killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad in January 2020. No details have been disclosed about the date or destination of the flight, but the release of this image has fueled suspicions about Bdair’s strategic involvement in Hezbollah’s operations beyond Lebanon.

Spain Arrests Three Suspects Linked to Hezbollah
This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
The Spanish Civil Guard arrested three individuals in Barcelona on Tuesday, suspected of being part of a logistical network linked to Hezbollah. The suspects, arrested in an apartment in Barcelona’s Eixample district, are believed to have facilitated the supply of spare parts for assembling drones. Additional searches are also being carried out in Girona, according to investigators cited by the Spanish newspaper, La Vanguardia. The operation is connected to a similar raid conducted last July in Barcelona in coordination with German authorities, which aimed to dismantle Hezbollah’s logistical infrastructure for drone manufacturing. Evidence gathered during the previous operation led investigators to Tuesday’s searches and arrests as part of the ongoing probe.

Southern Lebanon Rocket Attacks: Retaliation, Diplomacy and Arrests
This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
After a period of relative calm in Beirut, Israeli airstrikes resumed on the southern suburbs of Beirut. The most recent attack occurred at dawn on Tuesday. The attack targeted Hassan Bdair, a Hezbollah operative in charge of Palestinian affairs. This escalation follows a fresh flare-up in tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border, triggered by rocket fire from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel on March 22 and 28. While the origin of these attacks remains unclear—despite an ongoing investigation—they have reignited fears of a broader regional conflict. Although no deaths were reported from the March 28 rocket fire on Israel, the attack provoked an Israeli retaliation against the southern suburbs of Beirut, marking the first strike since the ceasefire agreement of November 27, 2024. On Friday, after a warning from Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee on platform X, Israel targeted Hezbollah’s stronghold near Hadath. Tel Aviv justified the airstrike by pointing to the presence of infrastructure and weapons linked to the Iran-backed group in the Damous street. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that the southern suburbs would face further retaliation “for every attempt” to target northern Israel, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to strike “anywhere in Lebanon in response to any threat.”
Hezbollah Denies Involvement
In the wake of the rocket fire, Hezbollah swiftly denied any involvement, releasing a statement rejecting all responsibility for the attacks. The group condemned attempts to hold it accountable for actions it did not carry out, emphasizing its longstanding hostile rhetoric toward Israel while avoiding direct, large-scale military involvement in the ongoing conflict. A Hezbollah source told al-Hadath on Tuesday, “We are responding to Israeli attacks in defense of our nation's supreme interests.” The official stressed the need for a political resolution to the crisis, adding, “The Lebanese State must identify those responsible for the rocket fire.”
Lebanese Investigation and Arrests
In response to the escalating situation, Lebanese authorities quickly launched an investigation to identify those responsible for the rocket fire. Lebanese security services reported the arrest of several suspects, though their affiliations remain unclear. Initial reports suggest that the suspects may be of Syrian and Lebanese origins. The Lebanese Army, already deployed in the south of the country, has heightened its patrols to prevent further escalation.
Local and International Reactions
The Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs triggered a wave of political reactions. Lebanese Army Commander-in-Chief General Rodolphe Haykal condemned the attacks, warning on Saturday that they endangered Lebanon’s stability. He stated, “The country must not be used as a platform for actions that could drag it into a devastating conflict,” noting that “rocket fire from Lebanese territory serves only Israel's interests.”Meanwhile, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, while in Paris, condemned what he described as the “violation of Lebanese sovereignty,” calling on the international community to intervene to prevent an uncontrollable escalation. He also emphasized the importance of keeping Lebanon out of a regional war, asserting that “all indications suggest Hezbollah's innocence in the attack on Israel.”For its part, Washington reaffirmed its support for Israel, highlighting on Tuesday the “full backing of Israel’s response to the rocket fire from Lebanon.” It held “terrorists” responsible for the “resumption of fighting.”While calls for restraint are multiplying, the situation on the ground tells a different story. The risk of escalation remains ever-present, and uncertainty prevails over how the balance of power will evolve between Israel, Lebanon and the armed groups operating in the region.

5,000 Syrian Refugees Flee to Northern Lebanon in 24 Hours
This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
A report published by the Disaster and Crisis Management Unit, led by Akkar Governor Imad Labaki, confirmed on Tuesday that 5,000 Syrian refugees fled coastal areas of Syria within 24 hours, bringing the total number of arrivals since March 10 to 20,496 – including 4,085 families, among which 165 Lebanese families. These refugees have spread across 27 towns and villages in Akkar. Some are hosted by Lebanese families, while others were accommodated in halls and warehouses designated as temporary shelters.The report provided a breakdown of the refugee numbers, showing large concentrations in Mas’oudiyeh (8,092 refugees), Hekr al-Dahri (2,118), Abboudiyeh (1,393), Hayssa (1,573) and Tal Hmayreh (1,549).

Beirut International Airport Fully Secured, Says Minister of Public Works
This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Lebanon’s Minister of Public Works and Transport, Fayez Rasamny, has stated that Beirut International Airport remains fully secure. In an interview with Al-Hadath media, Rasamny underscored the Lebanese government’s commitment to shielding the airport from political and security-related disruptions, ensuring its continuous and smooth operation. Strict Security Measures and Exclusive State Oversight. Addressing concerns about airport management, Rasamny emphasized that security services enforce stringent controls, particularly on financial transactions, and that no smuggling activities are tolerated. He also made it clear that the airport operates under the sole authority of the Lebanese state, rejecting any form of external interference in its administration or security. To further enhance security, the minister announced increased surveillance and operational adjustments within the airport. “We have reinforced inspections to maintain the highest safety standards,” he stated.
Iranian Flights and Kleiate Airport
Regarding flights from Iran, Rasamny confirmed that there have been no recent developments, and the existing ban on such flights remains in place. He also noted that no official date has been set for the opening of Kleiate Airport. His remarks come amid Lebanon’s ongoing security challenges, as airstrikes persist across the country. These developments have fueled speculation about potential foreign interference in the management of key infrastructure—interference that some believe is aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its arsenal or securing renewed Iranian financial support.

Pretending to Disarm Hezbollah Won’t Work
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/04/141833/
Lebanon is pretending to disarm Hezbollah and thinks that the world believes it. Then, when the world calls Beirut out, Lebanese officials engage in collective delusion and blame “Israeli aggression” for military escalation. Lebanon is now reneging on the ceasefire and the 1701 enforcement mechanism that it signed, in November, in which it pledged to disarm Hezbollah and, in return, get territory back from Israel. Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, are now trafficking in two strings of disinformation.
First, when Aoun and Salam describe military escalation as “Israeli aggression,” they think the world and the Lebanese have forgotten that it was Hezbollah that started this war on Israel, unprompted, on October 8, 2023. Since then, every Israeli action has been considered retaliation in self-defense. Lebanon started this. Lebanon is the aggressor.
Second, Lebanon promised to disarm Hezbollah, after which it regained its territory. Since then, Beirut has shuffled the order of things and reneged on its promises. Now Lebanese officials say that violent attacks from Lebanon on Israel are the result of Israel’s continued existence on Lebanese territory and that Israel must withdraw and stop policing Hezbollah, then and only then, Lebanon will disarm the pro-Iran militia. Lebanon’s collective delusion dominates the nation’s corridors of power, often paced by the same cast of characters. Consider that the “advisors” of President Joseph Aoun are holdovers from the time of his predecessor Michel Aoun. Similarly, Salam and his top lieutenants – ministers Tarek Mitri, Ghassan Salameh, and Amer Bsat – have been politicking in Lebanon for over two decades. Nabih Berri has been Speaker of the House since 1992 and what is left of the Hezbollah leadership has been in place since the 1980s. Even the “Change” lawmakers are not newcomers to the political arena.
This incestuous closed circle of Lebanese politicians has made the Lebanese isolated from the global debate, regional trends, and – most important of all – reality. Lebanon’s decision-makers and their advisors now live in a world, where politics replaces policy and sophistry replaces action.
Along the lines of sophistry, both Aoun and Salam have yet to put the words Hezbollah and disarmament in one sentence. Both men have avoided uttering the word Hezbollah. Instead, they wax poetry about upholding Lebanese sovereignty and monopolizing the decision of war and peace.
But Hezbollah has contested even Aoun and Salam’s generic statements. Mohamad Raad, the chief of Hezbollah’s Parliamentary bloc, said that whoever claims a monopoly over the “decision of war and peace is not realistic or truthful.”
From time to time someone from Aoun or Salam’s team would say what either one of them thinks. Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri blurted it out when he said that the cabinet promised to monopolize sovereignty, but did not specify when. That is, even if Salam ever uttered the words “disarming Hezbollah,” he never attached it to a timetable.
When Salam found himself cornered into answering a question about disarming Hezbollah, he told Al-Arabiya channel in an interview, that “the page of Hezbollah’s arms has been turned.” The Lebanese Prime Minister was pretending that Hezbollah had been disbanded. The next day, in response to his statement, Hezbollah fired six rockets at Israel, showing Salam who was boss. In the ceasefire agreement, the disarmament of Hezbollah was to be completed within 60 days of the signing on November 27. Today, disbanding the Hezbollah militia looks more distant than ever.
Meanwhile, Aoun has said, behind closed doors, that if the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) tried to disarm Hezbollah, there would be civil war. It seems that Aoun prefers war with Israel rather than one to wrestle sovereignty from Hezbollah’s hands.
Aoun and Salam are not serious about disarming Hezbollah. They have delivered speeches and put out statements that give the impression that they wanted to do so but, in reality, have not moved a finger. Hezbollah has remained armed and in charge of war and peace.
War between Hezbollah and Israel has elevated Lebanon to the top of the list of America’s priorities. After Speaker Berri and former Prime Minister Najib Mikati walked back Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s promise not to untie his war from the one in Gaza, Washington took a change in the Lebanese position as repentance. Since then, Washington has done its best to give the Lebanese the chance to disarm Hezbollah and restore their state’s sovereignty. But if Aoun and Salam continue to politick instead of enforcing policy, Washington will lose interest and will let Israel continue doing what it was bent on doing: Incinerate Hezbollah. Lebanon will miss yet another opportunity to dig out of the Hezbollah hole. As the saying goes, Washington can drive the Lebanese horse to the river but cannot make it drink. Lebanon will have to drink on its own. It has to take on its demons and disarm Hezbollah. If Aoun and Salam are too scared of warring with the Iran-backed militia, they should prepare for the resumption of a scarier war with Israel, and long-term isolation, poverty, and living atop the rubble.

Lebanon Eyes Long-Awaited Judicial Appointments
Michael al-Andary/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
After finalizing security appointments and selecting a new central bank governor, the Lebanese Cabinet’s attention has now turned to complete long-overdue judicial appointments, pending since 2020. Minister of Justice Adel Nassar emphasized that the judiciary is “entering a new phase,” and confirmed in a recent interview that judicial appointments will be completed soon. The priority goes to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), paralyzed since October 2023. Due to the stalemate in the judicial appointments and transfers file, the ten members of this institution have retired one after another over the past five years. The last five members of this institution retired in October 2023, while the term of its president, Souheil Abboud, expires in 2027. As a reminder, eight of the ten members of the SJC are appointed by a decree issued by the government, upon proposal of the Minister of Justice. According to the law, the decree must be co-signed by the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Ministers of Justice and Finance. The last attempt to proceed with judicial appointments dates back to June 2020, when the Supreme Judicial Council proposed a list of transfers and appointments for approximately 330 judges out of 520, aiming to enhance judicial independence and restore confidence in the system. However, former President Michel Aoun rejected the proposed list and insisted that the SJC revise it to ensure that judges loyal to him were appointed to key positions. The SJC refused to yield.
Since then, no further judicial appointments have been made. This unprecedented situation severely impacted Lebanon's judiciary. The judicial appointment process requires a broad political consensus and approval by two-thirds of government ministers. Today, momentum appears to be building following last week’s unanimous Cabinet decision to confirm Judge Jamal Hajjar as Chief Public Prosecutor, appoint Judge Ayman Oueidat as head of the Judicial Inspection Authority and designate Judge Youssef Jamil as president of the State Council.
However, significant obstacles remain. One of the key questions is whether Nassar will be able to appoint a financial prosecutor, a position traditionally influenced by Speaker Nabih Berri, who has historically played a decisive role in selecting the Shiite judge for this post. Berri favors the appointment of Judge Zaher Hamadeh, Attorney General at the Beirut Court of Appeal, to this position. However, the Minister of Justice seems to favor the appointment of Judge Habib Mezher, President of the Civil Court of Appeal in Beirut.
Another looming challenge is whether, in case the government approved Mezher’s appointment, President Joseph Aoun will sign off on the decree, which could trigger a political showdown with Berri. On another note, Minister Nassar, in a move aimed at further securing judicial independence, has established a committee comprising judges, lawyers and legal experts to draft a law ensuring judicial autonomy. The committee has been given a strict three-day deadline to finalize the proposal before presenting it to the Cabinet and forwarding it to Parliament for approval. Without independent and trusted judges, true reform remains out of reach. Finalizing the Supreme Judicial Council’s appointments is a crucial step toward revamping Lebanon’s struggling judiciary. Failing to do so would mean repeating history, merely with different names.

The Municipal Elections Bazaar
Johnny Kortbawi/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Despite behind-the-scenes talks suggesting that some officials may be considering a quiet postponement of municipal and optional elections until at least September—in order to allow for greater political clarity and better adaptation to the evolving security situation in the south—the electoral momentum in Lebanon is already gaining intensity. With the official call for electoral bodies and the opening of candidate registration expected in the coming hours, the race is rapidly heating up. As the competition for leadership across villages, towns and cities gains pace, most key political players are employing a strategy of soft power. They are intervening decisively where victory seems assured, while stepping back where outcomes remain uncertain, often framing this process as a decision for local “families” to make.
However, the truth is that all political factions view these municipal elections as a rehearsal for the parliamentary elections scheduled for next spring. The results will serve as a crucial gauge of their real strength on the ground, offering insight to their ability to navigate shifting political dynamics, whether by gaining or losing voters’ support. Yet, the battle extends beyond local elections. The ultimate prize lies in control over municipality unions. The stronger a faction’s grip on a union, the greater its dominance over the region’s towns and villages—and, more importantly, its ability to control local public services.
In Batroun, for instance, Gebran Bassil, who has long held sway over the Union of Municipalities, now faces a significantly weakened position. Reports indicate his influence has shrunk to just seven villages or towns—placing his majority, and thus his control, at serious risk. A similar power struggle is unfolding in the Union of Metn Municipalities, where Michel Murr Jr. and the Kataeb Party are quietly, but intensely, competing to secure control and the leverage it provides over local services. As the municipal elections take shape, political actors are treading carefully, conducting in-depth analyses to maximize their influence, especially as reforms towards administrative decentralization continue to gain traction. These elections are far from a simple contest between family factions, as some might claim. While local rivalries play a role, political parties have far more significant stakes at hand. Their grip on power and access to resources depend on the outcome of these elections, turning them into yet another political bazaar where influence is bartered and bargained not only in politics, but in public services as well. Let us not be deceived by diplomatic statements denying interference. Every political force, whether openly or in the shadows, is deeply engaged, because this election is not just about today’s municipalities, but a prelude to the far bigger battle looming with the parliamentary elections next year.

Rocket Strikes Signal Reaction to Iran's Exclusion from Regional Settlements
Philippe Abi-Akl//This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
Two unsettling and deliberate incidents occurred ahead of four critical milestones for Lebanon. On March 22, shortly before the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah denied any involvement, but Israel responded with heavy strikes on the southern part of the country. The escalation prompted the International Ceasefire Monitoring Committee to intervene to contain the situation, as it nearly led to the postponement of President Joseph Aoun’s visit to France.
As President Aoun entered the Élysée Palace on March 28, a similar scenario unfolded. An unidentified group fired rockets into Israel, prompting Israeli strikes that targeted Hezbollah positions, extending to Beirut’s southern suburbs. This second escalation coincided with Aoun’s first visit to a Western capital, shortly after the Saudi-sponsored Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation agreement. It occurred as US Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus is expected soon in Beirut. It also came amid broader regional and international efforts to end the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, while working to prevent the Houthis from disrupting global shipping in the Red Sea.
Who would risk triggering an escalation in southern Lebanon amid intense international pressure? Any party behind this move is unquestionably backed by external forces and pursuing a broader regional agenda.
Western diplomatic sources suggest that Iran is behind the escalation, using members aligned with the resistance movement to carry out the operation and avoid a direct confrontation with Hezbollah. The sources contend that the goal of the escalation was to send multiple messages, especially to the Trump administration, signaling that “we have the power to escalate, disrupt your regional agenda, and destabilize the region if the administration does not engage in negotiations on our terms.”
According to the same sources, Iran is seeking to offset its losses in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza, with Lebanon now its last remaining leverage. However, it is on the brink of losing this final political card as well, following Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation, France’s active role in the oil and gas negotiations through a summit hosted by President Macron, which brought together Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece and Syria via Zoom, and the US backing of southern border talks with Israel, setting up committees as a precursor to potential normalization.
Today, Iran finds itself sidelined and stripped of influence, particularly as more Palestinian voices oppose Hamas, advocating for a diplomatic resolution over a military one. This shift is also clear in Lebanon, where President Aoun, in his inaugural speech, affirmed the state’s monopoly over weapons and its exclusive authority to make decisions regarding war and peace, effectively dismantling the “people, army, resistance” equation.
According to reliable sources, Le Drian urged Lebanese officials to respond to the US proposal for negotiations with Israel and demonstrate a willingness to engage by presenting concrete suggestions, rather than remaining passive, ahead of Ortagus’s upcoming mission in Beirut. Prior to her visit, the Deputy US Special Envoy for the Middle East accused Lebanon of violating the ceasefire agreement. She urged the Lebanese government to “contain terrorist groups attempting to drag Lebanon into conflict by launching rockets at Israel” and called on the US-backed Lebanese Army to take action against these groups. Ortagus reaffirmed the US position, advocating for diplomatic negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv for Israel’s withdrawal from the five contested hills in the South. She also emphasized the need for Hezbollah to fully disarm, stressing that Lebanon would not have entered the war without Iran’s involvement. Finally, she urged Lebanon to sever its ties with the Iran-backed “axis of resistance,” asserting that the state must monopolize the use of force and disarm Hezbollah. In Lebanon as well, sovereign groups emphasized that it is not enough for Hezbollah to simply deny its involvement in the rocket launches. They argued that the pro-Iranian group must support the state and assist in identifying the perpetrators. Additionally, they noted that Hezbollah’s civilian affiliates are present in the south, an area still under their control and constant surveillance. In fact, assisting the state in identifying those responsible for the rocket launches would absolve Hezbollah of any involvement or accountability, particularly given theories suggesting that Israel may benefit from the escalation. This could allegedly involve recruiting those behind the attacks to have an excuse to target Hezbollah and dismantle its arsenal, since the state failed so far to disarm the group due to the Shiite duo’s (Amal and Hezbollah) refusal, citing the army’s inability to confront Israel and force its withdrawal from the five contested hills. However, sources within the Lebanese Forces argue that this rhetoric merely seeks to undermine the state and question the army’s capabilities. As a result, the Cabinet is scheduled to convene after the holidays to address the issue of arms, with an anticipated position from President Aoun regarding the recent escalations.

Fishermen Voice Concerns Over Economic Hardships
This is Beirut/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
In efforts to strengthen food security, support local production, and enhance the sustainability of the agricultural and food sectors, Minister of Agriculture Nizar Hani accompanied by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Ambassador to Lebanon, Veronica Quattrulla, toured consumer markets at various ports on Tuesday. FAO Ambassador Quattrulla reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to backing initiatives that promote stability and growth in the sector. Hani and Quattrulla engaged directly with fishermen to discuss the challenges facing the fishing sector. The fishermen voiced concerns over economic hardships and infrastructure deficiencies. Discussions focused on modernizing sales mechanisms and enhancing market facilities to ensure the sector’s sustainability. The delegation then explored other sections of the market, which have the potential to serve as permanent or seasonal hubs for agricultural products and food industries. Officials highlighted the availability of large spaces that could be transformed into permanent exhibitions, facilitating direct marketing between farmers and consumers.

Devastated Lebanon village marks Eid among its dead
Agence France Presse/April 01, 2025
In the war-devastated southern Lebanese village of Aitaroun, residents marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr among their dead. Relatives crowded the village's cemeteries to pray for the more than 100 residents, including fighters from Hezbollah, killed during the war between the militant group and Israel that ended with a fragile ceasefire in November. "We defied the entire world by being here in Aitaroun to celebrate Eid with our martyrs," Siham Ftouni said near the grave of her son, a rescuer with an Islamic health organization affiliated with Hezbollah. "Their blood permitted us to come back to our village," she said.
During the war, Lebanese state media reported that Israeli troops used explosives in Aitaroun and two nearby villages to blow up houses. The town square is heavily damaged. Few people have returned to live or to reopen businesses. The story is the same in other villages in southern Lebanon. In Aitaroun, more than 90 of the village's dead -- including some who died from natural causes -- were buried only a month ago when Israeli troops pulled out. Under the ceasefire, Israel had 60 days to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, but it did not pull most of them back until February 18 after the initial deadline was extended. On Monday, beneath yellow Hezbollah flags, Ftouni and other women clad in black let their grief pour out. A young girl sat near the grave of a woman, holding her photo surrounded by flowers. Other pictures, of infants and young men in military uniform, lay on top of graves, and the sound of funeral orations triggered tears.Some visitors handed out sweets and other foods to mourners who came from further away.
'Ashamed' -
"This year, Eid is different from the years before," said Salim Sayyed, 60, a farmer originally from Aitaroun. "Aitaroun, which lost more than 120 martyrs including many women and children, is living a sad Eid."He added: "The will to live will remain stronger than death."
The war saw the killing of Hezbollah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders, and the group's military infrastructure was devastated. More than a year of conflict eventually escalated to full-blown war and killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon.
Despite the ceasefire deal, Israeli troops remain inside Lebanon at five points it deems strategic. Both Hezbollah and Israel have accused each other of truce violations. Israel has regularly carried out often-deadly air raids in south and east Lebanon since the ceasefire, striking what it says are Hezbollah military targets that violated the agreement. On Friday Israel bombed southern Beirut for the first time since the truce after rockets were fired towards its territory. Imad Hijazi, 55, a taxi driver, said the security uncertainty was no deterrent to those wanting to spend Eid beside the graves of their loved ones.
"The sadness was immense. Everyone was shaken by the loss of loved ones. I lost 23 members of my family in an Israeli strike," Hijazi said. "I was ashamed to convey Eid greetings to my relatives or my friends."

A Sign of Faith:' Annaya, Charbel and the Breath of the Miracle
Bélinda Ibrahim/This Is Beirut/April 01/2025
It was a bold choice to conclude a pilgrimage with a movie screening. Yet, these two days in Annaya ended with the projection of A Sign of Faith – Nouhad el-Chami in an almost empty theater. This was a logical, almost inevitable continuation of the inner journey attendants had just undertaken. A final station, in images and silence. A confirmation. Just a few hours earlier, an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut had once again reminded everyone of Lebanon’s wounds, a land both sacred and divided. And yet, it is from this very country that Saint Charbel emerges, the silent hermit who became a saint of miracles, transcending all boundaries of color, race, religion and nationality. It is often said that miracles happen in silence. They are neither loud nor spectacular. They slip between things, seeping into the pores of life. To see them, one must have walked, prayed, doubted, fallen perhaps, but journeyed nonetheless. A Sign of Faith – Nouhad al-Chami tells that story. A miracle, yes. But more importantly, a journey, a cross and maybe, a form of merit. Watching the film at the end of a two-day pilgrimage to Annaya changes everything. The movie, in itself, is surely moving. But after two days of confessions and masses, all gazes turned toward the same place, the tomb of Saint Charbel, which presents itself as an answer. Not a conclusion, but a confirmation, a certainty. Yes, Saint Charbel works miracles. Yes, he continues to act.
Directed by Samir Habchi and co-written with Ali Matar, the film recounts the true story of Nouhad al-Chami, portrayed by Julia Kassar and Maya Yammine. Alongside them, Yorgo Chalhoub, Melissa Aziz and Theresia Tawk deliver performances that perfectly align with the tone of the narrative. Nouhad is a simple, devout woman who suffers a stroke that leaves her paralyzed. Medicine gives up. Her body gives in. And in that abandonment, a surge, an apparition. Two monks, one silent, the other acting. A nocturnal operation, invisible to others but tangible in her flesh. She wakes up and walks. The doctors don’t understand. The skeptics sigh. The believers, however, know.
Nouhad suffered her entire life. Married off at a young age in a patriarchal society that imposed silence and submission on women, she endured beatings, humiliation and erasure. Her mother-in-law broke her down, slowly, day after day—a daily, inhuman violence. She bore 12 children, worked tirelessly, never complained, never renounced her faith. As a young girl, she saw the Virgin Mary in her dreams every night. She already had a devotion to Saint Charbel. She wanted to name her first son Charbel, but her husband refused and she had to obey. At the time, arranged marriages were the norm—a girl promised to a cousin or a neighbor’s son without being asked for her opinion. That same society, still harsh to many women today, left her with no escape. The film is marked by the violence of the blows she endured, though her body bears no visible scars on screen. Before the miracle, there is the fall. Before the light, a long journey through the night. And this final relief, this ultimate grace, becomes all the more overwhelming—a gift from Saint Charbel, a celestial recognition for having endured everything without hatred, without faltering, without doubting. A compensation, a reward? This is where the film draws its strength: it does not seek to convince. It does not try to prove anything. It simply tells a story. The camera remains discreet. The music accompanies without imposing. And the light is striking. It oscillates between Rembrandt and Caravaggio (proportionally speaking, of course). A chiaroscuro light that sculpts faces, dramatizes silences. A light of contemplation, almost prayerful in itself.
There is no mystical hysteria here. What Samir Habchi captures is a silent, deeply rooted faith—an almost ordinary faith. A faith that sometimes hurts. A faith that demands. The film poses a question without ever stating it outright, one that lingers long after: Does one have to deserve a miracle? Is it reserved for those who have prayed all their lives? For those who offer their suffering with humility? We don’t know. And maybe the answer isn’t in merit. Perhaps it lies in surrender, in the ability to place one’s pain in the hands of another, a saint, a God. Saint Charbel.
The film does not show him directly. It allows him to appear. A silent hermit, dressed in black, his face often hidden in the shadow of his hood. He does not need to speak. His presence is enough. They call him the “Doctor of Heaven.” He does not heal only bodies, he soothes souls, eases hearts and pushes back doubt. And in Annaya, he is everywhere. In the warm stones. In the faces tight with faith. In the silence of the crypt. He is not just a memory—he is here. His tiny cell at the hermitage remains untouched. He slept on a simple straw mattress placed directly on the ground. A radical, chosen austerity.
Inside the church, his portrait is lit by a flickering candle. An old monk prays, eyes closed, lips barely moving. In the small museum, crutches and thank-you letters pile up—material proofs of the immaterial. Outside, the cedar tree stands watch. It has witnessed so many tear-streaked faces. So many whispered promises. So many hopes entrusted to the night. Annaya is not just a setting, it is a mystical space. A suspended place. One climbs up to it as they would ascend an inner mountain. Each step is a prayer, each breath is a surrender. Up there, something unravels and thoughts settle. Pain finds another voice and sometimes, one begins to see. Not with the eyes, but with the soul. To see, finally. The film, in its simplicity, aligns with this atmosphere. It does not impose, it accompanies. It does not seek to shock or to force emotion, it rather allows the miracle to unfold, similarly to Annaya. It leaves the audience free, to believe, to doubt and to open up. In the final scenes, as Nouhad recounts her dream, her mysterious operation, tears rise without warning. Not because it is sad, but because it transcends and forces a reconsideration of one’s certainties. The theater is nearly empty. A few scattered spectators. A country suspended between terror and light. And yet, in this silence, one sense a presence, peace, something else. Since Annaya, one sees Saint Charbel everywhere, in the little things: a light that falls just right, a pain that eases, an intuition that illuminates. Perhaps a miracle is not always a spectacular healing. Perhaps it is simply a heart that starts believing again, fear that dissipates, peace that returns. And if that is the case, then yes, A Sign of Faith is a miraculous film. When the lights come back on, you say nothing. You just know. Something happened. This was not just a movie. It was grace, like the pilgrimage to Annaya.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 01-02/2025
Iran complains to UN about Trump's 'reckless, belligerent' remarks
Reuters/April 01/2025
Iran complained to the United Nations Security Council on Monday about "reckless and belligerent" remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump, describing them as "a flagrant violation of international law" and the founding United Nations Charter. Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program. The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. In a letter, seen by Reuters, Iran's U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani wrote that Tehran "strongly warns against any military adventurism and will respond swiftly and decisively to any act of aggression or attack by the United States or its proxy, the Israeli regime, against its sovereignty, territorial integrity, or national interests."

Trump says 'real pain is yet to come' for Houthis, Iran
Agence France Presse/April 01/2025
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed that strikes on Yemen's Houthis will continue until they are no longer a threat to shipping, warning the rebels and their Iranian backers of "real pain" to come. "The choice for the Houthis is clear: Stop shooting at U.S. ships, and we will stop shooting at you. Otherwise, we have only just begun, and the real pain is yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. Shortly after Trump's threat, Yemeni rebel media said two U.S. strikes Monday hit the island of Kamaran, off the Hodeida coast. Houthi-held parts of Yemen have faced near daily attacks since the U.S. launched a military offensive on March 15 to stop them threatening vessels in key maritime routes. The first day alone, U.S. officials said they killed senior Houthi leaders, while the rebels' health ministry said 53 people were killed.
Since then, rebels have announced the continued targeting of U.S. military ships and Israel. In his post Monday, Trump added that the Houthis had been "decimated" by "relentless" strikes since March 15, saying that U.S. forces "hit them every day and night — Harder and harder."
Trump's threat comes as his administration battles a scandal over the accidental leaking of a secret text chat by senior security officials on the Yemen strikes. It also comes amid a sharpening of Trump's rhetoric towards Tehran, with the president threatening that "there will be bombing" if Iran does not reach a deal on its nuclear program. The Houthis began targeting shipping after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians. Houthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic. Ongoing attacks are forcing many companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa. "Our attacks will continue until they are no longer a threat to Freedom of Navigation," Trump said. The rising rhetoric from the Trump administration comes as it copes with the phone text scandal. The Atlantic magazine revealed last week that its editor -- a well-known U.S. journalist -- was accidentally included in a chat on the commercially available Signal app where top officials were discussing the Yemen air strikes. The officials, including Trump's National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed details of air strike timings and intelligence -- unaware that the highly sensitive information was being simultaneously read by a member of the media. Trump has rejected calls to sack Waltz or Hegseth and branded the scandal a "witch hunt." "This case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.

US adding second aircraft carrier in Middle East: Pentagon
AFP/April 02, 2025
WASHINGTON: The United States is increasing the number of aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East to two, keeping one that is already there and sending another from the Indo-Pacific, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The announcement comes as US forces hammer Yemen’s Houthi rebels with near-daily air strikes in a campaign aimed at ending the threat they pose to civilian shipping and military vessels in the region. The Harry S. Truman carrier strike group will be joined by the Carl Vinson “to continue promoting regional stability, deter aggression, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. “To complement the CENTCOM maritime posture, the secretary also ordered the deployment of additional squadrons and other air assets that will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities,” Parnell said, referring to the US military command responsible for the Middle East. The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the start of the Gaza war in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians. Houthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic. Ongoing attacks are forcing many companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa.

‘There Will Be a Bombing’: Trump Threatens to Attack Iran if No Nuclear Deal Reached
FDD/April 01/2025
Trump Threatens Tehran: U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iran and impose secondary tariffs on the country if it does not enter into negotiations over its nuclear program. In an NBC News interview on March 30, Trump stated, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be a bombing.” He added that “there’s a chance” that secondary tariffs could be imposed if negotiations fail.Iranian President Confirms “Direct Negotiations Rejected”: Iran recently sent a response to Trump’s ultimatum, reaffirming its policy against direct negotiations with the United States. “Direct negotiations have been rejected, but Iran has always been involved in indirect negotiations, and now too,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on March 30, adding, “the Supreme Leader has emphasized that indirect negotiations can still continue.” Trump reportedly gave Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei two months to reach a nuclear deal with the United States, which must include Iran verifiably relinquishing all aspects of its nuclear program, including its missile program, weaponization efforts, and uranium enrichment activities. U.S. B-2 Bombers Within Striking Distance: A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command has confirmed the presence of the B-2 Spirit on the island of Diego Garcia, which serves as a strategic U.S. military base for operations across the Middle East, Africa, and Indo-Pacific regions. The statement to FDD on March 31 noted that “B-2 Spirit bombers have arrived at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia,” adding that “U.S. Strategic Command, its components, and subordinate units routinely conduct global operations in coordination with other combatant commands, services, and participating U.S. government agencies to deter, detect and, if necessary, defeat strategic attacks against the United States and its allies.” The B-2 Spirit is a strategic bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear ordnance and can carry up to 40,000 pounds of munitions.
FDD Expert Response
“President Trump is making clear to Tehran that maintaining a threshold nuclear weapons program is no longer a viable option. Iran can either peacefully negotiate the program’s full, verified, and permanent dismantlement and enjoy sanctions relief — or the United States will forcibly dismantle it, threatening key regime economic and military assets and the regime’s very hold on power.” — Andrea Stricker, Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Deputy Director and Research Fellow
“Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei thinks that he has all the cards due to his ability to engage in nuclear escalation. But President Trump is signaling through increasingly clear threats that he owns the casino.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow
“Iran will not negotiate seriously unless President Trump continues to reiterate the message of his predecessors, including Presidents Obama and Biden, that the United States will use military force, if necessary, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military pressure will persuade Iran’s leaders to halt their nuclear weapons program only if paired with a crystal-clear message that the program is futile because U.S. military action ultimately will prevent it from succeeding.” — Orde Kittrie, Senior Fellow
“The United States Air Force possesses the capability to conduct decisive bombing operations around the world, including against Iran’s nuclear program. We will see in the next few months whether the Iranian regime takes President Trump’s threats seriously or simply views the United States as all muscle and no punch. Rather than simply sending B-2s to Diego Garcia, the administration should be conducting a U.S.-Israel Juniper Oak 2025 exercise this year in the Middle East that includes American B-2 bombers and KC-46 refuelers operating with American and Israeli F-15s and F-35s.” — Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power

Supreme Court may open door to US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
AFP/April 02, 2025
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether American victims of attacks in Israel and the West Bank can sue the Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts. The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages. In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $654 million to the US victims of attacks which took place in the early 2000s.
Appeals courts dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds. Congress passed a law in 2019 — the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act — that would make the PLO and PA subject to US jurisdiction if they were found to have made payments to the relatives of persons who killed or injured Americans. Two lower courts ruled that the 2019 law was a violation of the due process rights of the Palestinian authorities but a majority of the justices on the conservative-majority Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to uphold it. “Congress and the president are the ones who make fairness judgments when we’re talking about the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, representing the Trump administration, agreed, saying the courts should not substitute themselves for Congress or the president. “Congress and the president made a judgment that is entitled to virtually absolute deference — that it is appropriate to subject the PA and the PLO to jurisdiction,” Kneedler said. “In this case, respondents had a chance to avoid that by just stopping those activities, but they didn’t,” he said. Mitchell Berger, representing the PA and PLO, said assigning jurisdiction is “over and above what Congress can prescribe.”The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling before the end of its term in June.

UN agency closes the rest of its Gaza bakeries as food supplies dwindle under Israeli blockade
Kareem Chehayeb/AP/April 1, 2025
The U.N. food agency is closing all of its bakeries in the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, as food supplies dwindle after Israel sealed the territory off from all imports nearly a month ago. Israel, which tightened its blockade and later resumed its offensive in order to pressure Hamas into accepting changes to their ceasefire agreement, said that enough food entered Gaza during the six-week truce to sustain the territory's roughly 2 million Palestinians. Markets largely emptied weeks ago, and U.N. agencies say the supplies they built up during the truce are running out. Gaza is heavily reliant on international aid, because the war has destroyed almost all of its food production capability. Mohammed al-Kurd, a father of 12, said that his children go to bed without dinner. “We tell them to be patient and that we will bring flour in the morning,” he said. “We lie to them and to ourselves.”A World Food Program memo circulated to aid groups on Monday said that it could no longer operate its remaining bakeries, which produce the pita bread on which many rely. The U.N. agency said that it was prioritizing its remaining stocks to provide emergency food aid and expand hot meal distribution. WFP spokespeople didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that the WFP was closing its remaining 19 bakeries after shuttering six others last month. She said that hundreds of thousands of people relied on them. The Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian affairs, known as COGAT, said that more than 25,000 trucks entered Gaza during the ceasefire, carrying nearly 450,000 tons of aid. It said that amount represented around a third of what has entered during the entire war.
“There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it,” it said. U.N. agencies and aid groups say that they struggled to bring in and distribute aid before the ceasefire took hold in January. Their estimates for how much aid actually reached people in Gaza were consistently lower than COGAT’s, which were based on how much entered through border crossings. The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Hamas is still holding 59 captives — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, including hundreds killed in strikes since the ceasefire ended, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say whether those killed in the war are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Israel sealed off Gaza from all aid at the start of the war, but later relented under pressure from Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire, has expressed full support for Israel's actions, including its decision to end the truce. Israel has demanded that Hamas release several hostages before commencing talks on ending the war, negotiations that were supposed to have begun in early February. It has also insisted that Hamas disarm and leave Gaza, conditions that weren't part of the ceasefire agreement. Hamas has called for implementing the agreement, in which the remaining hostages would be released in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout.

Israel says plenty of food in Gaza, UN says that's ridiculous
Michelle Nichols/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)/April 1, 2025
The United Nations on Tuesday dismissed as "ridiculous" an assertion by Israel that there was enough food in the Gaza Strip to last for a long period of time, despite the closure of all 25 bakeries in the enclave supported by the World Food Programme. No aid has been delivered to the Palestinian enclave since March 2. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has said it would not allow the entry of all goods and supplies into Gaza until Hamas releases all remaining hostages. Then later in March Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza after a two-month truce and sent troops back into the enclave. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid deliveries, said on Tuesday that during the truce some 25,200 trucks entered Gaza, carrying almost 450,000 tons of aid. "That's nearly a third of the total trucks that entered Gaza during the entire war, in just over a month," COGAT said in a post on X. "There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it."When asked about the statement, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: "As far as the UN is concerned, that's ridiculous ... we are at the tail end of our supplies.""You know, WFP doesn't close its bakeries for fun. If there's no flour, if there's no cooking gas, the bakeries cannot open," Dujarric added.
AID DIVERTED?
Before the two month ceasefire, global food security experts warned in November that there was a "strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas" of northern Gaza. Throughout the war, the U.N. has described its humanitarian operation in Gaza as opportunistic - facing problems with Israel's military operation, access restrictions by Israel into and throughout Gaza and looting by armed gangs. "The UN aid was less than 30% of the total amount of aid that entered. Meaning, when the UN say they have 2 weeks worth of aid left in Gaza, there are plenty of other aid organizations and other actors with food aid," COGAT said. COGAT said it continues to monitor and assess the humanitarian situation in Gaza in coordination with the international community. It also said much of the aid delivered to Gaza during the ceasefire had been diverted. "The U.N. has kept a chain of custody and a very good chain of custody on all the aid it's delivered," Dujarric said. Hamas said Gaza has reached a "famine phase," describing it as "one of the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history." It said it held Israel full responsibility for the "catastrophic human consequences increasing by the hour."The war in Gaza was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.

At least 322 children killed since Israel's new Gaza offensive, Unicef says
Tom Bennett - BBC News/April 01/2025
The United Nations agency for children says that at least 322 children are reported to have been killed since Israel launched a renewed offensive in Gaza two weeks ago.
Unicef said at least 609 other children were reportedly wounded during the same period. "The ceasefire in Gaza provided a desperately needed lifeline for Gaza's children and hope for a path to recovery," said Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell. "But children have again been plunged into a cycle of deadly violence and deprivation."Israel launched its renewed Gaza offensive on 18 March, blaming Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal to extend the ceasefire and free the 59 hostages still held captive in Gaza. Hamas, in turn, accused Israel of violating the original deal they had agreed to in January. Unicef said "relentless and indiscriminate bombardments" had resumed in Gaza, with 100 children killed or maimed every day in the 10 days to 31 March. Most of the children who were killed had been displaced and were sheltering in makeshift tents or damaged homes, it said. Unicef uses figures released by Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry - figures which Israel has consistently disputed. The figures are seen by the UN and other international institutions as being reliable. International journalists, including the BBC, are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so are unable to verify figures from either side. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC it is "committed to mitigating civilian harm during operational activity" and to "respecting all applicable international legal obligations, including the law of armed conflict". It said it "makes great efforts to estimate and consider potential civilian collateral damage in its strikes". Since the war began more than 18 months ago, Unicef said that 15,000 children have reportedly been killed, over 34,000 reportedly injured, and nearly one million children repeatedly displaced. The humanitarian situation across Gaza has dramatically worsened in recent weeks, with Israel refusing to allow aid into the Gaza Strip since 2 March - the longest aid blockage since the war began. "Without these essential supplies, malnutrition, diseases and other preventable conditions will likely surge, leading to an increase in preventable child deaths," Unicef wrote in a press release. The UN announced it was reducing its operations in Gaza on 24 March, one day after eight Palestinian medics, six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member were killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza. The IDF launched a campaign to destroy Hamas, which is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the UK, the US and other countries, in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.More than 50,399 people have been killed in Gaza during the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Two arrested as investigation into ‘QatarGate’ in Israel deepens
Dana Karni, Eugenia Yosef, Tim Lister and Irene Nasser, CNN/April 1, 2025
Two close associates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been remanded in custody for three days, following their arrest on Monday by Israeli police in connection with an investigation into suspected unlawful ties between the senior aides and Qatar, a case that has become known as QatarGate. An Israeli court on Tuesday extended the initial detention of Yonatan Urich, Netanyahu’s closest adviser, and former aide Eli Feldstein by three days, saying their release would disrupt an investigation into their suspected involvement in conducting public relations for Qatar. The judge denied the police’s original request for a nine-day detention to conduct their investigation. In court, the judge stated that a review of the classified materials submitted indicated reasonable suspicion that an American company had contacted one of the suspects to spread negative messages about Egypt, and downplay its role in mediation efforts to release all the October 7 hostages and reach a permanent ceasefire. Court documents show that Yonatan and Feldstein are suspected by prosecutors to have taken bribes and “worked to transfer messages to journalists in a manner that presented sympathetic articles about Qatar in the media, minimizing Egypt’s role as a fair mediator in the deal, while dictating the media agenda.”The judge declared that a previous gag order on the proceedings had been rendered meaningless because it had been widely disregarded. Israeli police and courts have so far declined to respond to CNN’s requests for exact details of the charges. CNN has reached out to the suspects’ defense attorneys for comment. Netanyahu also gave testimony on the case to police on Monday, according to a video the prime minister released on his Telegram account. He has claimed the case is politically motivated. “It’s a political investigation, a political hunt, that’s all this is, there’s nothing else,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu has also claimed the investigation is aimed at preventing him from dismissing Ronen Bar, head of the country’s internal security service Shin Bet. The agency is reported to have recently opened an investigation into allegations that members of Netanyahu’s office inappropriately lobbied on behalf of Qatar – something his office denies. Israeli media has recently cited Netanyahu’s attempt to disrupt an investigation into QatarGate as his reason for seeking the removal of both Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. Despite naming on Monday former navy commander Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit as his pick for the next Shin Bet chief, Netanyahu’s move to dismiss the current head still faces a legal challenge. The Shin Bet, which monitors domestic threats to Israel, conducted an internal investigation into the October 7, 2023 attacks that determined the agency had “failed in its mission” to prevent Hamas’ deadly assault and kidnapping spree. But it also blamed policies enacted by Netanyahu’s government as contributing factors. Among them, the Shin Bet said, were Qatar’s years-long payments to Hamas. Those payments were blessed by Israel, whose government believed it was beneficial to drive a political wedge between Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said the arrest of two of Netanyahu’s aides “is a breach of trust, a threat to national security, and a severe harm to Israel’s credibility and standing in the world,” warning that “Netanyahu cannot absolve himself of responsibility.” “If he knew – he is complicit in a terrible failure. If he didn’t know – he is unfit to continue serving as the Prime Minister of Israel,” Lapid said in a statement Tuesday. Another opposition figure, Benny Gantz, also criticized Netanyahu, saying: “The more the ‘QatarGate’ investigation advances, the more determined Netanyahu becomes in his battle against the institutions responsible for the investigation. The deeper the investigation – the deeper the subversion.”

Health ministry in Gaza says 1,042 killed since Israel resumed strikes
AFP/April 01, 2025
GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that 1,042 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on March 18. According to the ministry’s statement, the figure includes 41 people killed in the past 24 hours. It also reported that the overall death toll had reached 50,399 since the war began on October 7, 2023. After a ceasefire that lasted roughly two months, Israel relaunched its military campaign in Gaza on March 18. Since then, bombardment and new ground assaults that have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but it says over half those killed are women and children.

Amnesty International calls on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu
Arab News/April 01, 2025
LONDON: Amnesty International has called on Hungary to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following reports that he will visit the EU member state on Wednesday at the invitation of his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban. Netanyahu is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in November over Israel’s conduct in Gaza.Orban, a close ally of Netanyahu, has said he would not enforce the warrant. As a member state, Hungary is required to enforce any arrest warrant issued by the ICC.
FASTFACT
Benjamin Netanahu is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in November over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Erika Guevara-Rosas, head of global research, advocacy and policy at Amnesty International, said Netanyahu “is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”As an ICC member, “Hungary must arrest him if he travels to the country and hand him over to the Court. Any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Netanyahu’s reported visit should be seen as a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and its work, and is an insult to the victims of these crimes who are looking to the Court for justice. Hungary’s invitation shows contempt for international law and confirms that alleged war criminals wanted by the ICC are welcome on the streets of an EU member state.”Guevara-Rosas said: “Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe. “European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls. “Amnesty International calls on the ICC Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute all Israel’s crimes.”Guevara-Rosas added: “Hungary should equally do so by applying universal jurisdiction principles. Powerful leaders, like Netanyahu, accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity, must no longer enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.”

Destroy and Devastate Zionist Israel’: Turkish President Prays for Jewish State’s Destruction Amid Mass Protests
FDD/April 01/2025
Erdogan Offers Prayers for Palestinian Terrorists: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for God to destroy Israel during a prayer service to mark the end of Ramadan on March 30. “May Allah, for the sake of his name … destroy and devastate Zionist Israel,” Erdogan said. He also prayed for “mercy upon the martyrs” of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a “speedy recovery” for their wounded terrorists.
Ankara’s Crackdown on Protests: Erdogan’s comments come as he faces growing protests against his arrest of the popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu. Erdogan’s government has cracked down on the demonstrations, arresting more than 1,800 protestors and jailing about 260 who are awaiting trials. While Erdogan’s presidential term expires in 2028, the Turkish parliament is expected to call an early election to allow him to run for an additional term in office.
Erdogan’s Escalating Anti-Israel Rhetoric: Erdogan’s rhetoric against Israel escalated in the wake Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel. He has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler while emphasizing that “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.” Throughout the conflict, Erdogan has openly met with Hamas leaders and even threatened military action against Israel.
FDD Expert Response
“Day by day, Erdogan is witnessing the increasing volume of Turkish people protesting in anger over the jailing of Imamoglu. The crowds are also protesting Erdogan’s attempted autocratic takeover of the country by denying citizens a choice on who they want to field as a candidate against him. Erdogan’s response: To engage in anti-Israeli rhetoric to deflect the public’s attention. It’s a desperate move by the regime, as it signals that Erdogan has no strategy to quell the constantly rising rancor. This is an opportunity for Washington and the European Union to step up pressure against Erdogan and condemn his undemocratic tirade.” — Sinan Ciddi, Non-Resident Senior Fellow
“Erdogan’s call for the destruction of Israel should force the United States to begin an escalatory ladder of responses to hold Turkey’s leadership accountable. The United States is statutorily required to evaluate arms sales to the region based on Israel’s qualitative military edge and its ability to counter any threats posed by neighboring countries. Turkey’s ability to purchase advanced fighter aircraft like the F-35 should trigger congressional review and evaluation of Turkey as a potential military belligerent. The United States should continue to outline restrictions on foreign military financing and the exclusion of Turkey from NATO exercises as initial steps to address Erdogan’s provocations against Israel.” — Tyler Stapleton, Director of Congressional Relations, FDD Action

U.S. lists Quebec's language law in annual report on 'foreign trade barriers'
The Canadian Press/April 1, 2025
MONTREAL — The United States government has listed Quebec's French-language reform as a barrier to trade, as President Donald Trump prepares to impose new tariffs on Canada. The office of the U.S. trade representative released a report on Monday listing "foreign trade barriers" and included Quebec's Bill 96. It says U.S. firms have complained about a provision set to take effect on June 1 requiring companies to translate into French any part of their trademark on product packaging that contains generic terms or descriptions of items. The Quebec law did not appear on the 2024 edition of the list, but the Biden administration had raised concerns about the legislation's potential impacts on businesses and on trade between the U.S. and Canada. Provisions of Quebec's 2022 language reform are being phased in gradually, with the provincial government describing the law as a moderate response to what it says is the declining use of French. On Wednesday, Trump is expected to slap "reciprocal tariffs" on multiple countries — including Canada — in response to various alleged trade practices.

Democrats push vote on tariffs targeting Canada as Trump calls for Republican support
Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press/April 1, 2025
WASHINGTON — Democrats in the U.S. Senate are moving forward on a resolution to block sweeping tariffs targeting Canada as President Donald Trump presses Republican lawmakers to continue backing his trade agenda. Sen. Tim Kaine plans to force a vote on Trump's use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, also called IEEPA, to declare an emergency over fentanyl trafficking to hit Canada with devastating duties. "The president has justified the imposition of these tariffs on, in my view, a made-up emergency," Kaine said Tuesday. U.S. government data shows the volume of fentanyl seized at the northern border is minuscule. The Annual Threat Assessment report, released last week, does not mention Canada in its section on illicit drugs and fentanyl. IEEPA includes a provision allowing any senator to force a vote to block emergency powers. The vote will test whether Republican senators continue to back Trump's tariffs on Canada — tariffs that, according to polling, are not supported by most Americans. It's not certain the resolution will hit the Senate floor Tuesday because Democrat Sen. Cory Booker has been delivering a marathon speech to oppose actions by the Trump administration.
Even if it gets enough Republican support to pass the Senate, Kaine's resolution probably won't stop Trump's emergency declaration because it's not likely to come up in the House. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who co-sponsored the resolution, said Trump shouldn't be permitted to abuse emergency powers to start an unjustified trade war with Canada. The Minnesotan lawmaker said the tariffs are a major hit to the economies of northern states that do significant trade with Canada. "This is a long-standing friendship and an incredible trade relationship, part of our supply chain," Klobuchar said.
She said the Canada-U.S.-Mexico-Agreement, negotiated during the first Trump administration, is the place for trade negotiations. Earlier this month, Trump hit Canada and Mexico with 25 per cent across-the-board duties, with a lower 10 per cent levy on Canadian energy — then partly paused the tariffs a few days later. Trump said at the time that the pause would last until April 2. In a worrying sign for Canadian officials watching to see whether the devastating duties are set to return on Wednesday, Trump took to social media Tuesday to urge Republicans to vote against Kaine's resolution. "Senator Tim Kaine, who ran against me with Crooked Hillary in 2016, is trying to halt our critical Tariffs on deadly Fentanyl coming in from Canada," Trump said. "We are making progress to end this terrible Fentanyl Crisis, but Republicans in the Senate MUST vote to keep the National Emergency in place, so we can finish the job, and end the scourge." A White House official confirmed Monday that no decision had been made on whether Trump will reinstate the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. When asked about the duties Tuesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "I will let the president speak on the specifics of the tariffs tomorrow."Since Trump returned to office in January, he has rattled global markets with his on-again, off-again trade war with the world. Trump is set to lay out his plans to realign global trade through "reciprocal" tariffs Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET. A news release from the White House called it a "Make America Wealthy Again Event." Trump has called it "Liberation Day" and has said he will impose reciprocal tariffs by increasing U.S. duties to match the tax rates other countries charge on imports. It's not clear what the latest levies could mean for Canada. Leavitt said the president is focused on "re-shifting our global economy to ensure that America is once again the manufacturing superpower of the world." She said her understanding was that the reciprocal levies would be effective immediately. Thursday will also bring Trump's 25 per cent levies on automobiles. The White House official said many of those duties will stack on top of each other if economywide tariffs on Canada return.

US military announces more air assets for Middle East
Reuters/April 1, 2025
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has deployed additional warplanes to reinforce the Pentagon's naval assets in the Middle East, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, amid a bombing campaign in Yemen and heightened tensions with Iran. The Pentagon's brief statement made no mention of specific aircraft. However, at least four B-2 bombers have relocated to a U.S.-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, according to U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. That's close enough to reach Yemen or Iran, experts say. "The United States and its partners remain committed to regional security in the CENTCOM (area of responsibility) and are prepared to respond to any state or non-state actor seeking to broaden or escalate conflict in the region," Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in the statement. "Secretary Hegseth continues to make clear that, should Iran or its proxies threaten American personnel and interests in the region, the United States will take decisive action to defend our people," he added. CENTCOM refers to the U.S. Central Command, which comprises a region stretching across northeast Africa, the Middle East and Central and South Asia. The B-2 bombers are capable of carrying nuclear weapons and with only 20 such aircraft in the Air Force's inventory are usually used sparingly. In October, the Biden administration used the bombers in its own campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.

Three injured in Iraq when an axe-wielding man attacks an Assyrian Christian new year parade
Stella Martany/IRBIL, Syria (AP)/April 1, 2025
The annual parade by Assyrian Christians in the Iraqi city of Dohuk to mark their new year was marred Tuesday when an axe-wielding man attacked the procession and wounded three people, witnesses and local officials said. The parade, held every year on April 1, drew thousands of Assyrians from Iraq and across the diaspora, who marched through Dohuk in northern Iraq waving Assyrian flags and wearing colorful traditional clothes. Witnesses said the attacker, who has not been officially identified, ran toward the crowd shouting Islamic slogans. He struck three people with the axe before being stopped by participants and security forces. Videos circulated online showed him pinned to the ground, repeatedly shouting, “Islamic State, the Islamic State remains.”The victims included a 17-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman, both of whom suffered skull fractures. A member of the local security forces, who was operating a surveillance drone, was also injured. All three were hospitalized, local security officials said. At the hospital where her 17-year-old son Fardi was being treated after suffering a skull injury in the attack, Athraa Abdullah told The Associated Press that her son had come with his friends in buses. He was sending photos from the celebrations shortly before his friends called to say he had been attacked, she said. Abdullah, whose family was displaced when Islamic State militants swept into their area in 2014, said, “We were already attacked and displaced by ISIS, and today we faced a terrorist attack at a place we came to for shelter.”Janet Aprem Odisho, whose 75-year-old mother Yoniyah Khoshaba was among the wounded, said she and her mother were shopping near the parade when the attack happened. “He was running at us with an axe,” she said. “All I remember is that he hit my mother, and I ran away when she fell. He had already attacked a young man who was bleeding in the street, then he tried to attack more people.”Her family, originally from Baghdad, was also displaced by past violence and now lives in Ain Baqre village near the town of Alqosh. Assyrians faced a wave of hate speech and offensive comments on social media following the incident. Ninab Yousif Toma, a political bureau member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), condemned the regional government in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region and Iraqi federal authorities to address extremist indoctrination.
“We request both governments to review the religious and education curriculums that plant hate in people’s heads and encourage ethnic and religious extremism,” he said. “This was obviously an inhumane terrorist attack.”However, he said that the Assyrian community had celebrated their new year, known as Akitu, in Duhok since the 1990s without incidents of violence and acknowledged the support of local Kurdish Muslim residents. “The Kurds in Duhok serve us water and candy even when they are fasting for Ramadan. This was likely an individual, unplanned attack, and it will not scare our people,” he said, adding that the community was waiting for the results of the official investigation and planned to file an official lawsuit. “The Middle East is governed by religion, and as minorities, we suffer double because we are both ethnically and religiously different from the majority,” he said. “But we have a cause, and we marched today to show that we have existed here for thousands of years. This attack will not stop our people.”Despite the attack, Assyrians continued the celebrations of the holiday, which symbolizes renewal and rebirth in Assyrian culture as well as resilience and continuous existence as an indigenous group. At one point, as the injured teenager was rushed to the hospital, some participants wrapped his head in an Assyrian flag, which was later lifted again in the parade—stained with blood but held high as a symbol of resilience.

Trump to visit Saudi Arabia in May, White House confirms
Arab News/April 01, 2025
RIYADH: US President Donald Trump is to visit Saudi Arabia in May, the White House confirmed on Tuesday. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The president will be heading to Saudi Arabia in May. As for specific dates and details, we will be reading those out to you as soon as we possibly can.”The trip to the Kingdom will be the first foreign trip of Trump’s second term as president. Regarding a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Leavitt said that Trump “has made it clear that’s what he wants to see” and “his team remains engaged on it every day.” Saudi Arabia has hosted talks involving the US and Russia, and the US and Ukraine as Trump facilitates moves toward a ceasefire.

Egypt’s El-Sisi, Trump discuss regional mediation efforts in phone call
Reuters/April 01, 2025
CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and US President Donald Trump discussed mediation efforts to restore regional calm which would have a positive impact on Red Sea navigation and end economic losses for all parties, the Egyptian presidency said on Tuesday. The Iran-aligned Houthis have carried out more than 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians. The attacks have disrupted global commerce and set the US military off on a costly campaign to intercept missiles. Trump said earlier on Tuesday that he had discussed with El-Sisi the progress made against the Houthis, as the White House continues its biggest military attacks against the Yemeni group under Trump’s administration since March 15.Trump said the strikes were a response to the group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping, and he warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support for the group.In messages mistakenly shared with a journalist at The Atlantic magazine in March disclosing US war plans against the Houthis, one of the US officials quoted in the chat relayed by The Atlantic said that Trump approved the Yemen plans but “we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return”. The Egyptian statement made no mention of the messages or Washington’s strikes against Houthis. Egypt has been impacted by the Houthis’ attacks on the Red Sea area since November 2023, which forced vessels to avoid the nearby Suez Canal and reroute trade around Africa, raising shipping costs. El-Sisi said in December the disruption cost Egypt around $7 billion in less revenue from the Suez Canal in 2024.

Nationwide power outage in Syria due to malfunctions, energy minister’s spokesperson says
Reuters/April 01, 2025
DAMASCUS: Syria suffered a nationwide power outage on Tuesday night due to malfunctions at several points in the national grid, a spokesperson from the energy ministry told Reuters. The spokesperson said technical teams were addressing the issues. Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available for only two or three hours a day in most areas. Damage to the grid means that generating or supplying more power is only part of the problem. Damascus used to receive the bulk of its oil for power generation from Iran, but supplies have been cut off since Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham led. the ouster of Tehran-allied former president Bashar Assad in December. The former interim government under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has pledged to quickly ramp up power supply, partly by importing electricity from Jordan and using floating power barges. Damascus also said it will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on April 01-02/2025
Instead of Rewarding Qatar With Weapons Sales, Washington Should Use Them as Leverage
Natalie Ecanow/FDD/April 01/2025
Despite enabling terrorist groups, Qatar is poised to purchase nearly $2 billion worth of American arms. The U.S. State Department approved the potential sale on March 26 under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which allows the U.S. government to “sell defense articles and services to foreign countries and international organizations.” The potential package for Qatar includes eight MQ-9B Remotely Piloted Aircraft. If the sale is completed, Qatar will be the first country in the region to purchase these advanced drones, which possess an advanced suite of sensors and can employ a variety of munitions.
According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which administers the FMS program, the goal of foreign military sales is to “strengthen the security of the U.S. and promote world peace.” By that definition, Qatar should not be considered an eligible participant. Qatar has long provided political and financial support to radical Islamist groups, including Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and is now seeking to deepen security cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Qatar Maintains a Strong Defense Partnership With the U.S.
Qatar is home to Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East. Located southwest of Doha, Al Udeid hosts approximately 10,000 U.S. troops and is the site of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters, positioning Al Udeid as a critical hub for U.S. air operations, logistics, and command and control in the region. The base has played a significant role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the ongoing U.S.-led coalition effort to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Qatar began constructing Al Udeid after Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and has “contributed more than $8 billion in developing” the base since 2003. In January 2024, the Biden administration reached an agreement to extend the U.S. military presence at Al Udeid for 10 years.
The latest $2 billion arms package is also far from being Qatar’s first foray into FMS waters. According to the State Department, Qatar is the U.S. government’s second-largest FMS partner, with over $26 billion in active government-to-government cases.
Qatar Hosts Hamas and Taliban as well as U.S. Troops
Hamas opened a political office in Doha in 2012. The next year, the Afghan Taliban followed suit. Qatar maintains that both offices allow Doha to facilitate diplomacy in the region. In 2023, Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani argued in The Wall Street Journal that Hamas established its Doha office following “a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, a former Obama White House official later said there was no request from Washington, though that administration did not oppose the move either.
As Qatar liaises with Hamas and the Taliban — and now, the former al-Qaeda operatives ruling Syria — the emirate remains a funder of Islamist movements and a permissive jurisdiction for private funders of terror. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency published a summary of its investigations into its failures leading up to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which identified “the flow of money from Qatar to Gaza” as one of the reasons why Hamas was able to build up its forces.
No Rewards for Sponsors of Terror
Given Qatar’s record, the $2 billion FMS package that the State Department approved should raise eyebrows. Until Qatar takes steps to crack down on Islamist groups and close off its financial environment to terror financiers, business with Doha should not continue as usual. As Gaza ceasefire talks waver, the Trump administration can leverage FMS to compel Qatar to pressure its Hamas clients to release the remaining hostages and sever all political and financial ties to the Palestinian terrorist group. The administration should also consider replicating elsewhere in the region some of the capabilities and functions at Al Udeid Air Base.
**Natalie Ecanow is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Natalie and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Natalie on X @NatalieEcanow. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.

Does the US Government Have the Right to Condition Funding to Universities?
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute./April 01/2025
Many left-wing university faculty members... are making the absolutist claim that it is always a denial of academic freedom for governments to pressure universities with a cut-off of funding.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to hypothesize the following variation on the current situation: it's the 1950s and 1960s in the Deep South; a formerly segregated university is allowing masked KKK racists to harass Black students, blocking some from attending classes; buildings are occupied by Klansmen demanding a return to segregation; the university is doing nothing to protect the Black students, citing academic freedom and freedom of speech.
None of these purported factual distinctions justifies the allegedly principled opposition to the Trump administration's employment of pressure to stop anti-Jewish discrimination at Columbia from those who would praise the employment of similar pressure to prevent discrimination against Blacks, gays or other groups favored by intersectionality. It is double standard bigotry against Jews, plain and simple.
The pressure on Columbia may produce positive results — if it keeps its promises — including more academic freedom and free speech for students who were victimized by Columbia's inaction until it was pressured to act by the threat of defunding. That would be a good thing, just as federal pressure on some southern universities that reduced discrimination against Blacks in the 1950s and 1960s was a good thing.
In the 1950s and 1960s, liberals and civil rights advocates applauded the threats of the federal government against universities, to force them to protect black students. But now that similar threats and actions have been taken to protect Jewish students from masked Hamas supporters at Columbia University, many liberals and civil rights advocates are complaining, alleging interference with academic freedom.
Many left-wing university faculty members (a redundancy if there ever was one) are rebelling against the Trump administration's threat to cut federal funding to universities that tolerate antisemitic actions against their Jewish students. They condemned the acting president of Columbia for accepting some of the administration's conditions for restoring the $400 million that it threatened to cut, and she was forced to resign.
The faculty members are making the absolutist claim that it is always a denial of academic freedom for governments to pressure universities with a cut-off of funding. In making this broad claim, they ignore the lessons of history and the single standard of morality.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to hypothesize the following variation on the current situation: it's the 1950s and 1960s in the Deep South; a formerly segregated university is allowing masked KKK racists to harass Black students, blocking some from attending classes; buildings are occupied by Klansmen demanding a return to segregation; the university is doing nothing to protect the Black students, citing academic freedom and freedom of speech.
The federal government threatens to cut off federal funding unless the university protects the Black students and bans the use of face masks for the purpose of concealing identity. The university reluctantly complies, out of fear of being defunded.
Liberals and civil rights advocates would applaud the threats of the federal government and the compliance by the university. Many did so in the 1950s and 1960s.
But now that similar threats and actions have been taken to protect Jewish students from masked Hamas supporters at Columbia University, many liberals and civil rights advocates are complaining about the government's threats and Columbia's submission, alleging interference with academic freedom. Why the difference?
There are three possible distinctions, none of which justifies — though they explain — why these left-wing groups respond in such a diametrically opposite manner to such similar actions.
The first is that the southern example involved the protection of Blacks, whereas the Columbia situation involves the protection of Jews. Pursuant to the bigoted dogma of "intersectionality," Jews are deemed the privileged oppressors and Blacks the unprivileged oppressed. So the distinction is seen to be justified. No rational person would accept that reasoning, but many radical students and faculty do.
A related distinction is that the southern protesters and blockers were the evil Klan, whereas the Columbia protesters and blockaders paint themselves as virtuous pro-Palestinians. This distinction too is seen as justified by intersectionalists, who deem all supporters of Palestinianism as oppressed and all supporters of Israel as oppressors. This racist distinction as well is accepted by many students and faculty.
Finally, there is the distinction between the government officials who threatened the southern universities in the 1950s and 1960s and the current government officials who threatened Columbia. The current government, which is presided over by President Donald J. Trump, can do no right, according to liberals and civil rights advocates, even if its actions are logically indistinguishable from past approved actions. This variation on the classic ad hominem fallacy is widely accepted in academic and left-wing circles, when the hominem is Trump.
None of these purported factual distinctions justifies the allegedly principled opposition to the Trump administration's employment of pressure to stop anti-Jewish discrimination at Columbia from those who would praise the employment of similar pressure to prevent discrimination against Blacks, gays or other groups favored by intersectionality. It is double standard bigotry against Jews, plain and simple.
There does need to be limitations on what the federal government should be trying to influence on university campuses. Legitimate academic freedom should be respected. The federal government should be careful about intruding on the content of courses, the hiring of faculty, the admission of students and other primarily academic matters. But even with regard to such academic matters, there are appropriate limits to academic freedom by universities seeking federal funding.
The government is entirely within its rights and power to condition what it provides in discretionary taxpayer funding so that those funds will not be used for propaganda or partisan political purposes, rather than for legitimate educational enterprises. This is a delicate area, since there is no clearly objective way to draw a sharp line between politically neutral education and partisan propaganda. But as the late Justice Potter Stewart once put in the equally nuanced effort to distinguish hard-core pornography from constitutionally protected speech:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography].... But I know it when I see it..."
The same is true of partisan propaganda: we know it when we see it— at least in its most extreme form, which is all too common in today's classrooms and curricula.
The bottom line is that there is a legitimate and constitutionally appropriate place for some federal financial pressure to be directed at some universities to achieve some beneficent purposes. But the government should be cautious, selective and targeted in its deployment. It should operate with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw, and it should be careful to avoid cutting off financial aid to medical, scientific and other important research and educational enterprises. This is a difficult task but it is a mistake to argue — as many on the left hypocritically do in the current context — that all threats to cut funding from all universities for all purposes is categorically wrong.
The pressure on Columbia may produce positive results — if it keeps its promises — including more academic freedom and free speech for students who were victimized by Columbia's inaction until it was pressured to act by the threat of defunding. That would be a good thing, just as federal pressure on some southern universities that reduced discrimination against Blacks in the 1950s and 1960s was a good thing.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, and Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.
**Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
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Trump admin ups the tempo of airstrikes against jihadist groups in Somalia
Caleb Weiss/FDD's Long War Journal/April 01/2025
The Trump administration is significantly increasing the rate of American strikes inside Somalia. In just the first three months of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has already launched at least 16 manned aircraft or drone strikes inside Somalia, according to numbers compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal. For comparison, the Biden administration only launched 10 such strikes in 2024.
The number of total strikes conducted so far this year may be an undercount, as the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) no longer provides specific details of such operations.
The vast majority of these strikes targeted the Islamic State’s local Somali wing and were conducted in partnership with Puntland forces that are currently fighting the group in a major offensive in northern Somalia. Other strikes targeted Shabaab, Al Qaeda’s East African branch, in central and southern Somalia in conjunction with federal Somali troops.
This increased rate follows reports from earlier this year that the Trump White House eased restrictions on such strikes, allowing military commanders to authorize firing at targets without explicit approval from Washington. Somalia is not the only country to see such an increased tempo of operations following these new orders, as the US military’s Central Command also increased its rate of drone strikes against Al Qaeda in Syria.
In 2024, the Biden administration launched just 10 strikes in Somalia, predominantly targeting Shabaab in so-called “collective self-defense” strikes conducted in defense of Somali troops on the ground. In 2023, the Biden administration launched 19 strikes in the country and a special operations raid against a senior Islamic State Somalia leader. In contrast to Trump authorizing military commanders to take offensive actions, the Biden administration kept close control over operations.
In increasing the tempo of airstrikes, the second Trump administration is returning to its former posture in Somalia during Trump’s first term. Between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021, the US launched at least 185 strikes in Somalia, or roughly 46 strikes per year. In total, the Biden administration launched just 48 strikes during Biden’s time in office.
List of all reported US strikes inside Somalia as of March 30, 2025
March 29, 2025: AFRICOM said it conducted an airstrike against multiple Islamic State Somalia targets in the Cal Miskaad Mountains of Puntland, reportedly killing several militants.
March 25, 2025: AFRICOM said it conducted “multiple” airstrikes against Islamic State Somalia in the Cal Miskaad Mountains of Puntland, reportedly killing several militants. AFRICOM did not specify how many airstrikes took place, but at least two were conducted.
March 15, 2025: AFRICOM conducted a “collective self-defense” strike 150 kilometers northeast of Mogadishu, reportedly killing several Shabaab fighters. AFRICOM did not specify where this strike took place, but the timing and general location point to areas in the Middle Shabelle region where significant fighting between federal forces and Shabaab is taking place.
March 1, 2025: AFRICOM said it conducted “airstrikes” in Ceelbaraf in Middle Shabelle, killing an unclear number of Shabaab militants. AFRICOM did not specify how many airstrikes took place, but at least two were conducted.
February 25, 2025: AFRICOM said it launched a “collective self-defense” strike against Shabaab near Al Kowsar in the Middle Shabelle region, though it did not provide details on the results. February 20, 2025: AFRICOM said it conducted “collective self-defense” airstrikes in Buulobarde in the Hiraan region, killing an unknown number of Shabaab militants. AFRICOM did not specify how many strikes took place, but at least two were conducted.
February 16, 2025: AFRICOM said it killed at least two Islamic State members in a strike in the Cal Miskaat Mountains of Puntland.
February 1, 2025: AFRICOM stated it conducted “multiple” airstrikes against Islamic State Somalia in the Cal Miskaat Mountains of Puntland. At least 14 militants were killed, including Ahmed Maeleninine, an Islamic State Central leader who had relocated to Somalia and was responsible for plots in Europe and the United States. AFRICOM did not specify how many strikes took place, but Puntland officials reported that the Americans conducted at least six such strikes.
**Caleb Weiss is an editor of FDD’s Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

Netanyahu Takes On Israel’s Deep State
Gadi Taub/The Magazine/March 31/2025
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/netanyahu-takes-on-israels-deep-state-ronen-bar
The fight against what Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken to calling Israel’s “deep state” is now in full swing. It reached a climax on Thursday, March 20, late in the evening, when the cabinet unanimously voted to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet—the country’s domestic security service. The termination is to take effect on the earlier of two dates: April 10, or when a replacement is found. Bar is not going down without a fight, however, and has retaliated by stepping up an investigation against the prime minister’s staff.
Bar’s removal is long overdue. For starters, he is probably the person most directly responsible for the disaster of Oct. 7. Gaza is the Shin Bet’s intelligence turf, and so Bar’s advice to refrain from raising the level of alert on the night before the massacre was naturally accepted by the IDF. All remained quiet on the Gaza front as dawn broke on that Sabbath. So quiet, says former Shin Bet operative Yizhar David, who was privy to some of the relevant information, that Mohammed Deif, who commanded the invasion, postponed the attack for fear that Israel’s apparent total lack of preparation might well be a trap.
But there was no trap. Despite the accumulating signs of an impending assault nobody alerted the soldiers, sleeping soundly in their beds, or the party goers still dancing as the sun was rising at the Nova Festival, or those on guard duty at the nearby kibbutzim. The handful of tanks at the theater, the soldiers stationed in bases around the fence, and the volunteers on security duty in the adjoining kibbutzim could have stopped or at least drastically curtailed the invasion had they only been told to stay put. Bar’s advice excluded any such preparations. The theater was sedated, rather than alert.
Ever since Oct. 7 Israelis have been asking themselves: Why? Sure, hindsight is always 20-20. But why, despite the accumulating indications, was the level of alert not raised, if only to be on the safe side? And why, Israelis also ask, did the brass who were concerned enough to hold late night consultations, not wake up the minister of defense and the prime minister? Since both Bar and the then IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy have remained consistently silent on this, conspiracy theories about acts of betrayal abound.
Now, pieces of the puzzle are gradually surfacing, and we may finally have a plausible explanation, or a beginning of one, for Israel’s startling inaction. And that explanation, as we shall see, is damning to Bar in the extreme. Which may explain why, despite his colossal failure, he is fighting to stay at his job where he can continue to control the disclosure of much of the evidence against him.
Netanyahu is now attempting to correct what was perhaps the greatest miscalculation of his long political career.
The cabinet’s decision to dismiss Bar, however, did not cite his failure on the night preceding the disaster. It cited his boss’s lack of confidence in him. Netanyahu himself made sure the move was publicly understood that way. In a video released on his social media accounts two days after the cabinet’s decision, the prime minister explained that distrust began with Bar’s insubordination in the wee hours of Oct. 7, when he decided to keep both the minister of defense and the prime minister out of the decision-making process.
This was not an isolated event. This was and still is Bar’s MO. He acts as if Israel’s internal secret service is not accountable to anyone but himself, as if it were free to operate in the shadows outside the control and oversight of Israel’s elected government. He displayed the same contemptuous spirit of insubordination when he ignored a summons by the cabinet to answer questions at the March 20 meeting that decided the future of his career. Instead, he sent a letter in which he point-blank refused to recognize the cabinet’s authority to dismiss him. The decision to remove him, he said in the letter, was tinged with ulterior motives—an allusion to the ongoing investigation into alleged ties with Qatar among Netanyahu’s staff, which has so far produced no convincing evidence, as far as we know, and appears to have nothing to do with Netanyahu himself.
In other words, not only does Bar feel he is not accountable to the civil authorities, he also seems to believe that they instead should be accountable to him and that he can bully them as he pleases with contrived investigations. Bar added in his letter that he will not leave his job, and will only lay out his responses to the cabinet’s concerns before “the proper forum” and according to what the “authorized judicial bodies” will decide.
Those less familiar with the surreal world of Israel’s juristocracy may rightly wonder what that “proper forum” and who the “authorized judicial bodies” might be. The law, in point of fact, is very clear about the forum which holds the authority to dismiss the head of Shin Bet. The 2002 law which governs the service states in no uncertain terms that “the service is subject to the authority of the government” (Clause 4a), that “the prime minister is in charge of the service on behalf of the government” (Clause 4b) and also that “the government has the authority to terminate the tenure of the head of the service before the end of his term” (Clause 3c). In the debates leading to the final formulation of this law, Shin Bet representatives strongly objected to this language, but the legislators, and the attorney general at the time, Menachem Mazuz, insisted on strong wording, adding that the cabinet is not required to explain its reasons for the dismissal. So, clearly, the “proper forum” has already convened, and its decision was unanimous.
So why do we have a so-called crisis? The answer is that Israel has a supergovernment that exists above our elected government in the form of a hyperactivist Supreme Court, that can overrule all and any action by the executive and legislature. Bar was instrumental in protecting the Supreme Court from the now-defunct judicial reform which attempted to limit its power. Along with other heads of security services, he refused to state that in case of a constitutional crisis, if the court moved to strike down the reform, he would abide by the law and obey the cabinet. The fear of a coup was real and it played a major role in defeating the reform. Bar now apparently expects the court to reciprocate.
Bar’s expectation is not primarily a matter of personal obligation, though. Rather, it is because Bar’s insubordination and the court’s boundless authority draw on the same spirit of contempt for electoral politics, and are part of the same bureaucratic power structure.
There is a direct line connecting Bar’s insubordination when he helped undermine the government’s judicial reform before Oct. 7, his disregard for the chain of command in the early hours of Oct. 7 when he did not wake the prime minister, and his current defiance of the civil authority to which the Shin Bet is subordinate by law. Bar, like many of his fellow progressive government employees, and many in the press and academia, has convinced himself he is here to save us Israelis from ourselves. In Bar, Israel’s woke elites have found an important ally: a chief of the internal secret service, able to act in the gray areas beyond the law, willing to help protect them—indeed, all of us—from the menace of democratic politics. This mission has taken precedence over Bar’s official task: protecting us from subversion and terrorism.
Bar may or may not be right to assume that the court will side with him against the cabinet and attempt to force the prime minister to retain him. It has already issued an intermediary injunction—with no basis whatever in the law—to “freeze” the cabinet’s decision. But Bar, most probably, is wrong to believe this will save him. Because his MO belongs to the pre-Oct. 7 world, and that world is now gone for good.
Netanyahu seems to understand this, and consequently has proceeded with interviewing candidates for Bar’s job. The video in which Netanyahu explained the reasons for the Shin Bet chief’s dismissal began with a clear declaration: “Ronen Bar will not remain head of Shabak” (the Hebrew acronym for the Shin Bet). The prime minister would never have chosen such a defiant path two years ago during the fight over the judicial reform.
In the video, Netanyahu also directly tackled Bar’s charge that there are ulterior motives behind his dismissal. The prime minister argued, based on the timeline, that the move to dismiss Bar was set in motion before the Qatar investigation began and that, in fact, the opposite of Bar’s accusation is true: The dismissal was not designed to stop the investigation (which indeed it won’t). Rather the investigation was launched to preempt the dismissal. In other words, Bar has taken a page from James Comey’s Russian collusion playbook: He is trying to protect himself by tying his chief’s hand with a contrived investigation.
For now the investigation is formally directed only against the prime minister’s staff—much like the early days of the Russia hoax. But after Netanyahu interviewed and announced his candidate to head the Shin Bet, Bar pushed back by escalating his Qatar investigation, with a help from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara—herself is next in line to be dismissed. Jonathan Urich, Netanyahu’s close aide, was arrested on March 31, and Netanyahu himself was whisked out of the court room where he was testifying in his own trial, for questioning. The allegations against Urich, says lawyer and retired senior police officer Avi Weiss, are based on no law (Israel has no equivalent to the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the U.S.), and there is no accusation of espionage. Moreover, he says, Bar and Baharav-Miara have an obvious conflict of interest. Both are working to pressure the government that is ousting them from their positions. That’s certainly how Netanyahu’s party sees it. In a strongly worded statement, the Likud accused “the prosecution and the head of the Shin Bet” of conducting “sham investigations in secrecy under a gag order, aiming to prevent the dismissal of the Shin Bet chief.” The goal, the statement added, “is to carry out a coup through arrest warrants” and “replace the will of the people with the rule of bureaucrats.”
Democracies should not need reminders of how dangerous secret services can be to democratic institutions. Journalist Amit Segal recently exposed a directive from Bar to spy on the Israeli police force in order to track “the spread of Kahanism into law enforcement institutions.” The late Meir Kahane’s Kach party is banned in Israel and is designated as a foreign terrorist organization in the U.S. Since the minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the police, is routinely labeled a Kahanist, what the directive means in practice is that Bar is spying, with no probable cause, on a member of the cabinet to which he is supposed to answer, and intimidating police personnel into insubordination, by insinuating that adherence to the minister’s directives could be considered possible “Kahanism.” This behavior has raised questions about whether it is a good idea for Netanyahu’s personal bodyguard to remain under Bar’s command. Such concerns were further exacerbated when Nadav Argaman, Bar’s predecessor, threatened to reveal information from private conversations with Netanyahu, should he, Argaman, reach the conclusion that the prime minister has decided “to break the law” (by which he seems to mean, defy the Supreme Court in the matter of Bar’s dismissal).
Since the well-financed, permanent anti-Netanyahu protest movement is part of the country’s network of unelected elite power centers, it adopted Bar’s “ulterior motives” narrative from the get-go. A recent rally featured a Netanyahu look-alike holding a Qatari flag, kneeling before a man clad in traditional Qatari garb, who is handing him fake money. But that was the least surreal part of the wave of demonstrations in support of Bar’s insubordination in the name of democracy. Apparently, the protesters, the left, and much of the press want to save democracy by adopting the totalitarian model where politicians answer to the secret police instead of wielding authority over it.
Absurd as it may sound, elevating the secret police above electoral politics in the name of democracy stems from the very heart of our woke elite’s ethos. Appointed civil servants imagine themselves the responsible adults in the room, boldly stepping forward to protect “the public interest” from what the public believes to be its interest—and from the elected officials the public has chosen to carry out its will.
These elites—across the security establishment, the bureaucracy, the media, academia, and the business world—have succeeded once so far in their bid to subdue the governing majority coalition and defeat its plan for judicial reform. What the protest movement, Bar, the court and the press are trying to do now, is resurrect that successful antireform coalition. Their drive is not surprising, having witnessed their extra-electoral power structure during that struggle in the 10 months that preceded Oct. 7.
Apparently, the protesters, the left, and much of the press want to save democracy by adopting the totalitarian model where politicians answer to the secret police.
But the severity of the national disaster on that day revealed the hollowness and recklessness of these elites. For Oct. 7 was not just an intelligence and operational failure of the armed forces. It was also an indictment of the antireform strategy: the scorched earth tactics that played fast and loose with our security by arranging mass walkouts of army reservists, as if we were not a nation surrounded by terrorists who clamor daily for our blood. Not least, it discredited the idea that civil servants were merely expert “gatekeepers,” as they have come to describe themselves, guarding the public interest against the excesses of ignorant and corrupt politicians.
Bar proved to be the very opposite of the responsible adult in the room. The pretense that he is saving us from ourselves rings hollow after he failed at his actual job—protecting us from our enemies. In fact, there is a causal link here: Bar failed to protect us from our enemies precisely because he was too busy saving us from ourselves.
Behind Bar’s self-image as a “gatekeeper” is a worldview, shared by the rest of Israel’s woke elites, which consists of two complementary elements: an almost religious attachment to the “peace process” and the so-called “two-state solution,” and a concurrent contempt for democracy which inherently distrusts the patriotic masses and the politicians they elect. The elites, our betters, are here to save the prospect of peace from the warmongering jingoistic hordes and their irresponsible political representatives.
The consequences of this view of Israel’s internal politics hardly stops at Israel’s borders, though—the result being a complete inversion of the observable realities of our region. Bar imagines our politicians as reckless, dangerous hawks, which also more or less requires him to imagine Hamas to be strategically moving to greater pragmatic moderation. He thinks of our government as wild and irrational, a view that is premised on imagining Hamas leaders as rational actors susceptible to economic incentives. Therefore, Bar could not imagine them starting a war, and his assessments in the months preceding the war consistently reflected that bias, even as he was haunted by the specter of Israel’s government starting one.
In other words, our chief of the internal secret service had everything exactly backwards. In the face of accumulating intelligence, Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevy were busy saving us from ourselves, not from Hamas. They were eager to prevent an escalation which they thought could be triggered by “miscalculation” on the part of their civil bosses. “Miscalculation” has become their watchword to refer to the danger of overreaction to raw intelligence data, which may plunge us all into a war they assumed nobody wanted—save perhaps those evil messianic, Kahanist, proto-fascists in our own cabinet.
Based on this bias, says former Shin Bet officer Yizhar David, the late-night meetings Bar convened at Shin Bet headquarters concluded that Hamas was raising its own level of readiness out of fear of an impending Israeli attack. It’s not hard to see why a self-appointed gatekeeper would want to keep such information out of the wrong hands. Why let a deplorable, warmongering prime minister interfere with the efforts by responsible adults to delicately defuse a possible “miscalculation”?
And here, says David, lies the answer to the most nagging question of all: Why did the chiefs not raise the level of alert, or at least quietly inform the soldiers of the possibility, however remote, of impending danger? Astoundingly Bar’s message to the IDF was a recommendation to leave the theater quiet, lest raising the level of alert would reinforce Hamas’ fear of an imminent attack and lead to accidental escalation. They kept the raw intelligence from the IDF units around the fence for the same reason they kept it away from the cabinet: to prevent escalation.
Bar’s bid to stay on as head of Shin Bet, in defiance of the law and the cabinet, and despite his colossal failure, is wholly reliant on the antireform coalition of gatekeepers. But not only has the gatekeeping philosophy taken a massive hit, the constellation that composed it is also falling apart: the flow of money to the protest movement from the Biden administration has been replaced by the new administration’s inquiry into the use of this money by the anti-Netanyahu forces; the widening of Netanyahu’s wartime coalition has made this government more stable; the need a wartime prime minister has for a head of Shin Bet he can trust is obvious to most Israelis; there’s a new IDF chief of staff, general Eyal Zamir, and a new chief of police who will not let the anti-Netanyahu permanent protest disrupt public life in the middle of a war. And here is one more sign of the new times: Nadav Argaman who threatened Netanyahu on TV with disclosing secret information has been summoned by the police for questioning on suspicion of attempted extortion.
There is still the confrontational, all-powerful attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, and, of course, the Supreme Court. They may succeed in fomenting more chaos, but they can’t rewind the clock to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo. Baharav-Miara is herself operating on borrowed time, and even the Supreme Court, the most important bastion of the juristocracy, is now being challenged—in a minor way, to be sure, but still symbolically important. The Knesset has passed a law that changes the composition of the committee that appoints judges, slightly augmenting the power of elected politicians at the expense of the lawyers’ guild. Perhaps more important than all these changes is Netanyahu’s decision to lead the charge against the deep state. In doing so, he is now attempting to correct what was perhaps the greatest miscalculation of his long political career. For years he thought that he could make do with the defiant upper echelons of the security establishment, including insubordinate heads of security services, and with the imperial Supreme Court, with its juristocratic auxiliaries in the executive, including a politicized prosecution. That calculation proved detrimental to Israel’s democracy, to the right’s ability to govern, and to Netanyahu’s personal fate as a target of a politically weaponized criminal prosecution. He has now made the decision to tackle the problem at its roots, rather than skirmishing with the tentacles of the deep state over specific issues on an ad hoc basis.
Whether Netanyahu will succeed in reestablishing democratic sovereignty in Israel is dependent, to a large extent, on the outcome of the war. As things now stand, victory over the Iranian axis of evil has become the precondition for any new birth of freedom for Israel’s citizens.
**Gadi Taub is an author, historian, and op-ed columnist. He is co-host of Tablet’s Israel Update podcast.

A bad week for the Muslim Brotherhood
Ben Cohen/ Jewish News Syndicate/April 01/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/04/141830/
It’s not been a good week for two of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most prominent affiliates. In Gaza and in Turkey, the final days of the holy month of Ramadan have been marked by angry demonstrations calling for an end to the rule of, respectively, Hamas and the Justice and Development (AKP) Party.
The demonstrations are not connected and are not referencing each other. Their targets, however, are intimately connected—through their ideological fealty to the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist movement that emerged nearly a century ago seeking to impose Sharia law, and, more immediately, through the energetic backing for Hamas provided by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime.
In the Turkish case, the protests were sparked by the regime’s arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu—the mayor of Istanbul who had planned to challenge Erdoğan for the presidency—on fabricated charges of corruption. A member of the secular Republican People’s Party who has said that he considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, Imamoglu has been vilified by the regime, to the point of having his Istanbul University degree annulled. Under Turkey’s constitution, presidential candidates must possess a college degree, so Erdoğan’s move was an effective if slimy way of shifting his most credible opponent out of the running—for now, at least. The Turkish authorities have responded violently to the protests, arresting nearly 2,000 people. Such behavior is consistent with Erdoğan’s record, particularly since he overcame an alleged coup attempt a decade ago. According to the U.S. State Department’s most recent report on the woeful state of human rights in Turkey, Erdoğan’s regime is guilty of such crimes as torture, enforced disappearance, pursuing and harassing opponents based abroad, gender-based violence and persecution of the Kurdish minority. Media freedom is heavily restricted, with Turkey prominently listed among those countries where journalists are routinely imprisoned.
Despite its dreadful domestic record, its support for terrorist proxies in neighboring Syria and its lionizing of Hamas, Turkey remains a member of NATO and a candidate member of the European Union. Should the threat posed by Iran to the Middle East eventually be neutralized, Turkey stands ready to assume Tehran’s mantle, with the notable advantage that, unlike Iran’s rulers, Erdoğan shamelessly participates in the institutions created by Western democracies while decrying and undermining the values and policies these same institutions represent.
Over in Gaza, Hamas—lauded by Erdoğan as a “resistance organization that strives to protect its lands”—is separately facing the wrath of its own people. During its long reign in Gaza since 2007, Hamas has periodically faced local opposition over its corruption and the brutal character of its rule. Yet the current demonstrations, which began after Israel issued evacuation orders for the northern part of the enclave following the resumption of rocket attacks against Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza border, are unprecedented. Protestors are calling for an end to Hamas rule during a time of war no less. Their chants include “Out, out Hamas,” “Our children’s blood is not cheap” and the simple “Stop the war.”As I noted on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, a distinct sense of war fatigue was already settling in among many ordinary Palestinians. Even so, fatigue at being relentlessly bombed by Israel has not translated into serious regret for the Oct. 7 atrocities, during which thousands of Palestinian civilians crossed the border alongside Hamas to take part in the slaughter and the mass rapes. Quite a few commentators have pointed out that, even under Nazi rule, there were many Europeans who risked their lives to save beleaguered Jews, yet in Gaza—as borne out in the testimonies of some of the freed hostages—not a single Palestinian has done the same on behalf of the abducted Israelis. Even now, as the current wave of protests highlights widespread dissatisfaction with their Hamas rulers, Palestinians have refrained from demanding the release of the remaining hostages and a definitive end to terrorist provocations and attacks upon Israel. Doing so would, of course, secure an end to the war that has destroyed their homes and livelihoods.
Even at this stage, it’s possible to draw two conclusions from the Gaza protests.
First, the very fact that they are taking place at all demonstrates the degree to which Israel’s military campaign has degraded Hamas’s enforcement capabilities. As a result, Hamas has been compelled to issue contradictory messages regarding its view of the protests. On the one hand, Hamas spokesman Bassem Naim tried to spin them as demonstrations of anger against Israel. But on the other—and perhaps this is a more truthful reflection of the terror group’s view—a statement issued by the “Factions of Resistance,” which includes Hamas, claimed that the protests “persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Zionist extermination machine operates nonstop,” threatening that “these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Second, the protests are an acknowledgment by the exhausted Gazans that Israel cannot be defeated militarily and that any future attempts at a pogrom will be met with a similarly devastating response. If Israel cannot be defeated on the battlefield, then how will Hamas fulfill its goal of eliminating the Jewish state as a sovereign entity? Through democratic means? It’s hard to see many Israelis voting for the dissolution of their own state to live under the rule of those who would rape their daughters and murder their babies.
The realization is dawning among Palestinians that the Oct. 7 pogrom was a tactical success but a long-term failure. Israel isn’t disappearing. And maybe that’s the best we can hope for at this juncture—a peace based on grudging acceptance of Israel’s reality, combined with the fear that any attempt to undo that reality will result in the kind of military campaign that we have witnessed over the last 17 months. In a Middle East without Hamas and without Erdoğan—neither an easily attainable prospect, but far more so than the aim of wiping Israel from the map—that cold peace could blossom into something with more meaningful value.
*Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach, specializing in global antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Middle East/European Union relations.
Even at this stage, it’s possible to draw two conclusions from the Gaza protests.
First, the very fact that they are taking place at all demonstrates the degree to which Israel’s military campaign has degraded Hamas’s enforcement capabilities. As a result, Hamas has been compelled to issue contradictory messages regarding its view of the protests. On the one hand, Hamas spokesman Bassem Naim tried to spin them as demonstrations of anger against Israel. But on the other—and perhaps this is a more truthful reflection of the terror group’s view—a statement issued by the “Factions of Resistance,” which includes Hamas, claimed that the protests “persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Zionist extermination machine operates nonstop,” threatening that “these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Second, the protests are an acknowledgment by the exhausted Gazans that Israel cannot be defeated militarily and that any future attempts at a pogrom will be met with a similarly devastating response. If Israel cannot be defeated on the battlefield, then how will Hamas fulfill its goal of eliminating the Jewish state as a sovereign entity?

The Neo-Ottoman Moment
Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMR/April 01/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/04/141830/
It must have been a bittersweet moment. Days after seeing Turkey lauded by the European Union as an important ally, as the EU seeks to push back against the United States and keep the Ukraine War going, the Erdoğan regime was rocked by massive demonstrations after a government crackdown on the political opposition.
Things had been going, at least on the international stage, extremely well for Ankara. Indeed, it is almost as if Turkey had reached an inflection point in its battle for influence.[1] Despite the EU warning Turkey that it needed to "uphold democratic values," it is quite likely that Turkey will continue to benefit greatly from its relations with the Europeans, including the Ukrainians, and with both Russia and the United States.[2]
The fact that the regime is growing internally even more authoritarian than it already was seems like a minor obstacle on the path to international influence. Turkey is a substantial country with a large army and burgeoning defense industry located strategically between Europe and Asia (something that the Romans knew long ago about Anatolia and Constantinople). It is also a frontline border state into the EU and so it can turn off or open wide the spigot of illegal immigration into the West and has not been shy about doing so. It expects to be paid and will continue to be.
But a variety of factors – Iran's proxy war with Israel, local civil wars, Erdoğan's own vaulting ambition – have led to the acquisition of a kind of informal empire in the Middle East and Africa allowing Turkey to project power and influence far beyond its borders. For a while, it looked as if Erdoğan had been too bold, causing a range of potential adversaries to draw together – Greece, Egypt, Israel, the UAE. But a few years ago, the Erdoğan regime decided that direct ideological confrontation with Arab states like Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia was too costly.[3] Ankara toned down the rhetoric, silenced its Arab Islamist proxies, and made the necessary obeisance required to restore, if not warm relations, at least better relations with those states.
This "kind of empire" that Turkey has acquired is mostly made up of failed, pariah, or kleptocratic states ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Sahara. The exception and jewel in the crown of this dark constellation is Qatar, not a satellite or puppet at all, but a full partner, especially financial, with Turkey sharing the same ambitious, hardcore Islamist worldview. Both countries are key allies of the Hamas terrorists in Gaza.[4]
But beyond Qatar are Turkey's intimate, ongoing relations with regimes in Azerbaijan, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Syria. The relationship varies from place to place. Some, like wealthy Azerbaijan, are not dependencies but ethnic, political allies that could conceivably go elsewhere but will not. Azerbaijan and Turkey allied against the Armenians and Russians and in many other endeavors but Azerbaijan has much warmer ties with Israel than Turkey does. Azerbaijan's oil flows to Israel through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline and then by tanker from Turkey to Haifa. Despite Turkey's support for Hamas and rabid frenzy against Israel, the oil has continued to flow uninterrupted throughout the Gaza War.
It is likely that the Islamist regime in Tripoli, Libya would have fallen to the forces of Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar long ago without Turkish intervention. This is an oil-rich Turkish dependency on the North African coast, a reincarnation of Libya before the Italo-Turkish War of 1911.
Libyan soldiers undergoing Turkish training.
Sudan under the former dictator Omar Al-Bashir was a close Erdoğan ally and those ties have been strengthened and revived during the Sudanese Civil War by the Sudanese Army (SAF). SAF is closer than ever before to outright victory in the conflict with the RSF Janjaweed militia. One reason for this is that SAF has been able to cobble together military and political support from Turkey, Russia, China, and Iran. That, plus the mobilization of fighters drawn from Islamist cadres and various warlords (including former Darfur rebels), seems to have turned the tide.[5] A future Sudan directly under SAF generals or, more likely, under Islamist politicians serving at the pleasure of the army will have cordial, close ties with Ankara. Sudan is devastated as never before from this conflict but the country still remains – potentially – a source of great wealth for its ruling elites and foreign allies.
Somalia has benefited greatly from Turkey's support for well over a decade and that is poised to continue across a broad range of fields, including Turkey's training and equipping of the local military for the fight against al-Shabab Jihadists. Turkey is also exploring for oil and gas offshore Somalia.[6]
The latest piece in this useful, if at times ramshackle, empire is, of course, Syria, where Turkish-supported Islamist rebels succeeded in overthrowing the 50-year Assad regime in December 2024. Like Sudan, Syria is devastated by war, but also has great potential. Like Sudan, it is also strategically located. Turkey's role in shaping the future Syrian military will be significant.[7]
Turkey has other areas of influence – Central Asia is one – and is also seeking to compete with Russia and China (in different ways) in Africa to take advantage of the recent decline of French, and more broadly Western influence, in the continent.[8]
While not directed against a specific single adversary, as Iran's own proxy network in the Middle East was (it was directed against Israel and the United States), Turkey's chain of outposts allows it to project power against a range of potential foes. It can have a presence in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. It can – through Syria – confront Israel and overawe Lebanon and Jordan. It hems Egypt in from the South and West. And it faces off against UAE-supported proxies in Libya, Sudan, and Somaliland.
The challenge for Ankara will be to keep these neo-imperial relationships mutually beneficial and profitable, rather than draining, for Turkey's ruling elite.[9] Here the role of those allies with money – Qatar, Libya, and Azerbaijan – is important. Turkey cannot rebuild Syria and Sudan, and profit from that rebuilding, on its own without help. It also needs to maneuver carefully when it comes to Russia, China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – all countries with their own agendas and equities – and with a resurgent United States under President Trump. But despite the obnoxious bluster and the many missteps, Turkey may have found a model of influence, war and politics that could prove to be more lasting and consequential to the region, and more damaging to Western interests, than Iran's much more vaunted proxy network.[10]
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Apnews.com/article/turkey-rubio-fidan-ukraine-peace-defense-f35-21d69518e2b5748da3ecf7380f1065f5, March 26, 2025
[2] Politico.eu/article/turkey-crisis-recep-tayyip-erdogan-ekrem-imamoglu-arrest-eu-accession-funds, March 27, 2025.
[3] Middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-egypt-end-decade-long-rift-Erdoğan-visit-sisi, February 13, 2024.
[4] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 11899, Qatari Defense Minister In Past Tweets: 'We Are All Hamas'; 'We Must Plan How To Influence The Decision-Makers In The U.S.', March 27, 2025.
[5] 3ayin.com/kickle, March 24, 2025.
[6] Aa.com.tr/en/energy/general/turkiye-signs-deal-for-oil-and-gas-exploration-in-somalian-offshore/42542#, July 18, 2024.
[7] Longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/03/turkey-increasing-military-assistance-to-syria.php, March 27, 2025.
[8] Turkiyetoday.com/turkiye/turkiye-expands-presence-in-chad-with-deployment-at-former-french-bases-121893, February 20, 2025.
[9] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 600, Turkey's Syrian Mercenaries Come To The Sahel In Africa, May 17, 2024.
[10] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 11918, Commemorating Ottoman Victory In Gallipoli, Turkish President Erdoğan Outlines 'Our Spiritual Geography': 'From Syria To Gaza, From Aleppo To Tabriz, From Mosul To Jerusalem', March 24, 2025.

Is the US heading toward Big Brother-style oppression?
Ray Hanania/Arab News/April 01, 2025
Americans love to criticize foreign countries for being run by dictatorial, tyrannical or oppressive regimes. But in today’s America, there is a growing trend of oppression, mostly based on racist discrimination against Arabs and religious bias against Muslims in the targeting of individuals who speak out in defense of Palestine. Is the US transforming from a democracy based on freedom and individual rights into a totalitarian superstate like the one portrayed in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984?”
More and more, Americans are seeing the rise of policies that strip away the fundamental rights and freedoms that are allegedly guaranteed by the US Constitution. These policies bypass the fundamental legal foundations that protect citizens, such as habeas corpus, which protects individual liberties based on two fundamental rights: one that challenges the legality of someone’s detention to ensure individuals are not imprisoned unlawfully and the other that requires accused individuals to be brought before a court to determine the justification for custody. Today, people in America are simply being arrested, incarcerated and deported, not because they have committed crimes but because of what Orwell called “Newspeak,” a new language engineered by the rulers of the fictional land of Oceania to eliminate dissenting ideas by reducing the range of thought.
People are literally being grabbed off American streets by masked government agents, just like the secret police in “1984.” In the US, grabbing people off the street helps avoid the necessity of taking those who have been apprehended through the constitutional legal process.
Last week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at the prestigious Tufts University, was grabbed from her campus by masked police in broad daylight. The reason? Ozturk co-authored an op-ed that was published in the university newspaper defending the rights of Palestinians targeted by Israel in a war funded by American tax dollars. Weeks before, police grabbed graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from the Columbia University campus because of his pro-Palestine activism. No charges have been filed in either case. Neither Ozturk nor Khalil have been brought before a court. The “suspects” were taken into custody, vilified in the media and threatened with deportation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described Ozturk, Khalil and 300 others who support Palestinian rights as “lunatics” — a word taken right out of the “1984” lexicon. This new definition of what is legal and what is not, as defined by the word “lunatic,” means that expressing unpopular views can be described as a crime.Many recent US government actions embrace the codices of the dystopian state of Oceania, which is led by Big Brother. The slogan “Big Brother is watching you” — a reminder of Oceania’s constant surveillance of its people — was used as the basis for a $200 million advertising campaign led by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. In the ads, which run daily on American TV, Noem warns anyone who is in the country illegally to leave now or be detained and expelled forever. “Follow the law, and you’ll find opportunity. Break it, and you’ll find consequences,” Noem warns.
To understand what is happening in America today, one needs to understand some other tenets of “1984.”There is “who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” This is used as justification for the regime’s historical revisionism.
“Doublethink” allows the government to assert a false reality. It is based on the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accept both as true, a key tool of the ruling party’s control and manipulation of reality in “1984.”In Orwell’s book, Room 101 is the most feared place in the Ministry of Love. It is where prisoners face their worst nightmares. Today, one might refer to it as Guantanamo Bay. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake” is the core of the regime’s ideology. It prioritizes power over truth or well-being, which is the process of circumventing the judicial system. The idea that “two and two make five” is a symbol of The Party’s ability to dictate what is and is not reality.
The Thought Police are the enforcers of orthodoxy, monitoring even private thoughts, meaning that what they think you believe becomes a crime. This is founded on the principle: “Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime is death,” which emphasizes that rebellious thoughts are punishable, even without a judicial process. Finally, “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.” These paradoxical slogans bludgeon the public into blind obedience.
Many recent US government actions embrace the codices of the dystopian state of Oceania, which is led by Big Brother. Fortunately, unlike in “1984,” America has a judicial system that has not been usurped by a leader like Big Brother. So, judges have been standing in the way of the intended transition from democracy to tyranny. For example, a federal judge this month ordered a temporary halt to the expulsion of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a rarely invoked wartime law. A federal appeals court last week refused to lift that ban. The White House has described those migrants as “criminals,” even though they have never been proven in a court of law to be guilty of a crime.
There is no doubt that most Americans want individuals who have actually committed crimes to be jailed or expelled. The key point is whether the government bases its decisions on the rule of law, which states that a person is innocent until proven guilty, or on the Orwellian commandments that judge people based on their political views or their race or religion. If the authorities can arrest and expel someone who is lawfully in the country for defending Palestine, the next pillar to be toppled will be the arrest of American citizens who share the exact same views. If this apparent crime of supporting Palestine can be used to expel legal residents, it thus becomes a legal precedent to apply to citizens. The actualization of “1984” in the US is not that far in the future, as an American with so-called unpopular views might think.
**Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com. X: @RayHanania

Europe’s security depends on a European energy union
Ana Palacio/Arab News/April 01, 2025
In a world in turmoil, the EU’s security agenda is as expansive as it is urgent. From building economic resilience to achieving rapid rearmament, progress on almost any of its components depends on one thing: energy.
Two recent landmark reports on EU competitiveness — both by former Italian prime ministers, Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta — highlight what should be obvious: high energy prices and insecure supplies directly undercut economic stability and dynamism. While environmental sustainability is crucial to Europe’s long-term well-being — and, indeed, to humanity’s survival — this ambition must be balanced with the imperative of delivering affordable, reliable and robust energy supplies, not least to industrial sectors.
European industry forms the backbone of European competitiveness and has a vital role to play in European rearmament. For example, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall recently reached a market value of €23 billion ($24 billion), surpassing Volkswagen (€19 billion). The continued competitiveness of such military equipment firms — and, more broadly, the reindustrialization on which European security depends — will be impossible without a significant increase in energy realism. The reindustrialization on which European security depends will be impossible without a significant increase in energy realism
The European Commission’s Clean Industrial Deal aims to balance the twin imperatives of reindustrialization and decarbonization, including by promoting public and private investment in clean technologies and supporting energy-intensive industries, such as steel and chemicals, in the green transition. But the vision remains incomplete, not least because it neglects Europe’s fuel manufacturing industry.This “silent” sector, which supplies 97 percent of the energy for transport and 50 percent of the feedstock used by the chemical industry, is more than a relic of a fossil fuel-powered past; it is a cornerstone of the European economy. Entire value chains rely on the stability and affordability it provides, which renewables will not match anytime soon.
And yet, the Clean Industrial Deal includes no strategy for the fuel industry’s development. Nor does it mention European fuel companies’ ongoing decarbonization initiatives, such as Repsol’s Ecoplant project, which will transform urban solid waste into renewable fuels and circular products. The company projects that, beyond creating hundreds of jobs, Ecoplant will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.4 million tonnes over its first decade of operation.
In line with the Clean Industrial Deal’s pledge to “engage in a dialogue with industries to develop sectoral transition pathways,” the European Commission must take immediate steps to develop a transition pathway for fuel manufacturing. A well-designed strategy could unlock billions of euros in investment and advance key EU goals: decarbonizing transport and heavy industry, strengthening European industry’s global competitiveness and bolstering Europe’s strategic autonomy by reducing its dependence on foreign producers.
Other energy-intensive sectors should also be reassessed and integrated into European decarbonization and reindustrialization strategies, rather than sidelined. This will require the EU to take a pragmatic approach and promote all energy sources that can contribute to a stable, affordable supply, including renewables, fossil fuels, nuclear energy and hydrogen power.
The only way EU member states can achieve true energy security (or its corollary, energy affordability) is together
Hydrogen power is particularly important for energy-intensive sectors that cannot be fully electrified. The “RePowerEU” plan, introduced in 2022, aims to produce 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen (and import the same amount) by 2030. In order to achieve these goals, the EU must leverage its internal strengths. This means building on Germany’s existing production capacity: it produced 2.2 million tonnes of hydrogen in 2022, more than any other EU country. And it means taking advantage of Spain’s position between Europe and North Africa to establish it as a clean hydrogen hub, with connections to Algeria and Morocco. The establishment of cross-border hydrogen corridors — within the EU and, ultimately, between the EU and other countries — will require EU-level action, buttressed by private sector support. This must include the alignment of relevant regulations — that is, a true energy union. Contrary to popular belief, the energy union is not part of the EU’s single market. It is subject to a fundamental contradiction: under the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, “sustainability” falls under the EU’s mandate, but the security of energy supplies remains in the hands of the member states, each of which decides its own energy mix. By now, it should be clear that this is untenable. The only way EU member states can achieve true energy security (or its corollary, energy affordability) is together.
Of course, the EU has a lot on its plate — not least devising a cohesive vision for its global role at a time when the US under Donald Trump’s second presidency is proving erratic and unreliable and great-power politics are shaping international relations. Such a vision should include deepening relations with a wide range of non-Western countries — such as Brazil, India, Morocco and the UAE — that share its interest in preserving some semblance of a rules-based order. But if the EU is to play such a leadership role — providing the kind of legal certainty that can help to counterbalance the transactional, capricious and intemperate behavior we are seeing from the US — it must be united, confident, resilient and competitive. This demands a pragmatic, industry-aligned strategy for transforming itself from a lucrative market for others to an innovative industrial powerhouse in its own right, while enhancing its strategic autonomy on rapidly shifting geopolitical terrain. To succeed, a robust energy union is essential.
• Ana Palacio, a former foreign minister of Spain and former senior vice president and general counsel of the World Bank Group, is a visiting lecturer at Georgetown University. Copyright: Project Syndicate

Time for Israeli opposition to show its mettle
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/April 01, 2025
Let’s face it, unless there are some dramatic developments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a position to see out the full term of the current Knesset, which could last until the end of October 2026. The great manipulator of Israeli politics has successfully abused the power of his office to enlarge his coalition, meaning it is likely to see out its full term, although several commentators in his close circle have suggested that a general election might be held early next year.
The next election will be, without a shadow of a doubt, the most consequential in the country’s history — a last-chance saloon for Israel’s endangered democracy to end the occupation and take the path to peace with the Palestinians, as well as restore the sanity in the political and social discourse. Under Netanyahu, “the lie became the truth” and “war is peace.”
There are encouraging polls indicating that the parties that currently comprise the governing coalition will be sent to the opposition benches and that most Israeli voters are deeply dissatisfied with Netanyahu personally and his entire Cabinet. However, they are less clear about who they might want to replace him. Much of the blame for the present situation lies at the door of the opposition parties for not offering a genuine and convincing alternative in terms of leadership, courage or policies. This is particularly tragic considering how damaging, divisive and incompetent the current government has shown itself to be.
However, let us consider one of the steadily rising stars of Israeli politics: the former Israeli military deputy chief of staff retired Maj. Gen. Yair Golan. He has managed to unite the leftist-liberal political forces that won only four Knesset seats in the last election under a new name: the Democrats. And recent polls suggest that, should there be an election tomorrow, they would gain 14 seats. For now, this does not mean the party is best placed to form the next coalition, but its upward trajectory is impressive and Golan and his party are already well positioned to be a significant influence in the next Knesset.
The rise in the stock of the Democrats and Golan himself is the most refreshing news to emerge from Israeli politics for a long time. I recently interviewed Golan for the Chatham House magazine The World Today. He comes across, even in a virtual interview, as extremely affable and charismatic. But more importantly, he is presenting a clear vision of Israel’s future, should he become prime minister, and of the dangers and opportunities of the current turbulent geostrategic situation.
Golan is the most emphatic of all Israel’s Zionist party leaders in his support for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. His plan is more aligned with the idea of separation, which, given the current toxic mood of Israeli society, is a courageous position for any leading politician to even hint at taking with regard to the establishment of a Palestinian state living peacefully side by side with Israel.
Golan belongs to the Moshe Dayan or Yitzhak Rabin school of leaders favored by Israel’s center-left. Like his predecessors, he has vast military experience, which means that, even when such politicians are willing to compromise with the Palestinians, this is due to a pragmatic outlook and the belief that Israel has sufficient military strength to afford that position. They are less concerned with coexistence and reconciliation.
Golan’s reasoning for supporting a two-state solution is first and foremost because it would ensure the long-term security of Israel. He believes that good borders make good friends. It also did his reputation no harm when, on Oct. 7, as soon as he heard of Hamas’ deadly attack, he rushed to the scene on the Gaza border, even though he had been retired from military service for several years by then, and single-handedly saved lives.
While he still sees much of Israel’s relations with the Palestinians through the prism of a soldier, it also transpired from the interview that he is deeply concerned with the harm it does to Israel to occupy millions of Palestinians and how this situation would only worsen should Israel make it permanent through annexation. For him, “Israel must have borders, and not just physical borders but mental borders. People need to understand where Israel is and where it is not.”
None of this comes as a surprise to those who have followed his career closely. There always seems to be a moral compass that guides him and he is not afraid to speak up about that. While still second in command of the military, he delivered an exceptionally courageous speech that, nearly nine years later, appears chillingly prophetic. Golan warned: “If there’s something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance, it’s the recognition of the revolting processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then — 70, 80 and 90 years ago — and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016.” He called on Israelis to “nip the buds of intolerance, the buds of violence, the buds of self-destruction on the road to moral degradation.”
Golan is anything but naive and he knew at the time that, by speaking so candidly about the moral deterioration of Israeli society — and on Holocaust Memorial Day of all days — he had killed off his chances of becoming head of the military. But he was too perturbed by what he was witnessing both within the military and in wider society to stay silent.
The rise in the stock of the Democrats and Golan himself is the most refreshing news to emerge from Israeli politics for a long time.
The uproar following this speech was only to be expected. However, had more Israelis paid attention to Golan’s warnings, listened carefully and reflected on his words, the nation might not be in the mess it is in today. Now, its democracy teeters on the brink, its military is killing tens of thousands of innocent Gazans and settlers in the West Bank are terrorizing Palestinians. Golan himself last month became a victim of the current climate of police brutality when he was thrown to the ground by an officer during a peaceful demonstration.
Toward the end of the interview, Golan admitted that he has a tough task on his hands, but he is determined to succeed. His task, he declared, is “to convince the Israeli public that the left understands security and political conditions in the Middle East much better than the right. And since the right failed so terribly, it’s clear the alternative should be the left.” He added that Israel must be rid of all the hate and polarization that Netanyahu has deliberately sown.
Golan’s success would be a triumph for Israelis and Palestinians alike, but for that he must first do well at the ballot box and resurrect the Zionist left from the brink of oblivion — and that will be no easy task.
**Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg