English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  August 13/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith
Matthew 23/23-26: “‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 12-13/2025
Larijani’s Visit to Lebanon: A Brazen Iranian Provocation and an Insult to the State and People/Elias Bejjani/August 12/2025
Lebanese Army Sacrifices on the Altar of the Nation – Defending Free Lebanon Against Hezbollah’s Terrorism and Persian Agenda/Elias Bejjani/August 09/2025
Video Link For an Interview with Brigadier General Fadi Daoud From “Spot Shot”Youtube Platform
Report: Aoun opposes Salam and LF's bid to cancel Larijani's visit
Aoun says no turning back from bolstering state's exclusive authority
Report: Pacification efforts intensify, Berri may meet Aoun
Berri rules out resignation from govt., urges 'highest levels of responsibility'
Bassil says Hezbollah arms have become a 'source of threat'
Lebanese Army losses unexplained: South Lebanon blasts deepen mystery over munitions clearance
Post-war reality: Hezbollah's capabilities between Israeli narratives and ground facts
Food poisoning cases double: Extreme heat drives food safety concerns across Lebanon and beyond
Electricity solutions in Lebanon: Will four decades of power shortages come to an end?
Iraqi Oil Ministry considers exporting crude oil through Lebanon's Tripoli Port
Lebanon backs US proposal for Hezbollah to disarm and IDF to withdraw from south
Larijani’s pager diplomacy: Saving the shattered remnants of Iran’s regional proxies/
Makram Rabah/Englisg Arabia/August 12/2025
Lebanese craftsman keeps up tradition of tarboosh hat-making

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 12-13/2025
Israel bombards Gaza City; Hamas leader visits Cairo in bid to salvage ceasefire talks
Mothers of Gaza hostages fear Israeli offensive will endanger their sons
United Kingdom Reissues Travel Alert for UAE, Warning of ‘Very Likely’ Terrorist Attacks on Jewish Targets
Egypt says Gaza mediators 'working very hard' to revive truce plan
Israel PM says ‘will allow’ Palestinians to leave Gaza
Saudi and Jordanian foreign ministers discuss developments in Gaza
Saudi crown prince, Italian PM discuss Gaza
Israel rejects UN allegations that its forces have sexually abused detained Palestinians
Israel expands Eli settlement, further fragmenting Palestinian territory in occupied West Bank
Denmark to participate in aid airdrops over Gaza
US defers to Israel on killing of journalists
Israel bombards Gaza City overnight; Hamas leader due in Cairo in bid to salvage ceasefire
US congressman discusses with Syrian president return of body of American killed in Syria
Jordan’s king meets Syrian FM, US envoy over Syria developments
Syrian soldier killed in clashes with SDF in Aleppo, state news agency says
Yemen faces ‘disastrous’ hunger crisis as Red Sea escalation threatens peace efforts, UN warns
Recent drone attacks in Kurdistan are once again bringing the issue of Iraq’s Iran-backed militias to the fore.
Zelensky says Russia preparing for new Ukraine offensives

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on August 12-13/2025
Trump Was Right the First Time: Fire Intel's CEO/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/August 12/2025
Revelation of Iranian Visit to Russia Raises Questions on Nuclear Cooperation/Andrea Stricker/FDD/August 12/2025
Erdoğan’s Long Game in Syria/Sinan Ciddi/The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune/August 12/2025
A heartfelt apology for past misdemeanors can go a long way/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/August 12, 2025
How Israel Can Defend Itself in the Future...Can it take lessons from a policy that failed even as it succeeded?/Jonathan Schanzer/Commentary web site/August 12/2025
The Coming Revolt Of Downwardly Mobile Would-Be Elites/Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI Daily Brief No. 833/August 12/2025
Selected tweets for 12 August/2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 12-13/2025
Larijani’s Visit to Lebanon: A Brazen Iranian Provocation and an Insult to the State and People
Elias Bejjani/August 12/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/08/146171/
In a move that represents the height of provocation, arrogance, and domination, the Secretary-General of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, is preparing to visit Lebanon next Wednesday. This visit is entirely unwelcome and firmly rejected by most Lebanese at the popular, political, and official levels—especially in light of his recent statements, which constitute blatant interference in Lebanese internal affairs and a direct challenge to the constitution, laws, and international resolutions.
In an openly insolent and shameless remark, Larijani declared: “Iran will not allow Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state.” This is a blunt rejection of the Lebanese constitution, United Nations Security Council resolutions—chief among them Resolution 1701—and the recent ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Hezbollah. It is also a direct insult to Lebanon’s state institutions and its army.
The matter does not stop with Larijani. Other Iranian officials, before and after him, have made similar remarks. Among them is the Supreme Leader’s advisor, who recently stated: “Hezbollah’s weapons are the guarantee of Lebanon’s strength and will not be handed over to anyone.” This statement entrenches Tehran’s role as Lebanon’s self-appointed guardian and confirms Hezbollah’s full alignment with the Iranian project—at the expense of the state’s sovereignty and unity. Inside Lebanon, Hezbollah leaders have escalated their defiant rhetoric. MP Mohammad Raad declared: “Our weapons are our honor and our destiny, and whoever demands their removal is demanding the elimination of our existence.” He accompanied this with Karbala-style doctrinal and suicidal overtones in an attempt to give a false sacred character to an Iranian–military project that is destroying Lebanon.
Why Should Larijani’s Visit Be Rejected?
Because he incites Hezbollah against the Lebanese government and legitimizes illegal weapons that threaten national unity and civil peace.
Because he represents the security and ideological arm of Iran’s project in Lebanon, aimed at turning it into a forward base for the IRGC.
Because his statements are a direct insult to Lebanon’s sovereignty, its president, and its institutions—and his visit sends a clear message of defiance to the international community and outright rejection of implementing UN resolutions.
What Must Be Done Immediately
A clear and explicit governmental decision must be issued to refuse Larijani’s entry into Lebanon. An official message should be sent to Tehran making it clear that interference in Lebanese affairs is completely unacceptable. Moreover, it has become a national necessity to sever diplomatic and political ties with Iran until it stops supporting terrorist militias at the expense of the Lebanese state.
The fact remains that Iran is a cancer devouring the body of Lebanon, and Hezbollah is its deadly tool. Eradicating this cancer begins with rejecting any political or protocol legitimization for its figures and with official and popular action to end the Iranian occupation disguised under the false slogan and trade of so-called “resistance.”
In conclusion, the majority of the Lebanese people seek peace, and the restoration of their country’s sovereignty, independence, and freedom. These aspirations will not be realized as long as the national decision is held hostage in Tehran, as long as Hezbollah’s illegal terrorist and jihadist weapons remain above the law, and as long as visits by Iranian officials occur as though Lebanon were a province belonging to the mullahs’ regime.

Lebanese Army Sacrifices on the Altar of the Nation – Defending Free Lebanon Against Hezbollah’s Terrorism and Persian Agenda
Elias Bejjani/August 09/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/08/146104/
Today, the blessed soil of South Lebanon was soaked with the blood of six heroes from our valiant Lebanese Army, martyred while carrying out a sovereign mission to seize illegal weapons belonging to Hezbollah – the Iranian terrorist and criminal gang that usurps the state’s decision-making and assassinates its sovereignty. These martyrs are sacred sacrifices on the altar of the nation, in the battle to defend Lebanon’s free identity against an expansionist Iranian project built on terrorism, jihadism, and aggressive Persian ambitions. May their pure souls rest in peace, and may consolation be granted to their families and to the free and sovereign people of Lebanon.
It remains impossible for any sane Lebanese, regardless of excuses or submissive statements, to absolve Hezbollah – the terrorist organization and its machine of assassinations and invasions – from the presumption of responsibility for the deliberate and premeditated killing of Lebanese Army soldiers in the South today. Most likely, Hezbollah have rigged the facility that the army entered based on similar past incidents committed by this terrorist Iranian Armed proxy.
For this reason, a serious and swift investigation into the incident is required, and at the same time, Mohammad Raad must be arrested for his threats, shamelessness, and blatant defiance of the state.

Video Link For an Interview with Brigadier General Fadi Daoud From “Spot Shot”Youtube Platform
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/08/146184/
A deep strategic reading of both the local and regional situations, and of Lebanon’s position amid their shifting dynamics — Based on distinguished military and political expertise, along with a sovereign, independent, and realistic vision.
Spot Shot / August 12, 2025
What is the real measure of success for the government and army’s plan on the ground?
After the Tyre incident… was the storage facility booby-trapped by Hezbollah? By Israel? Or did it contain equipment rigged with detonation mechanisms?
Are there fears for Lebanon due to the tense situation in Syria?
Is Iran facing an internal explosion? Or an Israeli-Iranian war?
What is new regarding the visit of Barak and Ortagus to Lebanon?
These questions and more will be answered by Brigadier General Fadi Daoud in this episode of From My Perspective on “Spot Shot.”

Report: Aoun opposes Salam and LF's bid to cancel Larijani's visit
Naharnet/August 12, 2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has suggested that Lebanese officials boycott a visit to the country by Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in protest at the latest flurry of Iranian statements about the thorny issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, al-Akhbar newspaper said. The daily, which is close to Hezbollah, said Salam made the suggestion after he received a Saudi request. The newspaper added that “Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea is exerting major pressures on Salam to convince President Joseph Aoun not to receive the Iranian official, something that was rejected by Aoun, who considered that such a move would violate all diplomatic norms.”Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji of the LF is also “continuing his domestic and foreign contacts in an attempt to cancel the visit or force Iran to offer an apology over the statements that supported the resistance (Hezbollah),” al-Akhbar said. Informed sources meanwhile told the daily that “Larijani has not requested to meet with Rajji and he will visit Lebanon and leave on the same day after meeting with the three presidents (Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Salam) and Hezbollah’s leadership.” “Any attempt to prevent Larijani from visiting Beirut will be an explosive step that might be met with a broad popular response against visits by other foreign envoys,” the sources warned.

Aoun says no turning back from bolstering state's exclusive authority
Naharnet/August 12, 2025
President Joseph Aoun on Tuesday stressed that the state will carry on with its latest decision on arms monopolization. “We have taken our decision, which is going to the state alone, and we will press on with the implementation of this decision,” Aoun said.
“We should not waste the currently available chances and we should benefit from the Arab and international confidence in Lebanon which was renewed over the past months,” the president added. Aoun also stressed that “the current challenges in the region can only be faced with our unity, whether we like it or not.”“Seeking foreign help against the others inside the country is something unacceptable and has harmed the country,” the president added.

Report: Pacification efforts intensify, Berri may meet Aoun
Naharnet/August 12, 2025
There are “contacts and consultations for pacification and curbing the responses that sometimes become irrational,” ministerial sources informed on the discussions told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, referring to the efforts aiming to contain the crisis resulting from the walkout of Shiite ministers from the latest cabinet session. “Domestic contacts are expected to intensify after the cabinet session that will be held Wednesday at the Grand Serail to discuss services-related articles, which will not be boycotted by the Shiite ministers,” the daily said. Parliamentary sources meanwhile told the newspaper that Speaker Nabih Berri “does not sever his contacts with anyone and his lines are open with everyone.”“The ongoing contacts between President Joseph Aoun and Speaker Berri are supposed to lead to a meeting between them soon,” Ashraq al-Awsat added.

Berri rules out resignation from govt., urges 'highest levels of responsibility'
Naharnet/August 12, 2025
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has said that the resignation of the ministers of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement is out of the question, noting that “the sensitivity of the extraordinary situations that Lebanon is going through requires all parties to show the highest levels of responsibility and prudence.”Al-Joumhouria newspaper, which interviewed Berri, said the Speaker’s concern these days is “preventing the latest crisis from turning into a sectarian strife that the Israeli enemy wishes for.”“That’s why he was keen on pushing for calming the political rhetoric,” the daily added. Berri’s remarks come after the Lebanese government decided last week to disarm Hezbollah and tasked the army with drawing up a plan to complete the process by year end. Hezbollah has said it will ignore the cabinet's decision, which came under heavy U.S. pressure, while the group's backer Iran said Saturday it opposed the effort. Under the November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, arms are to be restricted to Lebanese state institutions. The government has tasked the army with presenting a plan by the end of August for disarming non-state actors. On Thursday, the government also discussed a U.S. proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah's disarmament. The government endorsed the introduction of the U.S. text without discussing specific timelines, and called for the deployment of Lebanese troops in border areas. The ministers of Hezbollah and Amal walked out of both sessions in protest.

Bassil says Hezbollah arms have become a 'source of threat'
Naharnet/August 12, 2025
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil stressed Tuesday that “any arms outside the state are illegitimate,” adding that “the Movement adopts a clear stance on the inevitability of restricting arms and their command to the state alone without any partnership or interference.”“The FPM’s stance also stems from the Taif Agreement, which stipulated the dissolution of all militias but was not fully implemented, which led to overlooking the resistance’s arms and other clauses,” Bassil added in a televised address. “The successive governments legitimized these weapons and the time has come for implementing this clause as well as other clauses, such as decentralization, the abolition of sectarianism and establishing a senate,” the FPM chief said. He clarified that “realistic changes have happened and have necessitated a change in the FPM’s approach on the issue of arms.”Noting that “the deterrent mission of Hezbollah’s arms fell due to its unilateral participation in the ‘war of support’ (for Gaza)” and the war with Israel that followed, , Bassil warned that “the idea of the presence of arms itself has become a source of threat, danger and great harm for Lebanon.” “These arms must be placed in the hand of the state exclusively and should not stay in the service of any axis,” the FPM chief said. He also rejected “blackmail and threats of civil war from any group with the aim of preventing the unity of arms in the hand of the state.”

Lebanese Army losses unexplained: South Lebanon blasts deepen mystery over munitions clearance
LBCI/August 12, 2025
Over the past eight months, the Lebanese Army, working in coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the international ceasefire mechanism, has taken control of more than 500 sites linked to Hezbollah, dismantled weapons, and transported munitions. Three separate explosions during these operations have killed or wounded soldiers, the latest occurring days ago in Wadi Zibqin. On April 20, 2025, a blast along the Braikeh road in Nabatieh killed an officer and two soldiers when munitions being transported by an army vehicle detonated. Investigators have not reached a definitive conclusion on the cause, though early findings indicate the extreme sensitivity of handling such explosives. In Wadi Aaziyyeh, another explosion killed one soldier and injured three during an army engineering sweep of a Hezbollah facility resembling the one recently hit in Zibqin.
According to a previous army statement, the blast occurred when a soldier opened an ammunition box containing a suspicious object. Investigators have considered the possibility of a booby trap but have not determined whether it was planted by Hezbollah or by Israeli forces in the context of their ongoing conflict. The booby-trap theory is also being examined in the Wadi Zibqin explosion, though it remains unclear whether it was planted earlier by Hezbollah to deter Israeli incursions, or by Israel itself during military operations or through security breaches. Final conclusions are pending a report from French military experts who inspected the site, as well as the recovery of an injured soldier who was with the unit when the blast occurred. Notably, the only two facilities where such fatal explosions have occurred, in Aaziyyeh and Zibqin, are located close to each other. While sabotage remains a leading theory, investigators are not ruling out human or technical error until the probe is complete. The army also noted that in more than 500 previous dismantling missions, no booby-trapped munitions were found. UNIFIL, including its French contingent, has handed over similar sites to the army in the past without incident.

Post-war reality: Hezbollah's capabilities between Israeli narratives and ground facts
LBCI/August 12, 2025
Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on October 27, 2024—one month before the end of the 66-day war—that Hezbollah was no longer an effective force for Iran, claiming its senior leadership had been wiped out along with most of its missile capabilities.
When the war ended, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a similar tone, suggesting Hezbollah had been crushed militarily. While few dispute the heavy blows the group sustained, the strikes did not stop with the war's conclusion. Over the following nine months, Israel carried out more than 500 air raids, killing over 240 people and destroying infrastructure. Yet Israeli media headlines painted a more complex picture. The newspaper Maariv ran the headline: "Northern settlements at risk again: Radwan Forces plan to invade Israel." This came alongside articles acknowledging that Hezbollah still retained some military capabilities. Maariv reported that the group was rebuilding its elite Radwan unit, changing tactics, and preparing for possible operations in the Mount Hermon area, described as part of a swift Iranian move to shape the post-war narrative. The paper quoted the Israeli army as saying it had killed around 5,000 commanders out of the 9,000 who were in Lebanon before the war, and that Radwan's ranks had been reduced from about 6,000 fighters to between 2,500 and 3,000.How could a group whose leadership was decimated, whose missile arsenal was largely destroyed, and whose elite force lost more than half its fighters, by Israel's own account, still be in a position to launch an incursion? Analysts point to two possible explanations. One is Israel's consistent promotion of a narrative that it remains under threat, justifying ongoing operations in Lebanon. The other is that Hezbollah is indeed restoring parts of its military strength, something the group itself does not deny. Whether, after such rebuilding, it could still inflict significant damage on Israel, and how much of its recovery Israel can disrupt, are questions only both sides can answer. If the answers emerge, they will likely come through force of arms.

Food poisoning cases double: Extreme heat drives food safety concerns across Lebanon and beyond
LBCI/August 12, 2025
Lebanon is witnessing a sharp rise in food poisoning cases this summer, as soaring temperatures create ideal conditions for bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli to thrive. Symptoms of food poisoning include stomach pain, high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. The Health Ministry reported 314 cases of food poisoning between April and July this year, nearly double the 167 cases recorded during the same period last year. Officials say most infections were linked to poor storage or improper cooking of food, with mayonnaise singled out as a frequent culprit in the recent heat wave. Doctors warn that the intense summer heat accelerates bacterial growth, especially when perishable foods are not kept at safe temperatures. While a seasonal increase in cases is expected, the prolonged heat and high humidity this year have worsened the problem. Still, hospitals say they remain well-equipped to handle cases and are not experiencing capacity strain. Health experts urge the public to take preventive measures, including washing hands regularly, drinking clean water, avoiding ice from unknown sources, thoroughly cooking food, washing vegetables and fruits with clean water—preferably with a splash of vinegar—and ensuring proper ventilation indoors. The surge in foodborne illnesses is not confined to Lebanon. In the United Arab Emirates, where temperatures have topped 50 degrees Celsius, doctors have also reported a noticeable uptick in food poisoning, particularly from dishes containing eggs or improperly stored meat. In Spain's Andalusia region, health authorities have issued similar warnings over seafood and raw egg products during the summer heat. Public health officials say the message is simple: if you want to enjoy summer, be mindful of what is on your plate and do not take chances with your health.

Electricity solutions in Lebanon: Will four decades of power shortages come to an end?
LBCI/August 12, 2025
More than 40 years into Lebanon's chronic electricity crisis, power cuts remain a daily reality, with recent blackouts during peak summer heat also disrupting water supplies and other essential services. Nationwide outages, or "blackouts," could recur at any time as long as power generation remains at less than one-third of the country's needs. Lebanon currently produces only about 700 megawatts of electricity, far short of the 3,000 megawatts required. Authorities say short and medium-term measures to improve generation and extend supply hours will begin rolling out in the coming weeks. The plans follow the Finance and Energy ministers' signing of a decree to enact a World Bank loan worth $250 million aimed at renewable energy projects and strengthening the power grid. The loan includes rebuilding the central control center destroyed in the August 4 Beirut port explosion, repairing networks, improving billing systems, and advancing solar power generation projects. Lebanon is also set to benefit from Kuwait's recent decision to provide four shipments of gas oil totaling 132,000 tons, half of it free and half at market price with deliveries expected to begin before the end of September. The agreement with Iraq to supply fuel remains in place, though Iraqi authorities have yet to use funds set aside for the deal, which are held in a special account at the Banque du Liban (BDL) pending the creation of a dedicated payment platform by the Investment Development Authority of Lebanon (IDAL). In addition, a technical delegation from Qatar is expected to arrive in Beirut within hours to discuss possible support for Lebanon's electricity sector, following talks held over the past two months between the Lebanese President, Prime Minister, and Energy Minister, with Qatari officials. The long-delayed appointment of the electricity regulatory authority, expected at the first Cabinet session in Baabda, is seen as key to implementing sustainable reforms. Proposed solutions include building modern gas-fired plants, which are cheaper and cleaner than fuel oil, boosting revenue collection, and expanding solar and wind energy use.Officials stress that resolving the electricity crisis requires sustainable, politically neutral solutions. After four decades of partial darkness and the dominance of private generator cartels, many in Lebanon say the time for lasting reform is long overdue.

Iraqi Oil Ministry considers exporting crude oil through Lebanon's Tripoli Port
LBCI/August 12, 2025
The Iraqi Oil Ministry said it is considering exporting crude oil through Lebanon's Tripoli Port and will study the renewal of a pipeline linking Iraq to Syria. The ministry announced plans to form a joint committee to assess the condition of the pipeline. The statement came during a visit by Syria's energy minister to Baghdad for talks on cooperation in the oil, gas, and energy sectors.

Lebanon backs US proposal for Hezbollah to disarm and IDF to withdraw from south
Gavin Blackburn/Euronews/August 12/2025
Lebanon's government approved a US proposal on Thursday that would see the disarmament of the militant group Hezbollah and the Israeli military withdrawal from the south of the country. Tensions have been rising in Lebanon amid increased domestic and international pressure for Hezbollah to give up its remaining arsenal after a bruising war with Israel that ended last November with a US-brokered ceasefire.Hezbollah itself has doubled down on its refusal to disarm. Four Shiite ministers walked out before the vote. They included members of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc and the allied Amal party, as well as independent Shiite parliamentarian Fadi Makki. Makki said in a post on X that he had "tried to work on bridging the gaps and bringing viewpoints closer between all parties, but I didn’t succeed."
He said he decided to pull out of the meeting after the other Shiite ministers left. "I couldn’t bear the responsibility of making such a significant decision in the absence of a key component from the discussion," he said. The Lebanese government asked the national army on Tuesday to prepare a plan in which only state institutions will have weapons by the end of the year.After the Cabinet meeting, Hezbollah accused the government of caving in to United States and Israeli pressure and said it would "treat this decision as if it does not exist."Information Minister Paul Morcos later said the Cabinet had voted to adopt a list of general goals laid out in a proposal submitted by US envoy Tom Barrack to Lebanese officials. They include the "gradual end of the armed presence of all non-state actors, including Hezbollah, in all Lebanese territory," the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, as well as the eventual demarcation of the still-disputed Lebanon-Israel border, he said.
The details of the US proposal are still under discussion, Morcos added.
Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss giving up its remaining arsenal until Israel withdraws from five hills it is occupying inside Lebanon and stops almost daily air strikes. The strikes have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members, since the war ended in November. While the Cabinet meeting was still underway, an Israeli strike on the road leading to Lebanon's main border crossing with Syria killed five people and injured 10 others, Lebanon's health ministry said.Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities and said it is protecting its border. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack across the border. Hezbollah is ideologically aligned with the Gaza-based militant group Hamas and began firing at Israel the day after the war in the Strip started, it says in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
International efforts for peace
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said that peacekeepers recently found a "vast network of fortified tunnels" in different areas of southern Lebanon. They include "several bunkers, artillery pieces, multiple rocket launchers, hundreds of shells and rockets, anti-tank mines, and other explosive devices," he said. Tenenti did not specify what group was behind the tunnels and the arms. A member of the US Congress said that Washington will push Israel to withdraw from all of southern Lebanon if the Lebanese army asserts full control over the country. "We will push hard to make sure that there is — and this is something that I will work with the Israelis on — a complete withdrawal in return for the Lebanese Armed Forces showing its ability to secure all Lebanon," Darrell Issa said, after meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut.
He did not specify whether the US would ask Israel to start withdrawing its forces from the territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon before or after Hezbollah gives up its arsenal.Issa, who is of Lebanese origin, said the US must "help all the neighbours around understand that it is the exclusive right of the Lebanese Armed Forces to make decisions."

Larijani’s pager diplomacy: Saving the shattered remnants of Iran’s regional proxies
Makram Rabah/Englisg Arabia/August 12/2025
ara.tv/ifoge
When senior Iranian official Ali Larijani arrives in Beirut this Wednesday, it will be under the banner of diplomacy, but the subtext is far less ceremonial. The former parliament speaker, now Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, is stepping onto a Lebanese political stage at a moment when Tehran’s regional network of allies is showing visible cracks. His visit appears aimed at shoring up Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon – not as a matter of routine engagement, but as part of a broader effort to protect what remains of Iran’s influence in the Levant, even as its military and political assets steadily erode.
Larijani’s presence signals Tehran’s determination to maintain its hold on Lebanon through Hezbollah, despite the fact that the “golden triad” the group once boasted – the army, the people, and the resistance – has collapsed into a hollow slogan. Hezbollah now stands in open confrontation with the Lebanese state and the Lebanese people alike. The fiction that its weapons serve the nation’s defense is no longer tenable. Larijani’s mission is to remind Lebanese leaders, and Washington by extension, that Iran still claims the right to speak for Lebanon’s Shia – and that any engagement with Hezbollah must pass through the gates of Tehran.
This claim to diplomatic legitimacy is especially hard to swallow in light of recent events. The Israeli pager attack against Hezbollah – a fait accompli that exposed vulnerabilities within the group’s command structure – also revealed something Tehran would rather keep hidden: among those injured was Iran’s current ambassador to Lebanon, was in possession of a pager linked to the targeted network. The image of a senior Iranian diplomat physically entangled in Hezbollah’s operational communications blurs the line between diplomacy and covert coordination, underscoring why Tehran’s envoys cannot plausibly present themselves as neutral state actors.
This is not a position of strength. Across the region, Iran’s web of militias and client movements – from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces to the Houthis in Yemen – is fraying. Years of attrition on the battlefield, combined with shifting regional dynamics, have stripped away much of their military dominance. In Lebanon, the situation is even more dire. Hezbollah’s armed power is diminished not only by military setbacks but also by the collapse of the Lebanese economy, which has gutted the patronage networks the party once sustained with state resources and illicit revenues.
For years, the narrative was that Iran bankrolled Hezbollah’s operations. But investigations and public records tell a different story: Hezbollah siphoned off funds from Lebanese state institutions, exploiting taxpayer money to buy political loyalty. When Lebanon’s financial system imploded, Hezbollah’s parallel economy – built on smuggling, drug trafficking, and black-market fuel – also began to crumble. The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian economy has further tightened the noose, choking off critical smuggling routes and drug revenues once worth billions.
Stripped of its ability to offer social services and economic patronage at the scale it once did, Hezbollah’s hold over Lebanon’s Shia community is no longer guaranteed. Larijani’s mission is to delay this erosion by reinforcing the perception that Hezbollah is not just a militia, but a political representative of Lebanon’s Shia – a claim that ignores both the diversity within the community and the constitutional reality that MPs represent the nation as a whole.
Yet this political veneer cannot disguise the strategic weakness. Without the cover of “resistance,” Hezbollah’s weapons have become tools of domestic coercion, aimed at silencing dissent and blocking reform. Militarily, the group is no longer a revolutionary vanguard but a heavily armed faction defending a corrupt order. Politically, it is boxed in – unable to reinvent its narrative, yet too deeply entrenched in Lebanon’s governing system to disengage without risking collapse.
Larijani’s visit also reveals Iran’s broader regional calculation. As in Iraq, where Tehran fears losing control of the Shia political space to rivals, Iran in Lebanon seeks to preserve at least a political foothold even if the military dominance of its proxies’ wanes. The strategy is defensive, not expansionist – a stark contrast to the confident, interventionist posture Tehran projected a decade ago.
However, Iran’s ability to achieve even this limited goal is uncertain. In Lebanon, Hezbollah faces growing public indifference, even within its sectarian base, toward the old scare tactics of “May 7, 2008, coup”–style street power. The memory of those clashes once deterred opponents; today, the threat of militia violence is weighed against the daily grind of economic collapse, and it no longer carries the same force. In Iraq, similar dynamics have eroded the PMF’s capacity to monopolize Shia political life.
Ultimately, Tehran’s effort to protect its crumbling assets faces a convergence of structural challenges. The collapse of its financial pipelines has drained much of its economic leverage, eroding the patronage systems on which loyalty once depended. At the same time, the once-vaunted aura of “resistance” has given way to a far less inspiring image – that of armed groups turning their weapons inward to bully and silence their own citizens. Compounding these weaknesses is a tendency toward political overreach, as Iran and its proxies insist on speaking for entire sectarian communities, a claim that alienates rivals and moderates alike and steadily undermines any remaining pretense of legitimacy.
Larijani’s message – to Lebanon, to the United States, and to the wider region – is that Iran still holds the keys to stability, and that bypassing Tehran is impossible. But the reality is that Iran’s regional project is in retreat. In Lebanon, Hezbollah remains dangerous, but it is no longer untouchable. Its decline is gradual, but visible, and no high-profile visit from Tehran can reverse that trajectory.
The challenge for Lebanon is to resist being drawn into Iran’s final defense of its shrinking sphere of influence. That means refusing to allow Tehran’s envoys to define who speaks for Lebanon’s Shia, rejecting the normalization of parallel armed authority, and reclaiming state sovereignty from all external patrons. For the United States and regional actors, it means recognizing that while Hezbollah’s military threat may have ebbed, its political role is being carefully curated by Iran – and that without countervailing political engagement, that role could survive the loss of the gun.
Larijani will arrive in Beirut this week to keep a dying project on life support. The question is whether Lebanon will once again be the host body – or whether it will finally refuse to bear the cost of another’s imperial ambitions.

Lebanese craftsman keeps up tradition of tarboosh hat-making
AFP/August 12, 2025
TRIPOLI: Nestled among shops in a bustling market in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, Mohammed Al-Shaar is at his workshop making traditional tarboosh hats, keeping up a family craft despite dwindling demand. With a thimble on one finger, Shaar, 38, cuts, sews and carefully assembles the pieces of the conical, flat-topped felt hat also known as a fez, attaching a tassel to the top. Reputedly the last tarboosh craftsman in Lebanon, the Tripoli native has been making the hats for 25 years in know-how passed on by his grandfather. “Our family has been carrying on this craft for 125 years,” said Shaar, who also studied tarboosh making in Egypt. The brimless hats made with maroon, black or green felt, some bearing floral motifs or embroidered with Lebanon’s national emblem, the cedar, sit on display in the small workshop. While the tarboosh has been around in Lebanon for several centuries, it became particularly common during the late Ottoman period. “The tarboosh used to have great value — it was part of day-to-day dress, and the Lebanese were proud of it,” Shaar said, noting the hat now is largely seen as a traditional item or appealing to tourists. “Nowadays, people barely wear the tarboosh, except for traditional events,” he said. As well as a onetime symbol of prestige or social status, the hat was used for non-verbal communication, Shaar said. “When a man wanted to woo a beautiful young woman, he used to slightly tip his tarboosh to the left or right,” he said, while knocking someone’s tarboosh off was offensive. As successive crises have hit Lebanon, including a catastrophic 2020 port explosion in Beirut and a recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, tourism has diminished. Shaar said his “work has slowed, and demand for the tarboosh has dropped” as a result. Sales have plummeted to just four or five of his handmade hats a month compared to around 50 before the crisis, he said. Recent customers have mainly been music and dance troops, or religious figures who wear the tarboosh covered with a turban. Shaar said he used to employ three others but now works alone, selling his handmade hats for around $30. But he said he wasn’t about to close up shop or abandon his passion for tarboosh making.“I feel like my soul is linked to this craft. I don’t want to shut or to stop working,” he said.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 12-13/2025
Israel bombards Gaza City; Hamas leader visits Cairo in bid to salvage ceasefire talks
Nidal al-Mughrabi/Reuters/August 12, 2025
CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli planes and tanks kept bombarding eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people, witnesses and medics said on Tuesday, with Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya arriving in Cairo for talks to revive a U.S.-backed ceasefire plan. The latest round of indirect talks in Qatar ended in deadlock in late July with Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas trading blame over the lack of progress on a U.S. proposal for a 60-day truce and hostage release deal. Israel has since said it will launch a new offensive and seize control of Gaza City, which it captured shortly after the war's outbreak in October 2023 before pulling out. Hamas' meetings with Egyptian officials, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will focus on ways to stop the war, deliver aid, and "end the suffering of our people in Gaza," Hamas official Taher al-Nono said in a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to expand military control over Gaza, expected to be launched in October, has increased a global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger afflicting Gaza's 2.2 million people. It has also stirred criticism in Israel, with the military chief of staff warning it could endanger surviving hostages and prove a death trap for Israeli soldiers. It has also raised fears of further displacement and hardship among the estimated one million Palestinians in the Gaza City region. Foreign ministers of 24 countries including Britain, Canada, Australia, France and Japan, said on Tuesday the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had reached "unimaginable levels" and urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid into the enclave. Israel denies responsibility for hunger in Gaza, accusing Hamas of stealing aid. It says it has taken steps to increase deliveries, including pausing fighting for parts of the day in some areas and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
CEASEFIRE
A Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediated ceasefire talks said Hamas was prepared to return to the negotiating table, and the leaders who were visiting Cairo on Tuesday would reaffirm that stance. "Hamas believes negotiation is the only way to end the war and is open to discuss any ideas that would secure an end to the war," the official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters. However, the gaps between the sides appear to remain wide on key issues, including the extent of any Israeli military withdrawal and demands for Hamas to disarm.
DISARMAMENT CONDITIONS
A Hamas official told Reuters on Tuesday the Islamist movement was ready to relinquish Gaza governance on behalf of a non-partisan committee, but it would not relinquish its arms before a Palestinian state is established. Netanyahu, whose far-right ultranationalist coalition allies want an outright Israeli takeover of all of Gaza, has vowed the war will not end until Hamas is eradicated. On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said that 89 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours. Witnesses and medics said Israeli bombardments overnight killed seven people in two houses in Gaza City's Zeitoun suburb and another four in an apartment building in the city centre. In the south of Gaza, five people, including a couple and their child, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city of Khan Younis and four others by a strike on a tent encampment in nearby coastal Mawasi, medics said.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of the latest bombardments and that its forces take precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Separately, it said its forces had killed dozens of militants in north Gaza over the past month and destroyed more tunnels used by militants in the area.
MORE DEATHS FROM STARVATION, MALNUTRITION
Five more people, including two children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said. The new deaths raised the number of deaths from the same causes to 227, including 103 children, since the war started, it added.
Israel disputes the malnutrition fatality figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

Mothers of Gaza hostages fear Israeli offensive will endanger their sons
Emma Farge/Reuters/August 12/2025
GENEVA (Reuters) -Mothers of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, including one who appeared emaciated in a recent Hamas video, voiced fears on Tuesday that a planned Israeli offensive could further endanger their sons' lives due to the risk of reprisals. Israel plans a much-criticised new Gaza offensive to take control of Gaza City in the almost two-year-old war against Palestinian militant group Hamas. Bombardment of the city is underway but the timing of the full offensive is uncertain and efforts to salvage a ceasefire continue. "When I heard that our government intends to extend the war in Gaza, I as a mother am afraid, because we know that Hamas gives commands...to kill the hostages whenever (our military) is getting close to them," said Viki Cohen, the mother of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Hamas during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attacks. Cohen, who is in Geneva alongside other hostages' mothers to appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross to help them, called instead for a deal for their release. "We must do everything to take them out from there," she said, holding up a photo of her now 21-year-old son, with his two previous ages since his captivity crossed out. Galia David, the mother of Evyatar David who appeared skeleton-like in a Hamas video this month where he was seen digging what he described as his own grave, said she was "really afraid" ahead of the offensive. "We know from hostages who were released that there are hard stories, that they are even more evil with them when there is fighting," she told reporters. She said she also worries that her son could die of starvation within days - a fear shared by Cohen's mother. Malnutrition rates and hunger-related deaths are rising in Gaza, humanitarian groups say, amid Israeli restrictions on aid. Israel denies responsibility for spreading hunger in Gaza, accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas denies.

United Kingdom Reissues Travel Alert for UAE, Warning of ‘Very Likely’ Terrorist Attacks on Jewish Targets
FDD/August 12/2025
British Government Issue Warning: The United Kingdom reissued a travel advisory for the United Arab Emirates on August 11, warning that “terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks” in the Gulf state. The Foreign Office statement referenced an August 8 alert by the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the U.S. Consulate General in Dubai, citing “information indicating threats toward the Jewish and Israeli communities in the UAE.” The British government had earlier issued a more generalized warning regarding travel to the United Arab Emirates, citing “increasing regional tensions” that could lead to “Israeli and Jewish-linked sites” becoming targets for terrorists. Iran-backed Terrorists Driven to Avenge Operation Rising Lion: On July 31, the Israeli National Security Council urged citizens to avoid non-essential travel to the United Arab Emirates and exercise heightened caution, warning that Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas may seek revenge for Operation Rising Lion, which targeted Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in June. The council also warned of additional threats from anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian incitement that has “intensified since the start of Operation Iron Swords, and even more so in response to Hamas’[s] starvation campaign.” In response to the threats, Israel reportedly reduced staff at its Abu Dhabi embassy and the Dubai consulate as a precaution, though the missions’ services remain open. 14 Nations Condemn Iranian Plots: The United States, the United Kingdom, and 12 other nations released a statement on July 31 condemning a surge of attempts by “Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America.” The statement also asserted that Iran is seeking to collaborate with international criminal organizations “to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials.” The UK officials reported to have disrupted more than 20 Iran-linked plots to kidnap or kill individuals in the United Kingdom, including British nationals.
FDD Expert Response
“Iran is signaling that nowhere is off-limits for its terror machine — not even the United Arab Emirates, which has made an historic peace with Israel. This is Tehran’s way of trying to punish normalization and intimidate Arab states into cutting ties with Israel. It’s also a reminder that the Tehran regime’s terror reach is global.” — Mark Dubowitz, CEO
“While Iran and its network of clients struggle to strike the Jewish state directly, they look for softer targets of opportunity beyond Israel’s borders. The aim is to send a message that Israelis are not safe anywhere, turning the entire globe into a potential front. This is the strategy of a regime that avoids direct confrontation, waging a war of attrition by attacking Israeli citizens, symbols, and allies abroad instead.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal. “Despite the Islamic Republic increasingly relying on criminal syndicates and terror groups to carry out assassination and abduction plots, its core operations abroad remain in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI). With Washington having already designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), Europe should follow suit. The United States should also supplement the MOI’s status from its current Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) listing to a full FTO designation to deliver a sharper deterrent to Tehran.” — Janatan Sayeh,

Egypt says Gaza mediators 'working very hard' to revive truce plan
Agence France Presse/August 12, 2025
Egypt said Tuesday it was working with fellow Gaza mediators Qatar and the United States to broker a 60-day truce, as part of a renewed push to end the Israel-Hamas war. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty made the announcement at a press conference in Cairo, as two Palestinian sources told AFP that a senior Hamas delegation was due to meet Egyptian officials for talks on Wednesday. Diplomacy aimed at securing an elusive ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 22-month-old war has stalled for weeks, after the latest round of negotiations broke down in July. Abdelatty said that "we are working very hard now in full cooperation with the Qataris and Americans", aiming for "a ceasefire for 60 days, with the release of some hostages and some Palestinian detainees, and the flow of humanitarian and medical assistance to Gaza without restrictions, without conditions". One of the Palestinian sources earlier told AFP that the mediators were working "to formulate a new comprehensive ceasefire agreement proposal" that would include the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza "in one batch". Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure a breakthrough since a short-lived truce earlier this year. The Hamas delegation expected in Cairo, led by the group's chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, is scheduled to meet Egyptian officials on Wednesday to "discuss the latest developments" in negotiations, said the second Palestinian source. News of the potential truce talks came as Gaza's civil defense agency said Israel has intensified its air strikes on Gaza City in recent days, following a government decision to expand the war there.
Intensified strikes -
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has not provided an exact timetable on when forces may enter the area, but civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Tuesday that air raids had already begun increasing over the past three days. Bassal said the neighborhoods of Zeitun and Sabra have been hit "with very heavy air strikes targeting civilian homes". "For the third consecutive day, the Israeli occupation is intensifying its bombardment" using "bombs, drones, and also highly explosive munitions that cause massive destruction", he said. Bassal said that Israeli strikes across the territory, including on Gaza City, killed at least 33 people on Tuesday. "The bombardment has been extremely intense for the past two days. With every strike, the ground shakes," said Majed al-Hosary, a resident of Gaza City's Zeitun. "There are martyrs under the rubble that no one can reach because the shelling hasn't stopped."An Israeli air strike on Sunday killed five Al Jazeera employees and a freelance reporter outside a Gaza City hospital, with Israel accusing one of the slain Al Jazeera correspondents of being a Hamas militant. Israel has faced mounting criticism over the war, which was triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 2023 attack.U.N.-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allowed in. Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to secure the release of the remaining hostages -- 49 people including 27 the Israeli military says are dead -- as well as over his plans to expand the war. The Israeli premier has vowed to keep on with or without the backing of Israel's allies.Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's offensive has killed at least 61,599 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, whose toll the United Nations considers reliable.

Israel PM says ‘will allow’ Palestinians to leave Gaza
AFP/August 12, 2025
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel would let Palestinians leave the Gaza Strip, as the military prepares a broader offensive in the territory. Past calls to resettle Gazans outside of the war-battered territory, including from US President Donald Trump, have sparked concern among Palestinians and condemnation from the international community. In an interview with Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS, as the military prepares a broader offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu said “we are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave.”“Give them the opportunity to leave, first of all, combat zones, and generally to leave the territory, if they want,” he said, citing refugee outflows during wars in Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. In the Gaza Strip, Israel for years has tightly controlled the borders and barred many from leaving. “We will allow this, first of all, within Gaza during the fighting, and we will certainly allow them to leave Gaza as well,” Netanyahu said. For Palestinians, any effort to push them force them off their land would recall the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948. Earlier this year, Trump stirred controversy by openly suggesting that the United States should take control of Gaza and expel its 2.4 million inhabitants to Egypt and Jordan. Netanyahu also previously said his government was working to find third countries to take in Gaza’s population, following Trump’s suggestion they be expelled and the territory redeveloped as a holiday destination. Far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition have called for the “voluntary” departure of Gaza’s Palestinians. Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the war into the remaining parts of Gaza not yet controlled by the military. The vast majority of Gaza’s people have been displaced at least once during the war, triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.

Saudi and Jordanian foreign ministers discuss developments in Gaza
Arab News/August 12, 2025
RIYADH: Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, discussed the situation in Gaza with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, on Tuesday evening. During the call, the ministers discussed the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as recent regional and international developments, particularly those occurring in Gaza and the efforts made regarding these issues, the Saudi Press Agency reported.On Monday, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed developments in Gaza and the occupied West Bank at Neom Palace.

Saudi crown prince, Italian PM discuss Gaza
Arab News/August 12, 2025
RIYADH: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday spoke by phone with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Saudi Press Agency reported. They reviewed developments in the Gaza Strip, including security and humanitarian repercussions, and stressed the need for international efforts to halt the escalation, end the effects of the conflict, and protect civilians. They also discussed Saudi-Italian ties and ways to develop them, SPA added.

Israel rejects UN allegations that its forces have sexually abused detained Palestinians
AP/August 13, 2025
UNITED NATIONS: The UN chief warned Israel that the United Nations has “credible information” of sexual violence and other violations by Israeli forces against detained Palestinians, which Israel’s UN ambassador dismissed as “baseless accusations.”Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to Ambassador Danny Danon that he is “gravely concerned” about reported violations against Palestinians by Israeli military and security forces in several prisons, a detention center and a military base. Guterres said he was putting Israeli forces on notice that they could be listed as abusers in his next report on sexual violence in conflict “due to significant concerns of patterns of certain forms of sexual violence that have been consistently documented by the United Nations.”Danon, who circulated the letter and his response Tuesday, said the allegations “are steeped in biased publications.”“The UN must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” he said. Danon was referring to the militant group’s surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, where some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage. Israeli authorities said women were raped and sexually abused. The Hamas attack triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but that about half were women and children. Danon stressed that “Israel will not shy away from protecting its citizens and will continue to act in accordance with international law.”Because Israel has denied access to UN monitors, it has been “challenging to make a definitive determination” about patterns, trends and the systematic use of sexual violence by its forces, Guterres said in the letter.He urged Israel’s government “to take the necessary measures to ensure immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violence, and make and implement specific time-bound commitments.”The secretary-general said these should include investigations of credible allegations, clear orders and codes of conduct for military and security forces that prohibit sexual violence, and unimpeded access for UN monitors. In March, UN-backed human rights experts accused Israel of “the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence.”The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said it documented a range of violations perpetrated against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys and accused Israeli security forces of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian detainees. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the UN Human Rights Council, which commissioned the team of independent experts, as an “anti-Israel circus” that “has long been exposed as an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting, and irrelevant body.” His statement did not address the findings themselves.

Israel expands Eli settlement, further fragmenting Palestinian territory in occupied West Bank
Arab News/August 12, 2025
LONDON: Israeli authorities have approved plans to transform several large illegal outposts around the Eli settlement in the occupied West Bank into neighborhoods that expand the colony, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said Tuesday. The settlement, located north of Ramallah on Highway 60, was built on lands that belonged to Palestinians from the villages of Al-Sawiya, Al-Lubban and Qaryut. Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the commission, said the aim of the expansion was to separate the central West Bank from its northern region by creating “a colonial bloc” between the cities of Ramallah and Nablus. Israel intends to build 50 housing units in a 0.86 hectare area inside Eli, plus 650 housing units in large illegal outposts east of Eli as part of two expansion plans covering a total area of 63.8 hectares. In July, Israeli authorities reviewed 39 settlement plans, 34 in the West Bank and five in Jerusalem. They approved 22, one of them in Jerusalem, containing a total of 4,492 housing units. Shaaban said Israel continues “to impose facts on the ground, on Palestinian soil, which will fragment the Palestinian territory and impose a system of isolated enclaves to eliminate the possibility of a future Palestinian state.”He added that such serious violations by Israel not only infringe on the rights of the Palestinian people but also contravene international law and resolutions, the Wafa News Agency reported.

Denmark to participate in aid airdrops over Gaza
AFP/August 12, 2025
COPENHEGEN: Denmark will take part in airdropping humanitarian aid over Gaza, in an operation coordinated by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, Danish media reported Tuesday. “We have decided to participate in an airdrop over Gaza,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told public broadcaster DR. “There is currently an open window until the end of August, during which Israel has allowed access to its airspace,” he added. He noted that the method was “by no means an optimal way to deliver emergency aid.”“It is a kind of emergency solution but it is also where we are now,” the minister said. The United Arab Emirates and Jordan had requested Denmark’s assistance, news agency Ritzau reported. The supplies will be dropped from a C-130 aircraft that will fly over the Gaza Strip once or twice before August 22, according to Lokke, who did not give details about the size of the Danish contribution. Concern has escalated about the situation in the Gaza Strip after 22 months of war, which started after Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out a deadly attack against Israel in October 2023. UN-mandated experts have warned that Gaza is slipping into famine while international organizations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza. Western countries, including Britain, France and Spain, have recently partnered with Middle Eastern nations to deliver humanitarian supplies by air to the Palestinian enclave.

US defers to Israel on killing of journalists
AFP/August 13, 2025
WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday declined to criticize Israel over the killing of five Al Jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip, referring questions to its ally. The Israeli military alleged that Anas Al-Sharif, a prominent face on the Qatar-based network covering the violence, headed a Hamas “terrorist cell” and was “responsible for advancing rocket attacks” against Israelis. “What I will tell you is that we refer you to Israel for information regarding Al-Sharif,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters. She voiced respect for journalists who cover war zones but said that Hamas members have been “embedded in society, including posing as journalists.”“It is a horrible thing to do for those of you who are committed to finding information for people to be in that situation,” she said.
European and Arab governments, the United Nations and media rights groups all voiced outrage over the killing. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that there needed to be “clear evidence” for Israel’s allegations and respect for rules of war against targeting journalists. Al Jazeera said four other employees — correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa — were also killed when the strike hit a tent set up for journalists outside the main gate of Al-Shifa Hospital.
According to local journalists who knew him, Sharif had worked at the start of his career with a Hamas communication office, where his role was to publicize events organized by the group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006.

Israel bombards Gaza City overnight; Hamas leader due in Cairo in bid to salvage ceasefire
Reuters/August 12, 2025
CAIRO: Israeli planes and tanks kept bombarding eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people, witnesses and medics said on Tuesday, with Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya due in Cairo for talks to revive a US-backed ceasefire plan. The latest round of indirect talks in Qatar ended in deadlock in late July with Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas trading blame over the lack of progress on a US proposal for a 60-day truce and hostage release deal. Israel has since said it will launch a new offensive and seize control of Gaza City, which it captured shortly after the war’s outbreak in October 2023 before pulling out. Militants regrouped and have waged largely guerrilla-style war since then. It is unclear how long a new Israeli military incursion into the sprawling city in north Gaza, now widely reduced to rubble, could last or how it would differ from the earlier operation.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to expand military control over Gaza, expected to be launched in October, has increased a global outcry over the widespread devastation of the territory and a hunger crisis spreading among Gaza’s largely homeless population of over two million. It has also stirred criticism in Israel, with the military chief of staff warning it could endanger surviving hostages and prove a death trap for Israeli soldiers. It has also raised fears of further displacement and hardship among the estimated one million Palestinians in the Gaza City region. Witnesses and medics said Israeli planes and tanks pounded eastern districts of Gaza City again overnight, killing seven people in two houses in the Zeitoun suburb and four in an apartment building in the city center. In the south of the enclave, five people including a couple and their child were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city of Khan Younis and four by a strike on a tent encampment in nearby, coastal Mawasi, medics said. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports and that its forces take precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Separately, it said on Tuesday that its forces had killed dozens of militants in north Gaza over the past month and destroyed more tunnels used by militants in the area.
More deaths from starvation, malnutrition
Five more people, including two children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. The new deaths raised the number of deaths from the same causes to 227, including 103 children, since the war started, it added.
Israel disputes the malnutrition fatality figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The war began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas-led militants stormed over the border into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures, in the country’s worst ever security lapse. Israel’s ground and air war against the Islamist Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, left much of the enclave in ruins and wrought a humanitarian disaster with grave shortages of food, drinking water and safe shelter. Netanyahu, whose far-right ultranationalist coalition allies want an outright Israeli takeover and re-settlement of Gaza, has vowed the war will not end until Hamas is eradicated. A Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasefire talks said Hamas was prepared to return to the negotiating table. However, the gaps between the sides appear to remain wide on key issues including the extent of any Israeli military withdrawal and demands for Hamas to disarm, which it has ruled out before a Palestinian state is established. An Arab diplomat said mediators Egypt and Qatar have not given up on reviving the negotiations and that Israel’s decision to announce its new Gaza City offensive plan may not be a bluff but served to bring Hamas back to the negotiating table.

US congressman discusses with Syrian president return of body of American killed in Syria
Ghaith Alsayed And Bassem Mroue/AP/August 12/2025
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — U.S. Congressman Abraham Hamadeh made a brief visit to Syria where he discussed with the country’s interim president the return of the body of an American aid worker who was taken hostage and later confirmed dead in the war-torn country, his office said Monday.
Hamadeh’s visit to Syria comes as a search has been underway in remote parts of the country for the remains of people who were killed by the Islamic State group that once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq before its territorial defeat six years ago.
Kayla Mueller, 26, was captured in northern Syria in August 2013 and her family and U.S. officials confirmed her death more than a year later. Hamadeh, an Arizona Republican, has vowed to return Mueller’s body — which has not yet been found — to her family.
Hamadeh’s office said he was in Syria for six hours to meet President Ahmad al-Sharaa to discuss the return of Mueller’s body to her family in Arizona. The statement added that Hamadeh also discussed the need to establish a secure humanitarian corridor for the safe delivery of medical and humanitarian aid to the southern province of Sweida that recently witnessed deadly clashes between pro-government fighters and gunmen from the country’s Druze minority. A Syrian government official did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Hamadeh’s statement. Dozens of foreigners, including aid workers and journalists, were killed by IS militants who declared a so-called caliphate in 2014. The militant group lost most of its territory in Iraq in late 2017 and was declared defeated in 2019 when it lost the last sliver of land it controlled in east Syria. Since then, dozens of gravesites and mass graves have been discovered in northern Syria containing remains and bodies of people IS had abducted over the years. American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as humanitarian workers Mueller and Peter Kassig are among those killed by IS. None of the remains is believed to have been found. Mueller, from Prescott, Arizona, was taken hostage with her boyfriend, Omar Alkhani, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria, where he had been hired to fix the internet service for the hospital. Mueller had begged him to let her tag along because she wanted to do relief work in the war-ravaged country. Alkhani was released after two months, having been beaten. In 2015, the Pentagon said Mueller died at the hands of IS and not in a Jordanian airstrike targeting the militant group as the extremists claimed earlier.

Jordan’s king meets Syrian FM, US envoy over Syria developments
Arab News/August 12, 2025
AMMAN: King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday met separately with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani and US Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack to discuss the latest developments in Syria, the Jordan News Agency reported. Both meetings, which were also attended by Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, focused on supporting Syria’s security, stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity. King Abdullah highlighted the importance of US support for Syria’s reconstruction in a way that protects the rights of all Syrians, and said Jordan was ready to share its expertise to strengthen Syrian institutions. He also called for closer Jordanian-Syrian cooperation in combating terrorism and curbing arms and drug smuggling. Al-Shaibani and Barrack were in Amman for a tripartite Jordanian-Syrian-US meeting to follow up on talks last month on Syria’s situation and reconstruction efforts. On Monday, King Abdullah and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed developments in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as mutual concerns and Saudi-Jordanian relations, at NEOM Palace.

Syrian soldier killed in clashes with SDF in Aleppo, state news agency says
Reuters/August 12/2025
DUBAI (Reuters) -A Syrian government soldier was killed in clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northern governorate of Aleppo on Tuesday, Syria's state news agency SANA said, citing the Defence Ministry. In March the SDF agreed with Syria's Islamist-led government to join state institutions as part of efforts to reunite a country fractured by 14 years of civil war. The deal aimed to pave the way for the SDF, which holds a quarter of Syria, and regional Kurdish governing bodies to reintegrate with Damascus.But the accord did not spell out how the SDF would merge with Syria's central armed forces. The SDF has previously said its fighters must join as a bloc, while Damascus wants them to join as individuals. The Defence Ministry said on Tuesday the SDF must abide by the accord and stop targeting government forces, warning that "the continuation of these actions will lead to new consequences", SANA reported. On Saturday, a government source told SANA that Damascus would not participate in planned meetings with the SDF in Paris. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's hopes of stitching Syria back together under the rule of his Islamist-led government are complicated by the country's mix of sectarian and ethnic groups. Syria is majority Sunni Muslim with religious minorities including Alawites, Christians, Druze and Shi'ite and Ismaili Muslims. While most Syrians are Arab, the country also has a sizeable ethnic Kurdish minority.

Yemen faces ‘disastrous’ hunger crisis as Red Sea escalation threatens peace efforts, UN warns
Ephrem Kossaify/Arab News/August 12, 2025
NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Tuesday warned that food insecurity in Yemen has reached “disastrous” levels, with more than 17 million people going hungry, and malnutrition among children becoming increasingly lethal. Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the coordination division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council that the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis cannot be resolved without a political settlement to the conflict in the country. “Humanitarian assistance can keep people alive but only a political solution can make them safe,” he said, speaking on behalf of the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher. Rajasingham highlighted the widespread hunger and malnutrition in Yemen, particularly among children. “Half of Yemen’s children under 5 suffer from acute malnutrition; nearly half are stunted,” he said, adding that children are already dying of starvation in camps for displaced families in Hajjah Governorate. “This is the human face of food insecurity,” he said as he recounted the case of a 9-month-old boy called Ahmed in Abs district, who required emergency treatment for severe malnutrition and infection. With livelihoods decimated by the effects of the long-running civil war in the country, families are forced to resort to what Rajasingham called “terrible decisions” to survive, including selling their land and livestock, removing their children from schools, and marrying off adolescent daughters. More than 30,000 women and girls in just three of the nation’s governorates have sought help and support in the past six months as a result of gender-based violence. Rajasingham called for increased international funding and direct support for humanitarian operations, and warned that without urgent financial assistance, “the most vulnerable — displaced people, migrants and children — will face devastating consequences.”He added: “Starvation is preventable but only if we act now.”His plea comes as Houthi attacks on civilian shipping in the Red Sea, and spillover from the conflict in Gaza, continue to exacerbate the fragile situation in Yemen and undermine mediation efforts, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said. “Yemen must be protected from being further drawn into the ongoing regional turmoil emanating out of the war in Gaza,” Grundberg told council members. He warned that recent escalations, including missile exchanges between the Houthis and Israeli forces, were placing immense strain on critical infrastructure in Yemen. Following the sinking of two vessels as a result of Houthi attacks off Yemen’s west coast in early July, Grundberg noted that the unloading of ships at Saleef Port was taking three times longer than it had in June. “Only two ships berthed in July and spent the entire month there,” he said, describing the delays at Saleef and Hodeidah ports “a major cause for concern,” given the important role they play in food imports. The envoy also condemned the announcement by the Houthis on July 27 that they were expanding the scope of the vessels they would target, and called for a renewed focus on diplomacy. He urged all UN member states to comply with Security Council resolutions, following the recent seizure of a large weapons cache off Yemen’s coast. Under Security Council Resolution 2216, adopted in 2015, all UN member states are prohibited from supplying arms, ammunition and related materiel to Houthi forces. Despite this, several UN reports have documented the continuing flow of arms to the militia, including missile components and drones believed to originate in Iran.
Grundberg also warned on Tuesday that although the front lines in the conflict remain mostly stable, a major Houthi assault on July 25 in the Aleb area of Saadah Governorate had resulted in “high numbers of fatalities and injuries on both sides.” He also highlighted increasing fortification efforts by the militia near Hodeidah City as a “concerning” development. Despite the escalating tensions, Grundberg welcomed progress on restoring access by road within Yemen, especially efforts to reopen a route connecting Bayda and Abyan governorates. He praised the contributions of civil society organizations and encouraged further efforts to open more roads to facilitate movement and commerce. He said trust-building steps aligned with a December 2023 road map for peace must continue, to help keep political talks alive.
“Measures that build trust and improve the day-to-day lives of Yemenis must continue,” he added. Addressing the deteriorating economy, Grundberg called for compromise between all those involved to reverse the fragmentation and relieve the financial pressures on families and businesses. “It is crippling Yemeni households and has a stranglehold over Yemen’s private sector,” he said. “The time to act is now.”He commended the Government of Yemen and the Central Bank in Aden for taking steps to stabilize the national currency and reduce prices.
“I congratulate both on the marked improvement of the exchange rate in Government of Yemen areas,” he said, describing this as a potential turning point. However, he warned against unilateral moves by the Houthis, including the issuance of new 50 Riyal coins and 200 Riyal notes, which he said exacerbate the economic fragmentation and “complicate future discussions to unify the Yemeni economy and its institutions.”He added that “these are steps in the wrong direction” as he called for renewed dialogue and cooperation. Grundberg also renewed his appeal to the international community for a redoubling of its support for a sustainable political resolution in Yemen. “While there are no simple solutions to the challenges we face, we must strengthen our collective efforts, guided by our shared commitment to lasting progress in Yemen,” he said.
“A sustainable solution is not only possible, it is essential.”

Recent drone attacks in Kurdistan are once again bringing the issue of Iraq’s Iran-backed militias to the fore.
Seth J. Frantzman/The National Interest/August 12/2025 |
On July 30, a kamikaze drone crashed near the town of Makhmour in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region. Kurdish counter-terrorism forces said that there were no casualties in the drone crash. The drone incident is one of nearly twenty attacks by similar kamikaze drones that have targeted energy infrastructure in northern Iraq during July. The drone attacks have angered the officials in Washington; Baghdad has not reined in the threat. On July 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. He noted the drone attacks had targeted “energy infrastructure, including those operated by US companies, and stressed the importance of the Iraqi government holding the perpetrators accountable and preventing future attacks,” a State Department read-out said. Rubio also emphasized the importance of Baghdad paying salaries to people in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the need to resume oil exports via an Iraq-Turkey pipeline. The drone attacks are an example of how Baghdad is unable to control armed groups within the country. The Kurdistan Regional Government authorities have blamed Iranian-backed militias within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) for the attacks. Rubio appears to agree with this assessment. The State Department noted that he “reiterated serious U.S. concerns with the Popular Mobilization Commission (PMC) bill currently pending in the Council of Representatives (COR), emphasizing that any such legislation would institutionalize Iranian influence and armed terrorist groups undermining Iraq’s sovereignty.” The bill may empower the militias that comprise the PMF, which enjoys backing from both Iraq and Iran. For years, the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have taken advantage of their dual role, as paramilitaries and free-wheeling militias, to carry out attacks in Iraq and the wider region. For instance, Kataib Hezbollah, which is one of the most powerful of the militias, was blamed for killing three American service members in Jordan in January 2024. In March 2023, Kataib Hezbollah also kidnapped Princeton researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov in Baghdad. The militia is still holding her in captivity. Iraqi militias have also been behind attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, and have also launched drones targeting Israel.
*Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is the acting news editor and senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post. Follow him on X: @sfrantzman.

Zelensky says Russia preparing for new Ukraine offensives
Agence France Presse/August 12, 2025
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said Tuesday that Moscow was not seeking peace in Ukraine and was instead preparing new attacks, ahead of a meeting between the Russian and U.S. leaders."We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations," Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on August 12-13/2025
Trump Was Right the First Time: Fire Intel's CEO
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/August 12/2025
Here is a suggestion: Instruct the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Tan. It is time to establish accountability in corporate America when it comes to the People's Republic of China.
The sales were illegal under U.S. law — the university was added to the Commerce Department's Entity List in 2015 — and Cadence in late July pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit export control violations. Additionally, the company agreed to pay a fine of more than $140 million.
To establish accountability, the Justice Department must investigate Tan's role in Cadence's long series of sales to the Chinese military.
"[S]omeone operating at his level and who engaged with Chinese military-affiliated businesses cannot be a reliable partner to the U.S. ... So long as Tan remains as CEO of Intel, the U.S. government can never do substantial business with that firm because the risk of compromise is too great." — Brandon Weichert, senior national security editor of The National Interest, to Gatestone, August 2025.
President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet met Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, on August 11.
"The meeting was a very interesting one," Trump posted on Truth Social immediately afterwards. "His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week."
Here is a suggestion: Instruct the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Tan. It is time to establish accountability in corporate America when it comes to the People's Republic of China.
First, the good news.
Tan can save the ailing American chipmaker.
He has the right vision for Intel, is extremely capable, and has the strength to take on the chairman of the company's board of directors, who wants to implement a misguided restructuring.
Tan is one of the most effective American executives anywhere. The markets know this: Intel's stock rose more than 13% the day the company announced he had been named the CEO, in March.
Tan has many other achievements. His U.S.-based venture-capital firm, Walden International, was formed in 1987 and has made over 500 investments, including those in more than 120 semiconductor firms. Tan also successfully turned around Cadence Design Systems, a San Jose, California-based firm designing hardware and software for chip-making.
Tan has the right vision for Intel. In recent months, he has been slugging it out with Frank Yeary, chairman of the board, who wants Intel to unload its manufacturing business.
Yeary has been working to sell Intel's foundry division to Taiwan's TSMC or spin it off. He also explored selling stakes to Nvidia and Amazon. Tan, on the other hand, wants Intel to stay in manufacturing to keep the United States in the game.
Tan is right. Intel does not need wizard financial types — Yeary is a former investment banker — auctioning off America in pieces to foreign bidders.
So, what is the problem with Tan staying at Intel?
Tan has a China problem he cannot shake. "The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately," Trump posted on Truth Social on August 7. "There is no other solution to this problem."
Trump was absolutely right.
Walden International invested in Chinese military tech companies and those implicated in Beijing's human rights violations, including Intellifusion, a Chinese AI business that is sanctioned for enabling surveillance in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Walden was also an investor in Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., SMIC, now China's largest chipmaker, and Tan served on its board until 2018. In China, he is known as "Mr. Chip" because he was largely responsible for developing that country's semiconductor industry. Walden, as the Wall Street Journal noted, invested in "some of the biggest names in China's chip industry" and "smaller companies that filled essential niche roles."
Tan's involvement in China and Walden's Chinese investments were not controversial at the time, but, given China's overt hostility to America, they were obviously ill-advised.
Tan could sell all his interests in China and remove the conflict that Trump mentioned, but the president was still right to say Tan must leave Intel.
Tan was CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2008 to 2021. From 2015 to 2021, Cadence made 56 sales of semiconductor design tools, software, and other tech products to China's National University of Defense Technology, which, among other things, conducted simulations of nuclear explosions.
The sales were illegal under U.S. law — the university was added to the Commerce Department's Entity List in 2015 — and Cadence in late July pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit export control violations. Additionally, the company agreed to pay a fine of more than $140 million.
Tan failed to respond to a Reuters request for a comment on the Cadence guilty plea and fine, but he did respond to Trump's demand that he leave Intel. In a statement issued hours after the president's posting, Tan said he shared Trump's "commitment to advancing U.S. national and economic security" and that he was working with the Trump administration "to address the matters that have been raised and ensure they have the facts."
"I love this country," Tan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, added.
It's great that he loves America, but last decade he put every American life at risk. The Trump administration, therefore, must hold him accountable for transferring advanced technologies to China's military.
Up to now, the U.S. has rarely prosecuted tech executives for exporting advanced technology to China, and when it has prosecuted anyone, the penalties have been only slaps on the wrist. To establish accountability, the Justice Department must investigate Tan's role in Cadence's long series of sales to the Chinese military.
"One cannot but wonder — and we will never really know — just how connected to China's military and how badly compromised Tan really is," Brandon Weichert, senior national security editor of The National Interest, told Gatestone. "But we do know someone operating at his level and who engaged with Chinese military-affiliated businesses cannot be a reliable partner to the U.S."
No matter how much good Tan can do at Intel, that company will be tainted with ties to him. Said Weichert, "So long as Tan remains as CEO of Intel, the U.S. government can never do substantial business with that firm because the risk of compromise is too great."
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
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*© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Revelation of Iranian Visit to Russia Raises Questions on Nuclear Cooperation
Andrea Stricker/FDD/August 12/2025
There are signs that Russia and Iran could once again collaborate on Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. A delegation of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials visited Russian institutions linked to atomic weapons research in 2024, according to a new Financial Times report.
Based on their itinerary, discussions may have included Iran’s procurement from Russia of dual-use equipment and materials relevant to the construction and testing of nuclear weapons. Whether the visit yielded success for Iran is unclear, but past Russian assistance to Tehran’s nuclear weaponization program raises the specter that the Islamic Republic may seek help to rebuild capabilities that Israel largely destroyed during the 12-Day War in June.
Visit by Iranian Nuclear Officials
The mid-2024 visit was initiated by a Russian scientist, and his Iranian guests were linked to the Iranian Organization of Defense Innovation and Research (“SPND,” by its Persian acronym), as well as SPND front companies. SPND is the entity responsible for Tehran’s nuclear weapons efforts. The agreed purpose was “to discuss and agree on technical and production aspects of electronic device development” and “to consider general potential paths for expanding scientific cooperation.” The Iranians visited Russian entities associated with nuclear weapons development — Russia’s U.S.-sanctioned Polyus Science and Research Institute, another institute called Toriy, and the Russian scientist’s own companies, Tekhnoekspert and BTKVP. The delegation may have been seeking equipment with dual civil and nuclear weaponization uses, such as diagnostic tools relevant to the type of nuclear weapon Iran has pursued, an implosion device. The Financial Times obtained a separate, documented Iranian request to another Russian supplier, Ritverc, for tritium — an isotope with civil uses but which can also be used to boost the yield of nuclear explosions. Soon after the visit, the United States and the United Kingdom publicly expressed concern about Russian assistance to Iran’s nuclear program.
Past Unofficial Russian Assistance
While Moscow officially opposes Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, it has previously failed to regulate or turned a blind eye to unauthorized assistance from Russian entities and individuals — particularly when technologies had dual civil and nuclear uses. This ultimately assisted Tehran’s covert weaponization efforts. During the 1990s, for example, Vyacheslav Danilenko, who worked for decades in the Soviet nuclear weapons complex, went to Iran to advise officially on applications related to synthetic diamond production and explosion physics. Yet the work actually assisted Tehran with the development of a key component that triggers an implosion, criticality, and explosion of a nuclear weapon, the multipoint initiation system (MPI). In 2007, a German-Iranian individual also illicitly obtained, from a Moscow company, high-speed cameras relevant to photographing tests related to MPI development.
Preventing Further Help From Moscow
Israel reportedly destroyed sites and equipment related to Iran’s weaponization program, including SPND’s Tehran headquarters and MPI and explosives work, prior to and during the 12-day bombing campaign in June. Iran, which has served as a loyal supplier of missiles, drones, and arms for Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine, may soon look for a return on its investment. It may call on Russian institutes, companies, and individuals for help in reconstituting key nuclear weapons equipment and materials. President Donald Trump, who will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to discuss ending the Ukraine war, should enumerate immediate sanctions consequences against Moscow’s nuclear sector for Russian support in rebuilding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, the United States, Europe, and Israel should ensure their intelligence capabilities are adequate to detect and thwart relevant transfers from Russia of nuclear equipment, materials, and technologies.
*Andrea Stricker is a research fellow and deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Andrea on X @StrickerNonpro. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.

Erdoğan’s Long Game in Syria
Sinan Ciddi/The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune/August 12/2025
When Bashar al-Asad’s regime abruptly collapsed in December 2024, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saw more than just a regional upheaval. He saw a long-awaited opportunity.
With Iran’s influence waning and Russia distracted by internal instability and foreign entanglements, a rare power vacuum emerged in Syria. Erdoğan moved swiftly. For over a decade, Ankara had supported Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qa’ida offshoot that ultimately toppled Asad’s regime, under the leadership of Muhammad al-Jolani (who would drop this nom de guerre in 2025 and re-assume his birth name, Ahmed al-Shara’a). HTS was just one of several Sunni Islamist factions that Turkey had backed since the earliest days of Syria’s civil war, beginning in 2011.
For Erdoğan, the war in Syria was never simply about toppling a brutal dictatorship. It was a generational chance to reshape the Middle East, fulfilling a vision rooted in establishing a neo-Ottoman regional order with Turkey at its helm.
Beginning in 2012, Ankara openly aligned itself with the Syrian opposition, betting that Asad’s days were numbered, much like the authoritarian regimes that had fallen in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia during the Arab Spring. Erdoğan miscalculated. Asad endured, thanks to backing from Tehran and Moscow.
It would take another twelve years for Erdoğan’s vision to find traction. By March 2025, a new interim government led by Ahmed al-Shara’a had taken charge in Damascus. This political outcome was the culmination of Turkey’s long-standing efforts to influence Syria’s post-Asad trajectory. And yet, this strategy marked a profound evolution in Erdoğan’s approach to Damascus. Before the civil war, between 2004 and 2011, he had in fact pursued a pragmatic detente with Asad, signaling a very different strategic calculus.
The notion that Erdoğan and Asad once embraced as allies may now seem surreal, but it reflects a brief window of diplomatic realignment. To understand that moment, one must consider the deeper ideological fault lines that have long defined Turkish-Syrian relations.
Turkey’s hostility toward the Asad regime predates Erdoğan. Ideologically, it is rooted in the worldview of the National View Movement, the Turkish Islamist tradition from which Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) arose. Since the rule of Hafiz al-Asad (1971–2000), these Turkish Sunni Islamists regarded Syria’s Alawite-dominated Ba’athist regime with suspicion and disdain, as secular socialists who were dangerously close to the Soviet Union. They supported the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, especially after the Ba’athists banned the group in 1964.
Among the most vocal critics of the Syrian Ba’ath was Necmettin Erbakan, founder of the Islamist Welfare Party and Erdoğan’s political mentor. Erbakan deeply resented the Ba’athist crackdown on Sunni Islamist forces and privately cheered the Brotherhood’s calls for jihad against Damascus. Although he refrained from open confrontation with the Syrian state, Erbakan’s ideological hostility was clear. Following this line, Erdoğan and his foreign policy architect Ahmet Davutoğlu, saw the Asad regime as secular tyrants and, in the words of one Turkish analyst, as “illegitimate elites of a minority sect that had done more damage to Islam as a religion than had the West.”
That historical resentment fueled Turkey’s antagonistic posture during the Cold War, when Ankara and Damascus frequently found themselves on opposite sides of geopolitical and ideological divides. Most explosively, Syria served as a patron for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), offering sanctuary to its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and providing logistical support for the group’s separatist campaign inside Turkey. The PKK’s operations from Syrian soil brought the two countries to the brink of war in 1998, a confrontation only defused when Damascus expelled Ocalan under Turkish pressure. As a result, it is worth pointing out that Turkish elites’ suspicion of Syria was not limited only to the Islamist camp: it was shared across Turkey’s political spectrum. Yet when Erdoğan assumed office as prime minister in 2003, he temporarily shelved those long-standing grievances in favor of a pragmatic reorientation. Early in his tenure, Erdoğan cultivated a reputation in Western capitals as a capable leader willing to sideline ideology for realpolitik. This image was embodied in the “zero problems with neighbors” doctrine, a cornerstone of Davutoğlu’s foreign policy vision. Its aim was to normalize relations with regional adversaries, including Syria.
Erdoğan’s pivot toward Damascus was also driven by his deepening disillusionment with Europe. After the European Union effectively stalled Turkey’s accession process in 2007, Ankara’s foreign policy began to shift decisively toward the Middle East. The 2008 global financial crisis further weakened Turkey’s economic alignment with Europe, accelerating Erdoğan’s pursuit of new trade and political alliances in the Arab world, with Syria at the center of this new orientation. Between 2004 and 2010, bilateral relations between Turkey and Syria improved dramatically. The two countries formed a high-level Strategic Cooperation Council and signed a series of free trade and visa liberalization agreements. Trade volume more than doubled — from $800 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion in 2010. Syrian tourists flocked to Turkish cities such as Gaziantep, spurring local economic booms and the construction of shopping malls tailored to Syrian consumers. For a brief moment, Syria served as a critical land bridge for Turkish truckers bringing goods to Jordan and the Gulf, an economic artery that gave substance to the improving relations. The warm rapport between Erdoğan and the Asad family during this period led some observers to question whether ideologically committed Islamist leaders like Erdoğan could, in fact, evolve into pragmatic statesmen once in power. Until 2012, there was reason to believe that Erdoğan might subordinate ideology to the imperatives of national interest.
So, what changed?
The answer lies not only in the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, but in Erdoğan’s strategic recalibration. By 2011, the Arab Spring had dramatically altered the political landscape across the region. Erdoğan, emboldened by the downfall of Arab autocrats, assumed Asad’s regime would follow suit. His support for oppositionist forces, including jihadist groups like HTS, was less about democracy and more about engineering a Sunni realignment in Syria that would align with Ankara’s regional ambitions. The Syrian war became, for Erdoğan, both a proxy conflict and a proving ground for a new Turkish sphere of influence. The fall of Asad in 2024 vindicated a long and risky bet. The rise of Ahmed al-Shara’a, a former jihadist handpicked and mentored by Ankara, now in power in Damascus, signals the culmination of a strategy that began not with the first shots of civil war, but with decades of ideological suspicion and a fairly brief, ill-fated experiment in pragmatism. In the end, Erdoğan preferred a Syria that would be closely aligned with his Islamist worldview, rather than one that was merely aligned with Turkey’s national interests. He would spend over a decade attempting to overthrow Asad in pursuit of this goal. Since the founding of Turkey as a republic in 1923, no Turkish leader had ever engaged in a process of regime change in a foreign country. Erdoğan would defy this trend. When Asad eventually fell, Erdoğan did not merely react to Syria’s collapse. He had prepared for it, waited for it, and helped shape it.
**Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he contributes to its Turkey Program  and Center on Economic and Financial Power. You can follow Sinan on X, @sinanciddi.

A heartfelt apology for past misdemeanors can go a long way
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/August 12, 2025
Most countries and institutions have a checkered past that they often find difficult to deal with, first by admitting it and then apologizing, followed by learning the necessary lessons and eventually compensating those affected by their misdeeds, even generations later.
In the UK, the country is still haunted by the legacy of its involvement in the slave trade, including how it profited from it and how this still affects the descendants of slaves and their countries of origin, with many instances where even today individuals and institutions are still benefiting.
Back in 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a very welcome move, was the first British leader to express his “deep sorrow” for his country’s role in the slave trade. After the slave trade was abolished within the British Empire, it took 200 years for this sentiment to be expressed. But Blair was also criticized by Black rights and other organizations for not going further and issuing a formal apology. One is still yet to be made.
More recently, King Charles, during a visit to Kenya, repeated his “greatest sorrow and regret” at the “wrongdoings” of the colonial era, but stopped short of an apology. Ultimately, during the transatlantic slave trade, Britain transported and enslaved an estimated 3 million people from Africa. But the abolition of this trade was not the end of slavery, as the ownership of human beings was still permitted — only the trade from Africa to Britain’s colonies was abolished, which, although an important step toward the eventual liberation of all those who had been enslaved, saw no apology issued.
It leaves open the question: does it mean anything if one expresses sorrow without an apology? And even if an apology is formally issued, what does this mean when it comes two centuries after the slave trade ceased to exist in the country? And most importantly, can we learn from these wrongdoings and genuinely acknowledge that, even today, the descendants of slaves and their countries of origin are paying a price for what happened and should be compensated for that? Worse is the inaction of the same countries that were at the heart of the slave trade when it comes to combating contemporary forms of slavery.
Hence, a recently published comprehensive review by the University of Edinburgh, titled “Slavery, Colonialism and Philanthropy at the University of Edinburgh,” which examines its historical ties to slavery and colonialism, marked an important step toward admitting and addressing the extremely problematic ties between a major British institution and the slave trade. The review, which was led by academics and involved extensive community engagement, also came up with a long list of recommendations for the university to implement in order to overcome this dark aspect of its past.
What would probably terrify any contemporary academic at this renowned Scottish University, as any other involved with slavery, is that it played a major role in the creation of racist theories while profiting from slavery. The report confirms that the university benefited from the profits of African enslavement and colonialism through individual contributions and still benefits in that way to this very day.
The very idea that the institution “was a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism, such as the idea that Africans were inferior to whites and that non-white peoples could be colonized for the profit of European nations,” is obviously shocking. This must encourage all academic institutions to review their safeguards to ensure that their research is neither motivated by a wish to appease their donors, nor is it too conformist, maybe afraid, to challenge the conventional wisdom of the time and publish research that lacks scientific rigor. No institution, let alone an academic one, deserves to maintain its credibility when its researchers compromise what is probably the most precious trait that all scholars must hold on to: their integrity.
It is a truism that the past cannot be changed, but it is possible to learn from it. And it is equally important to rectify the mistakes by which certain behaviors caused damage that still reverberates in our societies all these years later.
In response to a similar report published several years ago that established that the University of Glasgow benefited from the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds donated from the profits of slavery, the university launched the world’s first master’s degree in reparatory justice. This was done in partnership with the University of the West Indies as part of a global campaign for financial reparations for transatlantic slavery that has justly entered the discourse as an important tool to compensate for the financial damage and hurt caused by slavery.
Similarly, one of the recommendations of the University of Edinburgh report is the creation of a “Research and Community Centre for the Study of Racism, Colonialism and Anti-Black Violence” to enhance awareness of these issues. Moreover, the report acknowledges that “Black staff and student population numbers have remained relatively unchanged over the past five years,” showing that not enough is being done in terms of remedying the persecution and discrimination of the past, which is very much a reflection of the situation in wider society.
In the UK, the country is still haunted by the legacy of its involvement in the slave trade, including how it profited from it.
There is courage in commissioning such an investigation, in being honest in publishing its findings and in looking for ways to repair the historical wrongdoings that still plague the university. For too long, there has been a prevailing illusion that citizens who are in principle equal in the eyes of the law are also treated equally in society. This is not what members of minorities would attest to as their daily experience, neither in their formative years in education nor when they look for a job and even in their social life.
The Windrush scandal is a prime example of how the UK mistreated people, many of them descendants of slaves, who made an immense contribution to rebuilding the country after the Second World War and are still caught up in the ongoing societal and institutional racism.
A heartfelt apology by institutions that have directly or even indirectly benefited from slavery could go a long way toward lifting the psychological barrier felt by their descendants vis-a-vis their engagement with society and state. And one coming from the government and the monarch would send a message that the country has owned up to its wrongdoing, even if it came 200 years later.
**Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

How Israel Can Defend Itself in the Future...Can it take lessons from a policy that failed even as it succeeded?
Jonathan Schanzer/Commentary web site/August 12/2025
https://www.commentary.org/articles/jonathan-schanzer/israel-military-policy-success-failure/
When is a failure a success? The Israeli intelligence fiasco that preceded the October 7 assault by Hamas in 2023 is undeniable. However, the Israeli military strategy that helped give rise to that disaster was also the key to some of the triumphs Israel has achieved in the nearly two years since, against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Iran. That strategy was known as the “Campaign Between the Wars.” During a decade in which Israel’s military would engage sporadically in open cross-border conflicts, the IDF methodically honed its ability to combine precision airpower with granular intelligence and astounding speed. That is how Israel gained the upper hand in the seven-front war it has been waging across the Middle East. Those same capabilities are now likely to help lock in Israel’s gains moving forward.
The “Campaign Between the Wars” was designed to push war into the future. By the 2010s, the Islamic Republic of Iran had surrounded Israel with zealous proxies, which were armed to the teeth with rockets, drones, and other lethal weapons. By far, Lebanese Hezbollah was the most potent member of this so-called Axis of Resistance, because it possessed a growing arsenal of precision-guided munitions. Separately, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen added to the threat. In coordination with Iran, which continued to expand its arsenal of ballistic missiles, these proxies posed an existential threat to the Jewish state.
So rather than launching a direct war against Iran and its “Ring of Fire,” the Israelis began attacking in the gray zone. Unattributed strikes, mostly designed to prevent additional weapons from entering the theater, became a hallmark of the Israeli army. Most of these strikes occurred in Syria, which had become the transit point for the Iranian regime to transfer advanced weaponry to Hezbollah. The goal was to delay the inevitable war with Iran and its proxies, while creating conditions under which Israel could prevail in the war that would eventually come.
Integrating intelligence and firepower—especially airpower—on a short fuse, the Israelis were able to quickly prevent many of these weapons from reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hundreds, perhaps even a thousand, attacks were executed. It was a remarkable display of Israel’s cutting-edge capabilities. The attacks never led to escalation, mainly because the Syrian regime was preoccupied with the civil war that threatened it more directly.
This gray-zone campaign occasionally extended into other physical jurisdictions. There were no air strikes on targets inside Iran, but mysterious explosions at various military and nuclear facilities bore the Mossad’s signature. The campaign also ventured into the virtual realm. Cyber and psychological operations complemented the kinetic strikes as the campaign expanded over the years.
In the years leading up to October 7, the Campaign Between the Wars was hailed a success in Israeli security circles. The strategists and operators who birthed this strategy celebrated their creation. And it was infectious. Analysts (like me) marveled at the fact that Israel was successfully striking its enemies and preventing them from gaining strength. It was minimal risk and clear reward.
But the celebrations were premature. While the campaign may have prevented Israel’s enemies from growing stronger, it did not actually make them weaker. Iran’s “Ring of Fire” remained firmly in place.
In hindsight, Israel committed one serious error in its prosecution of this campaign. It chose not to erode the capabilities of Hamas. The military and political echelons considered Hamas to be a lesser threat, especially compared with Hezbollah. In this way, one could argue, the campaign made the October 7 massacre possible.
The soul-searching inside the IDF and Israel’s intelligence community began almost immediately after the catastrophic attacks. One official after another stepped forward to accept responsibility for their failures (with the notable exception of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). The failure to predict the attack, the deployment of forces away from the Gaza border prior to the attack, and the poor response in real time to the breach of Israeli territory were among the errors that demanded accountability. Remarkably, there was little to no talk of the Campaign Between the Wars.
It was only months later, nearly a year into the October 7 wars, that I began to ask officials—both for-mer and current—how they viewed what was arguably a signature component of IDF strategy leading up to
the worst military and intelligence failure in the country’s history. True to form, the Israelis could not agree. Some officials readily acknowledged that the campaign failed to meet its primary objective because it had failed to forestall a major war. Others rejected that notion entirely. They contended that the war would have been far worse had Israel not weakened its enemies by waging this campaign. It was hard to argue with either side.
Perhaps the most interesting response came from a former Israeli Air Force official who claimed that some of the most impressive strategies deployed by the IDF at the most dramatic moments in the current multifront war were borrowed from the Campaign Between the Wars. Carefully targeted air strikes based on high-resolution intelligence were at the heart of the Campaign Between the Wars, and it was this kind of action that eliminated Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024. The bombing of nuclear assets in Iran during the 12-day war in June 2025 also demonstrated this capability. Swift strikes, acting on intelligence in real time, and other telltale signs of the Campaign Between the Wars have been on full display throughout the war—and to this day.
Upon completing my interviews, I arrived at the conclusion that the Campaign Between the Wars may have been the most successful military failure in modern history.
But even this may not give the Campaign Between the Wars enough credit. As Israel gained the upper hand on its enemies in 2024 and 2025, the campaign has returned. Particularly after the 12-day war in Iran in June 2025, prolonging the time between the recent wars and the next instantly became a high priority for Israel’s political elite and military brass.
While the war in Gaza remains hot and the Houthi threat out of Yemen has not yet abated, one can clearly discern the signature of the Campaign Between Wars on other fronts. In coordination with the United States and the government of Lebanon, the Israelis continue to strike Hezbollah wherever it attempts to rebuild. The same thinking went into the Israeli strikes that destroyed hundreds of weapons in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024. The destruction of those weapons undeniably lengthened the time Syria would require to ever pose a meaningful threat to Israel.
In the West Bank, Israel continues to operate proactively to keep a lid on the violent plans of terror groups, both long-known and newly formed. One can imagine a similar strategy for Gaza, once the Hamas-infested enclave has been brought under full Israeli control.
The Mossad also appears to be back at work in Iran. Headlines now suggest that Israel is still operating inside Iran’s borders. Unexplained explosions have claimed the lives of several Iranian military figures. The regime has not yet blamed Israel. But all signs seem to point to its hidden hand.
A former senior official summed it up this way to me: “It will not be exactly the same. We may not call it the Campaign Between the Wars. But it’s very similar. I think we will see Israel claim more credit for what it does in some places. It will remain quiet in others. But the goal is the same: to keep our enemies weaker for a longer period of time and to prevent the next war until we want to launch one on Israel’s terms.”
Israeli grayzone operations are undeniably ramping up as the multi-front war quiets down. But the risk-reward calculus for Israel is now likely to vary from one theater to the next across the Middle East. Striking assets in Lebanon and Syria poses little risk right now. Neither Hezbollah nor the regime of Ahmad al-Shara appears particularly eager to fight.
The Iranian regime, however, may be up for another tussle. Should the IDF conduct operations that cross Iran’s red line—a line that is currently ill-defined—there is real risk of escalation. Interestingly, the main critique of the campaign prior to October 7 was that it was too provocative and risked igniting a major war for minimal gains. That may seem ironic in hindsight, but the risk of provoking another major conflict now is not negligible.
Air strikes on military facilities in response to the Iranian regime renewing its ballistic missile production capabilities could trigger a painful response. The regime maintains the ability to launch ballistic missiles at Israel and to strike with considerable accuracy. The Israelis need to think carefully about how and where they conduct future operations in Iran. Indeed, few Israelis relish the notion of returning to their bomb shelters for extended stays.
A different sort of Israeli campaign is likely necessary, perhaps in tandem with calibrated efforts to prevent the regime from returning to its previous strength. This additional campaign might be one in which Israel supports the Iranian opposition movement and otherwise weakens the regime from within. Psychological, political, diplomatic, economic, and other measures designed to erode the power of the mullahs would be deployed with increasing intensity. The Israelis understand that the regime must not be allowed respite after the drubbing it absorbed in June. More important, such a strategy is crucial because it offers a more enduring and non-kinetic solution to the Islamic Republic’s annihilationist ambitions. The Campaign Between Wars could never offer that.
What the return of the campaign does offer is time, and time is what Israel needs. The pager and walkie-talkie operation that cut down Hezbollah’s commanders took years to execute. The gathering of the intelligence required to take out Hassan Nasrallah in his Beirut bunker was painstaking. The forward operation that launched Israel’s “Rising Lion” campaign in Iran, too, required years of preparation.
Israel has fewer tricks up its sleeve than it had a year ago. Most of its recent feats cannot be repeated. So Israel’s war planners and spies are back to the drawing board. They will need time to prepare for the next round against Iran, not to mention other enemies.
Concurrently, Israel has a few other related long-term projects that will also require time. The reconstruction of Israel’s northern communities destroyed by Hezbollah is one. The rebuilding of the communities in the Gaza envelope is another. The revitalization of the Israeli economy, which has taken a brutal hit, is crucial. The expansion of the country’s defense industrial base is another priority identified by the Israelis, after the Biden administration withheld ordnance in 2024 and offered a glimpse into a potential future in which America does not have Israel’s back. Forestalling major conflict for several years to facilitate these initiatives will be vital for the country’s long-term health. Of course, these initiatives cannot begin until the current war ends.
As my colleague Clifford May often says, in the Middle East, there are no permanent victories, only permanent battles. The rise, fall, and rise of the Campaign Between the Wars reflect this reality. It won’t solve all of Israel’s problems. But keeping Israel’s enemies weak and buying time would constitute a major achievement after the grueling war Israel has endured.

The Coming Revolt Of Downwardly Mobile Would-Be Elites
Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI Daily Brief No. 833/August 12/2025
Some see the Middle East as some sort of dated, primitive backwater. But perhaps the Middle East, with its authoritarianism, identity politics, and propaganda-ridden reality, is all too modern and even a model for our own dysfunctional future.
Decades ago, when I first went to the region, I heard of the danger – in places like Algeria and Syria and Egypt – of lost generations of unemployed college graduates. You would see them in the streets, on sidewalks, leaning against the walls of the city, unemployed or underemployed, idle, overeducated, frustrated and unhappy. In Syria, 30 years ago, we used to note the problem of young men who could not get a decent job so they could not get their own apartment which meant that they could not marry. They had no future and seemed ripe for extremist exploitation.
When the so-called Arab Spring did explode in December 2010, youth unemployment, including the unemployment of "credentialed" youth with university degrees that supposedly should have given them access to white-collar middle-class lives, was one of many factors. The Arab World, as a region, had one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world.[1] The unemployed, especially "better-educated youth with high expectations for their governments, took to the streets."[2] These youth served as foot-soldiers of the revolution: They were very unhappy, they revolted, they eventually (mostly) lost and they are still unhappy and unemployed. Those that wanted political and economic change did not really get it and if they still want change today it is less about changing the situation at home and more about changing their personal situation by migrating to the West.
In Algeria, an extreme example, the problem is not just overproduction of university graduates, but even the overproduction of university doctorates. There are over 22,000 Ph.D. holders and only about 1,600 can secure what they want – university teaching jobs – each year.[3] Countries like Morocco and Tunisia even have associations for unemployed college graduates.[4] The question of what are the political and security implications of the "educated but unemployed" in the Middle East has been around for more than a decade now.[5] They cannot all be absorbed by the economies of the Arab Gulf states (which have their own employment challenges) nor it is assured that they will continue to successfully flee westward forever.
It is now becoming abundantly clear that the problem of elite overproduction is not limited to the seeming tyrannical and unstable Middle East. Peter Turchin has been writing about this phenomenon affecting the West for 15 years now.[6] In his first piece (before the books) in Nature magazine in February 2010, Turchin wrote of "stagnating or declining real wages, a growing gap between rich and poor, overproduction of young graduates with advanced degrees, and exploding public debt."[7] Not a lot has changed.
More recently, Professor David Betz of King's College in London spoke of the production of junior members of the would-be elite who cannot be absorbed into the ruling class, people reduced to "a life of thwarted ambition."[8] Betz believes that the possibility of outright civil war in the West, including in the United Kingdom, is increasingly likely. Young people today, "jobless and jaded" in a dysfunctional Britain have more positive views of both communism and fascism.[9]
The sense is by some of the Left in the United States that this downwardly mobile credentialed class could serve as foot soldiers in a grand struggle against Trumpism. Supposedly these are the cadres that will turbocharge Antifa and Free Palestine; there may be some truth to this view.[10]
But it is not clear in which direction and anti-status quo movement will ultimately go. Economist Noah Smith wrote about an "angry history postdoc" from Yale University who was a furious critic of the Biden Administration from the Left, especially after the Gaza War began. But by 2025, this angry leftist was publicly complaining on Twitter that "as a 35-year-old white dude" he was essentially unemployable as a historian, a comment which caused considerable derision by his ideological allies.[11] In Spain, polls recently showed that the right-wing Vox party (usually described by the liberal media as "far-right" or "extreme-right") is the most popular party among young people, the working class and the unemployed.[12]
Similar results – that young people are more right-wing than their parents and that the right appeals to the local working class – have been seen elsewhere in Europe and the United States. In Italy, you even have urban youth movements evolving from squatters and the unemployed – markers that usually point left – into neo-fascist formations like CasaPound.[13] As Italian artist and social media influencer Simone Panetti[14] mockingly sang recently of the status quo:
"Freedom
"Democracy
"Tolerance
"No no no no no!
"Trains running on time
"Yes!
"Work
"Yes!
"Patriarchy
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes!"[15]
Nothing is set in stone. In the Arab world, some of these angry youth entered into the ranks of Political Islam and even of outright Jihadist terrorist movements like the Islamic State.[16] Others became and remained democracy or liberal activists as we saw in the streets of Beirut and Baghdad in 2019.[17] Some others would also have entered into the formations of the current regime, whoever was in power.
What is clear for governments and political parties in the West is that maneuvering around and projecting influence towards this dynamic, volatile minority of downwardly mobile youth – capturing them for years or for a generation – will be a crucially important political task.
In Europe, it may be relatively "easy" in that the political right is mostly not in power, not the status quo, in countries like France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. The kids are reacting against a dire reality built for them – especially on migration and economics – by so-called centrists and leftists over decades.[18] In America, it is more complicated, as the political right won an election only last year. For the Trump-dominated Republicans, the challenge will be how to define itself as the party of the counterrevolutionaries, as the anti-status quo party, and somehow hold on and deepen the important gains scored among young people (especially young men) and independents in November 2024.[19]
That the coming AI tech and automation revolution[20] will create even more unemployment, especially among entry-level white-collar positions, means that the turbulent West may start to look more like the pathologies and disruptions seen in places like Algeria and Syria over the past decades. Young, educated people today are increasingly angry and looking for revolt – and perhaps this was always true – but how and in what direction that fire and venom will flow, and who they will blame in our near future is still entirely up for grabs.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Wider.unu.edu/publication/youth-unemployment-arab-world, June 12, 2012.
[2] Theconversation.com/fading-hope-why-the-youth-of-the-arab-spring-are-still-unemployed-60588, June 30, 2016.
[3] Carnegieendowment.org/sada/2024/04/algerias-graduate-studies-dilemma?lang=en, April 18, 2024.
[4] Pomeps.org/why-unemployed-graduates-associations-formed-in-morocco-and-tunisia-but-not-egypt, October 2018.
[5] Brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/en_youth_in_egypt-2.pdf, July 2016
[6] Resilience.org/stories/2025-02-21/peter-turchin-the-decline-of-nations-how-elite-surplus-and-inequality-lead-to-societal-upheaval, February 21, 2025.
[7] Nature.com/articles/463608a#citeas, February 3, 2010.
[8] Youtube.com/watch?v=FhGb7G44YUA, July 26, 2025.
[9] Thecritic.co.uk/the-grads-arent-alright, August 11, 2025.
[10] Reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-antifa-profile, August 25, 2021.
[11] Noahpinion.blog/p/the-case-of-the-angry-history-postdoc, May 28, 2024.
[12] Periodistadigital.com/politica/20250810/vox-lider-voto-juvenil-ganando-velocidad-adeptos-parados-obreros-noticia-689405121329, August 11, 2025.
[13] Populismstudies.org/casapound-italy-the-sui-generis-fascists-of-the-new-millennium, June 18, 2021.
[14] Rockit.it/panetti/biografia, January 14, 2022.
[15] Youtube.com/watch?v=IeDFK7tNCvo, May 19, 2025.
[16] Jstor.org/stable/26940038?seq=1, October 2020.
[17] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 202, We Want A Nation: Notes On The Middle East's Revolutions, December 24, 2019.
[18] Politico.eu/article/far-right-europe-young-voters-election-2024-foreigners-out-generation-france-germany, June 17, 2024.
[19] Now.tufts.edu/2024/11/12/young-voters-shifted-toward-trump-still-favored-harris-overall, November 12, 2024.
[20] Msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/this-unprecedented-shift-in-unemployment-suggests-ai-could-strand-white-collar-knowledge-workers-in-a-jobless-recovery-after-the-next-recession/ar-AA1KgDMM?ocid=BingNewsSerp, August 10, 2025.

Selected tweets for 12 August/2025
Marc Zell
"You won't see an American attack on Gaza, but you will see unwavering support. Israel must decide what's in its interests and what it wants to do - the administration in Washington gives Israel full backing."
Just minutes ago I spoke on Israel's Channel 14 from Washington D.C., where I'm meeting with senior Trump administration officials and Republican Party leaders.
When host Boaz Golan questioned whether Trump is living up to his earlier statements about "opening the gates of Hell" if Hamas didn't negotiate a hostage deal, I made it clear: President Trump has been crystal clear about his Gaza policy. Israel must decide what's in its interests and what it wants to do, and the administration in Washington gives Israel full backing. You won't see an American attack on Gaza, but you will see unwavering support. That's exactly what Trump is delivering - and it's more than we could ever ask for.
Ambassador Huckabee was absolutely right in his interview with Piers Morgan. There is no starvation in Gaza. We're providing humanitarian aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but Hamas keeps trying to attack, steal, and control that aid. Nobody in the world tells this truth except Huckabee, President Trump, and Israel. The individual eliminated was a terrorist, not a journalist - there are photos showing him embracing Hamas leaders.
America is with us. The support is historic and dramatic - unlike anything we've seen in Israel's history. Don't hesitate, don't be afraid. They're with us strongly, and I'm here in Washington making sure that support continues.

Giulia/@samurai_611
His Eminence Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif, spiritual leader of the Druze, has urgently appealed to the UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, Human Rights Council, and the International Criminal Court to open an international investigation into the atrocities in #Suwayda.
Backed by documented evidence of systematic terrorism and attempted ethnic cleansing against the Druze, Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif demands:
•Independent UN-led investigations
•Prosecution of all perpetrators in international courts
•Immediate action to end the siege & humanitarian crisis
The Druze of Suwayda remain peaceful, defending only their lives and homes from extremist aggression — despite media distortions.

Zéna Mansour
Yes an Int. investigation is legally essential and ethically symbolic, but it will not bring back the victims or compensate for the bloodshed and losses.The priority is to request Int protection, accompanied by US-led regional surveillanceto ensure effective implementation.
@ABC

Zéna Mansour
Yes an Int. investigation is legally essential and ethically symbolic, but it will not bring back the victims or compensate for the bloodshed and losses.The priority is to request Int protection, accompanied by US-led regional surveillanceto ensure effective implementation.
@ABC

Zéna Mansour
Portraying terrorists as state representatives may legitimize their violent actions. Labeling the Druze as outlaws is harmful, contributing to their marginalization. Terrorists should be treated as criminals & the rights of all citizens should be protected without discrimination.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Lebanon today reshuffled 119 officers within the ranks of its Army Intelligence, most prominently taking Hezbollah loyalist General Maher Raad (connected to Hezbollah parliamentary bloc chief Mohamad Raad) off Beirut's Southern Suburb (Hezbollah stronghold) Command. This is big

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
By October 8, most knew of the Day After in Gaza: a non-Hamas, non-PA transitional government supervised by moderate Arab countries, deploying an Arab deterrent force. Since then, efforts have focused on convincing Hamas and the PA of this fait accompli and awaiting political opportunities in participating capitals.

Amine Bar-Julius Iskandar
I can’t agree more
Christian Arabs in Lebanon, Syria, Irak and Palestine should openly express their existential challenges ASAP.
This is also vital and crucial for the non Arab Christians as the Maronites, Armenians, Melkite-Greeks, Syriacs and Assyro-Chaldeans.