English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 11/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Truly I tell you, unless you change and
become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven
Matthew 18/01-05: "At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked,
‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child, whom he put
among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like
children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble
like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 10-11/2025
It Is Astonishing to See a Rational Lebanese Praises Michel Aoun &
Fails To See Him For What He Truly Is/Elias Bejjani/February 11, 2025
The Maronites Commemorate Their Patron and Church Founder/Elias Bejjani/February
09/ 2022
Thank You, Dr. Geagea, for Your Courage: "You Exposed the Reality of Political
Quotas"/Youssef Salameh/Facebook /February 10, 2025
Redefining "Lebanon’s Right to Defend Itself" is a Betrayal of National
Responsibility/Marwan Al-Amin / Facebook / February 10, 2025
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Can’t Even Stop Hezbollah’s Biker Gangs/Hussein
Abdel-Hussein / Facebook/February 10, 2025
Hope vs. Expectation: Understanding the Difference/Fr. Maroun Al-Sayegh /
Facebook/February 10, 2025
Jdeidet Yabous Border Crossing with Lebanon: Smoother Transit, End of Bribery
Contacts on Highest Levels to Ease Battles Along Lebanon-Syria Border
Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border
UN chief welcomes formation of new Lebanon government
Israeli airstrikes target areas in Nabatieh region and Bekaa
LAF Completes Deployment in Three Southern Lebanese Towns
A Deep-Rooted Crisis at the Lebanon-Syria Border/Natasha Metni Torbey/This is
Beirut/February 10, 2025
Opening statements set in trial of Lebanese-American who stabbed Rushdie
The End of Iranian Hegemony and the Chances of Normalization/Dr. Charles
Chartouni/This Is Beirut/February 10/2025
Government: Breaking Away from the Legacy of May 7, 2008/Michel Touma/This is
Beirut/February 10, 2025
Alarm Sounded Over Lebanon’s Vanishing Public Shores/Vanessa Kallas/This is
Beirut/February 10, 2025
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 10-11/2025
Vatican's Caritas outraged at 'reckless' USAID cuts, says millions will die,
others left in poverty
Trump says US might lose patience with ceasefire deal over Israeli hostages'
appearance
Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement
to violence
With Gaza war on hold, Hamas lets the world know it has not been defeated
After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face more Israeli barriers,
traffic and misery
Israeli police raid Palestinian bookstore in east Jerusalem and confiscate books
about the conflict
What's happening in the Gaza Strip and Sudan that sparked a protest at the Super
Bowl halftime show?
Hamas Says It Will Stop Releasing Hostages, Accuses Israel of Ceasefire
Violations
With Trump in the White House, Iranians mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution
Saudi, Iranian FM Discuss Regional Developments
Iranian President Says US Not Sincere over Readiness to Engage
Sanctions on Syrian Banks Choke Recovery Hopes, Investment Chief Says
Syrians Returning to the Town of Tel Rifaat Find Homes in Ruins and Underground
Tunnels
Syrian President Expected to Visit Kuwait Soon
Trump Says He Is Serious about Canada Becoming 51st State
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on February 10-11/2025
Another Coptic Church ‘Catches Fire,’ Authorities Blame Candle (Again)/Raymond
Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/February 10/2025
This Is Why Putin Will Never Win the War/Anna Nemtsova/The Daily Beast/February
10, 2025
Trump must keep arming Ukraine if he wants a good peace deal ...Europe must do
its fair share, but it cannot carry the burden alone./John Hardie/ Defense
One/February 10/2025
A suppressed voice for truth from within the United Nations/Ben Cohen/Jewish
News Syndicate/February 10/ 2025
U.S. Treasury Should Target Iran’s Trading Partners/Saeed Ghasseminejad &
Janatan Sayeh/FDD-Policy Brief/February 10/2025 |
China Tests Trump's Resolve/Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/February
10, 2025
America and Sizes after the Earthquake/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/February
10/2025
Hubris That Must Be Stopped/Abdul Ilah Khatib/Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 10-11/2025
It Is Astonishing to See a Rational Lebanese Praises Michel Aoun & Fails To See
Him For What He Truly Is
Elias Bejjani/February 11, 2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/02/140059/
Michel Aoun, by undeniable facts and evidence, is corrupt, a Judas, and an enemy
to his homeland. He abandoned his slogans, betrayed his people, and traded
Lebanon’s sovereignty for a presidential chair on which he was nothing more than
a ghost for six years. He built his popularity on opposing the Syrian occupation
and attacking it, only to later whitewash it as an “experience marred by some
mistakes.” Then, he signed a pact with Hezbollah—the party of Satan—dedicated to
erasing Lebanon, its identity, and its history.
We, as Maronites, have never known a leader or politician who has harmed us,
humiliated our history, and distorted our national conscience more than he has.
It is truly baffling that any sovereign-minded Lebanese, or any rational
person—could see Aoun, his son-in-law, or anyone of the opportunists who
remained with him after his disgraceful pact with Nasrallah, as anything other
than a Lasiffors of destruction, perhaps even more catastrophic than him by
light-years.
The Maronites Commemorate Their Patron and Church Founder
Elias Bejjani/February 09/ 2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/02/140004/
Today, Maronites in Lebanon and across the diaspora celebrate the feast of Saint
Maroun, the father and founder of our Church and our revered patron. This sacred
and joyous occasion embodies the essence of over 1,600 years of faith,
perseverance, and sacrifice—an unbroken legacy of devotion to truth and
righteousness that defines our nation, people, and Syriac Eastern Church. On
this day, we humbly offer our prayers, seeking to fortify the faith, resilience,
and steadfastness of our people and clergy. Through the intercession of our
father Maroun and Our Lady of Lebanon, the Virgin Mary, we beseech God to
safeguard Lebanon, the Land of the Holy Cedars, from wars, conflicts, and
unrest. May our homeland remain a beacon of love, tolerance, coexistence,
freedom, democracy, equality, and fraternity.
Saint Maroun: A Legacy of Faith and Asceticism
Saint Maroun, the fourth-century ascetic who lived in the mountains of Cyrrhus,
north of Antioch, remains deeply ingrained in our hearts, minds, and collective
consciousness as his Maronite children. Today, we honor his memory not only in
Lebanon—our spiritual and national center—but also across the world, wherever
Maronite communities have flourished. Saint Maroun’s life was a testament to
asceticism. He embraced simplicity, rejecting worldly indulgences in food,
drink, and possessions. His journey was one of piety, humility, and
self-sacrifice, walking the arduous path of all the righteous and saints. His
devotion revolved around prayer, worship, contemplation, and ascetic discipline.
Isolated from the material world, he lived under a simple hair-cloth tent,
enduring both summer’s heat and winter’s chill. Pilgrims sought his prayers and
blessings, yet he redirected their focus away from himself and toward God, the
fountain of all goodness. This is the way of the righteous—they do not seek
personal recognition but rather guide others to divine truth.
The Saint’s Enduring Influence
Saint Maroun’s piety and holiness spread far and wide, drawing admiration from
figures such as Saint John Chrysostom, who, from exile, wrote to him: “The bonds
of love and affection that connect me to you make me see you as if you were
before me. Love transcends distance, and the passing years do not weaken it. I
wish I could write to you more often, but the vast distances and scarcity of
travelers make it difficult. Know that I never cease to remember you, for you
hold a special place in my heart. Please write to me, as news of your well-being
brings me immense joy, despite the hardships I endure. It comforts me in my
exile and solitude and fills my soul with great happiness to know that you are
in good health. Above all, my dearest request is that you pray for me.”A Church
Rooted in Mission and Identity. Saint Maroun’s spirituality shaped our Maronite
Church, which carries his name and flourished like wheat from a single grain.
Ours is a church of faith, a cause, and a mission. For over 1,600 years, it has
embraced its people, preserving the spirituality of its founder while upholding
the unity and tradition of Antioch. Open to dialogue, it remains firmly anchored
in its rich Syriac Eastern heritage and distinct identity.
A Call for Renewal and Unity
In these turbulent times, we Maronites must renew our commitment to faith,
unity, and solidarity. We must cast aside hatred, selfishness, and personal
ambition. Both clergy and laity must embody the example of Saint Maroun—not
living for ourselves alone, but extending a helping hand to those in need.
How many among us today have been crushed by hardship, unable to rise again?
They need the support of their brethren to regain their footing. A nation cannot
thrive unless its people work together to rebuild it. Now is the time for every
Maronite and every Lebanese to reject selfish ambition and narrow personal
gains. No one can save themselves alone. The harsh reality is undeniable: as
Lebanese—Maronites and non-Maronites alike—we are all sailing in the same
battered ship, weakened by lack of faith, selfishness, and moral decay.Our fate
is one: if the ship sinks, we all perish; if it survives, we are all saved. But
salvation requires true fear of God—not merely in words, but in deeds,
regardless of the sacrifices required.
Betrayal of Maronite Principles
As we reflect on Saint Maroun’s life, virtues, and sacrifices, we must ask: How
could some Maronite leaders betray the very principles upon which our Church and
heritage stand? Can they truly claim to be followers of Saint Maroun while they
glorify weapons of occupation, align with foreign forces, and trample Lebanon’s
sovereignty for the sake of personal gain, hatred, and revenge? Indeed, we live
in dark times. These so-called leaders epitomize the words of the Prophet
Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from
me. They worship me in vain, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
A Prayer for Lebanon’s Redemption
We ask the Lord to grant us wisdom to understand and embody the teachings of our
father Maroun. May we unite our ranks, strengthen our bonds with our fellow
Lebanese at home and abroad, and work together with sincerity and devotion to
restore Lebanon to its former glory—a land of prosperity, stability, and lasting
peace. Through Saint Maroun’s intercession, we pray for our clergy, leaders, and
people, that they may remain steadfast in faith and hope, unmoved by hardship or
temptation. May no allure of power or wealth lead them astray. On this holy
occasion, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to our Maronite brethren and
all Lebanese. Together, we pray that the Lord may grant us the grace to follow
in the footsteps of Saint Maroun—living with reverence for God, detachment from
worldly vanities, love for humanity, humility, and self-sacrifice.
A Final Plea for Repentance
In particular, we pray for the repentance of corrupt and treacherous Maronite
leaders who, despite experiencing exile and humiliation, failed to learn from
their past. Lebanon was liberated through the sacrifices of its sons, yet these
leaders returned to power with striking arrogance, focused solely on personal
gain, authority, and wealth. For these Maronite Judases, we pray that they may
repent and return to the path of righteousness. Otherwise, their reckoning on
Judgment Day is inevitable—where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
We conclude with the words of Saint Paul (Romans 12:15-18): “Rejoice with those
who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not
be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be
conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in
the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at
peace with everyone.”
Thank You, Dr. Geagea, for
Your Courage: "You Exposed the Reality of Political Quotas"
Youssef Salameh/Facebook /February 10, 2025
The Maarab meeting proved once and for all that there is no real difference
between a partisan minister and a minister endorsed by a political party.
In relationships, when someone feels the need to publicly declare their loyalty,
it usually means they’ve already lost trust. And when that relationship is built
on corruption, it’s even worse. Thank you, Dr. Geagea, for your courage: "You
exposed the reality of political quotas."
Redefining "Lebanon’s Right to Defend Itself" is a Betrayal of National
Responsibility
Marwan Al-Amin / Facebook / February 10, 2025
An MTV report mentioned that the government’s policy statement will replace the
phrase "Army, People, and Resistance" with "The right of the Lebanese to defend
themselves in coordination with the army (or behind it)."
If this is truly the proposed approach to Hezbollah’s weapons, then let’s be
clear:
Since Tammam Salam’s government over a decade ago, the "Army, People, and
Resistance" formula has been absent from ministerial statements. Instead, it was
replaced with "The right of the Lebanese to defend themselves," a phrase that
indirectly legitimizes Hezbollah’s weapons. The new phrasing, "The right of the
Lebanese to defend themselves in coordination with the army or behind it,"
essentially preserves Hezbollah’s ability to keep its arms and operate under the
guise of "defending Lebanon" alongside or even outside the army’s authority.
After everything Lebanon has endured, it is unacceptable to continue
surrendering to Hezbollah and Amal, first by rejecting any representation of
Shiite opposition, then by handing them control of the Finance Ministry and
their chosen minister. Redefining "Lebanon’s right to defend itself" is nothing
but political maneuvering—and a betrayal of national responsibility.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Can’t Even Stop Hezbollah’s Biker Gangs
Hussein Abdel-Hussein / Facebook/February 10, 2025
Lebanon’s prime minister can’t even stop a gang of Hezbollah thugs on
motorcycles. He can’t protect the judiciary to allow investigations into the
Beirut Port explosion or the assassination of Lokman Slim. But somehow, he
thinks issuing condemnations makes him a leader? Maybe focus on actually
governing Lebanon before wasting our time with these empty political statements.
It’s the same old story: every so-called "change-driven" prime minister ends up
recycling the same useless rhetoric.
The news: Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s recent comments calling for a Palestinian state to be established on
Saudi land. Salam called this an unacceptable violation of Arab sovereignty and
reaffirmed the Palestinian people’s right to an independent state on their own
land in line with the Arab Peace Initiative adopted at the 2002 Beirut Summit.
He also backed Egypt’s call for an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to
counter this "dangerous scheme" and urged Arab unity to block plans that
threaten Palestine and regional stability.
Hope vs. Expectation:
Understanding the Difference
Fr. Maroun Al-Sayegh / Facebook/February 10, 2025
People say, "I have hope in the new government," when they really mean, "I
expect something from this government."
Hope and expectation are not the same.
I have hope, which is why I remain steadfast and resilient. But expecting this
government to change anything? That’s another matter entirely.
This distinction is central to what the Maronite Patriarchal Synod teaches in
its text "The Church of Hope."
Hope is rooted in faith. It strengthens people in times of hardship and helps
them endure trials, believing in something greater than themselves. It is
unshaken by political setbacks. Expectations, however, are based on human
calculations. They may succeed if conditions allow, or they may fail due to
external forces. If expectations are met, people feel secure and optimistic. If
they collapse, disappointment follows.
This is exactly what happened in Lebanon: some people kept their hope alive,
answering the calls of religious leaders and embracing Pope John Paul II’s
Apostolic Exhortation, "A New Hope for Lebanon" in 1997. Others, however, lost
faith due to political failures and social crises. Their expectations crumbled,
and they started blaming each other for Lebanon’s decline.
Jdeidet Yabous Border
Crossing with Lebanon: Smoother Transit, End of Bribery
Jdeidet Yabous: Muwafaq Mohammed/Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Traffic at Jdeidet Yabous, the border crossing in western rural Damascus
opposite Lebanon’s Al-Masnaa, has eased following new measures implemented on
Tuesday by Syria’s General Authority for Land and Sea Border Crossings. These
include extending working hours and increasing staff numbers.
Taxi drivers operating between Syria and Lebanon welcomed the improvements but
called for further measures. During a visit to the crossing, Asharq Al-Awsat
observed a steady flow of vehicles heading toward Lebanon. While traffic
remained heavy, the entry process was smoother, with staff handling travelers
efficiently and courteously. A border official told Asharq Al-Awsat that there
had been significant congestion in recent weeks, but the situation had improved
with the new measures. He explained that operating hours had been extended by
two hours, allowing taxis to enter starting at 6 am instead of 8 am. The
official, speaking anonymously as he was not authorized to comment publicly,
also noted that the number of staff and processing counters had increased, which
helped reduce wait times for travelers and drivers.
Since the General Authority for Land and Sea Border Crossings took over
management of Syria’s borders following the ousting of Bashar al-Assad on
December 8, bribery at the crossing has been fully eliminated. Passengers can
now pass through Jdeidet Yabous and reach Al-Masnaa without paying any extra
fees. The official stated that even the entry fee had been temporarily
suspended. While he did not provide exact figures, he estimated that hundreds of
vehicles cross into Lebanon daily. Taxi driver Shaat Kabbab, who operates on the
Damascus-Beirut route, confirmed that Tuesday marked the first day of extended
hours. He explained that previously, Syrian taxis could only enter at 8 am and
had to return by 4 pm. Meanwhile, Murshid Al-Hafi, another driver waiting for
passengers near the crossing, said the situation had improved significantly. He
noted that bribery had disappeared and that the staff were professional, but he
hoped authorities would extend working hours to 7 or 8 pm and allow multiple
trips per day. Anas Baraka, traveling to Lebanon to pick up a relative,
expressed optimism about the recent changes. He stated that the new Syrian
administration had transformed not just the border process but also people’s
lives. While he acknowledged that there were still some issues, likely due to
the inexperience of newly appointed staff, he emphasized that travelers were now
treated with respect. According to Syrian taxi drivers, the crossing had
experienced heavy traffic in recent days, with around 300 vehicles traveling to
Lebanon daily and a similar number returning. They attributed the congestion to
limited operating hours, the large number of Syrians arriving via Beirut
International Airport, and empty vehicles crossing into Lebanon to smuggle fuel
on their way back. The closure of other border crossings with Lebanon has also
contributed to the bottleneck. On January 31, the General Authority for Land and
Sea Border Crossings announced that Jdeidet Yabous would now be open daily from
6 am to midnight, starting February 1. Additionally, new entry regulations for
Lebanese nationals were outlined on January 23. Regarding vehicle entry, the
authority specified that private car drivers must either own the vehicle or have
a notarized authorization. Taxis and buses are limited to one trip per day
between 8 am and 4 pm, with at least one passenger, and are granted a 48-hour
entry permit.
Contacts on Highest Levels to Ease Battles Along
Lebanon-Syria Border
Beirut: Hussein Darwish/Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
The Lebanese army has sent reinforcements to the northeastern border with Syria
after fighting intensified between Syrian security forces and Military
Operations Command with Lebanese clans. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa held telephone talks on Saturday to
help restore calm. The clashes had erupted on Thursday after the Syrian forces
carried out a sweep of the Syrian villages in the Homs countryside and Qusayr
countryside bordering Lebanon to crack down on Lebanese smugglers and the drug
trade. Clashes then ensued with clans in the region. The army has since
intervened to restore calm. The Jaafar clan in Lebanon is the dominant one in
those regions. The Syrian forces have taken control of the majority of the
border villages, which are mostly Syrian and home to families that are related
to the Lebanese clans. On Friday, the clans issued a statement calling on the
Syrian authorities to prevent Syrian smugglers from burning down the houses of
the Lebanese residents of those areas. After a calm, the clashes erupted again
on Saturday. Dozens of people have been killed and injured. Informed sources
told Asharq Al-Awsat that contacts are taking place at the highest levels to
restore calm. Military sources said a ceasefire doesn’t seem imminent,
reflecting a determination to cleanse the border areas of the smugglers. The
clashes had eased because of the poor weather, but intensified during the day on
Sunday.
The army said it responded “with the appropriate fire” to cross border shelling
from Syria towards Lebanon. In a statement, it said it was taking the “necessary
extraordinary measures along these border areas.” It also deployed patrols and
set up checkpoints. The military had previously received orders from Aoun to
respond to fire from Syria. Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that a
rocket had fallen near the town of al-Kwakh and a shell had struck a public
school in the area. Fierce fighting was also reported between clans from
Lebanon’s Bekaa and members of the Syrian security forces. Medium weapons and
rockets were used in the clashes. Clashes were reported on Sunday afternoon
across the border regions of Saqia Joussiye all the way to the outskirts of
Hermel. Mayors from Hermel called on the Lebanese state and army to “perform
their duties in defending the nation, its border and people.”They said the
border regions in Hermel were coming under daily attacks from Syria and that
several people have been killed and wounded. As of Sunday afternoon, over 50
rockets attacks from Qusayr towards Lebanon have been reported, local sources
told Asharq Al-Awsat. A source from the clans told Asharq Al-Awsat that the
latter were not abiding by the army orders.
Syria forces accuse
Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border
AFP/February 10, 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has launched attacks on Syrian
security forces and is sponsoring cross-border smuggling gangs, the new Syrian
authorities said on Monday, according to state media. Syrian forces clashed with
smuggling gangs this week, most of whom were affiliated with Hezbollah, but did
not target Lebanese territory, Lt. Col. Moayed Al-Salama said in a statement
carried by official news agency SANA. Hezbollah was allied to former Syrian
strongman Bashar Assad, who was toppled by opposition rebels in December. The
new authorities in Damascus launched anti-smuggling operations last week at the
Lebanese-Syria border, where the Iranian-backed group holds sway. “Most
smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border are affiliated with the Hezbollah
militia, whose presence now poses a threat at the Syrian border because it
sponsors drug and weapon smugglers,” Salama was reported as saying.
“We have developed a comprehensive plan to fully control the borders,” said the
official, whom SANA described as the commander for the western region in the
Border Security Administration. “We confirm that we did not target the Lebanese
interior, despite shelling from the Hezbollah militia reaching our units,”
Salama said. On Saturday, the Lebanese army said it responded to incoming fire
from across the Syrian border, two days after the new authorities in Damascus
said they had launched operations against smugglers there. The army did not name
those responsible for firing toward Lebanon. He blamed “the defunct regime” for
turning “the Syrian-Lebanese border into corridors for the drug trade in
cooperation with the Hezbollah militia, promoting the presence of armed
smuggling gangs.”Operations “were limited to Syrian border villages, targeting
the armed smuggling gangs and remnants (of the Assad government) and militias
who fought with them,” he added. Syrian forces seized “farms, warehouses and
factories for the production and packaging of hashish and captagon pills,” he
said, referring to the potent synthetic drug which Syria mass-produced under
Assad. They also found presses specialized in printing counterfeit currency, he
said, as well as as shipments of weapons and drugs that were about to cross
in.Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria, with no official
demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Assad’s fall in December disrupted Hezbollah’s arms supply lines through the
land border with Syria.
UN chief welcomes formation of new Lebanon government
Agence France Presse/February 10, 2025
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has welcomed the formation of a new government in
Lebanon, affirming the international body's commitment to the country's
"territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence," a spokesman
said. "The United Nations looks forward to working in close partnership with the
new government on its priorities, including the consolidation of the cessation
of hostilities," said a statement from spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Dujarric was
referring to a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed on November
27, with the Lenanese Army due to deploy in the country's south alongside U.N.
peacekeepers as Israel withdraws from those areas over 60 days. Fighting between
Israeli forces and long-dominant Hezbollah since October 2023 has weakened the
group, helping bring a new Lebanese government to power after almost two years
of caretaker authorities being in charge. New Prime Minister Nawaf Salam now
faces the daunting task of overseeing the fragile Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and
rebuilding the country. Salam said Saturday that he hoped to head a "government
of reform and salvation," pledging to rebuild trust with the international
community after years of economic collapse blamed on corruption and
mismanagement. Long the dominant force in Lebanese politics, Hezbollah suffered
staggering losses in a war with Israel that saw its leader Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah killed in a massive air strike in September. Hezbollah suffered
another seismic blow with the ouster on December 8 of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,
which it had long used as its weapons lifeline from Iran.After more than two
years of political stalemate, the weakening of Hezbollah allowed former army
chief Joseph Aoun, widely believed to be Washington's preferred candidate, to be
elected president and Salam approved as his premier.
Israeli airstrikes target areas in Nabatieh region and
Bekaa
Agence France Presse/February 10, 2025
The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike on Sunday targeting a
tunnel on the border between Syria and Lebanon allegedly used by Hezbollah to
smuggle weapons. Israeli "aircraft conducted a precise intelligence based strike
on an underground tunnel crossing from Syrian territory into Lebanese territory
that was used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons," the military said a day after it
struck a weapons depot used by Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern
Syria. In its strikes on Sunday, the Israeli army said it also struck "several
other Hezbollah sites" in Lebanon. Media reports said a strike hit an area
between Azza and Bfarweh in the southern governorate of Nabatieh. Lebanon's
official National News Agency on Sunday reported "hostile Israeli warplanes"
launching several raids at the Lebanon-Syria border, including one which
targeted a crossing. A fragile Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has been in place
since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of
all-out war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on
Lebanon, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of violating the
truce. Under the deal, Lebanon's military was to deploy in the south alongside
U.N. peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period. Israel has
carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since its civil war broke out in 2011,
mainly on Iranian-linked targets. Also Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights war monitor reported Israeli strikes on a military airport in the
southern Sweida province and an ammunition depot in the neighboring Daraa
province. After a lightning rebel offensive toppled longtime Syrian strongman
Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds more air strikes on
Syrian military assets in what it said was a bid to prevent them from falling
into hostile hands. Israeli troops also entered the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone
separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.
LAF Completes Deployment in Three Southern Lebanese Towns
This is Beirut/February 10, 2025
On Monday morning, the Lebanese Army completed its deployment in the southern
Lebanese towns of Rab al-Thalathine, Tallouseh and Bani Hayan, following the
withdrawal of the Israeli Army from the area. The redeployment took place in
coordination with the five-member committee overseeing the ceasefire agreement.
The troops began patrolling the roads, removing embankments and underground
obstacles. It also launched mine-clearing operations to locate unexploded bombs
and munitions in houses and on roads. For their part, the municipalities of the
three villages called on residents “to respect the Army's instructions and not
to enter the areas concerned until they have been declared safe and cleared of
explosives.”Israel Allows Northern Residents to Return Despite Security
Concerns. According to Israeli online media Ynetnews, the Israeli Army announced
on Sunday “the lifting of restrictions on the return of residents to the north
of the country starting March 1st.” The decision comes almost a year and a half
after they were evacuated due to Hezbollah attacks. However, the head of the
Metula council criticized the decision, believing that “it is a total
destruction of the image of victory, and there is nothing to return to.”
A Deep-Rooted Crisis at the Lebanon-Syria Border
Natasha Metni Torbey/This is Beirut/February 10, 2025
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, the Syrian-Lebanese
border—particularly the region east of Lebanon—has become a flashpoint for
violent clashes between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces, Syria’s new rulers,
and Lebanese tribes. While these tensions are not new, they mark a turning point
in a region already destabilized by decades of conflict. The latest escalation
began on February 6, when HTS armed units seized control of Hawik, a village
with Lebanese inhabitants on the Syrian side of the border. This move triggered
fierce clashes with Lebanese tribes in the area, particularly the Zeaiter and
Jaafar clans. What are the deeper causes of this conflict, and what is at stake
for the region?
A Contentious Border Demarcation
The fall of Assad's regime has brought new challenges to border regions,
especially with the rise of Ahmad al-Sharaa to power in Syria. HTS is now
working to expand its influence and control over critical smuggling routes,
particularly those used for trafficking Captagon, a drug widely produced and
circulated in the region. For years, Lebanese tribes controlled these routes
with the tacit approval of the ousted Syrian president. However, as HTS’s power
continues to grow, it is increasingly seen as a direct threat—not only to the
autonomy and economic activities of these tribes but also to their deeply rooted
familial ties with those living on the other side of the border. "While recent
events in Syria have triggered the current conflict, the tensions at the border
go back to the era of Greater Lebanon, before the country’s independence in
1943," explains retired General Khalil Helou. In an interview with This is
Beirut, the military expert highlights that "the official demarcation of the
borders, which began with the 1923 Paulet-Newcombe Agreement, only addressed the
southern part of Lebanon. In the north and east, particularly in areas like Wadi
Khaled and Shebaa, no definitive borders were ever drawn." In villages
stretching from al-Qusayr to Jabal Akkoum in Syria, Lebanese residents—many of
whom have lived there for decades—have maintained strong ties with those across
the border, particularly in towns like al-Qasr, Qanafez, Akroum, and the
surrounding areas. Before HTS took power, these residents freely crossed the
border and maintained economic, social, and even familial relationships with
their Syrian neighbors. "Today, these connections are disrupted by the growing
influence of the Syrian group, which is seeking to impose its sovereignty in the
region, making the outcome of the conflict all the more uncertain," says Helou.
Hezbollah’s Role and the Lebanese Army’s Response
Although Hezbollah is not directly involved in the clashes between Hay’at Tahrir
al-Sham and Lebanese tribes, its influence on the situation remains significant.
The Iranian-backed militia, which has been a key supporter of the Assad regime,
could view HTS’s growing power as a potential threat to its own cross-border
activities. "However, it appears Hezbollah currently lacks both the capacity and
the inclination to intervene directly in this specific area," adds Helou. In
contrast, the Lebanese Army has played a crucial role in securing the border and
managing the ongoing confrontations. While maintaining its neutrality in any
direct conflict with Syria, the army has served as a mediator between the
warring parties. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has also reached out to his
Syrian counterpart, Ahmad al-Sharaa, to coordinate efforts in managing the
border tensions, with both leaders agreeing to take responsibility for their
respective territories along the frontier.
The Need for Political Solutions
The situation along the Lebanese-Syrian border poses significant strategic and
geopolitical challenges, highlighting the pressing need for a lasting political
solution. The issue of border demarcation with Syria, which has been studied in
the past—particularly during Michel Sleiman’s presidency—remains unresolved.
"The proposed solutions include updating the document championed by Sleiman, but
this approach must also consider, beyond geographic factors, the social and
human realities," says General Helou. He stresses that "resolving this issue
should involve a political dialogue between Lebanon, Syria, the United Nations,
and the Arab League." He further warns that "resolving these problems solely
through military means or border closures is likely to escalate the situation."
The pressing question is: what approach will the new government take to tackle
this critical issue?
Opening statements set in trial of Lebanese-American who
stabbed Rushdie
Associated Press/February 10, 2025
Lawyers are scheduled to deliver opening statements Monday at the trial of the
Lebanese-American man charged with trying to fatally stab author Salman Rushdie
in front of a lecture audience in western New York. Rushdie, 77, is expected to
testify during the trial of Hadi Matar, bringing the writer face-to-face with
his knife-wielding attacker for the first time in more than two years. Rushdie,
who wrote "Midnight's Children" and "Victory City," had been about to speak
about keeping writers safe from harm in August 2022 when Matar ran toward him on
the stage at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater. Matar stabbed Rushdie more
than a dozen times in the neck, stomach, chest, hand and right eye, leaving him
partially blind and with permanent damage to one hand. The Indian-born
British-American author detailed the attack and his long, painful recovery in a
memoir, "Knife: Meditations After and Attempted Murder," released last year.
Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with attempted murder and
assault. He has pleaded not guilty. A jury was selected last week. Matar was in
court throughout the three-day process, taking notes and consulting with his
attorneys. Once testimony is underway, the trial is expected to last a week to
10 days. Jurors will be shown video and photos from the day of the attack, which
ended when onlookers rushed Matar and held him until police arrived. The event's
moderator, Henry Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, was also
wounded.
Matar told investigators he traveled by bus to Chautauqua, about 75 miles (120
kilometers) south of Buffalo. He is believed to have slept in the grounds of the
arts and academic retreat the night before the attack. Matar's attorney has not
indicated what his defense will be. In a separate indictment, federal
authorities allege Matar was motivated by a terrorist organization's endorsement
of a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie's death. A later trial on the federal
charges — terrorism transcending national boundaries, providing material support
to terrorists and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist
organization — will be scheduled in U.S. District Court in Buffalo. Rushdie
spent years in hiding after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
issued the fatwa in 1989 over the Rushdie novel, "The Satanic Verses," which
some Muslims consider blasphemous. In the federal indictment, authorities allege
Matar believed the edict was backed by Hezbollah and endorsed in a 2006 speech
by the group's then-leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The End of Iranian Hegemony
and the Chances of Normalization
Dr. Charles Chartouni/This Is Beirut/February 10/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/02/140043/
Undoubtedly, the progressive dismantling of Iran‘s proxies raises the issue of
normalization in the Near East at a time when the questions of civil concord,
democratic political culture, and reformist elites are still controversial and
have failed to inspire massive commitments within the respective civil
societies, however elaborate and elementary they might be. Lebanon‘s political
life is still trapped in oligarchical gimmicks and logrolling. The sham
reformist claims are cosmetics designed to hide the ugly realities of power
politics. Syria is still under the sway of the unresolved ethno-national
question and the inability to engage these thorny dilemmas away from domination
politics. The harsh realities of post-war Gaza are still under the spell of
Hamas and seem intractable since the Palestinian extremists have not yet
internalized their military defeat and their inability to engage in peace
discussions without restored unity.
The formation of the Lebanese cabinet is shrouded in the usual mystification of
Lebanese politics. It is as if the rotation of power belongs to extraneous
political dynamics that escape democratic deliberations and the outcomes of
parliamentary elections. Deliberations are mainly restricted to the oligarchic
sphere and take place within its arcane structures. With a discredited
parliament that failed to uphold the fundamentals of democracy, we are referred
to political games and the daily arbitrations of malevolent power players.
The well-entrenched political divides, the competing power politics, and their
domination overtones double-frame political life from one end to the other.
President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have a hard time adjusting
to the rising geostrategic and political realities yielded by the Israeli
counteroffensive that has ended the Iranian political domination. They are still
hostages to old political scripts while trying to uphold their political
fortunes and setting up their political foreclosures.
Amazingly enough, they are acting as if the constitutional guardrails are
accessories or pliable to their priorities. None of the international mandates,
the emerging political and strategic realities, and the imperatives of a peace
treaty with Israel to extract ourselves from the open-ended cycles of violence
seem to define the current political agenda. They are dismissive of situational
constraints and shelter behind psychological and ideological blinders. President
Aoun is cautious and self-inhibiting, and PM Salam is shielding himself behind
his “palestinism” while dealing with major geopolitical and military
transformations and their political consequences. The psychotic blinders of
outdated leftism are quite explicative of the sturdy political mortgages.
The political normalization in Syria is paradoxically pursuing its course,
ushering in a new stage in the life of the country, and challenging the
narratives of Islamic radicalism and its political variants. The template of
Ahmad al Sharaa is innovative and is under scrutiny to test its ability to
survive and bring forth major inflections in the life of Syria. Nonetheless, the
pending strategic issue remains the ethno-national question and its impact on
the political future of Syria.
Left unaddressed and dealt away with as a taboo, this question may be at the
origin of renewed conflicts and recoiled cycles of violence that put at stake
the future of Syria. While mending the bridges with the rest of the Arab world,
he manages his relative independence towards the rich donors (Saudi Arabia and
the Gulf satrapies) and Turkey, with whom he signed his first security
agreements (two airbases and military training). The hazards looming ahead are
due to his temptation to fall back on violence while tackling the ethno-national
grievances. The neo-Ottoman longings of Islamist Turkey are nurturing these
inclinations.
The enforced truce in Gaza is the tree that hides the forest. The whole scheme
of Hamas was based on the instrumentalization of the human shields strategy to
promote its political stature at the expense of the civilian population, and the
destruction of Gaza transformed into an undifferentiated battleground where the
distinctions between the civil and military landscapes are obliterated. The
underground tunnels are the conduits that have led to the destruction of the
district and to the appalling humanitarian tragedies invariably inflicted on
Israelis and Palestinians.
The proposal of President Trump about the reconstruction of Gaza, aside from its
engineering and urban planning issues, aims at changing the urban and political
dynamics to undercut the sources of violence and give way to an alternative
governance, refashion the political playground, and reengage the peace process
with different premises.
Government: Breaking Away
from the Legacy of May 7, 2008
Michel Touma/This is Beirut/February 10, 2025
Politics are ever-changing, particularly in a volatile region like the Middle
East. No power or faction can maintain dominance indefinitely. The formation of
the first government under President Joseph Aoun is a striking illustration of
this reality, particularly in the case of Hezbollah. This new cabinet marks a
clear break from the political fallout of Hezbollah’s violent coup on May 7,
2008. At the time, the pro-Iranian party sought to reverse the momentum of the
March 14-led governments (sovereigntists) — born from the Cedar Revolution in
the wake of Rafic Hariri’s assassination on February 14, 2005 — whose rallying
cry was Lebanon First. Back then, Hezbollah's militia stormed West Beirut and
the mountain regions of Chouf and Aley, strongholds of the Future Movement and
the Progressive Socialist Party.
This bloody coup, which left over a hundred dead, led to the Doha Conference in
Qatar. After intense negotiations, Lebanese political leaders agreed on a
roadmap: the election of General Michel Sleiman as President, the formation of a
"national unity government" led by Saad Hariri and a deal granting Hezbollah-Amal
and their allies (the Free Patriotic Movement, the Marada party and figures
close to the Assad regime) a blocking third in the Council of Ministers. In
exchange, Hezbollah pledged not to topple or paralyze the government — a
commitment it later disregarded entirely.
The Doha agreement marked a turning point in executive governance. Subsequent
governments either granted Hezbollah a blocking third or allowed it to control
the Council of Ministers. The Salam government breaks this specific precedent,
ending nearly 17 years during which Hezbollah acted as the orchestrator of the
executive branch through its local collaborators.
The government composition, unveiled on February 8, signals for the first time
since May 2008 that Hezbollah no longer controls the Cabinet. The Hezbollah-Amal
tandem finds itself isolated and in the minority. Traditional allies, including
the Free Patriotic Movement, the Marada party and figures aligned with Iran,
have been excluded, as have remnants of the old Syrian regime such as the Syrian
Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the local Ba'ath Party.
The Salam government can be categorized into four key blocs: Hezbollah-Amal; the
Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb party and sovereigntist-aligned ministers; ministers
close to the President; and a group directly appointed by the Prime Minister.
Hezbollah lost control of several critical ministries: Foreign Affairs, Energy,
Industry and Telecommunications (now held by the Lebanese Forces and allies);
Justice (Kataeb); Public Works and Agriculture (Progressive Socialist Party);
and Defense (a close associate of President Aoun).
This double blow — both in numbers and influence — suffered by Hezbollah is a
direct and inevitable consequence of multiple internal and external factors: a
crushing military defeat, the collapse of its political and security apparatus,
the devastation caused by the reckless war against Israel launched on October 8,
2023, under false pretenses; the fall of Bashar al-Assad; Iran’s loss of Syria
as a strategic stronghold; the unraveling of the "Shiite Crescent" from Tehran
to Beirut’s southern suburbs via Baghdad and Damascus; and, most notably, the
rise of President Donald Trump and his Republican hawks, who reactivated the
"maximum pressure" campaign on Iran. The road ahead is still long, and time is
of the essence. The challenge now lies in launching an ambitious program for
institutional, political, socio-economic and diplomatic recovery. The Ministry
of Foreign Affairs is expected to play a crucial role in repositioning Lebanon
on the Arab and international stage, repairing the many missteps of the post-May
7 era. Ultimately, this recovery must be guided by the fundamental priorities
outlined by President Aoun in his inaugural address. Achieving this goal will
require the concerted efforts of all factions and individuals who recognize the
urge to prioritize state-building over militia rule and the transnational agenda
of a de facto mini-state.
Alarm Sounded Over Lebanon’s Vanishing Public Shores
Vanessa Kallas/This is Beirut/February 10, 2025
In the last cabinet session before the presidential election, caretaker Prime
Minister Najib Mikati approved land reclamation projects privatizing 85,000 m²
of public maritime land in northern and southern Lebanon.
This decision would accelerate coastal degradation, as only 20% of the coast
remains public, according to architect and urban planner Jad Tabet.
It also poses significant environmental risks and threatens the nation’s right
to public coastal access. Yet, caretaker Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin
endorsed it by signing the decrees. The 85,000 m² of newly privatized maritime
land is divided as follows:
In northern Akkar’s Zouk Bhanine, two individuals received approval to develop a
53,305 m² plot to establish pipelines for a maritime route and create a docking
area for ships. In Qlayleh, near Tyre, a project for a 14,560 m² plot was
granted (Zouk Bhannine and Qlayleh sites are among the few coastal areas still
open to the public).
In Ras Maska (Koura), a resort of 59,140 m² was granted an expansion of 17,000
m².
The above map shows an estimated location of the newly privatized area in Zouk
Bhanine, measuring 53,305m².
The above map shows an estimated location of the newly privatized area in
Qlayleh, measuring 14560m². The above map shows an estimated location of the
newly privatized area in the Ras Masqa region, measuring 17000m².
Why Are the Land Reclamation Projects Illegal? This is Beirut spoke with
environmental expert Josiane Yazbeck to understand the legality of the three
coastline projects. “Approving these projects violates Environmental Protection
Laws and international conventions for protecting the coast and the
Mediterranean Sea,” Yazbeck said. Yet, the decrees greenlighting the projects
were published in the official gazette and became legally binding. Revoking them
would require the new government to withdraw the authorization granted by its
predecessor through a decree to protect what remains of the Lebanese coastline.
Lebanese laws that mandate the preservation of the coastal strip were breached
during the war due to illegal construction that continues to this day. d have
continued and remain largely ignored by the authorities. Aside from breaking
Lebanese law, judicial procedures to obtain these decrees were ignored,
suggesting they were rushed. “Any decree impacting public maritime property must
first be vetted by the Higher Council for Urban Planning. Yet, there is no
evidence that such a review occurred, and this can annul the decrees, even if
they already went into effect,” she added.
Bypassing key environmental safeguards further compounded these concerns,
Yazbeck stressed, noting that “the Lebanese Budget Law stipulates that past
infractions (dating from 1975 to 1993) can be legalized only after an
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is conducted. However, the crucial EIA for
these projects was overlooked.”
In the case of Ras Maska, the decree was not submitted to the Higher Council for
Urban Planning, and a retroactive EIA was performed on preexisting
structures—contradicting the very purpose of environmental assessments.
Similar shortcomings are evident in Zouk Bhanine and Qlayleh, where mandatory
EIAs were reduced to mere formalities. Who Can Challenge the Land Reclamation
Projects?
According to Yazbeck, the legal pathway to contest these decrees is fraught with
obstacles. “Under Lebanese law, challenges must be filed within two months after
publication in the official gazette,” she noted. “Beyond this period, only those
who can demonstrate direct harm—or who possess specific legal standing, such as
neighboring property owners or individuals whose livelihoods are directly
affected—can mount a case,” she added. Although every citizen theoretically
enjoys the right to a healthy environment and unfettered access to the coast,
the court’s narrow interpretation of “legal standing” severely limits the pool
of potential plaintiffs. “Environmental organizations have attempted to
challenge the decrees, but in the absence of explicit laws granting legal
standing to NGOs, their success often depends on finding a judge who understands
environmental issues and is willing to adopt a broader interpretation of legal
standing,” affirmed Yazbeck. This judicial conservatism makes the prospects for
overturning the land reclamation projects uncertain at best.
Coastal Privatization: An Environmental and Socio-Economic Threat
“Converting coastal areas into private resorts or residential complexes risks
destroying critical habitats, increasing pollution from sewage and solid waste,
and reducing local biodiversity,” Manal Nader, Director of the Institute of the
Environment at the University of Balamand, told This is Beirut. “Land
reclamation disrupts natural coastal currents, causing accelerated beach erosion
and interfering with the sediment and nutrient flows essential to a healthy
marine ecosystem,” he added. Nader warns that this privatization is far more
than an administrative change, it triggers a cascade of environmental damages
that imperil both coastal ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
“In the short term, habitat loss and pollution disrupt local food chains,” he
cautioned. “Over the long term, these practices could lead to irreversible
biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation and a breakdown in vital ecosystem
functions.”
The socioeconomic fallout is equally troubling. Restricting public access to the
coast can deprive local businesses of valuable revenue, reduce municipal income
from public amenities and drive up property values—further exacerbating social
inequality. “As privatized shorelines become exclusive enclaves, community
cohesion weakens and recreational spaces that once supported small-scale
fisheries and artisanal livelihoods disappear,” concluded Nader.
A Call for Integrated Coastal Zone Management
In response to these mounting challenges, experts like Nader and Yazbeck are
advocating for Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). This holistic approach
seeks to balance sustainable development with environmental preservation by
involving all stakeholders—from local communities to government agencies—in
decision-making. ICZM recognizes the interconnectedness of land and sea,
promoting strategies that protect both natural and cultural assets while
supporting economic growth.
The Takeaway
Despite laws designed to protect public maritime property, the recent land
reclamation projects have set yet another dangerous precedent—one that threatens
the nation’s coastal ecosystems, local economies and cultural heritage.
Approximately 1,068 violations have been reported along Lebanon’s coastline as
of 2024, and this number is likely to increase if the government continues to
profit from privatizing the coast while restricting the Lebanese people’s
rightful access to safe and clean public beaches.
As the public’s right to access the shore is further eroded, the hope for
sustainable and inclusive coastal management remains critical, though uncertain,
for future generations.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 10-11/2025
Vatican's Caritas outraged at 'reckless' USAID cuts, says millions will die,
others left in poverty
Nicole Winfield/VATICAN CITY
(AP)/February 10, 2025
The Vatican's charity voiced outrage Monday at what it called the “reckless” and
“unhuman” U.S. plans to gut USAID, with Pope Francis’ point-man on development
aid insisting that the Trump administration remember Christian principles about
caring for others as it begins governing. Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Czech-born
Canadian Jesuit, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis’
pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the
environment, the church’s Caritas Internationalis charity and development.
Caritas on Monday warned that millions of people will die as a result of the
“ruthless” U.S. decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding, and hundreds of
millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”USAID is the main
international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government and in
2023 managed more than $40 billion in combined appropriations, accounting for
around 40% of the global aid budget. The Trump administration and billionaire
ally Elon Musk have targeted USAID hardest so far in their challenge of the
federal government: A sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of USAID’s
programs worldwide, though a federal judge on Friday put a temporary halt to
plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job. In an interview with The
Associated Press, Czerny said every incoming government has the right to review
its foreign aid budget, and even to reform an agency like USAID. But he said
it’s another thing to dismantle an agency after it has made funding commitments.
“There are programs underway and expectations and we might even say commitments,
and to break commitments is a serious thing,” Czerny said Sunday. “So while
every government is qualified to review its budget in the case of foreign aid,
it would be good to have some warning because it takes time to find other
sources of funding or to find other ways of meeting the problems we have.”One of
USAID’s biggest non-governmental recipients of funding is Catholic Relief
Services, the aid agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S., which has already
sounded the alarm about the cuts. Other programs, including Caritas
international programs at the diocesan and national levels, are also being
impacted directly or indirectly, Czerny said.
In a statement, Caritas urged governments to urgently call on the U.S.
administration to reverse course. “Stopping USAID will jeopardize essential
services for hundreds of millions of people, undermine decades of progress in
humanitarian and development assistance, destabilize regions that rely on this
critical support, and condemn millions to dehumanizing poverty or even death,”
it said.
While large, the USAID budget is less than one percentage point of the U.S.
gross domestic product and a fraction of the biblical call to tithe 10% of one’s
income, Czerny noted. Czerny acknowledged Francis has often complained about
Western aid to poor countries being saddled with conditions that may be
incompatible with Catholic doctrine, such as programs promoting gender ideology.
The Trump administration has said it is targeting these “woke” programs in its
USAID cuts. "If the government thinks that its programs have been distorted by
ideology, well, then they should reform the programs," Czerny said. "Many people
would say that shutting down is not the best way to reform them.” Another area
of concern for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. is the Trump
administration's crackdown on undocumented migrants. White House Press Secretary
Karoline Leavitt said last week that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in
immigration enforcement actions since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Some are
being held in federal prisons while others are being held at the Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base in Cuba. “A crackdown is a terrible way to administer affairs and
much less to administer justice,” said Czerny, whose own family immigrated to
Canada as refugees after World War II. “And so I’m very sorry that many people
are being hurt and indeed terrorized by the measures."“All we can hope for is
that the people, God’s people and the people of goodwill, will help and protect
those vulnerable people who are suddenly made much more vulnerable,” he added.
The U.S. conference of Catholic bishops put out an unusually critical statement
after President Donald Trump’s initial executive orders, saying those “focused
on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death
penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative
consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.” Inspired by
the biblical call to “welcome the stranger,” Francis has made caring for
migrants a priority of his pontificate, demanding that countries welcome,
protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate
disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits
of their capacity. “And I don’t think that is any country except perhaps
Lebanon, and maybe one or two other exceptions, who are really over the limit,”
Czerny said. “So I think it’s incumbent on us first of all as human beings, as
citizens, as believers, and in our case, as Christians.”
Trump says US might lose patience with ceasefire deal over
Israeli hostages' appearance
Joey Roulette and Jeff Mason/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/February 10/2025
- President Trump on Sunday said he was losing patience with the ceasefire deal
between Israel and Hamas after seeing footage of the Palestinian militant group
release Israeli hostages over the weekend, whose appearance he compared to
Holocaust survivors. Trump's reaction to seeing images of the three hostages,
who appeared gaunt upon their release on Saturday, brought fresh uncertainty
over the deal's fate before all remaining 76 hostages are freed and came days
after the president called for the removal of Palestinians from the enclave and
for the U.S. to take control of it. "They look like Holocaust survivors. They
were in horrible condition. They were emaciated," Trump told reporters aboard
Air Force One on his way to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. "I don't know
how much longer we can take that ... at some point we're going to lose our
patience.""I know we have a deal ... they dribble in and keep dribbling in ...
but they are in really bad shape," Trump said of the Israeli hostages. Ohad Ben
Ami and Eli Sharabi, who were taken hostage from Kibbutz Be'eri during the
Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, who was
abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by
gunmen on Saturday ahead of their release to Israeli authorities. The three men
appeared in worse condition than the 18 other hostages previously freed under
the truce, which was agreed to on January 15 months into the war. Many
Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel have also appeared thin and emaciated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday the sight of the
frail hostages was shocking and would be addressed. In exchange for the three
men, Israel freed 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday. Trump also told
reporters he remained committed to having the U.S. buy and take ownership of
Gaza after Palestinians leave or are removed from the enclave, a surprise
announcement he made February 4 during Netanyahu's recent visit to Washington.
He said other countries may take part in rebuilding sections of Gaza. "As far as
us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build
sections of it, other people may do it, through our auspices. But we’re
committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move
back.”
Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement
to violence
Mahmoud Illean And Natalie Melzer/The Associated Press/February 10, 2025
Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in
east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the
decades-long conflict. The police said the books incited violence. The
Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual
life in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and
annexed to its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Most of the
city's Palestinian population lives in east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians want
it to be the capital of their future state. The three-story bookstore that was
raided on Sunday has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English,
about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and
Jewish authors. It hosts cultural events and is especially popular among
researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats. The bookstore's owners, Ahmed
and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and police confiscated hundreds of titles
related to the conflict before ordering the store's closure, according to May
Muna, Mahmoud's wife.She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian
titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.” She said they used
Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting
them away in plastic bags. Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in
the Old City in east Jerusalem last week. In a statement, the police said the
two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement
and support for terrorism.”
As an example, the police referred to an English-language children’s coloring
book entitled “From the River to the Sea,” a reference to the territory between
the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the
occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians and hard-line Israelis each
view the entire area as their national homeland. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, whose government is opposed to Palestinian statehood, has said Israel
must maintain indefinite control over all the territory west of the Jordan.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out
of Gaza triggered the war there. A ceasefire has paused the fighting and led to
the release of several Israeli hostages abducted in the attack as well as
hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Tensions have also soared in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly
civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted around 250 people. The war the
followed has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and
children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not say how many were
fighters. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing
evidence. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967
Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future
state. The last serious and substantive peace talks broke down after Netanyahu
returned to power in 2009.
With Gaza war on hold, Hamas lets the world know it has not been defeated
Laura King/ Los Angeles Times./February 10, 2025
This past weekend, as Hamas paraded a trio of emaciated Israeli hostages who
were about to be freed following more than a year of captivity in the Gaza
Strip, the militant group seized the chance to direct a personal gibe at Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With news cameras in southern Gaza lingering
on a knot of masked fighters, a Hebrew-language banner was clearly visible
behind them, superimposed with the prime minister’s face. “Total victory,” it
read — mocking the refrain often invoked by the Israeli leader during nearly 16
months of brutal warfare in the coastal enclave, now paused by a truce.
Embarking on a round of highly charged new talks over the next phase of the
cease-fire, both Hamas and Israel are trying to paint themselves as victors,
even as Gaza lies in ruins.While Hamas sustained heavy blows in a withering
campaign of Israeli bombardment coupled with a months-long ground offensive,
some observers believe the group is scoring significant propaganda points —
because it can point to its mere survival as a triumph. Hamas fighters largely
vanished from public view during the Israeli offensive. But throngs of them
wearing crisp uniforms and bristling with weaponry have been a prominent feature
at hostage-handover ceremonies that have been periodically taking place since
the cease-fire began last month. Sixteen Israelis and dual nationals, plus five
Thai citizens, have been freed in five separate batches, the latest of them
Saturday, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
“Absolutely, it’s theatrical,” Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior nonresident fellow
at the Atlantic Council, said of the elaborate displays by the group during
hostage releases. “It’s to show the world that Hamas is still relevant, still
exists.”In Washington last week, President Trump and Netanyahu — the first
foreign leader to be received at the White House since Trump took office for the
second time — sought to present a united front in rejecting any role for Hamas
in postwar Gaza. But their joint appearance was dominated — hijacked, even — by
Trump’s abrupt and startling declaration that the United States would take
“ownership” of the territory and preside over the creation of resort-style
development — a "Riviera of the Middle East," as the onetime real-estate
developer put it. The president subsequently said his plan would not involve
Washington paying reconstruction costs or sending any troops, but in the face of
vociferous criticism over what critics said amounted to advocating ethnic
cleansing, he insisted he had meant what he said. Ted Sasson, a senior fellow at
the Institute for National Security at Tel Aviv University, wrote in a Times of
Israel blog that Trump’s seemingly chaotic riffing on the envisioned
depopulation of Gaza contained an explicit message to Hamas. Sasson said the
point being made by both leaders was that if Hamas did not relinquish its grip
on Gaza, “‘we will transfer every Palestinian from Gaza until we get to you.’”
The war that Hamas ignited with its deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern
Israel — in which its fighters killed about 1,200 people and seized some 250
hostages — brought enormous suffering to Gaza. By the count of Palestinian
health officials, the confirmed death toll in the territory exceeds 48,000, with
thousands more corpses buried in rubble. Gaza’s Health Ministry does not
distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Hamas' numerical strength has always been extremely difficult to assess, because
of its secretive nature and lack of reliable intelligence from inside Gaza.
Before the current war, official U.S. figures put the number of its fighters at
between 20,000 and 25,000.
Israel says it has killed thousands in the course of the fighting, but U.S.
intelligence believes that there have been nearly equal numbers of new recruits.
Despite the loss of its chieftain Yahya Sinwar and scores of commanders inside
Gaza — plus the killing, in Tehran over the summer, of its political leader
Ismail Haniyeh — Hamas has managed to remain a force to be reckoned with, said
Israeli analyst Michael Milshtein, a former senior military intelligence
officer. “It’s not the same Hamas — they don’t have the same power as they did
before, but they are still the preeminent player in Gaza,” said Milshtein, who
directs the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. The group continues to
attempt to bolster its prestige among ordinary Gazans. Polling suggests Hamas is
more popular in the West Bank than it is in Gaza, but while some in the
territory blame the group for bringing suffering and death by starting the war,
most Palestinians place the blame squarely on Israel. On Sunday, it publicly
gloated as Israeli forces carried out an agreed-upon pullback from a narrow,
4-mile long corridor that divides the south of Gaza from the heavily populated
north. A Hamas spokesman, Abdel Latif Al-Qanoua, crowed that the withdrawal was
proof that the group had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands.” Israeli
troops still remain within Gaza, along its borders with Egypt and with Israel. A
full withdrawal is meant to be the main subject of delicate second-phase
negotiations of the cease-fire, along with the release of remaining hostages.
Israeli media reports have speculated that Netanyahu, who put any substantive
new talks on hold until he returned to Israel over the weekend, will probably
try to stymie progress in indirect talks going forward, in the gulf emirate of
Qatar.
Over the course of the war, public opinion has hardened on both sides. In that
sense, Hamas has already achieved a prime goal: to continue fighting Israel,
rather than allow a broader accord that could empower its West Bank-based rival,
the Palestinian Authority. Israel's far right — on which Netanyahu's ruling
coalition rests — continues to clamor for a continuation of the war.
"Israeli society, just like Palestinian society, has had a rightward shift that
is very pronounced," said analyst Alkhatib, a native of Gaza. The hostage
homecomings of the last three weeks have brought public rejoicing in Israel —
but also roused fresh fury against Hamas. Israelis watched in horror late last
month as one young female hostage was herded by her captors through a huge,
jostling crowd in southern Gaza as she was being freed, and Netanyahu termed
"shocking" the gaunt, haggard state of the three Israeli civilian men released
Saturday.
On the Palestinian side, the poor physical condition of some of the hundreds of
prisoners and detainees released from Israeli jails — including cases of visible
illness or malnourishment — revived human rights groups’ accusations of
widespread mistreatment behind bars.
When it comes to understanding Hamas, the past may be an ominous precedent.
Milshtein said that misreading of the group’s aims over a period of many years
led to the Oct. 7 debacle, and that fresh miscalculation over how Hamas would
react if Trump seeks to empty the territory of its Palestinian population could
once again produce disastrous results. “I think Hamas right now is taking into
consideration the announcement of Trump,” he said. “If they arrive at this
juncture and understand that he is serious, they would prefer to return to war,
commit suicide, suffer more dramatic damage in Gaza — but not to give up.”
After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face
more Israeli barriers, traffic and misery
Isabel Debre/RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)/February 10, 2025
— Abdullah Fauzi, a banker from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, leaves
home at 4 a.m. to reach his job by 8, and he's often late.
His commute used to take an hour — until Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7,
2023, after which Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli
military also ramped up raids against Palestinian militants in the northern West
Bank, and diverted its residents through seven new checkpoints, doubling Fauzi's
time on the road.
Now it's gotten worse.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas took effect, Fauzi’s drive
to the West Bank's business and administrative hub, Ramallah, has become a
convoluted, at least four-hour wiggle through steep lanes and farm roads as
Israel further tightens the noose around Palestinian cities in measures it
considers essential to guard against militant attacks. “You can fly to Paris
while we're not reaching our homes," the 42-year-old said from the Atara
checkpoint outside Ramallah last week, as Israeli soldiers searched scores of
cars, one by one. “Whatever this is, they've planned it well," he said. "It's
well-designed to make our life hell.”
A ceasefire begets violence
As the truce between Israel and Hamas took hold on Jan. 19, radical Israeli
settlers — incensed over an apparent end to the war and the release of
Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages — rampaged through West
Bank towns, torching cars and homes. Two days later, Israeli forces with drones
and attack helicopters descended on the northern West Bank city of Jenin, long a
center of militant activity. More checkpoints started going up between
Palestinian cities, slicing up the occupied West Bank and creating choke points
the Israeli army can shut off on a whim. Crossings that had been open 24/7
started closing during morning and evening rush hours, upturning the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people. New barriers — earthen mounds, iron gates —
multiplied, pushing Palestinian cars off well-paved roads and onto rutted paths
through open fields. What was once a soldier’s glance and head tilt became
international border-like inspections. Israel says the measures are to prevent
Hamas from opening a new front in the West Bank. But many experts suspect the
crackdown has more to do with assuaging settler leaders like Bezalel Smotrich,
the finance minister and an important ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who has threatened to topple the government if Israel does not restart the war
in Gaza. “Israel now has a free hand to pursue what it has wanted to in the West
Bank for a long time: settlement expansion, annexation,” said Tahani Mustafa, a
senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “It was considered a potential
trade-off.”Asked why Israel launched the crackdown during the ceasefire, the
Israeli military said politicians gave the order in part over concerns that the
release of Palestinian prisoners — in swaps for Israeli hostages held by Hamas —
could raise tensions in the West Bank. The checkpoints all over the West Bank,
it said, were “to ensure safe movement and expand inspections." “Checkpoints are
a tool we use in the fight against terror, enabling civilian movement while
providing a layer of screening to prevent terrorists from escaping,” said Lt.
Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman.
Life disrupted
To spend rush hour at an Israeli checkpoint is to hear of the problems it has
brought — Palestinian families divided, money lost, trade disrupted, sick people
kept from doctors. Ahmed Jibril said not even his position as manager of
emergency services for the Palestinian Red Crescent protects him. “We’re treated
like any other private car,” he said, describing dozens of cases in which
Israeli soldiers forced ambulances to wait for inspection when they were
responding to emergency calls. In one case, on Jan. 21, the Palestinian Health
Ministry reported that a 46-year-old woman who had suffered a heart attack in
the southern city of Hebron died while waiting to cross a checkpoint. The
Israeli military said it was not aware of that specific incident. But citing
Hamas' use of civilian infrastructure like hospitals to conceal fighters, the
army acknowledged subjecting medical teams to security checks “while trying to
reduce the delay as much as possible in order to mitigate harm.”The U.N.
humanitarian agency, or OCHA, reported that, as of last Nov. 28, Israel had 793
checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, 228 more than before the war in
Gaza. The agency hasn’t updated the tally since the ceasefire, but its latest
report noted a surge in “suffocating restrictions” that are “tearing communities
apart and largely paralyzing daily life.”
A bubble bursts
With its upscale restaurants and yoga studios, Ramallah gained a reputation in
past conflicts for being something of a well-to-do bubble where cafe-hopping
residents can feel immune to the harsh realities of the occupation. Now its
residents, struck in numbingly long lines to run simple errands, feel under
siege. “All we want to do is go home,” said Mary Elia, 70, stalled with her
husband for nearly two hours at the Ein Senia checkpoint north of Ramallah last
week, as they made their way home to east Jerusalem from their daughter's house.
“Are we meant to never see our grandchildren?” Suddenly, her face contorted in
discomfort. She had to urinate, she said, and there were hours to go before they
crossed.
A national obsession
Roll down the window at a bottlenecked checkpoint and the same soothing female
voice can be heard emanating from countless car radios, reeling off every
Israeli checkpoint, followed by “salik” — Arabic for open — or “mughlaq,”
closed, based on the conditions of the moment. These reports recently beat out
weather broadcasts for top slot on the West Bank radio lineup. Almost every
Palestinian driver seems able to expound on the latest checkpoint operating
hours, the minutiae of soldiers' mood changes and fiercely defended opinions
about the most efficient detours.
“I didn’t ask for a Ph.D. in this,” said Yasin Fityani, 30, an engineer stuck in
line to leave Ramallah for work, scrolling through new checkpoint-dedicated
WhatsApp groups filled with footage of soldiers installing cement barriers and
fistfights erupting over someone cutting the line.
Lost time, lost money
It was the second time in as many weeks that his boss at the Jerusalem bus
company called off his morning shift because he was late. Worse still for Nidal
Al-Maghribi, 34, it was too dangerous to back out of the queue of frustrated
motorists waiting to pass Jaba checkpoint, which severs his east Jerusalem
neighborhood from the rest of the city. Another full day's work wasted in his
car. “What am I supposed to tell my wife?” he asked, pausing to keep his
composure. “This job is how I feed my kids.”Palestinian trucks, packed with
perishable food and construction materials, are not spared the scrutiny.
Soldiers often ask truckers to pull over and unload their cargo for inspection.
Fruit rots. Textiles and electronics get damaged. The delays raise prices,
further choking a Palestinian economy that shrank 28% last year as a result of
punitive Israeli policies imposed after Hamas' attack, said Palestinian Economy
Minister Mohammad Alamour. Israel's ban on most Palestinian workers has left 30%
of the West Bank's workforce jobless. “These barriers do everything except their
stated purpose of providing security," Alamour said. “They pressure the
Palestinian people and the Palestinian economy. They make people want to leave
their country.”
Israeli police raid Palestinian bookstore in east Jerusalem and confiscate books
about the conflict
Mahmoud Illean And Natalie Melzer/JERUSALEM (AP)/February 10, 2025
— Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in
east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the
decades-long conflict. The police said the books incited violence. The
Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual
life in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and
annexed to its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Most of the
city's Palestinian population lives in east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians want
it to be the capital of their future state. The three-story bookstore that was
raided on Sunday has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English,
about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and
Jewish authors. It hosts cultural events and is especially popular among
researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats. The bookstore's owners, Ahmed
and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and police confiscated hundreds of titles
related to the conflict before ordering the store's closure, according to May
Muna, Mahmoud's wife. She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian
titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.” She said they used
Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting
them away in plastic bags. Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in
the Old City in east Jerusalem last week. In a statement, the police said the
two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement
and support for terrorism.”As an example, the police referred to an
English-language children’s coloring book entitled “From the River to the Sea,”
a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians and hard-line Israelis each view the entire area as their national
homeland. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is opposed
to Palestinian statehood, has said Israel must maintain indefinite control over
all the territory west of the Jordan. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared
since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. A
ceasefire has paused the fighting and led to the release of several Israeli
hostages abducted in the attack as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned
by Israel. Tensions have also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7
attack and abducted around 250 people. The war the followed has killed over
47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to
Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters. Israel says it
has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. Israel captured
the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the
Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The last serious
and substantive peace talks broke down after Netanyahu returned to power in
2009.
What's happening in the Gaza Strip and Sudan that sparked a
protest at the Super Bowl halftime show?
Jon Gambrell/DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/February 10, 2025
A performer at Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show unfurled a flag
emblazoned with the words Sudan and Gaza in a protest over the two wars that are
roiling the Middle East. Security at the stadium detained the performer shortly
after waving the flag atop a car used as a prop in the performance. The New
Orleans police said they are working out if any charges would be raised against
the performer. The NFL said the person would be banned for life from NFL
stadiums and events, while the company behind the halftime show said it was not
part of the planned performance. So, what was this protest about, what's
happening in the Gaza Strip and Sudan — and how does it affect the wider world?
Here is what's going on:
What's happening in the Gaza Strip?
The Gaza Strip is an enclave along the Mediterranean Sea bordered by both Egypt
and Israel. It covers some 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) — about the
twice the size of Washington and 3 1/2 times the size of Paris. But it's
incredibly densely populated and was home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the
start of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. The war began when Hamas, a militant group
that's ruled Gaza since 2007, stormed across the border into Israel, killing
some 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage. Israel responded with a devastating
ground and air campaign across Gaza, killing more than 47,000 Palestinians,
according to local health authorities, who do not differentiate between fighters
and noncombatants in their count. Much of the territory has been left in ruins,
and it's unclear how it could be rebuilt. A ceasefire in the war began on Jan.
19 and is still holding. Palestinian militants have freed hostages while Israel
has released Palestinians held in prisons there. However, worries remains over
whether the peace will hold. Comments by President Donald Trump, who was on hand
Sunday night for the Super Bowl, suggesting the U.S. was “committed to buying
and owning Gaza,” also have upended discussions about the enclave's future. The
Palestinians want the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for a future state of their
own, with east Jerusalem as its capital. That long-sought, two-state solution
for the decadeslong conflict is backed by Mideast nations and much of the
international community. Israel has expressed openness to the idea of resettling
Gaza’s population, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday
calling it ”a revolutionary, creative vision." Hamas, the Palestinians and much
of the world have rejected it.
What's happening in Sudan?
Sudan, a nation in northeastern Africa, has been unstable since a popular
uprising forced the removal of longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in
2019. A short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when army chief Gen.
Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces led a military coup in 2021. The RSF and Sudan’s military began
fighting each other in 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people,
forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a
desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country. Other
estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war. In recent weeks,
Burhan's forces, including Sudan's military and allied militias, have advanced
against the RSF. They retook a key refinery north of Khartoum, Sudan's capital.
They've also pushed in on RSF positions around Khartoum itself. The fighting has
led to an increase in civilian casualties. From Jan. 31 until Feb. 5, the U.N.s'
Human Rights Office documented at least 275 civilian deaths from artillery,
airstrikes and drone assaults. “Indiscriminate attacks, as well as threats and
attacks directed against civilians must cease immediately,” said Seif Magango, a
spokesperson for the Human Rights Office. “The Sudanese Armed Forces and the
Rapid Support Forces — and their allied movements and militias — must respect
their international law obligations and take concrete steps to protect civilians
from harm, including humanitarian workers and human rights defenders.”
Have these wars come up in popular culture before?
Online, activists have sought to draw attention to both Gaza and Sudan, though
the conflicts have different roots and participants. The idea of the two
conflicts being linked by their devastation has been made by celebrities. In
August, American rapper Macklemore said he canceled a concert in Dubai over the
United Arab Emirates’ role “in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in
Sudan through its reported support of the paramilitary RSF. While the UAE
repeatedly has denied arming the RSF, U.N. experts reported “credible” evidence
last year showed that the Emirates sent weapons to the RSF several times a week
from northern Chad. Macklemore at the time said he reconsidered the show in part
over his recent, public support of Palestinians over the Israel-Hamas war. He
has been performing a song called “Hind’s Hall,” in honor of a young girl named
Hind Rajab who was killed in Gaza in a shooting that Palestinians have blamed on
Israeli forces opening fire on a civilian car.
*Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press
Hamas Says It Will Stop Releasing
Hostages, Accuses Israel of Ceasefire Violations
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Palestinian group Hamas announced on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli
hostages until further notice over what it said were Israeli violations of the
ceasefire agreement. In reply, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hamas
had violated the ceasefire agreement with its announcement and that he had
instructed the military to prepare at the highest level of readiness in Gaza and
to defend Israeli communities. Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for Hamas' military
wing, said that since the ceasefire came into effect on January 19, Israel had
delayed allowing displaced Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza,
targeted Gazans with military shelling and gunfire and had stopped relief
materials entering the territory. The ceasefire has largely held over the past
three weeks, although there have been some incidents where Palestinians have
been killed by Israeli gunfire. The flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has
increased since the ceasefire, aid agencies say. Abu Obaida said Hamas would not
release any more hostages until Israel "complies and compensates for the past
weeks". Another exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners was
scheduled to take place on Saturday.
HOSTAGE RELEASE
So far, 16 of the 33 hostages to be released in the first 42-day phase of the
deal have come home, as well as five Thai hostages who were returned in an
unscheduled release. In exchange, Israel has released hundreds of prisoners and
detainees, ranging from prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks to
Palestinians detained during the war and held without charge. But Hamas has
accused Israel of dragging its feet on allowing aid into Gaza, one of the
conditions of the first phase of the agreement, a charge Israel has rejected as
untrue. In turn, Israel has accused Hamas of not respecting the order in which
the hostages were to be released and of orchestrating abusive public displays
before large crowds when they have been handed over to the Red Cross. Earlier,
the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said an Israeli
delegation had returned from ceasefire talks in Qatar, amid already growing
doubts over the Egyptian and Qatari-brokered process to end the war. There were
no immediate details on the reason for the return from the talks, which are
intended to agree the basis for a second stage of the multi-phase ceasefire
agreement and hostage-for-prisoner exchange reached last month. A Palestinian
official close to the discussions said progress was being held up by mistrust
between the two sides, which have accused each other of breaching the terms of
the ceasefire. US President Donald Trump's statements that Palestinians should
be moved out of Gaza, leaving the coastal enclave to be developed as a
waterfront real estate project under US control have upended expectations for
the postwar future. Fox News on Monday released an excerpt of an interview with
Trump. Asked about the plan and whether Palestinians would have the right of
return, he answered: "No, they wouldn't". "I'm talking about building a
permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years
before you could ever – it's not habitable." He said he thought he could make a
deal with Egypt and Jordan to take them. Netanyahu endorsed Trump's comments
when he returned from a visit to Washington at the weekend, causing irritation
in Egypt, where security sources said Israel was "putting up roadblocks" to the
smooth progress of the ceasefire deal, including delays to withdrawal of its
troops and continuing aerial surveillance. Talks on a second stage of the
ceasefire deal, to agree the release of the remaining hostages and a full
withdrawal of Israeli forces, began last week but have shown little sign of
serious progress. "There is a sense of mistrust, especially as Hamas sees a lack
of implementation of the first phase of the deal when it comes to the
humanitarian protocol and the allowing of the materials into Gaza as per the
agreement," the official said. Israeli public opinion was shocked by the
emaciated appearance of Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, the three
hostages who were released on Saturday, which has complicated progress on the
deal.
With Trump in the White House, Iranians mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution
Nasser Karimi/TEHRAN, Iran (AP) /February 10, 2025
Tens of thousands of Iranians marked the anniversary of the country's 1979
Islamic Revolution, the first such rally since President Donald Trump returned
to the White House and restarted his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting
Tehran. The annual commemoration of the end of the rule of the American-backed
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the creation of Iran's Shiite theocracy comes
this year as deep uncertainty lingers across the country. Iran faces crushing
sanctions wrecking its economy and the threat of more coming from Trump, even as
the American president suggests he wants to reach a deal with Tehran over its
rapidly advancing nuclear program. Iran's currency, the rial, fell to record low
of 928,500 rials to $1 in aftermarket trading on Monday, a drop of more than 6%
from Friday. Also on Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had
criticized proposed talks with the United States and described negotiations with
America as "not intelligent, wise or honorable.” Khamenei also suggested that
“there should be no negotiations with such a government,” though stopped short
of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington. Iran's reformist
President Masoud Pezeshkian, who long has struck a conciliatory tone toward the
West, similarly took a harder line in a speech at Azadi, or Freedom, Square in
Tehran. He declared Iran to be in a “full-fledged economy war.”“Trump comes and
announces let’s talk but at the same place he announces and signs all plots,"
Pezeshkian said. "They spread propaganda that the country has been weak. We are
strong.” “We never bow to the foreigners,” he added.
Demonstrators mock US and Israel
People carried flags, balloons and banners as they marched toward Azadi Square
in the Iranian capital despite sub-zero temperatures. Alongside anti-American
and anti-Israeli banners with slogans like “Death to America” and “Death to
Israel," demonstrators also carried images of Khamenei, who has final say on all
state matters. A demonstrator held up a poster reading, “We are going to wipe
out Israel.” Iran's military displayed replicas of some of its missiles at the
square. People also took selfie photographers in front of a pickup truck
carrying men wearing masks of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu behind bars. “I know there are a lot of economic problems in the
country, but I am here to say we will support our country regardless of threats
by Trump and Israelis," said Mohsen Amini, a 48-year-old teacher. Hamideh Zamani,
a 31-year-old homemaker wearing a flowing black Islamic chador, attended the
rally with her two children. “We will resist any threat by the West without any
fear," she said. "We learned this from our fathers to devote ourselves for the
cause of the Islamic Republic.”Iranian state television aired commemorations at
sites across the country, urging more people to turn out. The day, an official
holiday, takes on a festival feel, with schools and government offices closed,
and workers out in the streets.
Shah's abdication led to the 1979 revolution
The Islamic Revolution began with widespread unrest in Iran over the rule of the
shah who, terminally and secretly ill with cancer, fled Iran in January 1979.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini then returned from exile and the government fell on
Feb. 11, 1979, after days of mass demonstrations and confrontations between
protesters and security forces. Later in April, Iranians voted to become an
Islamic Republic, a Shiite theocracy with Khomeini as the country’s first
supreme leader. Months later, when the United States allowed the shah into the
country for cancer treatment in New York, anger boiled over in Tehran leading to
the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in November 1979 by militant students. The
subsequent 444-day hostage crisis at the embassy in Tehran kindled decades of
enmity.
*Nasser Karimi, The Associated Press
Saudi, Iranian FM Discuss
Regional Developments
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah held telephone
talks on Monday with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi.. Talks focused on
developments in the region and efforts exerted towards them.
Iranian President Says US Not Sincere over Readiness to
Engage
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday questioned the United States'
sincerity in seeking negotiations with Tehran as crowds of people, many chanting
"Death to America", rallied across the country to mark the anniversary of the
1979 revolution. US President Donald Trump last week restored his "maximum
pressure" campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down
to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump said
however that he would like to have a verified nuclear peace agreement with
Tehran and expressed a willingness to talk to Pezeshkian, who said last week it
would be easy to verify Iran was not developing atomic weapons. Pezeshkian, in a
televised speech at Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square on Monday, adopted a harsh
tone: "If the US were sincere about negotiations, why did they sanction us?" He
said Tehran "does not seek war...but will not yield to foreign pressure".
Iranian state television showed hundreds of thousands of people turning out to
mark the anniversary of the revolution in a rally the clerical establishment
billed as a chance to show unity amid mounting US and Israel pressure. "Death to
America," and "Death to Israel," shouted demonstrators in cities and towns
across Iran, repeating the ritual chant of the revolution which toppled the
US-backed Shah and swept the clergy to power. State media published a picture
depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump wearing prison
uniforms and standing inside a metal cage. Another picture showed some marchers
hanging an effigy of Trump by a noose. On Friday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei said that talks with the US were "not smart, wise, or honorable", but
he stopped short of renewing a ban on direct talks with Washington decreed
during the first Trump administration in 2018. During his previous term in
office in 2018, Trump ditched Tehran's 2015 nuclear pact with world powers and
reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy. Iran's currency fell on
Monday to an all-time low of 932,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market
compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website
alanchand.com. Last month, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters
that Iran is "pressing the gas pedal" on its enrichment of uranium to near
weapons grade. Iran, which has breached the 2015 pact's nuclear curbs, has long
said its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. "No country negotiates under
pressure and coercion unless it intends to surrender, especially when we
remember a history of unfulfilled promises from Washington," Iranian Foreign
Minister Abbas Araqchi told state TV.
Sanctions on Syrian Banks Choke Recovery Hopes, Investment Chief Says
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Western sanctions on Syria's banking sector are preventing critical investments
in the war-ravaged economy despite huge interest from Syrian and foreign
investors since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the country's investment chief
said. "Sanctions have stopped everything. Right now, they are primarily on the
Syrian people and are increasing their suffering," Ayman Hamawiye, the
36-year-old head of the Syrian Investment Agency, said in an interview at his
office.Hamawiye was appointed to the post by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham after
their lightning offensive that ousted former Syrian president Assad last year.
He previously ran Syrian crisis response projects and worked on economic policy
with HTS' governing body in opposition-held Idlib province. The Syrian
Investment Agency was set up in 2007 to court investment as Assad sought to
embark on reforms to liberalize an economy that ultimately remained heavily
controlled by his family and a group of select businessmen. Hamawiye said he was
fielding dozens of requests per day from mostly Syrian, Turkish and Gulf Arab
businesses, but also some Europeans, interested in projects ranging from
building hospitals to establishing wind power and developing real estate. "But
they all say that it is difficult (to invest) given the banking sector remains
under sanctions. You can't show up with millions of euros in your suitcase. That
is not a way to do business in today's world," Hamawiye said. The US in January
issued a six-month waiver to its Syria sanctions, focused on the energy sector
and financial transfers to Syrian governing authorities, but kept sanctions in
place on the central bank, keeping Syria cut off from the international
financial system. The EU in late January also agreed on a roadmap to ease its
wide-ranging Syria sanctions, which EU diplomats say may include lifting some
measures in place on the banking sector, but details are still being worked out
in Brussels. "The steps taken so far on sanctions are inadequate," said Hamawiye.
"In my opinion, everyone has an interest in these transactions going through a
banking system with oversight and transparency rather than through informal
transfer networks," he said.
Syrians Returning to the Town of Tel Rifaat Find Homes in
Ruins and Underground Tunnels
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
The long-anticipated return home for residents of the Syrian town of Tel Rifaat,
displaced since 2014, has collided with a painful reality — scars of war,
streets lined with rubble and ruins standing in place of their homes. Years of
fighting and military fortifications have left an unmistakable mark on the town,
a key flashpoint in the conflict between Syrian Kurdish forces and
Turkish-backed armed groups in northern Syria. During Syria's civil war, Tel
Rifaat became part of the repeated cycles of fighting and displacement that have
played out since 2011. Syrian Kurdish forces took control of the town in 2016,
displacing most of its population. In other places, like the town of Afrin,
Kurdish resident were displaced after Turkish-backed forces took control, and
many fled to Tel Rifaat. In December, during a lightning offensive by Syrian
opposition factions that ousted President Bashar Assad, the tables were turned
again as Turkish-backed fighters seized Tel Rifaat from the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces, or SDF. Those who have returned to Tel Rifaat since then were
met with an unexpected discovery — a vast network of underground tunnels that
local authorities say were dug during the time when the SDF controlled the area.
The network, built for military use, runs beneath homes, schools, and public
buildings, weakening the structures on the ground above. Some walls have cracked
and what remains lies on an unstable foundation, making reconstruction even more
difficult and adding to the challenges of rebuilding the town. Inside their
homes, returning families met with further signs of loss. Doors hang from broken
hinges, walls are scarred by neglect, and rooms have been stripped of essentials
— wiring, plumbing, even furniture. Nothing valuable has been left behind. Signs
of hurried departures are everywhere — abandoned belongings, scattered debris,
and makeshift barricades hastily dismantled. On the town's outskirts, a concrete
wall, once a military barrier, cuts through parts of the town. Built by the SDF
fighters as a defensive structure, it now stands as an unwanted remnant of the
past, blocking access to farmland. Infrastructure is poor, with water and
electricity networks barely functional. Still, despite the destruction or
perhaps because of it, the people of Tel Rifaat say they are busy clearing the
rubble and getting their lives back on track.
Syrian President Expected
to Visit Kuwait Soon
London: Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
A diplomatic source told a Kuwaiti newspaper that Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa
has expressed interest in visiting Kuwait in the near future. This came during
the recent visit of Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya to Damascus. The
same source informed Al-Qabas that a Gulf ministerial meeting is scheduled to
take place in Makkah during Ramadan, under Kuwait’s chairmanship, with Syrian
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani invited to attend.Following the fall of the
previous Syrian regime, Damascus has seen a steady influx of regional and
Western officials engaging in discussions with the new leadership to assess the
country’s evolving policies. As part of his diplomatic outreach, Al-Sharaa has
already visited Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. On Saturday, Al-Sharaa and Al-Shibani
met with a high-ranking Algerian delegation led by Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf.
According to a statement by the Algerian Foreign Ministry, Attaf conveyed
Algeria’s full support for efforts to unify the Syrian people and affirmed his
country’s readiness to contribute, both bilaterally and as the Arab
representative on the UN Security Council, to rebuilding Syrian institutions and
fostering security, stability, and economic growth. The ministry noted that the
meeting was an opportunity to reinforce long-standing ties between Syria and
Algeria, as well as to discuss the latest developments in Syria and the broader
region. During a visit to Damascus in December, the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister
urged the international community to lift sanctions on Syria. He also emphasized
that the country’s security is an essential pillar of regional stability, adding
that the visit marked a new era of constructive Gulf-Syrian engagement.
Trump Says He Is Serious about Canada Becoming 51st State
Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the
51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow.
"Yeah it is," Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his
talk of annexing Canada is "a real thing" — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau recently warned. "I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st
state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let
that happen," he said. "Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a
subsidy to Canada?"
The US is not subsidizing Canada. The US buys products from the natural
resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in
goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely
reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy. Trump has repeatedly suggested
that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st US state — a
prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians. Trudeau said Friday during a
closed-door session with business and labor leaders that Trump’s talk of making
Canada the 51st US state was "a real thing" and tied to desire for access to the
country’s natural resources. "Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to
do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with
him on ...," Trudeau said, according to CBC, Canada's public broadcaster.
"They’re very aware of our resources of what we have, and they very much want to
be able to benefit from those." Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on
Sunday as he traveled to the Super Bowl game in New Orleans, Trump continued to
threaten a country that has long been one of the US's closest allies. He claimed
that Canada is "not viable as a country" without US trade, and warned that the
founding NATO member can no longer depend on the US for military protection.
"You know, they don’t pay very much for military. And the reason they don’t pay
much is they assume that we’re going to protect them," he said. "That’s not an
assumption they can make because — why are we protecting another country?" In
the Fox interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said
that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the
tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country's two largest trading
partners once a 30-day extension is up. "No, it’s not good enough," he said.
"Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it."Trump last
week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25%
tariff on all imports except for Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity,
which would be taxed at 10%, after the countries took steps to appease his
concerns about border security and drug trafficking. Trump’s participation in
the Super Bowl interview marked a return to tradition. Presidents have typically
granted a sit-down to the network broadcasting the game, the most-watched
television event of the year. But both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden,
were inconsistent in their participation. Biden declined to participate last
year — turning down a massive audience in an election year — and also skipped an
appearance in 2023, when efforts by his team to have Biden speak with a Fox
Corp. streaming service instead of the main network failed. During his first
term, Trump participated three out of four years. Trump was the first sitting
president to attend the Super Bowl in person — something he told Baier he was
surprised to learn. "I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have
the president at the game," he said. bDuring his flight to New Orleans, Trump
signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 "the first ever Gulf of America Day" as
Air Force One flew over the body of water that he renamed by proclamation from
the Gulf of Mexico. Trump in the interview, also defended the work of
billionaire Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or
DOGE, has been drawing deep concern from Democrats as he moves to shut down
whole government agencies and fire large swaths of the federal workforce in the
name of rooting out waste and inefficiency. Musk, Trump said, has "been
terrific," and will target the Department of Education and the military next.
"We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and
abuse," Trump predicted. "I campaigned on this."
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on February 10-11/2025
Another Coptic Church ‘Catches Fire,’ Authorities Blame Candle (Again)
Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic
Solidarity/February 10/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/02/140039/
On February 5, a fire broke out inside the Church of the Archangel Michael, in a
village of the Qena governorate of Egypt. Civil Protection Forces were able to
contain the fire before it spread or caused any casualties. Full investigations
have yet to be concluded, but so far security sources said that the fire was
likely caused by a lit candle inside the church. This may seem like a plausible
explanation to casual observers unacquainted with Egyptian “micro-politics,” but
not for those in the know.
First, Muslim arson attacks on Coptic churches in Egypt are very commonplace.
According to researcher Magdi Khalil, “close to one thousand churches have been
attacked or torched by mobs in the last five decades [since the 1970s] in
Egypt.” And before that—from the seventh century Muslim conquest of Coptic
Egypt, up until the twentieth century—tens of thousands of churches were
destroyed.
Second, although Muslim hostility for churches has not abated or been
“reformed,” in recent years, whenever Coptic churches and other Christian
buildings burn, these fires are almost always presented as unfortunate
byproducts of “candles,” “faulty wires,” and other “natural” causes.
There are numerous examples of this (here, here, here, here, here). In one month
alone,August 2022, a full 11 churches “caught fire.” In one of these fires, 41
Christian worshippers, including many children, were killed in the
conflagration.
There can only be two explanations: either the “radicals” have—possibly with
insider help, including from sympathizers within state security—become more
sophisticated and clandestine in their attacks on churches (in one recent case,
surveillance camera caught yet another votary candle suddenly and randomly
exploding and creating a fire); or else Coptic Christians have, for some
inexplicable reason, become the most careless and fire-prone people in the
entire world, as it seems more Coptic churches than any other kind keep
“catching fire.”
Considering that the Copts are much more careful with their churches than most
Christians—precisely because their churches are so few and widely suppressed and
under attack in Egypt—it would seem that the former explanation, that the
radicals and their state abettors are the ones behind these constant
“accidental” fires, is more logical.
Moreover, if it is true that lit candles, faulty wires, and other electrical
problems are behind this upsurge in church fires, why are “accidental” fires in
mosques—which outnumber churches in Egypt by a ratio of 40 to 1—completely
unheard of?
Could it be that the candles, wires, and electrical circuits of Egypt are also
“radical” and biased against churches? The bottom line is this: up until a few
years ago, it was very common to hear of several Coptic churches being torched
every year by rioting Muslims in Egypt; in the last few years, however, there
have been virtually no such open attacks on churches—even as the same amount of
churches continue to burn every year. Is this sheer “coincidence” or business as
usual—though under a new cover?
https://www.copticsolidarity.org/2025/02/08/another-coptic-church-catches-fire-authorities-blame-candle-again/
This Is Why Putin Will Never Win the War
Anna Nemtsova/The Daily Beast/February 10, 2025
Putin's War on the Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has an obvious advantage in manpower three years into the war in
Ukraine, but even Ukrainian soldiers who have lost a leg push to return to the
front lines as soon as they recover.
Ukraine’s unbroken defenders say they would crawl into battle to defend their
country if they have to. “You can lose a limb, but you can’t lose your dignity,”
said Hulk, the call sign of the chief sergeant of the 1st Battalion of the
Achilles 429th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment. (Like most Ukrainian
soldiers, Hulk prefers to be identified by his call sign.)
Ukraine has managed to sustain an armed force of about 1 million, and even those
who are suffering from pain and mental trauma, who might seem like the most
obvious people to give up, carry on.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, 48-year-old Hulk ran a
business in Kyiv. During a combat mission in October 2022, he stepped on a
landmine and lost part of his right leg. Doctors told him his rehabilitation
would take a year, but he returned to the front lines in just a month and a
half, after receiving his prosthetic.
The secret to his resilience is simple, Hulk said: “We cannot imagine our
children living under occupation. My motivation is to prevent that.”
Of course the psychological trauma is immense. Dr. Oleh Berezyuk, one of
Ukraine’s leading psychiatrists, is helping Ukrainians to heal from the war at a
rehabilitation center in Lviv for veterans called Unbroken.
One of the most effective therapies, Berezyuk told The Daily Beast, is art. One
of the drawings he showed The Daily Beast depicted the hell of war. It showed a
throne with, bizarrely, a red star sitting on it.
“The patient was convinced he had a mission to make order out of a messy hell,
and if he couldn’t do that, he would kill everybody, including me and his other
doctors,” said Berezyuk, a specialist on psychological trauma from war. “Even
now I have goosebumps when I remember the first sessions” with the patient, a
23-year-old named Volodymyr, he added.
Berezyuk uses many progressive methods of psychological rehabilitation. One of
them is weaving therapy. Wounded soldiers and civilians push on four pedals of a
loom, pull colorful threads, and count rows to create patterns. “The method
shows impressive results with patients with concussions, brain injury, and
depression, helping them to heal, to stay unbroken,” said Berezyuk, who is also
an advocate of micro doses of antidepressants, even in extremely complicated
cases.
The horrors of war have been causing mental trauma to millions of Ukrainians for
three years. Tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded, including
more than 1,000 children. People lost loved ones, homes, whole cities—the wounds
both physical and mental multiply every day. And yet the country continues to
fight. This winter, Ukrainian cities are struggling with electricity and
heating, but municipal workers quickly fix the infrastructure destroyed by
Russian drones and missiles. Volunteers clean up the ruins and life goes on.
Ever since the early days of the war, the Unbroken center has been packed with
patients. The doctors were overwhelmed with the number of mental health cases.
These were former soldiers who arrived after prisoner swaps who had spent many
months in Russian prisons, and wounded soldiers fresh from months or years of
trench fighting.
“We have no other option but to survive, stay unbroken and mobilize our
resources,” Berezyuk said. “This is not the first time we suffer from Russian
invasion and occupation, but this time technology helps us against
disinformation and manipulation. They miscalculated in Moscow. We’ve learned our
lessons, and this time we were the most prepared.” The 23-year-old patient
Voldoymyr, who drew the picture of hell, in fact recovered relatively quickly,
Berezyuk said. If he had “ended up in an ordinary psychiatric clinic, he would
have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on heavy medication,” Berezyuk
said. “We asked our patient to paint his horrors.”
The doctors diagnosed Volodymyr with psychosis but tried psychotherapy instead
of ant-psychotic drugs: “The patient took me to his hell, we were there
together.” Signs of recovery came in three weeks. The last drawing the patient
sketched depicted a house, a road, and a family. “We saw hope,” Berezyuk said.
Wartime in Ukraine is extremely depressing. Unthinkable violence becomes a
reality. People live with daily air alerts, reading news of explosions, war
crimes, ruined hospitals, and schools and casualties of the Russian military
forces advancing in the eastern regions of the country. Even short trips to
Ukraine leave many Western visitors traumatized.
“What keeps us unbroken is the notion that we are on the right side of history,
that our people are heroes, that we are a united civil society supported by
dozens of Western countries,” a young patient, Katia, told The Daily Beast
earlier this month. She could not talk long, as she was suffering from severe
PTSD after losing her mother in the eastern Donetsk region. An August report by
the Red Cross said that more than 70 percent of Ukrainians experienced stress or
severe anxiety, “around 15 million Ukrainians will need psychological support in
the future, with about 3-4 million requiring medication.” Psychology is one of
the most popular professional fields among Ukrainian students today. People
research, study, and help each other to survive.
“We teach resilience—this is a necessary part of human life today, when we live
and work in conditions of high risk and political turbulence,” the head of the
nonprofit Daily Humanity’s 2402 Foundation, Katerina Sergatskova, told The Daily
Beast. “We train, unite people, exchange experience, and strategize.”
Berezyuk studied in Chicago, and as soon as the war began, he got in touch and
began to brainstorm with colleagues at Yale, Harvard, and Brown universities,
along with specialists in France and Germany. It was a new moment in
psychotherapy and joint research into the best way to heal from the war.
“Our American colleagues told me not to make the mistake the United States made
after Vietnam, when they lost more soldiers after the war than on battlefields,
to alcohol and suicide,” Berezyuk said.
“They all have seen that hell,” he said. “The eyes of death looking at them from
the dark. These patients nail you to the wall with their penetrating eyes. They
search for how sincere you are with them, if you really care,” Berezyuk said.
“Sometimes it takes one session to develop the trust to reveal that core thing
to them—that I really do care and will help them stay resilient.”
**Commander Yuriy Fedorenko founded the Achilles Regiment with strict rules:
respect the law, never drink alcohol, always stay shoulder to shoulder with your
comrades. “I was wounded too, but despite the fact that there were health
restrictions, I joined the army from the first day of the full-scale invasion,”
Fedorenko told The Daily Beast. “There is no other way to protect your family,
city, and state, except with weapons in your hands.”
Trump must keep arming Ukraine if he wants a good peace
deal ...Europe must do its fair share, but it cannot carry the burden alone.
John Hardie/ Defense One/February 10/2025
The Trump White House briefly halted and then quietly resumed arms shipments to
Ukraine amid internal disagreement over U.S. assistance for Kyiv. The
administration landed on the right move, but it has remained ambiguous about
whether aid will continue. If President Donald Trump wants to get a peace deal
that preserves American interests, he should focus on gaining leverage over
Russia. This will require not only tougher economic sanctions but also continued
military support for Ukraine.
Cutting arms supplies, perhaps as part of some ill-conceived effort to
strong-arm Kyiv, would make little sense. Ukraine isn’t the obstacle to peace.
As Trump said, the Ukrainian government has clearly demonstrated it’s “ready to
negotiate a deal.”
The problem, rather, is Vladimir Putin. As much as the Russian leader might try
to sweet-talk Trump about his readiness to negotiate, he really means he’s ready
to accept Ukraine’s capitulation. For Putin, this war isn’t just about grabbing
more territory in eastern Ukraine. It’s about his longstanding goal of making
Ukraine a vassal state, a core issue in his broader confrontation with the West.
Fortunately, Russia has been unable to realize this goal through military
efforts. But Putin will strive to exploit potential peace talks to achieve his
ambitions.
The Kremlin’s demands are brazen. It insists that Kyiv cede territory, abandon
hope of joining NATO, and swallow other constraints on its sovereignty,
including limits on Ukraine’s military. Moscow even seems to hold out hope of
replacing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a more pliable
alternative. Hence its contention that his electoral mandate has expired and
Ukraine requires new elections to legitimize any final peace deal—a ruse that
U.S. officials shouldn’t fall for. Russia also insists a peace deal must be part
of a broader framework that redresses the conflict’s supposed “root causes,”
including by limiting NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe.
Russia’s terms wouldn’t just hurt Ukraine; they’d also jeopardize important U.S.
interests. Leaving Ukraine vulnerable to further Russian aggression would raise
the likelihood of a follow-on war, already a strong possibility. If Putin
believes he’s prevailed in a contest of wills over Ukraine despite everything
the West has thrown at him, that would hardly strengthen NATO deterrence.
Observing this American weakness, China might similarly grow more inclined
toward aggression against Taiwan.
To maximize chances for a good deal, Trump needs leverage. He’s smartly
threatened economic punishment if Russia remains obstinate. Keith Kellogg,
Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, has suggested lowering the G7 price cap on Russian
oil exports, while Trump says he wants to work with Saudi Arabia to lower oil
prices. These good ideas should be paired with, inter alia, tougher sanctions on
vessels and entities helping Russia circumvent the G7 mechanism. Russia’s
so-called “shadow fleet” should be forced to stay at anchor.
Trump should consider tightening sanctions on Russian oil revenue now rather
than waiting for Putin to play hardball. Russia’s economic woes are growing, but
at the current pace the war may not become economically unsustainable until 2026
or later. Tougher sanctions enforced immediately could shorten that timeline and
promote a quicker deal.
Still, economic tools alone won’t be enough. Current battlefield trends, along
with uncertainty over future U.S. aid, bolster Moscow’s bargaining power and
incentivize Putin to keep pressing his advantage.
Ukrainian forces remain on the back foot as Russia continues to make slow but
steady gains, primarily because Ukrainian units are short on infantry. While
Russia’s creeping advance comes with heavy losses of men and materiel, which
Moscow eventually won’t be able to sustain, the risk is that Ukraine’s defensive
capabilities could deteriorate faster. This risk would grow if Washington halted
military aid.
Europe must do its fair share, but it cannot carry the burden alone, especially
in munitions production. Without consistent infusions of U.S. artillery
ammunition, for example, Russia could regain firepower superiority and Ukraine’s
overstretched infantry would suffer higher casualty rates. This is precisely
what happened during the previous aid cutoff in early 2024. Likewise, absent
American support, Ukraine would struggle to protect its critical infrastructure
from Russian missiles.
To help Ukraine stabilize its lines and to show Russia it can’t outlast U.S.
resolve, Trump should publicly commit to continue providing Kyiv with military
assistance. Much of this, especially in the near term, simply comes down to
delivering materiel promised under Biden. Trump should also ask Congress to pass
a “Ukraine leverage” bill that ensures his aid authority and funding won’t run
out. This assistance could be funded in creative ways that shift the burden off
the American taxpayer, such as loans or utilizing frozen Russian assets.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials should continue pushing Kyiv to mobilize younger men
to address its manpower shortage. And Washington and its allies also need to
work out plans for credible security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent a
follow-on war.
As Trump has correctly observed, the “only way” to get a good deal “is not to
abandon” Ukraine. He’s made clear he wants the killing to stop. So does Ukraine.
Now the trick is to convince Putin that fighting on won’t get him anywhere.
Mark Montgomery is a senior director and senior fellow at Foundation for Defense
of Democracies, where John Hardie is the Russia Program Deputy Director.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/02/trump-must-keep-arming-ukraine-if-he-wants-good-peace-deal/402827/?oref=d1-featured-river-top
A suppressed voice for truth from within the United
Nations
Ben Cohen/Jewish News Syndicate/February 10/ 2025
https://www.jns.org/a-suppressed-voice-for-truth-from-within-the-united-nations/
Alice Nderitu sought to make forgotten conflicts in the world a topic of
discussion and action, but everyone wanted her to focus on what she wouldn’t
call a genocide in Gaza.
When histories of the war in the Gaza Strip are written—a war triggered by the
Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—the name of Alice Nderitu
probably won’t garner more than a footnote at best. That’s an enormous shame
because Nderitu’s courage in confronting the institutionalized obsession of the
United Nations with the Palestinians takes us to the heart of the great issues
wrapped up in this conflict—its purpose, the manner in which it has been fought
and the manner in which it has been presented to the outside world.
The story of Nderitu’s ordeal as the U.N.’s Special Advisor for the Prevention
of Genocide was the subject of an engaging piece by Johanna Berkman published
last week by the online magazine Air Mail. Nderitu took over the unpaid position
during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She lasted for nearly four years in the
post before U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres decided against renewing her
commission last November following a sustained and often abusive campaign
directed at Nderitu—a storied human-rights advocate from Kenya—for her refusal
to label the fighting in Gaza as a “genocide.”
At the time, Guterres’s decision to effectively sever Nderitu was the subject of
a scathing Wall Street Journal editorial that accused the international
organization of a “new low” in its efforts to tarnish Israel as the worst
offender among its member states, which include such human-rights luminaries as
Russia, China and North Korea. But by and large, the scandal passed unnoticed
among the chattering classes, despite their tendency to dip their toes into the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict with agonized appeals on behalf of the “people of
Gaza” from time to time. The same was true for the Air Mail piece profiling her;
while the Free Press republished it, everyone else pretty much ignored it.
One key reason why was identified by Nderitu herself in her interview with
Berkman. For nearly three of the four years of her U.N. tenure, she was
incredibly busy but also mostly unnoticed. Her work took her to refugee camps in
Bangladesh and Iraq, to the Brazilian interior to monitor the fates of
indigenous tribes, and to Chad, where she saw firsthand the impact of the
burgeoning ethnic slaughter that has raged, largely outside the media’s view, in
neighboring Sudan. “For these other situations,” she said, “nobody seems to
bother with what I say.”
The core point that emerges from the profile of Nderitu is that she desperately
wants to make these forgotten conflicts a central topic of discussion and
action. Reading her comments, I felt a distinct mix of disgust and shame when
she related being told by Sudanese refugees: “Right now, nobody is paying
attention to our country. If there is ever peace and the cameras go in, you will
face the most shocking thing of the century, a genocide that was completely
ignored.” That observation is unarguable.
But after the slaughter on Oct. 7, suddenly everyone wanted a piece of Alice
Nderitu. They did so not to beseech her to call the Hamas atrocities, which she
condemned, a “genocide,” but to compel her to apply the “genocide” determination
to Israel, even before the Israel Defense Forces launched its campaign to
destroy the Hamas rape squads in Gaza.
This is a good juncture to note that Nderitu is not an advocate of Israel’s side
in this war. Nor is she, as far as I am aware, a supporter of Israel more
generally. And that’s fine because as a consummate professional, she understands
that her personal leanings are not relevant to her work as a genocide prevention
expert. As she says, a genocide determination can only be made by a court of
law, and no court—despite the efforts of South Africa; Ireland; Karim Khan, the
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague; and sundry
others—has done so thus far.
But in the eyes of those for whom Gaza is all-consuming, Nderitu’s determination
to stick to the correct procedure was an unmistakable sign of collusion with the
hated “Zionist entity.”“Filthy zionist rat, you will burn in hell forever,” read
one of the more unhinged emails that arrived in her inbox. Her other detractors
essentially said the same, albeit in politer language.
As Nderitu emphasizes, the rush to excoriate Israel is the flipside of the
absence of any loudly expressed, ongoing advocacy for populations suffering in
conflict zones from Kurdistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s why the
U.N. Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization each have a
dedicated agenda item to condemn Israel but no other country; why there is a
dedicated agency, in the form of UNRWA, for the descendants of Palestinian
refugees but no one else; and why U.N headquarters in New York City houses a
Division for Palestinian Rights but not the rights of any other beleaguered
nation. These institutions are the concrete expression of a strategy that relies
on maintaining the status of the Palestinians as victims by not integrating them
into the Arab countries where most of them live—in marked contrast to Israel’s
integration of thousands of Mizrachi Jews ethnically cleansed from the Islamic
world—and by keeping alive the preposterous and morally reprehensible notion
that they will one day “return home” and displace their “colonizers.”
That is why, despite many potential flaws on a practical level, U.S. President
Donald Trump’s proposal to offer the mass of Gazans voluntary, assisted
resettlement in other countries while the coastal enclave is rebuilt should be
seen as another attempt to break this mold. Because for as long as the
Palestinian question is understood as a purely Israeli creation—one for which
the Jewish state alone must atone and pay the price, and one that the world must
prioritize at the expense of everything and everybody else—there will never be
peace. At best, we will have troughs and peaks of mostly containable conflict,
as has been the case for the last century. Many years ago, I read an interview
with the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who remains imprisoned in Turkey, in
which he expressed hope for a resolution of the Palestinian issue since that
would allow other issues that receive less attention, like Kurdish
self-determination, to enter the spotlight. Neither the Kurds nor anyone else
should be forced to wait in line anymore.
If Trump’s proposal compels a shift in how the conflict between Palestinians and
Israelis is conceptualized and presented, along with the realization that the
peace of the world doesn’t hinge upon it, then it will have been worth it for
that reason alone.
**Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies (FDD) and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach, specializing in
global antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Middle East/European Union relations. A
London-born journalist with 30 years of experience, he previously worked for BBC
World and has contributed to Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, Tablet and
Congressional Quarterly. He was a senior correspondent at The Algemeiner for
more than a decade and is a weekly columnist for JNS. Cohen has reported from
conflict zones worldwide and held leadership roles at the Anti-Defamation League
and the American Jewish Committee. His books include Some of My Best Friends: A
Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.
U.S. Treasury Should Target Iran’s Trading Partners
Saeed Ghasseminejad & Janatan Sayeh/FDD-Policy Brief/February 10/2025 |
“Make Iran broke again,” declared Scott Bessent, the incoming Treasury
secretary, shortly before his confirmation. That is a realistic goal given
Iran’s isolation from the international financial markets, which, coupled with a
lack of foreign direct investment, has left its economy heavily reliant on
exports for generating hard currency. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
estimates that Tehran had exports of $439 billion during the four years of the
Biden presidency. Reducing that figure would deal a considerable blow to Iran’s
economy.
Iran’s Non-Oil Exports Increased by 18 percent
According to Tehran’s deputy minister of economy and the head of the Iran
Customs Administration, the country’s non-oil exports reached $43.1 billion from
April to December 2024, marking an 18 percent increase compared to the same
period the previous year.
The country’s non-oil exports included 50.7 million tons of petrochemical
products, valued at $19.7 billion, or 46 percent of total non-oil exports,
showing a 32 percent rise in value.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) worth $6 billion, liquefied propane worth $2.5
billion, and methanol worth $1.9 billion were the three major non-oil export
items, all of which are under U.S. sanctions.
Altogether, 70 to 80 percent of Iran’s non-oil export revenue comes from sectors
— such as petrochemicals, energy, and industrial metals — that are under
sanctions.
China, Iraq, UAE, and Turkey Are Top Importers From Iran
The country’s largest non-oil export destinations were China, with $11 billion;
Iraq, with $9.4 billion; the United Arab Emirates, with $5.3 billion; Turkey,
with $5.2 billion; Afghanistan, with $1.7 billion; Pakistan, with $1.7 billion;
and India, with $1.4 billion. These seven countries collectively accounted for
82.8 percent of the country’s non-oil exports by value.
UAE is Top Exporter to Iran, With China, Turkey, and Germany Trailing It
Iran’s imports during the first nine months of the Persian year 1403, April to
December 2024, amounted to $50.9 billion. Iran imports consumer, agricultural,
capital, and intermediary goods. The latter two are important to keeping Iran’s
industries operational, while the first two play a crucial role in curbing
discontent among the populace.
The largest exporters to Iran were the United Arab Emirates, with $15.3 billion;
China, with $13 billion; Turkey, with $8.9 billion; Germany, with $1.8 billion;
India and Russia, with $1.1 billion. Eighty-three percent of the country’s
imports by value during this period were from these seven countries.
Raw gold worth $5.6 billion, livestock corn worth $2.1 billion, and smartphones
worth $1.7 billion were the three major import items. Trading precious metals
with Iran is prohibited by the United States and subject to secondary sanctions.
Iran is most likely using imports of precious metals as a way to repatriate its
oil exports revenue.
Oil Exports
Iran treats the volume and value of its oil exports as a state secret. However,
it likely generated around $40 billion of revenue from oil in 2024. According to
the UANI Tanker Tracker database, Iran exported 587 million barrels of oil in
2024, averaging 1.6 million barrels per day — an 11 percent increase from the
previous year and 60 percent more than what it exported in 2020. Assuming a 10
percent discount on Brent crude, this resulted in nearly $43 billion in oil
export revenue. By cutting the 100,000 barrels per day once sent to Syria —
likely without payment — Iran likely earned around $40 billion from oil exports.
However, it remains unclear how much of a discount Tehran offered to China, what
percentage of this revenue became fully and readily accessible, and what level
of commission it paid to money launderers and sanctions busters to facilitate
these transactions.
Hold Iran’s Trading Partners Accountable
Iran’s fragile economy remains the regime’s greatest vulnerability, making the
restriction of its trade and access to hard currency a strategic imperative.
Achieving this requires exerting pressure on Ankara, Abu Dhabi, and Baghdad to
scale back their illicit trade with Tehran. Given Beijing’s pivotal role in
sustaining Iran’s economy, more assertive measures are crucial. This includes
directly designating Chinese firms with an international footprint and the banks
and financial institutions that facilitate the illicit trade with Tehran, along
with their top executives, rather than merely sanctioning front companies.
**Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where ***Janatan Sayeh is a
research analyst. They contribute to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic
and Financial Power (CEFP). Follow the authors on X @SGhasseminejad and @JanatanSayeh.
For more analysis from Saeed and Janatan, please subscribe HERE. FDD is a
Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy_briefs/2025/02/07/u-s-treasury-should-target-irans-trading-partners/
China Tests Trump's Resolve
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/February 10, 2025
If the US fails to support its ally by treaty, the Philippines, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) propaganda machine and Chinese diplomats will likely seek
to sow doubts about US resolve into the capitals of America's Pacific allies.
China seems to claim a lot of waters, such as "almost all" of the South China
Sea, as well as land, including Tibet; Arunachal Pradesh in northern India; the
"near-Arctic," and Taiwan, which has never been part of mainland China.
The Trump administration immediately needs to short-circuit all "exploratory"
moves by China. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might order Seventh Fleet and
US Pacific Command's air assets to strengthen their presence near the
Philippines and the Pacific. Any firm message to China that America will stand
by its allies throughout free Asia would be of help.
The Trump administration immediately needs to short-circuit all "exploratory"
moves by China. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might order Seventh Fleet and
US Pacific Command's air assets to strengthen their presence near the
Philippines and the Pacific. Any firm message to China that America will stand
by its allies throughout free Asia would be of help. China's State Council
Tariff Commission released a list of 72 items that would fall under the 10%
tariffs. Much of that list was related to agriculture, including several types
of tractors, harvesters and other large pieces of farming equipment.
The list of U.S. imports that will be subject to 15% tariffs was far shorter,
listing just eight types of coal and natural gas.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) President Xi Jinping might gin up further crises
to test the mettle of President Donald J. Trump, just as he has tested the
resolve of all recent incoming administrations.
Most have tried to defuse these confrontations by accommodating China, rewarding
it with "incentives" and "concessions," and mostly backing down. Intellectual
property theft and fentanyl poisoning have been out of control for some time. In
addition, the Biden administration cancelled the China Initiative "to counter
Beijing's theft of American intellectual property;" permitted (after a name
change) the continued operation on US soil of Confucius Institutes -- which had
been closed down under the prior Trump administration for being "soft power
propaganda missions"; allowed illegal CCP police stations throughout the US, and
the "spy balloon" to gather intelligence from America's most sensitive military
sites. Xi may be more careful with Trump, who has already successfully rebutted
a few attempts to impose his will.
The US also has a history of apologizing.
George H.W. Bush's decision to dispatch National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft to China shortly after the June 1989 Tiananmen massacre was meant to
reassure CCP leaders that, after a decent interval, things would return to
normal. This turned out, unfortunately, to be the wrong move. Bush himself
crafted the humiliating US posture by informing China only days after Tiananmen,
"now is the time to look beyond the moment to important and enduring aspects of
this relationship, vital to the United States."
President Bill Clinton, after campaign charges that Bush had been soft on China,
did an about-face. Clinton promised that if China improved its human rights
record, he would endorse its request to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Clinton also provided Communist China with rocket technology, ostensibly "to
give China incentives to honor their commitments," according to a White House
official at the time. Of course, a rocket launcher that can launch a
communications satellite can also launch ballistic missiles.
Clinton, furthermore, bypassed Congress by issuing an executive decision in
support of Beijing's WTO application, and followed up this policy by rewarding
China with a Most Favored Nation trade status.
President George W. Bush apologized to repatriate 24 American servicemen who had
crash-landed on China's island province of Hainan. The reason for the US
reconnaissance plane's emergency landing, however, has been reckless behavior by
the pilot of a Chinese J-8 interceptor aircraft. The Chinese pilot had flown
within 20 feet of the US plane, before clipping its wing, resulting in the death
of the China's pilot. After 11 days, the Chinese finally released the US
personnel, but not before Bush had apologized twice, once for the death of the
Chinese pilot and a second time for violating Chinese airspace. CCP propaganda
outlets circulated throughout the world "The Letter of the Two Sorries".
President Barack Obama, during his initial meeting with Xi, seemed confident
that he had elicited a pledge from the Chinese dictator not to militarize
several artificial islands that China had built in the Pacific. Xi then wasted
no time militarizing them. Several of these artificial islands now have air
defense missile batteries, naval gun sites and long-range bomber airfields.
Obama's administration, after issuing a few verbal denunciations, appeared to
accept China's fait accompli. When China seized the Scarborough Shoal, an island
also claimed by the Philippines, a US ally, Obama again did nothing.
President Donald Trump, in his first administration, finally broke this cycle of
allowing the US to be deceived and humiliated. He cancelled Defense Secretary
James Mattis's planned trip to Beijing after the Chinese destroyer Lanzhou came
within 45 yards of the destroyer, USS Decatur in September 2018.
China's latest manufactured crisis appeared to be already in its opening act.
The aggressor was China; the victim, the Philippines, again.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, Chinese Coast Guard boats were harassing Philippine
fishermen and research vessels that were searching for hydrocarbons and natural
gas deposits in waters claimed by China, which seems to claim a lot of waters,
such as "almost all" of the South China Sea, as well as land, including Tibet;
Arunachal Pradesh in northern India; the "near-Arctic," and Taiwan, which has
never been part of mainland China. In another maneuver, a Chinese vessel fired
water cannons at three Philippine boats, one of which suffered major engine
damage. Still another incident reportedly involved Chinese personnel attacking
Filipino sailors with lasers.
China's most recent maneuvers appear to be trying to signal to Washington that
China will not back off its exorbitant claims of territorial and maritime
sovereignty, despite the recent opening of additional US bases in the
Philippines.
Second, Chinese strategic planners may be trying to see if the US is willing to
risk a military clash with China over its incursions into the Philippines'
Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). If the US fails to support its ally by treaty,
the Philippines, the CCP propaganda machine and Chinese diplomats will likely
seek to sow doubts about US resolve into the capitals of America's Pacific
allies.
China might also want to check if a coalition of Asian nations backed by the
United States will be able to derail it from realizing its hegemonic ambitions
in the Western Pacific. Third, if the CCP sees that the new Trump administration
is found wanting in its commitment to defend the Philippines' sovereignty, China
might be tempted to engage in adventurous behavior against Taiwan, as well as
other properties in the Pacific. China has already effectively taken over the
Solomon Islands.
The Trump administration immediately needs to short-circuit all "exploratory"
moves by China. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might order Seventh Fleet and
US Pacific Command's air assets to strengthen their presence near the
Philippines and the Pacific. Any firm message to China that America will stand
by its allies throughout free Asia would be of help.
**Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in
the Air Force Reserve.
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not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
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or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
America and Sizes after the Earthquake
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
This is America. The world’s most powerful economy. The master of sea and skies.
The land of prestigious universities, inventors, innovators and pioneers of the
technological and digital revolution. It is capable of striking any target in
the global village. It can listen to what you are whispering in your own home or
at a cafe. The world is asking it to adapt to it, but it responds by demanding
that it adapt to the US.
When it elects a president, it is effectively electing a president of the world
as well. This is especially true if that president is Donald Trump. The Chinese
president must keep his eye on the White House for any surprises that may arise.
The master of the Kremlin must wait for his approval to end the Russian war on
Ukraine. The leaders of elderly Europe must pray that the US president will show
mercy to relations with NATO and the European Union. What applies there also
applies to the Middle East.
This is America. How difficult it is to be its enemy. Battles with it are
costly. It killed the Soviet Union without firing a single shot. Moammar
al-Gaddafi pestered it, and it responded by terrorizing him in his own bedroom.
Saddam Hussein defied it, so it toppled his regime and tied a noose around his
neck.
The US takes losses and setbacks, but comes right back with the support of its
economy and history’s most powerful military machine. How difficult it is to be
its friend. It is a thorny and tumultuous, but necessary relationship. It is
difficult to wash your hands clean of it. Ignoring it will sideline you. It is
like a bitter pill that you must take regardless of the side effects. How
difficult it is to dance with the master of the White House and Trump. This is
America. It was necessary to deal with it to end the massacre in Gaza and ensure
the release of hostages and prisoners. Dealing with it was necessary to end the
Israeli war on Lebanon and prevent it from turning into another Gaza. The Middle
East has known the story for decades. The US is a side and a mediator. It has
the ability to end wars, but that comes at a price, especially given the close
ties between it and Israel, and Trump and Netanyahu.
In Beirut, the visitor doesn’t need to be reminded of the earthquake that hit
the region. The ceasefire that was engineered by former US envoy Amos Hochstein
does not prevent the Israeli drones from hovering above the capital and
punishing anyone it deems hostile. It doesn’t prevent it from wiping out
Lebanese villages bordering Israel.
The sound of the drones reminds us of the upending of the balance of power that
existed before the war. Hezbollah is no longer capable of waging a new war with
Israel. It lost thousands of fighters and its most prominent leader Hassan
Nasrallah. It is a loss that won’t be easily replaced. It lost its reach inside
Syria that was its lifeline of weapons and finances from Iran. The party also
knows that the majority of the Lebanese people were opposed to its “support
front” and they are now clearly demanding that the possession of weapons be
limited to the state.
The consultations that preceded the formation of the new Lebanese government,
headed by Nawaf Salam, reflected the extent of the changes that took place after
the earthquake. Amid these circumstances emerged deputy US envoy to the Middle
East Morgan Ortagus after a meeting with President Joseph Aoun to lob her own
bombs. She demanded that the new Lebanese authorities form a government that
reflects the new balance of power after the earthquake. She ignored the complex
and difficult relations between parties and segments.
Luckily, Aoun and Salam succeeded in forming a government that enjoys regional
and international support and that avoided stirring tensions in Lebanon. It is
evident that the American beauty uses the same dictionary as Trump that allowed
him to suggest removing the people from Gaza ahead of transforming the enclave
into a beautiful “riviera.”There can be no denying the extent of the major
earthquake that struck the region. Netanyahu has gloated that his wars changed
the Middle East. It isn’t easy for the world to hinge helping Lebanon on the
full implementation of UN resolution 1701. This means taking Hezbollah out of
any military confrontation with Israel. This not only means taking Hezbollah
down a few sizes, but also reducing Iran’s role in the region.
The sizes after the earthquake will be an issue that will preoccupy the region
in the near future. Iran wasn’t dealt a complete defeat in Lebanon, but it was
in Syria. Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa is acting with responsibility
that has impressed his guests. He is taking into consideration the regional and
international facts, realizing the importance of Syria’s return to its Arab
family. He has used reassuring rhetoric, encouraging western nations to be open
to Damascus, ahead of helping Syria in its reconstruction and become a beacon
for stability.
Trump is addressing Iran while taking into consideration its losses in the
earthquake. He is proposing that he won’t strike it – meaning Israel will not
attack its nuclear facilities if it agrees to a new deal that also includes its
missile arsenal and regional proxies. It won’t be easy for the Iranian supreme
leader to agree to the new size of his country at a time when Türkiye has
assumed a new role in the region through Syria. Amid these new sizes lies a
problem that is a lack of an American approach towards the Palestinian issue.
The people of the region know that the Palestinians are not searching for land
to reside on. They are searching for their land and will not agree to an
alternative. The only solution to this destructive and long conflict lies in the
two-state solution that the Arab and Islamic countries and Europeans are
committed to.
The Palestinians must obtain their rights and know the limits of Israel’s
borders and its size. Only the two-state solution can defuse the chronic
fighting in the region and pave the way for the establishment of normal
countries whose governments are focused on joining the age and strengthening
their economies and stability instead of becoming embroiled in the battle over
sizes.
Hubris That Must Be Stopped
Abdul Ilah Khatib/Asharq Al Awsat/February 10/2025
Since the outset of the war Israel launched following Hamas’s attack on October
7, 2023, many observers have been expressing fears of a sweeping victory for
Israel. Led by Netanyahu and the far-right government, such an Israeli victory
would have catastrophic consequences- not only for Palestine, its people, land,
and cause, but for the entire Arab region.
The primary explicit objectives of the war were to forcibly free the hostages,
destroy Hamas, and bring an end to its rule in Gaza. However, the far-right
government saw these developments as an opportunity to realize ambitions it has
long held. These ambitions extend beyond Gaza to “redrawing the regional map.”
Amid the prevailing emotional analyses in the Arab world, numerous perspectives
on how to define victory and defeat have emerged. While Israel has failed to
liberate the hostages (or captives, or detainees, depending on the differing
definitions) by force and has not completely annihilated Hamas (despite the
near-total destruction of Gaza during its genocidal war), it would be a stretch
to claim that Israel has not achieved objectives that go beyond those that it
had initially announced.
In addition to tens of thousands of civilian casualties, the destruction of
infrastructure, and the obliteration of all the fundamentals of life in Gaza,
Israel also severely weakened adversaries. It also achieved significant gains
through its devastating campaign on Lebanon, which deeply hampered Hezbollah
and- at least temporarily- curtailed Iran’s influence in the region. These two
developments created the power vacuum that ultimately led to the collapse of the
Assad regime.
These outcomes have emboldened Israel’s far-right government and its supporters,
particularly in the United States. It has fueled their extremist ambitions, as
well as silenced and intimidated skeptics of such actions’ long-term
repercussions on the stability of the region and the international order.
In light of this shift, we saw the idea of displacing Gaza’s residents, under
the pretext of reconstructing what Israel’s war had destroyed, gain traction.
Netanyahu first planted the seeds of this idea in his first meeting with Blinken
after October 7, suggesting the establishment of a humanitarian corridor to
transfer Gazans to Sinai. The idea later resurfaced in a more elaborated form
during a discussion at Harvard University, though it was not taken seriously at
the time. However, it gradually built steam, so much so that it was endorsed by
the US president, who publicly proposed it just two weeks after he took office.
This sinister plan cannot be understood in isolation from the infamous map that
Netanyahu presented to the UN General Assembly, nor his constant bluster about
successfully redrawing the region’s landscape.
The surge of arrogance and hubris has not only promoted the idea of displacing
Gazans to Egypt, Jordan, and other countries. It has gone as far as suggesting
that if Saudi Arabia seeks a Palestinian state, it should take in the
Palestinians and create one on parts of its own territory.
In practice, this extremist government is advocating that we throw out
everything that has been said, for decades, about Israel’s desire to live in
peace in the region through treaties with neighbors. Moving forward with such
initiatives would drag the region back to a time before the Arab-Israeli peace
agreements. We would be back to square one.
Sentiments aside, such a coarse approach would open the door to conflict and
perilous repercussions that neither the region nor the international community
could afford.
These risks and challenges should be enough reason for the development of a
collective effort to confront them through joint action by influential Arab
states, as standing up to this hubris is far beyond the capacity of any single
nation alone.
If Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are currently the primary targets, it would
come as no surprise if this circle of targets expands further. Cooperation among
these three countries, with the genuine support of the Gulf states, would be
necessary for creating an effective international counterweight. This coalition
represents the backbone of stability and moderation in the region. It has
economic and political leverage, as well as an extensive network of global
allies. These assets could play a decisive role in shaping the world’s stance on
this unchecked arrogance and the reckless ambitions it has fueled. The world
cannot afford to stand back. Without such a concerted effort, this hubris will
morph into a full-scale assault on the entire region.