English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 21/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
If God is for us, who can be against us? He
who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not
also with him freely give us all things
Romans 08/28-38/:"28 We know that all things work together for good for
those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom
he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brothers.‡ Whom he predestined, those he
also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those
he also glorified. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us,
who can be against us? He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up
for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? Who could
bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he
who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead,
who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written,
“For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the
slaughter. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor
height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from
God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on March 20-21/2025
St. Joseph’s Day Annual/Elias Bejjani//March 19/2025
Former Minister Youssef Salameh: Lebanon Needs a Prime Minister Who Upholds the
True Essence of the Taif Accord, Not Its Distortions. We Need Another Riad Solh—Not
Another Fouad Siniora.
Jihad Azour is involved in corruption and smuggling casesTo His Excellency
President Joseph_Aoun,
Link to a video interview from MTV with former judge Peter Germanos and judicial
journalist Youssef Diab
A Video link to a commentary the journalist Ali Hamada
President Aoun hosted an iftar at Baabda Palace: Our unity is our most precious
and greatest asset, and through it we can regain our rights, liberate our land,
and rebuild our country.
Lebanon committed to regaining confidence of Arab countries: Aoun
Israeli Army Opens Fire on Lebanese Citizen, Launches Airstrikes on South and
Beqaa
Report: Ortagus threatens Aoun and Salam with giving Israel freedom of action
Witkoff denies report on Israel talks, says Lebanon takes own decisions
Govt. approves appointments mechanism, Salam emphasizes on 'competency'
UNIFIL observes 7 Israeli activities in south Lebanon violating Resolution 1701
Hezbollah MP hails army, stresses state's role on Syria border
Hezbollah MP lashes out at Foreign Minister Rajji
German FM rejects 'any permanent occupation' by Israel on Lebanon visit
‘Governance’ Dispute Persists as BDL Reserves Hit $10.746B/Maurice Matta/This is
Beirut/March 20/2025
Lebanon Prepares to Hand Over 700 Syrian Detainees as Part of Bilateral
Agreement
Lebanon is the third unhappiest country in the world
IDF operations in Lebanon and Hezbollah casualty announcements over the past
week/David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/March 20/2025 |
Hezbollah must not be allowed to destroy Lebanon/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab
News/March 20, 2025
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on March 20-21/2025
At least 91 killed in Gaza as Israel scraps ceasefire, orders
evacuations
UN says renewed Gaza violence makes hostage return more distant
Israel says it intercepts two missiles launched from Yemen
Hamas says fired rockets at Tel Aviv in response to Gaza massacres
Analysis-In Israel, reservist burnout and little public appetite for more war in
Gaza
Netanyahu government approves firing of Shin Bet head amid protests
Israel’s president says worried over steps taken by Netanyahu’s government
Jordan’s Senate speaker criticizes Western ‘double standards’ on democracy at
Strasbourg conference
Houthi militant media reports fresh US strikes on Yemen
Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of
Istanbul mayor
Ukraine peace talks to resume in Riyadh on Monday
Carney will ask Governor General to dissolve Parliament Sunday and call
election, sources say
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on March 20-21/2025
Avoiding an Israel-Syria Showdown (Part 1): The Risks of
“Occupation”/David Schenker/The Washington Institute/Mar 20, 2025
Palestinians: 'We Are Dying Because of Hamas'/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone
Institute/March 20, 2025
Freedom of the Press in Ukraine/Efim Marmer//The Magazine/March 20/2025
Canada should call Trump’s bluff and drop all of its tariffs/Iain Murray,
opinion contributor/The Hill/March 20, 2025
The Right’s Sectarian Moment/Tony Badran/The Magazine/March 20/2025
Pressure Putin ...That’s what Trump must do to achieve a ceasefire/Clifford D.
May/The Washington Times/March 20/2025
The Iran Nuclear File/Mark Dubowitz & Richard Goldberg/The Iran Breakdown/March
20/2025
Nowruz a time of unity and hope, resilience and renewal/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News/March 20, 2025
Iran v. The Islamic Republic/Mark Dubowitz & Reza Pahlavi/FDD/March 20/2025
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on March 20-21/2025
St. Joseph’s Day Annual عيد ما يوسف البتول
Elias Bejjani//March 19/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/73094/
The Feast of Saint Joseph the Virgin, celebrated annually on March 19,
holds deep spiritual and familial significance, particularly for our Bejjani
family, Youssef, a name we have proudly carried for generations. On this blessed
anniversary, we implore God and His angels to protect our beloved son Youssef
and our grandson Joseph, both of whom bear this holy name.
This sacred feast is an important occasion in the Maronite-Roman Catholic
tradition, honoring the life of Saint Joseph, the esteemed stepfather of Jesus
and the chaste spouse of the Virgin Mary. Among devout believers, particularly
the Lebanese Maronites, March 19 is not only a day of commemoration but is also
regarded as the birthday of Saint Joseph. His life, characterized by devotion,
obedience, humility, and unwavering faith, serves as a guiding light for
countless families who hold him in deep reverence.
In Lebanon, Saint Joseph is venerated as the patron saint of families, admired
for his exemplary role as a devoted husband and father. His life embodies faith,
honesty, generosity, and tireless dedication—virtues long cherished and
practiced by Lebanese families and deeply rooted within our own family values.
Saint Joseph's divine mission was of the utmost importance; entrusted by God
with the care of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, he fulfilled his
responsibilities with deep love, dedication, and selflessness. As the earthly
guardian of the Holy Family, he exemplified loyalty and an unshakable commitment
to his divine calling, making him a timeless symbol of fatherhood, protection,
and faith.
As we honor Saint Joseph today, we reflect on the virtues he embodied—his
humility, strength, and steadfast devotion to carrying out God's will. May his
legacy continue to inspire us to fulfill our paternal and pastoral roles within
our families and communities, striving to emulate his unwavering faith, love,
and selflessness. On this holy and blessed day, we offer prayers of gratitude
and supplication to the Lord for all His gifts and blessings. We extend our
heartfelt blessings to all who bear the name Joseph, praying that they follow in
the footsteps of our beloved saint and uphold his virtuous example in their
lives.
Former Minister Youssef
Salameh: Lebanon Needs a Prime Minister Who Upholds the True Essence of the Taif
Accord, Not Its Distortions. We Need Another Riad Solh—Not Another Fouad Siniora.
March 20, 2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141404/
Former Minister Youssef Salameh issued the
following statement: A former prime minister
deliberately engineered a rift between the president and the prime minister,
obstructing the presidency’s momentum to derail the reform process and prevent
the full restoration of sovereignty. They all seem to forget that Lebanon is no
longer trapped in the 1990s or the early 21st century. We have entered a new
era—one that no longer tolerates leaders who serve foreign interests while
draining what remains of the nation's resources. Prime
Minister Nawaf Salameh, you negotiated appointments with the Shiite duo and
surrendered to their dictates, yet you found no hesitation in attacking
Christian positions. No surprise there—your backers and patrons have long been
accustomed to submission before the power of arms and the insatiable thirst for
control. Mr. Prime Minister, Lebanon does not need
another complicit figure. It needs a leader who embodies the true essence of the
Taif Accord, not its falsifications. We need another Riad Solh—not another Fouad
Siniora, with all due respect. Tread carefully; the road is laden with perilous
pitfalls.
‘The National Charter secured independence, while others cemented occupations.’
We will meet soon. Tomorrow is another day."
Jihad Azour is involved in corruption and smuggling casesTo His Excellency
President Joseph_Aoun,
Prime Minister Nawaf_Salam,
Minister of Finance Yassin_Jaber,
and the esteemed ministers,
The name of Jihad Azour is being strongly proposed for the position of Governor
of Banque_du_Liban, despite the existence of documents accusing him of
involvement in corruption cases and the smuggling of documents from the Ministry
of Finance to the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq.
How can someone facing such accusations be entrusted with the responsibility of
reforming Lebanon’s financial sector?
We raise this question to the President of the Republic, Members of Parliament,
and all ministers, asking: Can someone surrounded by corruption allegations
truly be a symbol of reform?
Watch the video
https://x.com/i/status/1902386641693548920
Link to a video interview
from MTV with former judge Peter Germanos and judicial journalist Youssef Diab
An in-depth reading of what has befallen the judiciary as a result of
Hezbollah’s debauchery and encroachment, under the cover of Michel Aoun. It also
examines the appointment mechanism and what is required to place the judiciary
above the health authority, in addition to the situation in the south and the
rumors about normalization with the State of Israel.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141423/
March 20, 2025
A Video link to a
commentary the journalist Ali Hamada
A Video link to a commentary the journalist Ali Hamada/ No reform, no financing,
no reconstruction, stability, no return to the state before the end of the state
and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement completely. The government
delays and turns away from Hezbollah's weapons and contradictions between its
members ... Hezbollah's weapon is a great mine that threatens the covenant and
the government and the possibilities of the return of the Israeli war.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141434/
March 20/2025
President Aoun hosted an
iftar at Baabda Palace: Our unity is our most precious and greatest asset, and
through it we can regain our rights, liberate our land, and rebuild our country.
NNA/March 20, 2025 (Translated from Arabic by Giigle)
President of the Republic, General Joseph Aoun, affirmed, "The legitimacy of any
authority in Lebanon—Lebanon, the entity, the nation, and the state—lies in our
being together. Our living together, our lives together. Our praying together,
our fasting together, and our breaking of the fast together. Our resisting
together. Our winning together. Our being happy for a time, or our being sad for
a moment together. Our togetherness is our antidote, to wipe away the sadness of
the moment and to perpetuate the joy of every moment together. In all
circumstances and at all times, we must remain together..."
He pointed out that he realized that the President of the Republic is the symbol
of the nation's unity, and this means and requires, "that I and all of you be
here, under this very roof: the roof of our state, our nation, and our covenant.
Because our unity is our most precious and greatest asset."
He pointed out that he realized that the President of the Republic is the symbol
of the nation's unity. He said: "With our unity here, we will regain all our
rights, liberate all our land, and recover all our prisoners. We will achieve
prosperity for our people and independence for our country. We will rebuild what
was destroyed, rise after every setback, and heal every wound until it is
healed. No group among us will be bereaved, no group among us will be violated,
no group among us will be oppressed."
President Aoun's remarks came during a Ramadan iftar banquet he hosted this
evening at Baabda Palace. This follows an annual tradition that has been forced
to cease for years due to the crises that have befallen Lebanon, on the one
hand, and the presidential vacuum that has plagued the country, on the other.
Participating in the iftar were Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, Prime
Minister Nawaf Salam, President General Michel Aoun, Deputy Speaker of
Parliament Elias Bou Saab, Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri, former prime
ministers Najib Mikati, Fouad Siniora, Tammam Salam, and Hassan Diab, as well as
ministers, representatives, and party leaders. The heads of the Christian
denominations in attendance were: Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi,
Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East Joseph I Absi, Greek
Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X Yazigi, Armenian Catholic
Patriarch Raphael Bedros XXI Minassian, Armenian Orthodox Catholic Patriarch
Aram I Keshishian, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan, Syriac
Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East Ignatius Aphrem II, Chaldean
Bishop Michel Kassarji, Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Lebanon and Syria Father
Andraos Antonios, Evangelical Bishop of Lebanon and Syria Father Joseph Kassab,
Apostolic Vicar of the Latins in Lebanon Bishop Cesar Assayane.
The event was attended by the heads of the Islamic sects: Grand Mufti of the
Republic Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, Vice President of the Supreme Islamic Shiite
Council Sheikh Ali al-Khatib, Sheikh Akl of the Druze Community Sami Abi
al-Mona, President of the Alawite Islamic Council Sheikh Ali Qaddour, in
addition to a number of bishops and sheikhs, the Papal Ambassador to Lebanon,
Monsignor Paolo Borgia, heads of Arab and Islamic diplomatic missions, Dean of
the Consular Corps Joseph Habis, heads of judicial authorities, commanders of
military and security agencies, administrative personnel, governors, members of
the Islamic-Christian Dialogue Committee, heads of the liberal professions,
directors and secretaries-general, and senior officials and advisors at the
Presidential Palace.
Before participating in the iftar banquet, a number of participants, led by the
Grand Mufti of the Republic, headed to the Ambassadors' Lounge at the
Presidential Palace, which was designated for prayer. Tripartite Meeting
Preceding the iftar meal, a meeting was held between President Aoun, Speaker
Berri, and Speaker Salam. The meeting addressed the current situation in the
country, particularly the situation in the south and on the eastern and
northeastern borders, and the need to restore calm and stability.
After the trilateral meeting, everyone moved to the May 25 Hall, where the
Ramadan iftar banquet was held. President Aoun's Speech
During the banquet, the President of the Republic delivered the following
speech: "Mr. Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Prime Minister, former presidents, Your
Eminences, Your Graces, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Your Excellencies,
Your Excellencies, Ministers, Representatives, and Ambassadors, distinguished
guests. This is not a speech. These are some words from the heart and from my
heart. I begin by revealing something personal to you. Today, I have spent 70
days in this edifice. From the first moment, I have been reading "the book," as
my great predecessor (President Fouad Chehab) liked to call it, the
Constitution. I often paused at two phrases: "There is no legitimacy for any
authority that contradicts the Coexistence Charter," and "The President of the
Republic is the head of state and the symbol of the nation's unity." I can be
honest with you now, and I have always asked myself about the dimensions of
these two phrases. What do they mean in depth and essence? What do they require
of me first, and of all of us, until I envisioned this scene and pictured this
image? So I understood everything that was meant, and grasped the full meaning.
Indeed, I am almost certain that the covenant and the constitution were revealed
at a moment like this, and at a time like this. Thus, I realized that the
legitimacy of any authority in Lebanon, Lebanon the entity, the nation, and the
state, lies in us being together. Living together and leading our lives
together. Praying together, fasting together, and breaking our fast together.
Resisting together. Victory together. Rejoicing for a time, or grieving for a
moment together. Our togetherness is our antidote, to wipe away the sadness of
the moment, and to perpetuate the joy of every moment together. In all
circumstances and at all times, we must remain together... As for the President
of the Republic being the symbol of the nation's unity, I realized that this
means and requires that I and all of you be here, under this very roof. The roof
of our state, our nation, and our covenant. Because our unity is the most
precious and greatest thing we possess. It is our strength, our immunity, our
immunity, and our ability. It is our most effective weapon, our richest wealth,
and our most enduring good. With our unity here, we protect our homeland from
all aggression and greed. With our unity here, we regain all our rights,
liberate all our land, and recover all our prisoners. With our unity here, we
achieve prosperity for our people, stability for our society, and independence
for our country. With our unity here, we rebuild what was destroyed. And we
ensure that we do not allow destruction to occur again or periodically. With our
unity here, we plant joy in the eyes of our children and hope in their souls. We
reap a future worthy of the sacrifices and martyrdoms... and one that resembles
the color of those eyes. With our unity here, we rise after every stumble. We
triumph after every setback. We heal every wound until it is healed. And we
smile for every tomorrow, believing that it will be better. With our unity here,
no group of us will be grieved. No rights of ours will be violated. No group
among us will be oppressed. And if we forget for a moment about this foundation
in our earthly calendar, heavenly care comes from above, to unite the holy
season of fasting with the holy month of Ramadan. To remind us that the two
fasts are paths to one faith-based goal. Christian fasting is a prelude to
resurrection. The noble hadith affirms to Muslims that "when Ramadan begins, the
gates of Paradise are opened." Thus, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who
is "the Reminder," reminds us that we are one. That we are united and united
forever. Happy Ramadan and a blessed fast. Welcome to the edifice of faith in
our unity, and the unity of our faith in Lebanon. Long live Lebanon. Happy New
Year."
After the iftar, President Aoun shook hands with the invitees as they left
Baabda Palace.
Lebanon committed to regaining confidence of Arab countries: Aoun
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/March 20, 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanon is committed to regaining the confidence of Arab countries and
the world through reforms, President Joseph Aoun said on Thursday. He was
speaking at a meeting of Lebanese businessmen based in Saudi Arabia. The
president thanked the Kingdom for embracing expatriates and their families.
Addressing the delegation of the Lebanese Executives Council in the Kingdom,
Aoun said: “It is unacceptable to cover the repercussions of financial and
economic mismanagement using depositors’ funds, which have been frozen in
Lebanese banks since 2019.”The issue requires a solution in cooperation with
economic bodies, banks, the central bank, depositors and the state as soon as
possible, Aoun said.“Boosting the economic cycle and investment flow requires a
trustworthy banking sector,” he added. “This was a commitment in the oath speech
and is at the core of the government’s work, and we look forward to helping the
parliament by accelerating the process of issuing the necessary laws.”The
Lebanese president on Wednesday had informed German Foreign Minister Annalena
Baerbock that Israel’s occupation of areas in the south of the country hindered
the implementation of UN Resolution 1701 and contradicted the agreement reached
last November. His remarks came during the German official’s visit to Beirut.
Baerbock was then to head to Damascus on Thursday to reopen the German Embassy
in Syria. Aoun said that the Lebanese army, which has been deployed in all areas
vacated by Israeli forces, was carrying out its duty to enforce security and
seize weapons. He told the German minister that Israel had rejected all Lebanese
proposals to evacuate the five hills it still occupies and replace its forces
with international troops.
Diplomatic efforts and negotiations are continuing in a bid to find a solution
to the issue, the president said. Aoun also told Baerbock that Israel continues
to hold several Lebanese prisoners and had only released five nationals, an
issue that the government is “determined” to resolve. Also on Thursday,
Hezbollah reacted to Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji’s statements a day earlier,
accusing the party of “reneging on the ceasefire agreement between it and
Israel, despite the agreement being clear on which groups are allowed to bear
arms.”During a meeting with the Maronite League, Rajji highlighted “diplomatic
efforts to end the Israeli occupation,” and said that “Lebanon’s goal is to
return to the 1949 Armistice Agreement, and the only solution is international
pressure, particularly from the US. “The conditions are clear: The full
implementation of Resolution 1701 and the cessation of military operations.
These are tough conditions caused by the party that entered the war and delayed
acknowledging the necessity of a ceasefire,” he added. However, Rajji said that
Lebanon “will not accept any direct political negotiations with Israel.” In
response, Hezbollah MP Ibrahim Al-Moussawi said on Thursday that the foreign
minister’s remarks harmed national interests and distorted facts, “ultimately
providing Israel with additional justifications for its aggression.”Al-Moussawi
added that Hezbollah remained committed to “what the Lebanese government agreed
upon through UN Resolution 1701.” He said the foreign minister should have
condemned Israel’s crimes and highlighted them to the international community,
instead of directing accusations at Hezbollah. Al-Moussawi urged the government
to correct the “irresponsible statements” made by Rajji. Similarly, Hezbollah
Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem accused the foreign minister of “providing
Israel with an excuse to continue its aggression, a stance that is inappropriate
for any Lebanese government official. “We have adhered to the agreement while
Israel continues to violate it,” he added.
Israeli Army Opens Fire on
Lebanese Citizen, Launches Airstrikes on South and Beqaa
This is Beirut/March 20/2025
Three Israeli fighter jets carried out air raids on the outskirts of Jbaa and
al-Bureij in southern Lebanon on Thursday night. The strikes were accompanied by
low-altitude flights over the South and the Beqaa. The warplanes fired four
missiles, targeting areas between Jbaa, Zhalti and Senya in the South. In the
Beqaa, two additional airstrikes were reported. The first struck the eastern
mountain range near al-Shaara, while the second targeted the western range
between the towns of Shmistar and Tariya. No casualties were reported from the
airstrikes. Later, the Israeli army announced it had struck a military site
“containing underground terrorist infrastructure in the Beqaa area, as well as a
military location housing rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah
activity has been identified.”“The Israeli army will continue to operate to
eliminate any threat to the state of Israel and will act to prevent any attempt
by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to rebuild its forces,” the army added.
Furthermore, the Israeli army shot and wounded a man, identified as A.K., in the
Tal al-Nahas area of southern Lebanon’s eastern sector on Thursday. The man
sustained a gunshot wound to the thigh and was transferred to Marjayoun
Governmental Hospital for treatment. His condition was reported as stable.
Report: Ortagus threatens Aoun and Salam with giving Israel
freedom of action
Naharnet/March 20/2025
President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have received phone calls
from Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who “stressed the
need to form civilian committees to negotiate with Israel,” Al-Jadeed TV has
reported.
Ortagus warned that the U.S. would withdraw from the ceasefire monitoring
committee and grant Israel freedom of action, Al-Jadeed claimed. Earlier on
Wednesday, Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji had said that “Lebanon’s stance is
clear in terms of rejecting any form of normalization,” revealing that “the U.S.
side has not mentioned this matter.”“Lebanon will not accept to carry out any
direct political negotiations with Israel,” Rajji added. Ortagus had announced
on March 11 that the U.S. will be “bringing together Lebanon and Israel for
talks aimed at diplomatically resolving several outstanding issues between the
two countries.”Ortagus said the issues that will be discussed are “the release
of Lebanese prisoners, the remaining disputed points along the Blue Line, and
the remaining 5 points where Israeli forces are still deployed.”“We look forward
to quickly convening these diplomat-led working groups to resolve outstanding
issues, along with our international partners,” she added. In an interview with
Al-Jadeed that day, Ortagus said: "We want to get a political resolution,
finally, to the border disputes.""I feel fairly confident that... we can have
final resolution on the five points and ultimately on the remaining issues
related to the Blue Line," she added.
Witkoff denies report on Israel talks, says Lebanon takes
own decisions
Naharnet/March 20/2025
U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has denied a media report
about alleged discussions with “an unnamed Lebanese official in Doha” as
“baseless, false and misleading.”“Peddling rumors and fake news only sows
confusion and erodes the credibility of media outlets,” Witkoff’s office said in
a statement. “Lebanon is an independent nation that will make its own sovereign
decisions; we trust this government’s ability to do so,” the statement added.
“The Trump Administration has made clear publicly and privately, that the United
States supports the Lebanese government, under the leadership of President
(Joseph) Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as they work to extend state
sovereignty across all of Lebanon, and implement reforms to strengthen state
institutions, and deliver on the demands of the people of Lebanon,” the
statement said. The report, published Wednesday in An-Nahar newspaper, had
quoted Witkoff as saying that his administration is not satisfied with “the
Lebanese officials’ performance in dealing with Hezbollah.”“Lebanon will be
asked to head to direct and face-to-face political negotiations with Israel and
to task a civilian figure with this mission, while the latter will be
represented by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who is the closest to
Benjamin Netanyahu’s mentality,” the alleged Lebanese figure quoted Witkoff as
saying in the published report.
Govt. approves appointments mechanism, Salam emphasizes on
'competency'
Naharnet/March 20/2025
Cabinet on Thursday approved a mechanism for administrative appointments, as
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that Lebanon’s new authorities are seeking
“an upright and effective state administration that protects the citizen.”The
administration should be “based on competency and should not be in the service
of sects or politicians,” Salam added. “The government’s motto is to build a
state of law and institutions and there can be no state without administration,
that’s why we are seeking a neutral administration of institutions,” the premier
said. “We are seeking to choose the most competent through the appointments
mechanism, which includes nine principles based on priority and competition and
offering fair opportunities to candidates,” Salam went on to say.
UNIFIL observes 7 Israeli activities in south Lebanon
violating Resolution 1701
Associated Press/March 20/2025
United Nations peacekeepers have observed seven Israeli activities in southern
Lebanon violating U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. U.N. deputy spokesman
Farhan Haq said the activities took place north of the U.N.-drawn boundary
between Israel and Lebanon. The 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution requires
Israeli forces to remain south of the boundary known as the Blue Line. The
peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, reiterated its call for a complete Israeli
withdrawal from southern Lebanon so the Lebanese Army can deploy throughout the
area, Haq said.
In another incident, Haq said, UNIFIL peacekeepers found rocket launchers,
rocket-propelled grenades and other unauthorized weapons and ammunition caches
in seven different locations in south Lebanon. The discoveries were all reported
to the Lebanese Army for their action, he said.
Hezbollah MP hails army, stresses state's role on Syria
border
Naharnet/March 20/2025
MP Hussein al-Hajj Hassan of the Loyalty to Resistance bloc has noted that
Hezbollah “considers that the responsibility for addressing and confronting what
happened on the Lebanese-Syrian border falls on the Lebanese state and all its
pillars and institutions.”
“Hezbollah, as part of it (the state), communicated with officials to push them
to perform their role,” Hajj Hassan added during a funeral in the region. “The
people of the resistance and others are Lebanese who have been attacked, and the
state’s responsibility is to defend them and to defend its sovereignty and
land,” the MP said. Hailing the Lebanese Army, “which performed its role,
mobilized its forces and entered the Lebanese town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali,” Hajj
Hassan lauded the army’s “command, officers and soldiers, and its
newly-appointed commander General Rudolph Haykal.”The lawmaker also saluted
President Joseph Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri, saying the latter was in constant
communication with the region’s representatives. Addressing the clans and
families of the region, Hajj Hassan called on them to be very vigilant, because
“some are working night and day to sow discord between the Lebanese themselves
and between Lebanon and Syria.”“There are U.S. hands, foreign intelligence
agencies and others, and personal disputes that might happen and escalate,” he
warned.
Hezbollah MP lashes out at Foreign Minister Rajji
Naharnet/March 20/2025
Hezbollah MP Ibrahim al-Moussawi on Thursday blasted Foreign Minister Youssef
Rajji, who is close to the Lebanese Forces, for “his insistence to accuse
Hezbollah of disavowing the ceasefire agreement with the Israeli enemy.”“We were
hoping from Lebanon’s foreign minister to carry out the least extent of his
national duties and responsibilities toward the enemy’s crimes, through
condemning them, reporting them to the international community and asking it to
carry out its duty and compel the enemy to implement the ceasefire agreement,”
Moussawi said. “Accusing Hezbollah of disavowing the ceasefire is a very
dangerous stance that turns against the national principles and the government’s
politices and grants the enemy a justification for its attacks and a carte
blanche for continuing its crimes,” the lawmaker added. “Hezbollah is committed
to what the Lebanese government committed to under the obligations of Resolution
1701 and the executive measures paper, and it is the least duty of the foreign
minister to abide by the president’s directions and the policies of the
government, which should rectify the statements of this minister seeing as they
are distorting facts and harming the national interest,” Moussawi went on to
say. Rajji said Wednesday that “the conditions are clear: the implementation of
Resolution 1701 with all its stipulations and halting military operations, and
they are harsh conditions caused by the group that fought the war and was late
in acknowledging the need for a ceasefire.”“The agreement’s text is clear and it
specifies the groups that are allowed to carry arms, but Hezbollah is disavowing
it,” Rajji added.
German FM rejects 'any permanent occupation' by Israel on
Lebanon visit
Agence France Presse/March 20/2025
Top German diplomat Annalena Baerbock, on a visit to Beirut on Wednesday, said
her government rejected "any permanent occupation" of Lebanese territory by
Israel, whose troops remain in the country's south despite a November truce. The
November 27 ceasefire agreement ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah, but
Israel has since continued to carry out strikes and maintained a military
presence in five locations in southern Lebanon, near the border. "As Europeans,
we reject any permanent occupation of Lebanese territory by Israeli troops,
because Hezbollah will only use this as a further excuse for terrorist
activities and its so-called 'resistance'," the German foreign minister said.
Hezbollah's military wing is proscribed as a "terrorist organization" by the
European Union. Baerbock met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who according
to a statement said that Israel's "continued occupation" of areas of southern
Lebanon "runs counter to the agreement of last November". He also said the
Israeli presence "hinders the implementation of (U.N. Security Council)
Resolution 1701", which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and served
as the foundation for the November truce. "Israel has refused all Lebanese
proposals to evacuate the five hills still occupied" by its troops and "to
replace them with international forces", Aoun told Baerbock according to the
presidency's statement. Hezbollah initiated hostilities with Israel in October
2023, saying it was acting in support of Palestinian ally Hamas in the Gaza
Strip. The cross-border exchanges escalated into a full-blown war that left
Hezbollah weakened. "Let me... make it very clear at this point: the
stabilization of the situation in Lebanon is also a result of Hezbollah's
influence being decisively pushed back," Baerbock said. "Hezbollah had the
entire country... in its dangerous grip" before the war, she added. The recent
political stability "finally offers the opportunity to address the urgently
needed reforms that have been on the table for a long time", Baerbock said. She
mentioned "above all, implementing the agreements reached with the International
Monetary Fund", which was "essential for our continued support of Lebanon". The
Israel-Hezbollah war has devastated parts of Lebanon, already reeling from an
unprecedented economic crisis since 2019. The World Bank has estimated the cost
of post-war reconstruction at $11 billion.
‘Governance’ Dispute Persists as BDL Reserves Hit $10.746B
Maurice Matta/This is Beirut/March 20/2025
The Cabinet approved on Thursday the administrative appointment mechanism,
reaffirming ministers’ role in the process. Under the agreed framework, the
relevant minister will propose a list of hors-cadre candidates, while the final
decision rests with the Cabinet. Meanwhile, the appointment of a new Bank of
Lebanon (BDL) governor remains stalled, with no breakthrough in sight. No
Cabinet session is scheduled for tomorrow, Friday, to appoint a successor to
Riad Salameh, as the issue remains deadlocked between the president and the
prime minister.
Three candidates have emerged as leading contenders for the BDL governorship.
President Joseph Aoun is backing Karim Souhaid, while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam
favors Samir Assaf as his top choice, with Jihad Azour as a fallback if Assaf is
ruled out. Despite efforts by some factions to push Assaf’s candidacy, the
latter has formally withdrawn, affirming his lack of interest in the role – a
decision he has also communicated to several French officials, including
President Emmanuel Macron. Sources suggest that Jihad Azour may have also
withdrawn from the race, expressing to close associates his reluctance to assume
the BDL governorship. According to insiders, Salam’s rejection of Souhaid is
linked to President Aoun’s opposition to the appointment of one of his
relatives, Firas Abi-Nassif, the preferred candidate of the “Kulluna Irada”
group. However, Aoun maintains that his choice is solely based on competence and
merit. Well-informed sources confirm that the United States supports Aoun’s pick
and dismiss claims that Washington has pushed for Souhaid’s exclusion from the
race for the BDL governorship. Salam asserts that the BDL governor appointment
falls under the collective authority of the Cabinet, rather than being the
exclusive prerogative of the president or prime minister. However, according to
a longstanding Lebanese tradition, this nomination must first receive the
president’s endorsement – just as with the Army commander – due to Lebanon’s
sectarian power-sharing structure.
In a related development, sources suggest that Lebanon’s three top leaders have
agreed to retain Acting Governor Wassim Mansouri on the BDL’s Central Council
and renew his mandate as First Vice Governor. This decision reflects his
successful management of BDL in recent months and his adherence to the adopted
strategy that has ensured monetary stability and strengthened dollar reserves.
Regardless, the new BDL governor will inherit significant economic and financial
challenges, foremost among them the restructuring of banks and the protection of
depositors’ rights. Finance Minister Yassine Jaber recently sought to reassure
the public, ruling out any recovery plan that would involve writing off
deposits. Current efforts aim to structure a plan for the gradual repayment of
deposits, prioritizing small depositors before expanding reimbursements
according to a defined timeline. The governor will play a crucial role in
evaluating the banking sector and formulating an effective solution to the
depositors’ crisis. Any recovery plan must prioritize revitalizing Lebanon’s
economy while safeguarding the banking system and restoring public trust. As per
the latest official figures, BDL has disbursed around $3.6 billion to depositors
under its existing circulars. This amount is expected to rise further after the
Central Council’s decision to increase withdrawal limits – raising the cap to
$500 per month under Circular 158 and $250 per month under Circular 166,
starting March 1, 2025. Meanwhile, BDL’s reserves have continued to rise,
reaching $10.746 billion by mid-March – an increase of approximately $2.2
billion since August 2023. This recovery has enabled BDL to replenish reserves
lost during the last conflict while meeting all public sector obligations,
including education allowances, military salaries and other financial
commitments.According to BDL sources, there are no immediate plans to raise
monthly withdrawal limits. The Central Council awaits the appointment of a new
governor, who will be responsible for negotiating revised caps with the
government. Similarly, any changes to the exchange rate for dollar withdrawals
from old “lollar” accounts will be determined by the new governor in
coordination with the government.
Lebanon Prepares to Hand Over 700 Syrian Detainees as Part
of Bilateral Agreement
This is Beirut/AFP/March 20/2025
Lebanon is set to hand over over 700 Syrian detainees to Syria out of the more
than 2,000 currently held in its overcrowded prisons, a Lebanese judicial
official told AFP on Thursday. “There are more than 700 Syrian detainees and
convicts whose files have been finalized and who meet the conditions for
extradition,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated.
This move is part of a bilateral agreement reached in January during a visit by
former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to Damascus, where he met with
Syria’s new president, Ahmad al-Chareh. The two sides agreed on the return of
Syrian prisoners to their homeland, marking a significant step toward rebuilding
relations between the two neighboring countries following the challenges faced
by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
According to a security source, Lebanon currently holds over 2,100 Syrian
detainees in its prisons, including 350 who have already been sentenced, with
the rest awaiting trial. Syrian prisoners now account for nearly 30% of
Lebanon’s total prison population, the source added.
Many of these detainees face terrorism charges, including involvement in attacks
against the Lebanese Army, and have been brought before a military court. Others
are accused of belonging to Syrian jihadist or armed groups that opposed the
Assad regime. A Syrian detainee, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP that he
and many of his fellow inmates were imprisoned for “political reasons.” He
identified himself as a former member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an
opposition faction made up of defected Syrian soldiers and anti-Assad fighters.
The security source also noted that both Lebanese and foreign prisoners are
enduring increasingly dire conditions due to reduced food rations and
deteriorating medical services, a consequence of Lebanon’s prolonged economic
crisis. Overcrowding in the cells has only made the situation worse. In
February, around 100 Syrian prisoners at Roumieh, Lebanon’s largest prison,
staged a hunger strike demanding the resolution of their cases after the Assad
regime’s challenges. Lebanon, grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis
since 2019, currently hosts approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees, according
to official figures. Of these, 755,426 are registered with the United Nations,
having fled Syria when the 2011 uprising against Assad’s regime escalated into a
devastating civil war.
Lebanon is the third unhappiest country in the world
Associated Press/March 20/2025
med the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to
the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.
Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings
in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the
University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the
top four and in the same order. Country rankings were based on answers people
give when asked to rate their own lives. The study was done in partnership with
the analytics firm Gallup and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions
Network. "Happiness isn't just about wealth or growth — it's about trust,
connection and knowing people have your back," said Jon Clifton, the CEO of
Gallup. "If we want stronger communities and economies, we must invest in what
truly matters: each other."
- Sharing meals and having somebody to count on -
Researchers say that beyond health and wealth, some factors that influence
happiness sound deceptively simple: sharing meals with others, having somebody
to count on for social support, and household size. In Mexico and Europe, for
example, a household size of four to five people predicts the highest levels of
happiness, the study said. Believing in the kindness of others is also much more
closely tied to happiness than previously thought, according to the latest
findings. As an example, the report suggests that people who believe that others
are willing to return their lost wallet is a strong predictor of the overall
happiness of a population. Nordic nations rank among the top places for expected
and actual return of lost wallets, the study found. Overall, researchers said
global evidence on the perceived and actual return of lost wallets shows that
people are much too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities compared
to reality — actual rates of wallet return are around twice as high as people
expect.
- The U.S. falls to its lowest-ever position in the happiness ranking -
While European countries dominate the top 20 in the ranking, there were some
exceptions. Despite the war with Hamas, Israel came in at 8th. Costa Rica and
Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, ranking at 6th and 10th
respectively. When it comes to decreasing happiness — or growing unhappiness
—the United States has dropped to its lowest-ever position at 24, having
previously peaked at 11th place in 2012. The report states that the number of
people dining alone in the United States has increased 53% over the past two
decades. The United Kingdom, at position 23, is reporting its lowest average
life evaluation since the 2017 report. Afghanistan is again ranked as the
unhappiest country in the world, with Afghan women saying their lives are
especially difficult.
Sierra Leone in western Africa is the second unhappiest, followed by Lebanon,
ranking the 3rd from the bottom.
- Almost one-fifth of young adults globally have no social support -
In a concerning development, the study said 19% of young adults across the world
reported in 2023 that they have no one they could count on for social support.
That is a 39% increase compared to 2006. All countries are ranked according to
their self-assessed life evaluations averaged over 2022 to 2024. Experts in
economics, psychology, sociology and beyond then seek to explain the variations
across countries and over time using factors such as GDP per capita, healthy
life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and
perceptions of corruption.
IDF operations in Lebanon and Hezbollah casualty
announcements over the past week
David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/March 20/2025 |
Israel conducted a series of air strikes and military operations against
Hezbollah inside Lebanon over the course of last week. Between March 13 and 17,
Israeli aerial, artillery, and ground operations targeted Janta, Borj El Mlouk,
Adaisseh, Yater, Meiss El Jabal, Ramyeh, Aainata, Kfar Kela, Yaroun, Yohmor,
Libbaya, Deir Mimas, Beaufort Castle, the wadi of Zellaya, and the hills of
Jabbour. On Thursday, reports emerged at approximately 8:18 pm local time that
Israeli aircraft conducted “a series of airstrikes […] targeting the outskirts
of Qousaya and Mahallet al-Shaara-Janta” in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range
bordering Syria, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA Lebanon). A
subsequent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement clarified that the strike had
targeted “infrastructure in a Hezbollah weapons development and storage site in
the area of the Beqaa in Lebanon,” referring imprecisely to the location of the
strike. Lebanese media did not report any casualties from the strike.
Hezbollah-affiliated social media outlets, however, previously announced the
deaths of two operatives “on the road to Jerusalem,” the group’s customary
euphemism for dying in fighting with Israel.
Earlier on Thursday morning at approximately 11:30 am, Hezbollah announced the
death of Mohammad Riyadh al Redha, nom de guerreJawad, a member from the town of
Yaroun in south Lebanon.
At 6:35 pm, Hezbollah-affiliated social media accounts announced the death of
Imad Hassan Shehoud, nom de guerre Karbala, a member from the village of Jowaya
in south Lebanon. However, given the timing of the announcements, Redha and
Shehoud could not have died in Thursday night’s IDF strike on Janta and must
have been killed in a prior Israeli action.
Israel continued to conduct operations in Lebanon that week. On Saturday at 2:45
pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli strike targeting a vehicle in Borj el
Mlouk in south Lebanon killed one unidentified individual. At 4:01 pm,
Hezbollah-affiliated social media announced the death of Abbas Youssef Fares,
nom de guerre Youssef, a member from the village of Shehour in south Lebanon. At
7:30 pm, Hezbollah media announced the death of Mohammad Ali Chit, nom de
guerreJawad, a member from Kfarkela in south Lebanon.
At 10:44 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli ground troops had entered the
village of Adaisseh, approximately 400 meters from the Blue Line—the May 25,
2000, withdrawal line separating Israel and Lebanon—and across from Misgav Am.
The report indicated that Israeli troops had reached the plaza of the local
mosque half an hour prior, without elaborating on the purpose of their
incursion.
March 16
On Sunday, at approximately 2:15 am local time, NNA Lebanon reported an Israeli
drone had targeted a BMW X5 SUV in the village of Yater in south Lebanon,
killing the driver and wounding his companion. At 9:52 am, NNA Lebanon reported
that another Israeli airstrike on Meiss El Jabal killed one individual. At
approximately 1:05 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli troops fired upon and
wounded an unidentified Lebanese national in Ramyeh, approximately 600 meters
from the Blue Line and opposite the Israeli towns of Zarit and Shtula.
At approximately 4:00 pm, Hezbollah-affiliated social media announced the death
of Mohammad Imad Srour, nom de guerreKhomeini, a member from Ayta Ash Shaab in
south Lebanon.
At approximately 7:23 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli jets targeted the
outskirts of the town of Aainata in the Bint Jbeil District of south Lebanon.
The strike, the Lebanese Health Ministry announced approximately an hour later,
killed two unidentified individuals.
At approximately 9:20 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli Apache helicopter
had targeted a built-up home on the Fatima Gate in the town of Kfar Kela with
two missiles, while a drone dropped stun grenades in the town. Another Apache
helicopter also targeted a gas station in Kfar Kela that had been reconstructed
after the war. Then, at approximately 9:25 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli
artillery targeted a built-up house in the town of Yaroun. At 10:56 pm, the IDF
released a statement saying that “in the past hours,” it had “struck a Radwan
Force Headquarters and buildings being used by Hezbollah in south Lebanon.” The
statement stressed that the “existence of this terrorist infrastructure
constitutes a serious violation of the understandings between Israel and
Lebanon,” referring to the November 27, 2024, ceasefire deal’s requirement that
Lebanon disarm Hezbollah and dismantle its infrastructure south of the Litani
River.
March 17
At approximately 4:36 pm, an Israeli drone targeted and directly struck a
motorbike carrying two individuals on the Hay al Baydar road in Yohmor al Shqif
in south Lebanon. A van passing by was hit by shrapnel and caught fire, as did
the Wafic Said Supermarket. The Lebanese Health Ministry announced that one
unidentified individual was immediately killed, another succumbed to his wounds
and died later, and two were wounded. Almost immediately after the strike, the
IDF released a statement saying it had targeted “two Hezbollah terrorists acting
as lookouts and directing terror operations near Yohmor in south Lebanon.”At
approximately 7:13 pm, the Lebanese newspaper Annahar began reporting that the
IDF launched a wave of airstrikes targeting several locales in the western Beqaa
and south Lebanon. At approximately 7:24 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that five
airstrikes—four from drones and one from an F-16—hit positions near Libbaya in
the western Beqaa. No casualties were reported. At 7:26 pm, NNA Lebanon reported
an Israeli airstrike on the route of the Litani River just west of Deir Mimas in
south Lebanon, and another near Beaufort Castle just northeast of Yohmor. At
7:27 pm, NNA Lebanon reported Israeli airstrikes near the wadi of Zellaya and
the hills of Jabbour in the western Beqaa. At approximately 8:10 pm, the IDF
released a statement on the strikes, saying it had “targeted Hezbollah military
sites in which the group’s fighters and weapons were identified.” The statement
stressed that “terrorist activity in these sites constitutes a threat to the
State of Israel and a serious violation of the understandings between Israel and
Lebanon.”
*David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.
Hezbollah must not be
allowed to destroy Lebanon
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/March 20, 2025
The clashes that took place on the border between Syria and Lebanon this week
were not the first of their kind. But the announcement of a ceasefire between
the two countries following two days of deadly cross-border clashes had a
different tone to it. Historically, the Lebanese Armed Forces have rarely
shelled Syrian positions directly, even less those of the Syrian army. This
time, the clashes were direct. We live in a rapidly changing world. Between 2012
and 2014, Syrian artillery and airstrikes hit Arsal and other Lebanese border
towns, with Damascus accusing them of harboring rebels. This time, the Syrian
artillery was firing because of Hezbollah. Syria accused Hezbollah of abducting
and killing three Syrian soldiers near the border west of Homs. According to the
Syrian authorities, the soldiers were kidnapped, taken across the border and
then executed.
In the past, when Bashar Assad was in power, the Lebanese army focused mainly on
containing any spillover and “policing” the situation. It would secure villages
and sometimes clash with the rebels the Syrian army was targeting. It would
seldom engage the Syrian forces. There was minimal retaliatory fire. But this
time was different. There is a new regime in Syria and a new leadership in
Lebanon. The ceasefire was brokered by Lebanese Defense Minister Michel Menassa
and his Syrian counterpart, Murhaf Abu Qasra, who ensured the bodies of the
three Syrian soldiers were returned to the Syrian authorities. The clashes had
resulted in at least 10 deaths over the preceding days. Syria accused Hezbollah
of abducting and killing three Syrian soldiers near the border west of Homs. It
was Lebanese President Joseph Aoun who ordered the Lebanese army to respond to
the sources of fire. And there is no doubt that preserving and defending the
sovereignty of the country is his duty. The same resolve and determination now
need to be applied domestically, including arresting and bringing to justice
those that conducted the raid into Syria.
Even if, as some reports suggest, the Syrian soldiers had crossed the border
into Lebanon, it would be the responsibility of the Lebanese Armed Forces alone
to act. And President Aoun has shown his will and capacity to act. Moreover,
there is no doubt that the army would have dealt with any incursion
professionally and lives would have been spared. This is why it is important to
bring order within the borders of Lebanon. As Aoun declared in his inaugural
speech, there can be only one sovereign voice in the country. Hezbollah cannot
be left to operate unchecked, as it is now clear that not only can the group
create destruction from the south, but also from the north. There is animosity
among the new Syrian leadership and the Syrian people against Hezbollah. Let us
not forget that, during the Syrian civil war — on the orders of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps — Hezbollah played a key role in supporting the Assad
regime and committed war crimes and human rights violations along the way. It
was implicated in massacres and sectarian killings in Al-Qusayr in 2013.
Hezbollah also participated in prolonged sieges, notably in Madaya and Zabadani,
where starvation tactics were used against civilians. Moreover, it was involved
in the forced displacement of Sunni-majority populations. The group engaged in
torture as well as indiscriminate shelling, with a will to hit civilians.
This is why, despite the ceasefire, tensions will remain high. And the same can
be said of Lebanon’s south. In recent weeks, Israel has conducted multiple
airstrikes, targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure. According to
reports, several Hezbollah members have been killed, including in drone strikes
near Kfar Kila and Borj El-Mlouk. The group is facing decrepitude. But it can
still bring meaningful, long-term destruction to Lebanon
It is now clear that Hezbollah is cornered and is trying to do the same to
Lebanon once again. It is also clear to Hezbollah and the IRGC that their
capacity to act has been destroyed. With their supply lines from Syria closed
and any air support under closer surveillance, the group is facing decrepitude.
It is no longer able to conduct any meaningful, long-term military campaigns.
But it can still bring meaningful, long-term destruction to Lebanon.
Moreover, the risks of a spillover and outside interference grow every day. If
Hezbollah is left unchecked, then we may have to ask — in this changed
geopolitical environment — how long it will be before local groups seek foreign
support to face it. This would lead to a new civil war that could destroy
Lebanon once and for all. This is why Aoun needs to build national support and a
clear path needs to be laid out for the surrender of Hezbollah’s arsenal. There
can be only one army; there can be only one sovereign voice.
Moreover, Hezbollah and all collaborators with the Assad regime need to be
brought to justice. Lebanon needs to do what it failed to do in 2005, when
Syrian troops exited the country: an equivalent of the Vichy trials in France
following the Second World War. Lebanon has a new leadership, but in reality it
needs a new political system. And this can only be done if those responsible for
treason and violent crimes are brought to justice. What is clear for now is that
the dangers circling the country will not wait for too long. And Hezbollah
cannot be allowed to draw Lebanon into the equation of “upon me and upon my
enemies.” Moreover, it is for Lebanon’s leadership to act swiftly against
Hezbollah, as this is the only way to impose full sovereignty and warn others of
the country’s resolve.
**Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of SpaceQuest Ventures, a space-focused
investment platform. He is CEO of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on March 20-21/2025
At least 91 killed in Gaza as Israel scraps ceasefire, orders evacuations
Reuters/March 20, 2025
GAZA/CAIRO: At least 91 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in
airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday after Israel resumed bombing and ground
operations, the enclave’s health ministry said, effectively ditching a
two-month-old ceasefire. After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again
fleeing for their lives after Israel effectively abandoned a ceasefire,
launching a new all-out air and ground campaign against Gaza’s dominant
Palestinian militant group Hamas. Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on
residential neighborhoods, ordering people out of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun
towns in the north, the Shejaia district in Gaza City and towns on the eastern
outskirts of Khan Younis in the south. “War is back, displacement and death are
back, will we survive this round?” said Samed Sami, 29, who fled Shejaia to put
up a tent for his family in a camp on open ground. A day after sending tanks
into central Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had also begun
conducting ground operations in the north of the densely populated enclave,
along the coastal route in Beit Lahiya. Hamas, which had not retaliated during
the first 48 hours of the renewed Israeli assault, said its fighters fired
rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said sirens sounded in the center of
the country after projectiles were launched from Gaza. Palestinian medics said
Israeli strikes targeted several houses in northern and southern sections of the
Gaza Strip. With talks having failed to bridge differences over terms to extend
the ceasefire, the military resumed its air assaults on Gaza with a massive
bombing campaign on Tuesday before sending soldiers in the day after.
HUNDREDS DEAD
It said on Thursday that its forces had been engaged for the past 24 hours in
what it described as an operation to expand a buffer zone separating the
northern and southern halves of Gaza, known as the Netzarim corridor. Israel
ordered residents to stay away from the Salahuddin road, Gaza’s main north-south
route, and said they should travel along the coast instead. Tuesday’s first day
of resumed airstrikes killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the deadliest
days of the 17-month-old conflict, with scant let-up since then. In a blow to
Hamas as it sought to rebuild its administration in Gaza, this week’s strikes
have killed some of its top figures, including the de facto Hamas-appointed head
of the Gaza government, the chief of security services, his aide, and the deputy
head of the Hamas-run justice ministry. The Islamist group said the Israeli
ground operation and the incursion into the Netzarim corridor were a “new and
dangerous violation” of the ceasefire agreement. In a statement, it reaffirmed
its commitment to the deal and called on mediators to “assume their
responsibilities.”For Israel, a return to full-blown war could prove
complicated, some current and former Israeli officials say, amid waning public
support and burnout among military reservists. Protesters accuse Netanyahu of
continuing the war for political reasons and endangering the lives of remaining
hostages. A temporary first phase of the ceasefire ended at the start of this
month. Hamas wants to move to an agreed second phase, under which Israel would
be required to negotiate an end to the war and withdrawal of its troops from
Gaza, and Israeli hostages still held there would be exchanged for Palestinian
prisoners. Israel has offered only a temporary extension of the truce, cut off
all supplies to Gaza and said it was restarting its military campaign to force
Hamas to free remaining hostages. Later on Thursday, the Israeli military said
it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israel,
after warning sirens blared in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Iran-aligned Yemeni
Houthi forces have occasionally fired missiles at Israel in support of
Palestinian fighters in Gaza.
‘WE DON’T WANT DEATH’
The ceasefire had allowed Huda Junaid, her husband and family to return to the
site of their destroyed home to camp out in the ruins. But they were now forced
to flee again, packing their few remaining belongings into a donkey cart and
searching for a new place to pitch their tent near a school. “We don’t want war,
we don’t want death. Enough, we are fed up. There are no longer children in
Gaza, all of our children are dead, all of our relatives are dead,” she said.
Speaking to Reuters on Thursday, a Hamas official said mediators had stepped up
efforts with the two warring sides but no breakthrough had yet come. Some
residents said there were no signs yet of preparations by Hamas on the ground to
resume fighting. But an official from one militant group allied to Hamas, who
asked not to be identified, told Reuters on Thursday that fighters, including
from Hamas, had been put on alert awaiting further instructions. Fighters had
also been told to stop using mobile phones. The war erupted after Hamas
militants attacked Israeli communities near the Gaza border in October 2023,
killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli
tallies. More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing conflict,
according to Gaza’s health authorities, with much of the enclave reduced to
rubble.
UN says renewed Gaza violence makes
hostage return more distant
Reuters/March 20/2025
The United Nations said on Thursday that each day of renewed violence in Gaza
makes the return of the remaining hostages held there a more distant objective.
U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari said the
return to hostilities threatens all civilians, including hostages, of whom 24
are thought still to be alive. "With every passing day, we move further away
from the objective of returning the remaining hostages safely to their homes,"
Khiari told a U.N. Security Council briefing. At least 91 more Palestinians were
killed and dozens wounded in airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday, in addition to
hundreds killed since Israeli strikes resumed on Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry
said. Israel's U.N. ambassador Danny Danon told the meeting the strikes on what
he called Hamas terror targets would continue "until every last hostage is
home."Acting U.S. Representative to the UN Dorothy Shea blamed Hamas for the
resumption of hostilities by "refusing time and time again to accept proposals
to extend the ceasefire.""President Trump has been clear: Hamas must release all
59 hostages immediately – including American citizens ... or pay a steep price,"
she said. "We continue to stand with Israel as they defend themselves and push
to secure the release of all hostages from Hamas captivity."Shea appeared in
front of reporters before the Security Council meeting with Eli Sharabi, an
Israeli hostage who was released on February 8, only to discover that his
British-born wife and two daughters had been killed in the Hamas attacks on
October 7, 2023. Sharabi, who also addressed the Security Council, said he had
been held mostly underground for 491 days and treated worse than an animal,
"chained, starved, and beaten, humiliated."
"I've come back from hell," he said.
Sharabi said the United Nations and the Red Cross needed to act to bring home
the remaining 59 hostages, including the bodies of those killed. Britain's
deputy U.N. ambassador James Kariuki said London condemned as "unacceptable" a
statement from Israeli Defense Minster Israel Katz warning of the total
destruction of Gaza. Kariuki said the January ceasefire deal had "fallen apart"
with the Israeli air strikes and Britain urged the sides to urgently return to
it as "the best chance we had seen to return the hostages to their families and
end the suffering." Russia's representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said there was no
justification for Sharabi's treatment, but continued: "we also grieve over all
those who died as a result of the escalation which has been going on for over 18
months now.""This endless vicious cycle of violence needs to end," he said,
adding that Russia deeply regretted the resumption of Israeli military
operations. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour offered condolences to Sharabi
and said Palestinians understood his pain, "because we live it, they endure it
every day," while adding: "If Netanyahu truly cared about the hostages, he would
not have shattered the ceasefire that was allowing for their release."Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to resume bombardments in Gaza has
triggered protests in Israel with a coalition of hostage families and Netanyahu
critics regrouping and accusing him of using the Gaza war for political ends.
The war started after Hamas militants attacked Israeli communities in October
2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to
Israeli tallies. Gaza health authorities say Israel has killed more than 49,000
Palestinians in the ensuing conflict, which has reduced the enclave to rubble.
Israel says it intercepts two missiles
launched from Yemen
AFP/March 20, 2025
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it intercepted two missiles launched from
Yemen on Thursday after US President Donald Trump threatened to punish Iran over
its perceived support for Yemeni Houthi militants. Warning sirens sounded in
Jerusalem and the nearby Israeli-occupied West Bank after the second missile was
fired later in the day, the military said, adding that it was intercepted before
it entered Israeli territory. The military said it also downed a missile
launched from Yemen earlier in the day after sirens blared in Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv. Israel’s national ambulance service Magen David Adom said it received no
reports of casualties following both launches. The Houthis, undeterred by waves
of US strikes since Saturday, fired a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion
Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesperson said in a televised
statement earlier on Thursday. The group has recently vowed to escalate attacks,
including those targeting Israel, in response to the US campaign. US strikes
that began on Saturday over Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping amount to the
biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump
took office in January. The US attacks have killed at least 50 people. Yemen’s
Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported at least four US strikes on the Al Mina
district of the Red Sea city of Hodeidah on Thursday, an area which houses a
major port and the headquarters of Houthi naval forces. Al Masirah TV reported
another strike on Al-Safra district of Saada which, according to Yemeni sources,
houses weapons storage and training sites, and is considered one of the group’s
most important and heavily fortified military strongholds. Trump threatened on
Monday to hold Iran accountable for any future Houthi attacks, warning of severe
consequences. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the Houthis were independent and
took their own strategic and operational decisions. On Tuesday, the Houthis said
they had fired a ballistic missile toward Israel and would expand their range of
targets in that country in coming days in retaliation for renewed Israeli
airstrikes in Gaza after weeks of relative calm. The Houthis have carried out
over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023,
saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians. The attacks have
disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly
campaign to intercept missiles.The Houthis are part of what has been dubbed the
“Axis of Resistance” — an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional
militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all
backed by Iran.
Hamas says fired rockets at Tel Aviv in
response to Gaza massacres
Agence France Presse/March 20, 2025
The armed wing of Hamas said it fired rockets at Israel's commercial hub of Tel
Aviv on Thursday in response to what it called "massacres against civilians" in
Gaza. "The (Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades bombarded the city of Tel Aviv deep
inside the occupied territories with a barrage of M90 rockets in response to the
Zionist massacres against civilians," it said in a statement. Israel's army said
it intercepted one projectile fired from Gaza, while two others fell in an open
area, after air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and central Israel.
Analysis-In Israel, reservist burnout and little public appetite for more war in
Gaza
Maayan Lubell/Reuters/March 20, 2025
Israel has warned that its latest onslaught in Gaza is "just the beginning" as
its forces pound the enclave with deadly airstrikes and launch new ground
operations. But a return to a full-scale ground war against the Palestinian
militant group Hamas could prove more complicated amid waning public support,
exhausted military reservists and political challenges, some current and former
Israeli officials, as well as analysts say. Military service is mandatory in
Israel, a small nation of fewer than 10 million people, but it relies heavily on
reservists in times of crisis.
Reservists flocked to their units when Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in
October 2023, some without waiting to be called up. But after multiple
months-long deployments, some are reluctant to return to Gaza, six reservists
and a group that advocates on their behalf told Reuters. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's decision to resume bombardments on Tuesday, has also added fuel to
the anger of protesters who accuse the government of continuing the war for
political reasons and endangering the lives of hostages still held in Gaza,
where a ceasefire largely held for two months. Netanyahu on Tuesday said such
accusations were "shameless" and that the renewed campaign was aimed at getting
the remaining 59 hostages back. Tens of thousands have demonstrated against
Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem since Tuesday. "In a democratic
state, the internal legitimacy (of a war) is very, very important," said retired
General Yaakov Amidror, who served as Netanyahu's national security adviser in
2011-2013. The question, he said, is "how much the decision makers are willing
to forego legitimacy because they think the action is important" and "how much
their ability to act will be compromised without legitimacy". Israel and Hamas
accuse each other of breaching the truce. Recent opinion polls suggest that most
people in Israel want to continue negotiations for a deal that would end the
war, release all remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and
see a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. Three defence officials familiar
with Israeli decision making told Reuters in the days leading up to this week's
campaign that the resumption of fighting would be gradual, leaving a door open
for negotiations to extend the truce. They did not elaborate. Two other Israeli
officials said that Netanyahu has approved a plan for a wide-scale operation
that includes the option to send in more ground troops. Netanyahu's office
declined to comment, and the defence ministry did not respond to questions for
this article. Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, told
Reuters that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have plans in place for different
scenarios, including ground operations if needed. "The aim of this campaign
against Hamas is to dismantle their capabilities, to prevent them from carrying
out terror attacks and to create pressure for hostages being returned - whether
it's through military operations, or through some sort of political deal,"
Shoshani said on Wednesday. "All options are on the table."Military leaders
acknowledge that burnout has been an issue among reservists. But Shoshani said
when it matters, reservists have shown a willingness to drop what they are doing
and risk their lives to defend their country, adding the IDF has a plan to ease
the burden on them.
BURNOUT
The Gaza war - the most devastating chapter in decades of Israel-Palestinian
conflict - is Israel's longest since its 1948 war of independence. More than 400
soldiers have been killed and thousands wounded in Gaza combat. The Israeli
campaign has reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble, repeatedly displacing hundreds
of thousands of people who survive on whatever aid can reach them. More than
49,000 people have been killed in the enclave, according to Palestinian health
authorities, who don't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israeli
officials say Hamas' military wing has been hit hard, with its leaders and
thousands of fighters killed. But the group remains deeply entrenched in Gaza
and still holds 59 of the 251 hostages who were seized on October 7, 2023. The
attack claimed the lives of some 1,200 people in southern Israel, according to
Israeli tallies. At least 40 of the hostages have died in Gaza, either slain by
their captors or killed inadvertently by Israeli forces. Israeli authorities
believe that around 24 others are alive. In the three months before the January
ceasefire, guerrilla attacks exacted some of the highest Israeli casualty tolls
of the war, which, along with the deaths of hostages, has raised questions in
Israel about the offensive's costs and gains. Netanyahu's far-right coalition
partners opposed the ceasefire and have pressed for a full-scale return to war.
The resumption of Israeli strikes this week earned him a political boost when
former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rejoined the coalition.
Netanyahu was left with only a thin parliamentary majority following his
departure in January over disagreements about the ceasefire. But the prime
minister has appeared increasingly out of touch with public sentiment,
fracturing the broad consensus that has underpinned Israel's war, said Amotz Asa-El,
a political analyst with the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. A coalition
of hostage families and protesters opposed to Netanyahu's moves against the
judiciary and parts of the Israeli security establishment is now coming together
again. Hamas accused Israel this week of jeopardising efforts to negotiate a
permanent end to the fighting and called on mediators to "assume their
responsibilities".
Some Western nations, including France and Germany, condemned the violence,
along with Qatar and Egypt, which had been acting as mediators.
TOUGH TALK
Netanyahu said he ordered strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals backed by
the U.S. to extend the ceasefire in exchange for releasing the remaining
hostages. Israel would now act against the group "with increasing military
strength," his office said in a statement on Tuesday. Defence Minister Israel
Katz said "the gates of hell will open" if Hamas does not release all the
hostages. Despite the tough talk, there was no immediate sign of the large-scale
mobilization that took place in 2023, when the military called up 300,000
reservists to reinforce a standing force estimated at around 170,000. The IDF
does not disclove personnel figures. The IDF sent an elite infantry brigade to
the Gaza border on Wednesday and announced on Thursday that it was "conducting
ground activity" along a coastal route in northern Gaza.
Any major ground offensive is also expected to involve reserve forces, although
it may not require as many as at the start of the war. "Rooting out the Hamas
fighters still left would require more manpower, more boots on the ground," said
Amidror. "The key is how many will show up." As the war dragged on, many have
struggled to balance work, family, and studies with military deployments, the
reservists interviewed by Reuters said. All have seen the number of comrades
asking to be excused from tours of duty increase over time.
"Until now my feeling was that as long a there are hostages there, I am in, but
now I don't know," said one special forces reservist, who spent about eight of
the first 15 months of the war deployed in Gaza, Lebanon and northern Israel.
"There's a lot of mistrust in the country's leadership, and it's not clear if
military pressure will help the hostages." He also worries about the toll on his
wife and six children, one of whom, he said, had started preparing eulogies for
him. Like others interviewed, he asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive
matters freely.
Ynet, a mainstream Israeli news outlet, and the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper
reported this month that the number of reservists showing up when called has
dropped to as low as 60% in some units. The IDF did not comment.
Hanoch Daube, a recently retired colonel who commanded reserve and regular
forces in Gaza, said the drop would not prevent the military from launching a
major ground offensive, if needed. Israeli reserve units have more people they
can draw on than are needed at any given time, and any shortfall is being made
up with volunteers from other units. But if the campaign turns into a protracted
guerrilla war without clear strategic aims, that would eventually lead to
burnout, said Daube, who now heads an association of reservists known as the
Iron Swords Warriors Forum. A scientist and father of five who spent most of the
first year of the war in uniform said he would not hesitate to rejoin his tank
unit if summoned back to Gaza. "I have a lot of criticism about this government
even before the war, but this war is just," he said. A friend from his unit
wasn't so sure. He said he has deep bonds with his comrades and might go back
for a time out of a sense of duty. But he would have little faith in the
mission, this time. "After October 7, we felt like the country was falling
apart, But the country isn't falling apart now," he said. "They don’t need us
like they did."
Netanyahu government approves firing of Shin Bet head amid
protests
Reuters/March 21, 2025
JERUSALEM: The Israeli cabinet voted early on Friday to dismiss the head of the
Shin Bet domestic intelligence service effective April 10, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, after three days of protests against the move.
Netanyahu said this week he had lost confidence in Ronen Bar, who has led Shin
Bet since 2021, and intended to dismiss him. Bar did not attend the cabinet
meeting but in a letter sent to ministers said the process around his firing did
not comply with rules and his dismissal was predicated on baseless claims. Late
on Thursday, police fired water cannon and made numerous arrests as scuffles
broke out during the protests in Tel Aviv and close to the prime minister’s
residence in Jerusalem, where police said dozens of protesters tried to break
through security cordons. Over the past three days, demonstrators protesting the
move to sack Bar have joined forces with protesters angry at the decision to
resume fighting in Gaza, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire, while 59 Israeli
hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave. “We’re very, very worried that our
country is becoming a dictatorship,” Rinat Hadashi, 59, said in Jerusalem.
“They’re abandoning our hostages, they’re neglecting all the important things
for this country.” The decision followed months of tension between Bar and
Netanyahu over a corruption investigation into allegations that a number of
aides in Netanyahu’s office were offered bribes by figures connected with Qatar.
Netanyahu has dismissed the accusation as a politically motivated attempt to
unseat him, but his critics have accused him of undermining the institutions
underpinning Israel’s democracy by seeking Bar’s removal.
In his letter to the government, Bar said the decision to fire him was “entirely
tainted by ... conflicts of interest” and driven by “completely different,
extraneous and fundamentally unacceptable motives.”He had already announced that
he intended to step down early to take responsibility for the intelligence
lapses that failed to prevent the attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group
Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Deep divisions
The angry scenes on Thursday highlighted divisions that have deepened since
Netanyahu returned to power as head of a right-wing coalition at the end of
2022. Even before the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis were joining
regular demonstrations protesting a government drive to curb the power of the
judiciary that critics saw as an assault on Israeli democracy but which the
government said was needed to limit judicial overreach. On Thursday Yair Golan,
a former deputy chief of staff in the military who now leads the opposition
Democrats party, was pushed to the ground during a scuffle, drawing condemnation
and calls for an investigation by other opposition politicians. Former Defense
Minister Benny Gantz said the clashes were a direct result of divisions caused
by “an extremist government that has lost its grip.”In Tel Aviv, demonstrators
rallied outside the Kirya military headquarters complex as ministers met to
formally approve the dismissal of Bar. Since the start of the war, there have
also been regular protests by families and supporters of hostages seized by
Hamas during the October 7 attack that have sometimes echoed the criticisms of
the government. With the resumption of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the fate of 59
hostages, as many as 24 of whom are still believed to be alive, remains unclear
and protesters said a return to war could see them either killed by their
captors or accidentally by Israeli bombardments. “This is not an outcome the
Israeli people can accept,” The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group
representing hostage families, said in a statement.
Israel’s president says worried over steps taken by Netanyahu’s
government
AFP/March 20, 2025
JERUSALEM: Israel’s President Isaac Herzog on Thursday expressed concern over
steps being taken by the government, hours before the cabinet was due to fire
the domestic security chief in an unprecedented move. “It is impossible not to
be deeply troubled by the harsh reality unfolding before our eyes,” Herzog said
in a video statement, stopping short of mentioning Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu by name. Earlier this week, Netanyahu announced a return to the war in
Gaza, sending in ground troops, after talks on extending the truce with
Palestinian militant group Hamas reached an impasse. “It is unthinkable to
resume fighting while still pursuing the sacred mission of bringing our hostages
home,” said Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial. His unusual statement also
comes ahead of a state budget vote expected late this month, in which the
government proposes raising taxes and cutting education and health funding while
ramping up spending in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sector — a plan that has drawn
criticism as many ultra-Orthodox do not serve in the army. “Thousands of reserve
duty call-ups have recently been issued, and it is inconceivable to send our
sons to the front while simultaneously advancing divisive and controversial
initiatives that create deep rifts within our nation,” Herzog said. Calling on
decision-makers to “carefully weigh every step and assess whether it strengthens
national resilience,” the president criticized the decision to resume fighting
in Gaza while Israeli hostages, including some who are known to be alive, remain
in Gaza. On Thursday, thousands of Israelis braved the rain and plunging
temperatures in Jerusalem to protest the decision to return to war which they
see as forsaking the hostages. The protesters also voiced opposition to
Netanyahu’s bid to oust Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security
agency. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the government’s legal adviser
threatened by a separate bid to remove her from her watchdog role, said the plan
to dismiss Bar was likely illegal. Bar was meant to end his tenure only next
year, and if approved by the government, he would become the first Shin Bet
chief in Israel’s history to be dismissed early. “Unfortunately, we are
witnessing a series of unilateral actions, and I am deeply concerned about their
impact on our national resilience,” Herzog said, calling on the government to
take note of the thousands protesting.
Jordan’s Senate speaker criticizes Western ‘double standards’ on
democracy at Strasbourg conference
Arab News/March 21, 2025
STRASBOURG: Jordan’s Senate Speaker Faisal Al-Fayez on Thursday accused Western
nations of adopting “double standards” on democracy and public freedoms, arguing
that true democratic values required consistency and commitment to human rights.
Speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg,
France, Al-Fayez stressed that democracy was a shared responsibility that upheld
citizens’ rights, equality, and social justice. However, he warned that some
Western nations failed to apply these principles uniformly.
“The reality confirms that the West has begun to adopt a policy of double
standards regarding issues of public freedoms and democratic practice,” he said.
The two-day conference is set to cover a range of topics, including the
protection of democracy, freedom of expression, and the impact of current global
political and security challenges. Al-Fayez argued that sustaining democracy
required political and security stability, as well as a rejection of selective
approaches to human rights. He called for a commitment to defending
international organizations and institutions that uphold justice, rather than
interfering in their principles for political gain. He said: “We must implement
international legitimacy resolutions pertaining to people’s rights to freedom
and independence, reject racism and sectarianism, and respect minorities’ rights
while also working to strengthen common cultural and civilizational denominators
among peoples.”Al-Fayez also addressed the impact of the Israeli occupation on
Palestinians, criticizing what he described as Western hypocrisy in dealing with
human rights violations. He added: “The Palestinian people have endured nearly
eight decades of suffering under Israeli occupation, and since Oct. 7, 2023,
they have been the target of the most horrific acts of aggression by the Israeli
occupation state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands of
martyrs and wounded, primarily women and children, have died as a result of this
aggression.”Additionally, Al-Fayez voiced concerns over the role of social media
in amplifying disinformation, hate speech, and extremism. He warned that while
these platforms were initially intended to promote public freedoms, they have
instead exacerbated societal divisions, leading to political instability in
various countries. He said: “Social media, which is meant to support freedom of
expression, freedom of publication, and public freedoms, has regrettably added
to the problems that democracy faces. It has encouraged hate speech, bigotry,
violence, religious and ethnic strife, and the use of disinformation campaigns
to rig elections and their results.”He highlighted growing discontent with
democratic institutions due to economic and technological disparities between
the Global North and South, as well as widening social and economic
inequalities. He added: “All of these factors have put democracy and its future
through a difficult test.”
Houthi militant media reports fresh US strikes on Yemen
AFP/March 20, 2025
SANAA: Fresh attacks hit two areas of militant-held Yemen, the Iran-backed
Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV station reported on Thursday, blaming “US
aggression.”Four strikes hit Hodeida governorate on the Red Sea, and a further
attack hit Saada in the north, the birthplace of the Houthi movement, Al-Masirah
said. The attacks came around the same time that Israel’s military said it
intercepted a missile launched from Yemen for the second time in a day. The
Houthis have reported several rounds of US attacks since Saturday, when a heavy
bombardment targeting senior figures killed 53 people, according to the militant
group. In return, the Houthis have repeatedly attacked a US aircraft carrier
battle group and twice announced missile launches at Israeli targets.The US
attacks are aimed at stamping out months of strikes by the Houthis on Red Sea
shipping during the Gaza war that have crippled the vital trade route.
Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts
following arrest of Istanbul mayor
AP/March 20, 2025
ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities detained 37 people for sharing “provocative”
content on social media, the interior minister said Thursday, pressing ahead
with a crackdown on dissenting voices that escalated with the arrest of the
mayor of Istanbul, a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a dawn raid on his residence on
Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links.
Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also
detained. The detention of a popular opposition leader and key Erdogan rival
deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere,
despite a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city and road closures. On
Thursday, hundreds of university students held a peaceful march in Istanbul to
protest the detentions. It also caused a shockwave in the financial market,
triggering temporary halts in trading to prevent panic selling. Critics see the
crackdown as an effort by Erdogan to extend his more then two-decade rule
following significant losses by the ruling party in local elections last year.
Government officials reject claims that legal actions against opposition figures
are politically motivated and insist that the courts operate independently.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media
accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime,
including 62 that are run by people based abroad. At least 37 of the suspected
owners were detained and efforts to detain other suspects were continuing, he
wrote on the X social media platform. Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he
was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s
presidential candidate in a primary scheduled for Sunday. The party’s leader has
said the primary will go ahead as planned. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
expressed concern over the mayor’s detention, saying it was a “very, very bad
sign” for Turkiye’s relations with the European Union. Scholz said it was
“depressing for democracy in Turkiye, but certainly also depressing for the
relationship between Europe and Turkiye.” “We can only call for this to end
immediately and for opposition and government to stand in competition with each
other, and not the opposition being brought to court,” he said. Prosecutors
accused Imamoglu of exploiting his position for financial gain, including the
improper allocation of government contracts. In a separate investigation,
prosecutors also accuse Imamoglu of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party, or PKK, by allegedly forming an alliance with Kurdish groups for the
Istanbul municipal elections. The PKK, behind a decades-long insurgency in
Turkiye, is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and other
allies. It was not clear when authorities would begin questioning the mayor, who
can be detained without charges for up to four days. Analysts say Imamoglu could
be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor” if he is formally
charged with links to the PKK. Before his detention, Imamoglu already faced
multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political
ban. He is also appealing a 2022 conviction for insulting members of Turkiye’s
Supreme Electoral Council, a case that could result in a political ban. This
week, a university nullified his diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his
1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its business
faculty, a decision Imamoglu said he would challenge. The decision effectively
bars him from running for president, since the position requires candidates to
be university graduates. Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkiye’s largest city in
March 2019, a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and
Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century.
Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16
million, alleging irregularities. The challenge resulted in a repeat of the
election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his
seat following local elections last year, during which his party made
significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.
Ukraine peace talks to resume in Riyadh on Monday
AFP/March 19, 2025
MOSCOW: Three-way talks to advance the process of ending the war in Ukraine will
resume in Riyadh next week, officials said on Thursday. Delegations from the US
and Russia will negotiate “initiatives” regarding the safety of shipping in the
Black Sea discussed this week by their presidents, Vladimir Putin and Donald
Trump, Kremlin spokesman Yuri Ushakov said. Ushakov said he had confirmed the
meetings in Saudi Arabia with US national security adviser Mike Waltz. Both
agreed to send “expert groups” for the talks, he said. Ukraine President
Volodymyr Zelensky said a delegation from Kyiv would be present at the talks
involving the US and Russia, but would not be in the same room as the Russian
delegation. “There will be technical teams present there,” Zelenskiy said during
a visit to Norway. “I understand that the structure is the following: there will
be a meeting of Ukraine and America and then some shuttle diplomacy, as our
American colleagues said, America with Russia.”
Carney will ask Governor General to
dissolve Parliament Sunday and call election, sources say
CBC/March 20, 2025
Prime Minister Mark Carney will ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament
and call a federal election this Sunday, Radio-Canada has learned. The election
campaign will kick off barely a week after Carney was sworn in as prime minister
and appointed his cabinet. Carney's trip to Rideau Hall to speak to Gov. Gen.
Mary Simon will come a day before MPs were scheduled to return after Parliament
was prorogued on Jan. 6.
An election campaign is expected to last between 36 and 50 days. Election day
remains to be confirmed, but voters are expected to cast their ballots on either
April 28 or May 5, according to sources that spoke with Radio-Canada. Carney is
making the call against a backdrop of public opinion polls that have placed the
Liberal Party just out front in the coming contest. According to CBC's Poll
Tracker, the Liberals led by Carney are leading with 37.7 per cent, compared to
Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives who stand just below that, at 37.4 per cent
support.
While close in the popular vote, the Liberal voter base is spread more evenly
across the country, which gives them a distinct advantage in the number of seats
they could win over the Conservatives, who have concentrated support in Alberta
and Saskatchewan. The CBC Poll Tracker suggests that if a vote were to take
place now, the Liberals could secure 176 seats to the Conservatives 133. What do
you want to know about the upcoming federal election? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.
Speaking in Jonquière, Que., on Thursday, Poilievre said a Conservative
government would speed up the approval of energy and resource projects to boost
the economy.
"We will unleash hundreds of billions of dollars in power plants, nuclear
energy, mines, pipelines, data centres and much more," he said. "The economy
will boom, raising funds for hospitals and schools. Most of all, we will be less
reliant on the Americans. We will be self-reliant, sovereign and stand on our
own two feet while we stand up to the Americans and stand up for ourselves."
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in Jonquière, Quebec Thursday pledging
that a Conservative government will speed up the approval of energy and resource
projects. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in Jonquière, Quebec Thursday
pledging that a Conservative government will speed up the approval of energy and
resource projects. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in Jonquière, Quebec
Thursday pledging that a Conservative government will speed up the approval of
energy and resource projects. (CBC) NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was in Hamilton,
Ont., on Thursday accepting an electoral endorsement from the United
Steelworkers (USW) union. "In this election, under Trump's chaotic tariff
threats and trade war, we need real solutions that will make a difference in
people's lives.… In this election, there is only one choice for workers: Jagmeet
Singh and the NDP's team of candidates," said USW national director Marty
Warren. Singh said he was "humbled and honoured" to accept the endorsement.
"Mark Carney has been prime minister for a week now … but he has done nothing
for workers who are losing their jobs in this country," Singh said. The NDP
leader said his government is ready for an election, accusing Poilievre and
Carney of only being interested in helping billionaires and rich CEOs, while the
New Democrats want to help workers and families.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on March 20-21/2025
Avoiding an Israel-Syria Showdown (Part 1): The Risks of “Occupation”
David Schenker/The Washington Institute/Mar 20, 2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141429/
Israel’s cross-border incursion is understandable
but may have gone too far, raising the need for U.S. intercession on merging
Syria’s disparate forces, easing sanctions, deconflicting with Turkey, and other
urgent stabilization tasks.
In early November, a billboard appeared in Tel Aviv congratulating
President-elect Trump and asking him to help “make Israel great again.” Lately,
and in unexpected places, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems determined to
make Israel “greater” again, as implied when its forces seized large swaths of
Syrian territory after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Although security
imperatives may justify certain aspects of this incursion, the scope of Israel’s
foray is provocative at minimum, and could wind up destabilizing the frontier
for the long term.
Rationales for Israel’s Incursion
In 2013, two years into Syria’s civil war, the Israel Defense Forces began
targeting Iranian assets and personnel on Syrian soil, in large part to close
the “land bridge” for major weapons transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Over the
next decade, the IDF routinely hit Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps formations,
Iranian missile bases, Hezbollah operatives, and other Iran-backed militia units
inside Syria. Yet these operations were mostly limited to airstrikes.
In September 2024—two months before rebel forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa launched
their shock offensive to oust Assad—Israeli forces carried out a joint
air-ground operation at the Scientific Studies and Research Center, the regime’s
underground production facility for precision-guided missiles, subsequently
destroying the base. In October, concerns about the increasingly brittle regime
led the IDF to begin moving ground forces into the UN Disengagement Observer
Force (UNDOF) zone, the 150 square mile demilitarized buffer area originally
drawn in 1974 to separate the Israeli and Syrian militaries in the Golan
Heights. IDF units also constructed new roads and fortified positions along the
fence line. Subsequently, Israel deployed two ground brigades and various
armored assets into the zone.
The fall of Damascus signaled a dramatic new phase for Israeli operations
elsewhere in Syria. As Assad’s forces dissolved and concerns grew about hostile
actors potentially seizing the regime’s weapons, the IDF launched an air
campaign to destroy most of the military’s strategic assets (as Part 2 of this
PolicyWatch will discuss in more detail). It also took over abandoned positions
that provide commanding views of both Sharaa’s forces in Damascus and
Hezbollah’s strongholds in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Ultimately, the IDF
established nine military outposts in the UNDOF zone and expanded its presence
beyond the buffer area in several ways: launching raids in the vicinity of
Damascus (including al-Kiswah and Maaraba) and Deraa city along the Jordanian
border; conducting routine operations to disarm border villages and seize heavy
weapons as far as ten miles into Syria; and establishing a continuous presence
north of the zone along the Lebanese border.
These deployments were partly motivated by Israeli fears of another October
7-style attack, this time across the northern border. Jerusalem views Sharaa (a
former member of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State) and the Islamist militias that
helped him topple Assad as a burgeoning threat. It is similarly concerned about
the ongoing chaos in Syria as authorities struggle to gain control post-Assad.
And from a legal perspective, Israel considers the disengagement agreement it
signed with Assad’s father in 1974 as inoperative once Bashar fell, at least
until order is reestablished.
In short, Israel seems intent on creating its own buffer zone inside Syrian
territory. On February 23, Netanyahu warned that Israel would not allow militias
or Syrian government forces to operate south of Damascus, enforcing this
prohibition with repeated airstrikes on military equipment and personnel.
Meanwhile, his government has sought to build relationships with Syrian Druze
communities in the UNDOF zone (to be discussed in Part 2). It has also reached
out—with little success—to Druze leaders further north, most notably in Jaramana
near Damascus, where Netanyahu suggested on March 1 that he might take military
action to protect the minority from Islamist government forces. And last week,
Defense Minister Israel Katz publicly lamented the recent massacres against
another minority, the Alawites, leading some to speculate that they might be
offered IDF protection as well. Of course, empathizing with the plight of
minority communities under the nascent Islamist administration in Damascus does
not necessarily mean Israel will act on these sentiments—after all, it opted not
to intervene on behalf of the Druze throughout the entire civil war despite
well-documented regime persecution.
For Sharaa’s part, after arriving in Damascus, he put aside the nom de guerre he
had used for years (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) and traded in his fatigues for a
suit and tie. For weeks afterward, he and his circle of transitional authorities
issued numerous statements professing a lack of interest in conflict with
Israel. On December 16, for example, he stated that he “had no intention of
confronting Israel” and pledged not to “let Syria be used as a launchpad for
attacks” against neighboring states.
Assurances aside, the jury is still out on Sharaa’s long-term intentions.
Although he distanced himself from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State long ago, his
new government includes a number of known terrorists and jihadist foreign
fighters hostile to Israel. And even if his stated desire for more amicable
relations with Jerusalem is sincere, he controls only a portion of Syria’s
territory and militias.
Given the current instability and the new government’s uncertain future posture,
Israel’s inclination to take proactive defensive steps and establish an area of
influence in south Syria is understandable. The question is whether the threat
justifies such a robust and potentially counterproductive cross-border
deployment beyond the UNDOF zone. And regardless of the answer to that question,
Washington and other actors must account for another key factor driving Israel’s
Syria deployment: its concerns over Turkey’s increasing influence in Damascus.
Policy Recommendations
When asked about post-Assad engagement in January, President Trump stated,
“Syria is in its own mess...They don’t need us involved.” His administration is
also reportedly making plans to withdraw the small U.S. troop contingent in east
Syria that has helped Kurdish partners keep a lid on the Islamic State for years
and secure detention facilities holding thousands of the group’s operatives,
adherents, and family members. Yet Washington still has a pressing interest in
fostering stability and ensuring that Syria’s new government can exert
sovereignty, defend the borders, fight terrorism, and repudiate the country’s
long track record of menacing neighbors—otherwise, many of the administration’s
other objectives in the Middle East will be jeopardized.
To achieve this goal, U.S. officials will have to work with partners to help
improve economic conditions, mainly by finding the right balance of urgent (if
temporary) sanctions relief. They should also help curb fragmentation and
warlordism by continuing to encourage armed elements to merge with the new
Syrian army—an approach that bore fruit last week when the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) reached an initial integration agreement with Sharaa.
Perhaps more important, the Trump administration needs to talk with Israel to
better understand its long-term strategy in Syria. For example, while Jerusalem
should be encouraged to enhance its security by continuing to establish
partnerships across the border, any efforts to form a new proxy force there
would be ill advised, as seen when Israel fostered the creation of the South
Lebanon Army decades ago. Israel should be able to defend itself sufficiently
from its positions in the UNDOF zone and Mount Hermon, and through periodic
airstrikes further into Syrian territory when necessary. If it keeps troops
stationed beyond that zone, it might encourage more radicalism and terrorist
threats over time, undermining both Israeli security and Syrian stability.
Despite Sharaa’s previous statements about avoiding friction with Israel, his
embattled government is now complaining about IDF deployments, while new
Iran-backed “resistance” groups are reportedly being formed to fight the Israeli
“occupation.”
In the longer term, Jerusalem and Damascus may need to take the admittedly
challenging but likely indispensable step of negotiating a new border security
regime to modify or replace the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement. With mediation
by Washington, the new agreement should take into account the unique security
challenges of post-Assad Syria and the general fecklessness of UN peacekeepers
in Arab-Israeli conflict zones.
Finally, Washington should engage Turkey about its intervention in north Syria
and its ties to Islamist militias there. If Syria devolves into a weak state
with permanent Turkish and Israel spheres of influence, the situation would be
replete with friction points and potential conflict between two key U.S. allies.
Israel is reportedly so concerned about Turkey’s growing influence that it is
lobbying Washington to facilitate the Russian military’s return to Syria—even
though Moscow’s withdrawal was one of America’s major policy wins from the fall
of Assad.
Trump is right, Syria is a mess. But absent U.S. diplomatic involvement, the
mess would likely get much messier, with wide ripple effects for the president’s
other policy priorities in the Middle East.
**David Schenker is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute,
director of its Rubin Program on Arab Politics, and former assistant secretary
of state for Near Eastern affairs in the first Trump administration.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/avoiding-israel-syria-showdown-part-1-risks-occupation
Palestinians: 'We Are Dying Because of Hamas'
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 20, 2025
Hamas leaders have also repeatedly made it clear that their terror group has no
intention of laying down its weapons.
Hamas leaders -- based in luxury hotels and villas in Qatar, Lebanon and Egypt
-- appear in no rush to end the war. Many of them had fled the Gaza Strip
together with their families during the past few years in search of a better
life in Arab and Islamic countries. From their safe homes and offices, the Hamas
leaders continue to issue fiery statements about their group's refusal to make
concessions to end the conflict.
"They are not the ones searching for food in the rubble. They are not the ones
watching their children die. They sit in safety while others pay the price....
the suffering of Gaza has never been their concern, only their weapon." — Hamza
Howidy, Palestinian human rights and peace activist, X, March 18, 2025.
"Enough martyrs and death. Damn those who voted for you [in the 2006 Palestinian
parliamentary election]." — Ranem El Ali, Palestinian journalist and author, X,
March 18, 2025.
If the Palestinians living there want to end the war, they must revolt against
Hamas and provide Israel with information about the whereabouts of the hostages.
Sadly, most Palestinians seem unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or
because they simply identify with the terror group and its goal of destroying
Israel.
If the Palestinians living in Gaza want to end the war, they must revolt against
Hamas and provide Israel with information about the whereabouts of the hostages.
Sadly, most Palestinians seem unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or
because they simply identify with the terror group and its goal of destroying
Israel.
Palestinians are again paying a heavy price as a result of Hamas's refusal to
release the remaining 59 Israeli hostages (almost half of whom are believed to
be dead) held in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. On that day, thousands of
Hamas terrorists and ordinary Palestinians invaded Israel, murdering 1,200
Israelis and wounding thousands others. Another 251 Israelis – alive and dead –
were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Since then, Hamas could have avoided much of the death and destruction it
brought on the Palestinians by simply releasing all the hostages, laying down
its weapons and relinquishing control of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, however, chose to drag the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip
into a war that has claimed the lives of thousands and destroyed large parts of
the coastal strip.
The US-brokered ceasefire-hostage deal, announced in January, provided Hamas
with an opportunity to release all the hostages and end the war with Israel.
Instead, Hamas chose to humiliate the hostages (and all Israelis) by publicly
parading them while handing them over to representatives of the International
Committee of the Red Cross.
During the disturbing displays, masked gunmen in military uniform from Hamas and
other Palestinian terrorist groups reappeared on the streets for the first time
since the beginning of the war. During the war, some of the terrorists,
pretending to be innocent civilians, got rid of their military uniforms and hid
their weapons, and many found shelter among displaced families in humanitarian
zones throughout the Gaza Strip. Others spent most of the time hiding in
tunnels, where many of the Israeli hostages were (and still are) held.
The ceasefire-hostage deal collapsed on March 18 because Hamas is evidently not
prepared to release all the hostages, disarm and cede control of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas considers the hostages an asset and "insurance policy" for holding onto
power.
Hamas says that it wants a commitment from Israel that it will end the war while
allowing the terror group to remain in control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas also
said it wants guarantees from international parties, including the US, that
Israel would abide by such a commitment. Hamas, in other words, is saying that
it wants to retain control of the Gaza Strip so that it can use the territory to
launch more terrorist attacks against Israel in the future. Its leaders have
already threatened to carry out more massacres against Israelis.
MEMRI reported on November 1, 2023:
"Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas political bureau said in an October 24, 2023 show on
LBC TV (Lebanon) that Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 'Al-Aqsa Flood'
Operation [October 7 attack,] time and again until Israel is annihilated."
Hamad stated:
"Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that
country... The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second,
a third, a fourth... "
Hamas leaders have also repeatedly made it clear that their terror group has no
intention of laying down its weapons.
On March 9, 2025, at a Hamas event in Egypt honoring Palestinian prisoners
released by Israel as part of Phase 1 of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, senior
Hamas official Khaled Mashaal said that the Palestinians would never disarm and
warned of a large "plot" threatening the "future of the Gaza Strip, its
administration, regime, and weapons, and the resistance in it." He added:
"The path of jihad and resistance is the way to regain the homeland, honor, and
freedom, and to free the prisoners [from Israeli jail]. The world respects only
the strong."
Also in March, another senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, stressed that his
group was absolutely opposed to relinquishing its weapons and the "armed
struggle" against Israel. "The weapons of the resistance are a red line," Abu
Zuhri cautioned. He added that any discussion of disarming Hamas is "nonsense"
and that the issue is "not up for bargaining, discussion, or negotiation."
Some Hamas leaders have indicated their readiness to accept a "technocratic"
government in the Gaza Strip. For them, however, this does not mean that Hamas
would end its rule over the Gaza Strip. Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanoua
said that his group must approve the government's members and its mandate. He
clarified that the notion of Hamas completely withdrawing from governance is
"inaccurate."
Hamas is seeking to emulate the Lebanon model, where the Hezbollah terrorist
group, also backed by Iran, has been operating as a state-within-a-state for the
past few decades.
Hamas leaders -- based in luxury hotels and villas in Qatar, Lebanon and Egypt
-- appear in no rush to end the war. Many of them had fled the Gaza Strip
together with their families during the past few years in search of a better
life in Arab and Islamic countries. From their safe homes and offices, the Hamas
leaders continue to issue fiery statements about their group's refusal to make
concessions to end the conflict. "[Israel] is deluding itself if it thinks it
could pressure us by escalating its military operations," said senior Hamas
official Osama Hamdan in response to the collapse of the ceasefire-hostage deal.
Meanwhile, the only ones who are feeling the heat are the Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip. During the past few days, many Gazans took to social media to lash
out at Hamas for refusing to release all the hostages and end the war. Such
voices rarely find their way to Western media outlets. Although many
Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the "resistance" against Israel, a
growing number are speaking out against the terror group.
Mohammed Diab, a resident of the Gaza Strip, wrote:
"I appeal to Hamas to hand over the hostages and step down from any role in
governing Gaza. Saving our blood is more important than your future."
Another Gazan, Abu Ezz Ahmed, said:
"Anyone who has even a grain of faith, conscience, patriotism, or morality,
anyone who has even a grain of love for the people of Gaza, must raise their
voice now and demand—immediately and without delay—that Hamas free Gaza for the
sake of God by handing over the hostages and lifting its hand from Gaza. We are
dying because of Hamas."
Palestinian human rights and peace activist Hamza Howidy wrote:
"What does it take to surrender? The human souls? We lost enough. The city
[Gaza]? Totally destroyed...
"Yet Hamas refuses [to surrender]. Not out of strength, not out of strategy, but
because surrender means facing their own failure. It means admitting that all of
this—the loss, the destruction, the unimaginable suffering—was for nothing. And
that is something they cannot bear.
"So they hold on [to power]. Not for the people, not for Gaza, but for
themselves. Because to surrender would be to let go of the power they've built,
the control they've maintained, and the narrative they've spun for decades. They
are not the ones searching for food in the rubble. They are not the ones
watching their children die. They sit in safety while others pay the price.
"How much more is there to lose before they decide it's enough? Or is the truth
that they never will—because the suffering of Gaza has never been their concern,
only their weapon."
Ahmad, a social media user from the Gaza Strip, scoffed at Hamas terrorists for
going into hiding after the collapse of the ceasefire-hostage agreement:
"Come on, heroes of the parades on the rubble of houses, come on, sons of
[Hamas's armed wing Izz a-Din] Al-Qassam. They all take off their military
uniforms and wear civilian clothes and slippers and hide among the displaced
people and the tents."
Palestinian journalist and author Ranem El Ali:
"I declare my disbelief in this resistance, and I disavow Hamas and its
ideology. Hand over the prisoners, you 'victorious' beasts. Enough martyrs and
death. Damn those who voted for you [in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary
election]."
"Who entrusted these mentally ill people (Hamas) with the lives of the people of
Gaza?," asked a social media account called "From the Heart of the Gaza Strip."
"Who gave them the right to decide the fate of two million people? Hamas would
rather uproot lives than disarm, would rather cause destruction than retreat,
would rather hand over the Gaza Strip to the monster of darkness than give its
people a glimmer of hope!"
Commenting on the increasing criticism of Hamas, Egyptian political analyst
Khaled Hassan said:
"I've never seen that many Gazans angry at Hamas.
"For the first time in my life, the overwhelming majority of Gazans are treating
them with the contempt they deserve.
"I can confidently say that the majority of Gazans I saw commenting online said
they want the hostages released in exchange for a return to the ceasefire.
"In my view, this is big.
"The military pressure is working."
While such voices emanating from the Gaza Strip are positive and encouraging,
they are not enough to remove Hamas from power. If the Palestinians living there
want to end the war, they must revolt against Hamas and provide Israel with
information about the whereabouts of the hostages. Sadly, most Palestinians seem
unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or because they simply identify
with the terror group and its goal of destroying Israel.
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
**Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)
© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21484/palestinians-dying-because-hamas
Freedom of the Press in Ukraine
Efim Marmer//The Magazine/March 20/2025
Putting out a provincial newspaper under fire with little paper while your
neighbors are dying is not an easy job
One day, when peace comes, I’ll write a book and call it How Provincial
Newspapers Survive the War. There, I will describe what it is like to write
editorials for three years straight, amid blackouts and air raid sirens; how to
edit texts under the dim light of a lamp powered by a mini-generator while
hearing explosions; how to do layout while using a power bank; or how to pass
drafts through the phone. I will share the experience of conducting interviews
while cooking or crouching in a bomb shelter, and how to run the newsroom around
the clock despite nightly curfews and halted public transportation. I will
recount working for months without salaries, splitting equally any funds that
eventually come in. I will tell everyone how my journalists brought groceries
and supplies from home and how, right in the newsroom, we shipped them to the
front lines or handed them over to local refugees.
There will also be a special chapter on one of our lead journalists, Senior
Sergeant Gennadyi Rybchenkov, who, during breaks between combat duties, would
dictate his articles from trenches covered with snow and shrapnel. A whole
chapter will be dedicated to what it was like, for millions of Ukrainians, to
sit glued to their TVs, and watch the reception our president, Volodymyr
Zelensky received in the White House from the Trump administration. To sit
there, full of hope, and to watch, in shock, our hopes vanish in the televised
air.
Today, however, I am writing about the state of free press in Ukraine. From the
first day of the war, the Ukrainian government centralized media, merging the
major television channels into a single “United News Telemarathon,” or, as we
call it, the Marathon. This was a logical step designed to prevent the
proliferation of fake news, disinformation, and panic. The Marathon is supported
by the state, while all of the provincial media was left to its own devices.
This was a death sentence for more than a few TV channels and newspapers. Many
closed down immediately, with some journalists joining the army, while
others—especially those with young children—used their credentials to escape
abroad.
You won’t find stories about your former classmates, colleagues, or neighbors in
centralized, government-controlled media; for that, you need a local, provincial
newspaper.
Within the first year of the war, the demand for marketing and advertising
rapidly vanished. We then experienced severe shortages of newsprint. Electricity
itself became scarce, severely impacting logistics and transportation. Our
population’s disposable income was the next to go. Finally, our homes became
dark and cold for significant portions of the day. Such are the realities of
Ukrainian provincial life.
Despite all these challenges, our weekly Ukrayina-Tsentr did not skip a single
issue nor miss a single deadline. We did not pause, not even in the first and
heaviest days of the war. Back then, we gave out copies of the newspaper on the
street at no cost. At times, a crowd would form around us, and the distribution
would turn into public conversations with distraught and grieving citizens. In a
town like Kropyvnytskyi, where I live, people recognize their journalists on the
street and treat them like oracles. That’s how we continue to work today, though
our strength and resilience are starting to splinter.
Our newspaper’s mission is the same as the mission of the democratic press
anywhere in the world: to provide objective and broad-ranging information about
the situation in Ukraine and the adjacent region.
However, at this point, I am certain that the government’s Marathon is causing
more harm than benefit. Their continued attempts to put a positive spin on the
situation have reached the point of absurdity, covering up the true reality of
the country at war. Writing about military operations, shifting borders,
corruption within the army, and the bureaucracy of local officials is a hard and
often dangerous task. Any journalist who has lived and written through this war
will confirm that. Yet it must be done—especially now, here, left of the center
of Europe, where the embers of the Third World War could easily catch and spread
throughout the world.
Another key commitment of our newspaper is to honor our local, recently fallen
soldiers in every issue. Screens come and go, but the slowly fading newspaper
cutouts remain in family archives for generations. The regularity of this work
over the past three years has become almost mechanical, but such is our duty.
Imagine what it is like to speak with young widows, fathers, and mothers who
have lost a son or a daughter—some of these folks we know personally. Recently,
I wrote about a young woman who, in honor of her recently killed husband, built
a playground for disabled children. Then there was a woman who first lost her
son, then her husband, and then purchased laparoscopic equipment for a local
hospital. Just the other day, I wrote about Anatoliy Shapovalov, a
world-renowned painter from our province, whose work is exhibited in galleries
in New York and London, Kyiv, and Odessa. His grandson has been in a hospital in
Germany for over a year, and the master paints constantly to help pay for his
grandson’s recovery.
We write seldom-heard and unique stories about refugees—those who escaped the
war with nothing but a single suitcase and a cat. We continue to share agency
names and contact phone numbers, along with detailed instructions on what to do
and where to go if you lose your home. We tell the stories of locals who are
local no longer—parents who left to ensure their children’s safety and are now
struggling to make ends meet across the globe. They read our work to stay
connected to their home, to each other, and, to be honest, to themselves. You
won’t find stories about your former classmates, colleagues, or neighbors in
centralized, government-controlled media; for that, you need a local, provincial
newspaper.
We remain in close contact with volunteers worldwide—those leading projects to
assist our country and, more specifically, our city. At times, we see American
and European media criticizing Ukrainians for not being sufficiently grateful
for the aid they receive. Believe me, our people are deeply grateful. We
document these efforts because they uplift the spirits of our citizens. We write
because, after the war, these stories will become history and continue to
inspire us.
We can endlessly search for the reasons behind the conflict, analyze
blow-by-blow chains of events, and debate possible scenarios for its resolution.
But Ukraine and its people have no time for this. The clock is ticking, and the
grand finale is only months—if not weeks—away. Withdrawal of U.S. support is
hitting the free press very hard in a time when it is so vital to the survival
of the nation’s dignity and self-determination.
I recall when, back in 2009, the U.S. Department of State invited me, along with
a small group of other independent Ukrainian journalists, to visit 14
universities across America. Despite the many translators accompanying us, we
spoke a single, universal language: the language of freedom of speech. I believe
the United States and the rest of the civilized world will not allow this
freedom to be silenced in Ukraine.
*Translated from the Ukrainian by Jake Marmer.
Canada should call Trump’s bluff and drop all of its
tariffs
Iain Murray, opinion contributor/The Hill/March 20, 2025
We now appear to be in a full-fledged trade war with our closest ally and
neighbor.
Canada — so deeply integrated into the American economy that its energy
resources are considered domestic under U.S. law — has been battered with
tariffs and has responded in kind. Canada’s ruling Liberal Party that seemed
headed for electoral oblivion last year has now seen its fortunes recover in the
polls, as Canadians express growing anti-American sentiment. All this, while
President Trump continues to repeat that Canadians should give up nearly two
centuries of independence and become America’s 51st state.
Perhaps the correct response to this extraordinary rhetoric is to do something
equally extraordinary.
It is well known that Trump is most concerned about the balance of trade with
other countries, deeming a negative balance as either a subsidy to the other
country or a rip-off. Most economists do not view it that way; in fact, many
argue that countries actively pursuing trade surpluses are subsidizing us
instead. Why, then, has the president has turned his ire upon Canada?
For most of the last 20 years, U.S.-Canadian trade has been roughly in balance —
precisely what the president claims he wants with all countries. Even though
American demand for Canadian energy has tipped the balance toward Canada in
recent years, the current trade deficit of about $45 billion is the second
smallest among America’s major trading partners (only France’s is smaller). It
is one-fifth the size of the U.S. deficit with Mexico and one-eighth the size of
that with China.
As for manufacturing, the U.S. is a net exporter of goods to Canada. Part of the
reason is the highly integrated auto manufacturing sectors of the two countries
— an arrangement Trump has criticized, saying he would prefer that no American
cars be built in Canada. Yet even reworking supply chains so that all cars were
finished domestically would raise manufacturers’ costs significantly, resulting
in much higher prices for American consumers. That may be why Trump delayed his
auto tariffs by a month.
Instead, the main source of the trade deficit with Canada seems to be U.S.
imports of Canadian energy — particularly oil in the west and electricity in the
east.
Much of the U.S. refining network is geared toward Canadian oil, so reorienting
it to other sources would be costly. Ontario Premier Doug Ford once threatened a
25 percent surcharge on electricity exports, which would likely raise prices for
consumers in states like Michigan and New York, but he backed off after facing
threats of further tariffs.
Ford’s retreat suggests that the endless cycle of retaliations in a trade war
has its limits. In that sense, it might seem the president was right when he
said, “Trade wars are good and easy to win.” But maybe not. As my colleague Ryan
Young notes, “Sometimes the only way to win is not to play. This is true of
nuclear war, and it is true of tariffs.”
Canada could win this fight in a counterintuitive way, with a bit of political
jiu-jitsu. It should not only remove its retaliatory tariffs but drop all tariff
and non-tariff barriers, adopting unilateral free trade.
Doing so would instantly call Trump’s bluff, since he keeps saying he wants
reciprocal or balanced tariffs, and still allow him to declare victory. By his
own rhetoric, he would be compelled to concede that the U.S. should reduce its
tariffs to reciprocate.
Such a move would immediately raise Canadian living standards, because prices
would fall as protected industries — like dairy — adjusted to the new
environment. (Indeed, American subsidies for its dairy industry would
effectively become subsidies for Canadians.)
In turn, Canadians might spend these savings on their once-capable defense
sector, much as Europeans are finding they must do in Trump’s new world order.
Indeed, the president has included the cost of American defense of Canada in his
claims of a $200 billion trade deficit. If Canadians want their nation to remain
independent — as public opinion polling clearly indicates they do — perhaps they
should be paying for it accordingly, rather than spending less than 2 percent of
GDP on defense.
As Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman noted in the 1990s, “The
economist’s case for free trade is essentially a unilateral case — that is, it
says that a country serves its own interests by pursuing free trade regardless
of what other countries may do.” For politicians, he conceded, this is a tough
sell, and Canadians would likely erupt in anger at what would be spun as
surrender. National pride would take a beating.
Yet for both Canadians and Americans, the winning outcome may, ironically, be to
choose economic prosperity over Pyrrhic victory in a trade war.
Iain Murray is a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free
market public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Right’s Sectarian Moment
Tony Badran/The Magazine/March 20/2025
There is no massacre of Christians happening in Syria. But that lie took hold
for a reason—and grasping it is the key to understanding something important
about American domestic politics.
Many Americans, particularly those who get their information from popular
right-wing social media accounts and podcasters, now take it as an article of
faith that there are ongoing massacres of Christians in Syria. Syria’s Islamist
government, which in December replaced the Assad family regime that had ruled
Syria for over five decades, is generally blamed. But more prominently, the
massacres are said to be the fault of the United States and Israel, and the
“neocons” who allegedly control both governments.
In fact, there has been no massacre of Christians in Syria. There was an
uprising by Alawite militias, which is the sect of Muslims—not Christians—to
which the Assad family belonged. Though Assad and his brother have left the
country, local militias and loyalist commanders who had worked with the Iranians
during the war, have refused to disarm. With the new regime still lacking
capacity and struggling to find its footing and impose central authority, these
Alawite militia commanders, backed by Iran, started launching regular attacks
against the new government forces. Earlier this month, they ambushed a unit of
the security services, killing 16 soldiers, as part of a coordinated series of
attack—the most ambitious to date, and likely signaling Iranian and Hezbollah
support. Since March 6, more than 1000 people have reportedly been killed in the
fighting, several hundred of whom appear to have been Alawite fighters and
members of the new government’s security services.
The most reliable death toll for Christians killed during this entire event is
five people. There is no evidence that any of these five were targeted because
of their religion—one was reportedly killed by a stray bullet. Nor has any
widespread massacre of Christians occurred at any point in Syria’s 14-year-long
war.
The narrative transformation of hundreds of Alawites killed by Syrian security
forces and mercenaries during a military uprising into “hundreds of innocent
dead Christians” murdered by forces “backed by the United States and Israel” is
an important story, though. Not only does it shine a light on a massive, largely
underreported effort underway to divide American evangelicals; it also exposes a
larger phenomenon of which this effort is a part—which is the embrace of the
sectarian politics of the Middle East by Washington, D.C. since the terror
attacks of September 11, 2001. Whether through deepening U.S. engagement in the
region, or through encouraging the influx of people from the region to the U.S.,
especially to our universities, America has enmeshed itself with the Middle East
and its peoples, habits and categories.
Attacks on “Christian Zionism” have long been central to the propaganda of
terror-sponsoring anti-American regimes and movements, from the Palestinians to
Iran, whose leaders describe evangelicals as deviant Christians who have
distorted true Christianity—by which the Mullahs mean the politics of local
Christian communities that they rule over. This Third World discourse is now
being adopted into a full-blown op targeting American evangelicals, run most
prominently by Tucker Carlson and his allies.
In April, Carlson hosted a Palestinian Lutheran pastor who routinely rails
against American evangelicals and “Christian Zionism” as “imperial theology,” to
denounce the American “religious right” and “Christian members of Congress” for
supporting Israel’s war in Gaza and sending money “to oppress Christians,”
instead of supporting “their brethren in the Holy Land.” Tucker framed the
episode by singling out evangelicals, as he often does: “Many Christian churches
in the United States, particularly evangelical churches, support [the fighting].
But there is virtually never a word about the Christians who live there. The
ancient Christian community in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel proper.”
In another interview in December, Carlson raged against “Protestant Christian
churches in the United States” for “totally ignoring the murder of Christians in
the Middle East and the oppression of Christians.” The example he chose to
highlight this murder of Christians was how Israel “shot up” the church of the
Nativity in 2000: “You’re shooting into the church on the site where Jesus was
born. Really?”
Another of Tucker’s guests, Russian “philosopher” Aleksandr Dugin, whom Carlson
interviewed in Moscow shortly after hosting the Palestinian pastor, has very
specific thoughts about American evangelicals that neatly echo Carlson’s
talkers. After the fall of Assad in December, Dugin opined that in addition to
holding “weird heretic messianic views,” “Christian Zionism is geopolitically
unfounded … and theologically contradictory.”
The campaign doesn’t stop there. It’s now targeting evangelical readings of the
scriptures, which inform their position on Israel and the Jews, under the guise
of criticism of the so-called “Scofield Reference Bible”—an early 20th-century
study Bible (King James Version) annotated by the minister Cyrus I. Scofield,
and which helped popularize dispensationalism. Carlson and his proteges
(erroneously) trace the “heresy” of Christian Zionism to Scofield and his
commentary. “The Scofield stuff,” Carlson noted, has had “massive implications
for our foreign policy and in our domestic politics.” Carlson’s guest, country
singer John Rich, helpfully informed his host that the Scofield study Bible was
“connected to the Rothschilds.”
The “influencer” Ian Carroll parroted this line, exposing a “rabbit hole” for
his audience. “In the early 1900s, right around when the Federal Reserve was
founded,” Carroll intoned, “the Balfour Declaration happened, right at that
exact same time, the Rothschild family hired this dude, this pastor in the deep
south; he made a new version of the Bible … He wrote this new Bible that has all
these new interpretations of the text … That’s where Judeo-Christianity kinda
came from … The Scofield Bible was funded by the Rothschild family. And it was
pushed because they owned the publisher … so they had the deals that they could
make to get that Bible into all the mega-churches across whole denominations of
Christianity. So that was when Christianity kind of got Jewified.” Other low IQ
antisemites on social media like Jake Shields and Dan Bilzerian would
regurgitate these talkers, asserting that Scofield was “paid by Zionists,” and
calling the study Bible “complete Jewish propaganda,” a “Zionist psyop,” that
“edited sections about Israel that were not in the original protestant Bible.”
These voices are demanding that American evangelicals abandon their beliefs,
condemning them as bad people if they don’t. The condition for this
redemption—the criterion—is to denounce their readings of the scriptures and
turn away from Jews. The telos is for the Eastern Christians to take the place
of the Jews both in the scriptural and American story. “If the fate of Syrian
Christians given by US into the hands of ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists doesn’t
bother so called ‘judeo-christians’ they can not be called ‘christians’ at all,”
wrote Dugin in another post.
For Dugin, and seemingly others in this space, the Eastern Christians are not
merely our brothers in Christ. They’re our ancestors and, although their
practices are alien to American Protestantism, the authentic “biblical model.”
America and its religion must find redemption in the East. In order to be
considered real Christians, these people argue, evangelicals must undergo a
realignment—away from Jews, and the West entirely. Which means, of course, away
from America.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a premise took hold in foreign policy circles:
that sustained exposure to our values and way of life would convert the young
people of the Middle East to the values of freedom and democracy that Americans
believed themselves to embody—that this exposure would bring out the inner
American that naturally dwells within the people of that region. To believe
otherwise, following the successful democratization of Eastern and Central
Europe after long decades of Soviet rule, was to assert that Iraqis and Afghans
were somehow different than Poles and Czechs—a fact that should be plainly
obvious to even a casual visitor to any of those places, but which was taken at
the time by key member of the Bush administration, starting with President Bush
himself, and his chief national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, as de facto
evidence of racism.
The response to the 9/11 attacks, which were framed as an assault on Western
civilization, or the Judeo-Christian tradition as it was commonly referred to at
the time, became the ill-conceived and ill-fated U.S. project known as the
Freedom Agenda, which Washington presented as a latter-day mission civilisatrice
in the lands of Islam. Americans who believed in that cause, or who wanted a
slice of the ever-growing counterterrorism pie, immersed themselves in learning
about Islam, the intricacies of the Arabic language, and the ethnographic
nuances of the various countries and sectarian communities of the region.
Interestingly, not only did Barack Obama not change this course set by his
Republican predecessor; he deepened it—by making this communitarian outlook
central to his policies both at home and abroad. This began with his famous 2009
Cairo speech, in which Obama purported to showcase his “respect” for Islam, and
addressed “Muslims” as a community, bypassing states for communal categories.
Similarly, when expounding on his approach to the region, Obama spoke of a
primeval Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict, not of a regional order of states,
categorized based on their relationship to the U.S. as allies or
adversaries—which is how reality actually worked on the ground of the Middle
East. In fact, when Obama embraced a peculiar version of George W. Bush’s
Freedom Agenda in Egypt, he did so against a longstanding U.S. ally and in favor
of a Muslim Brotherhood regime that riled regional allies. As a result, Obama’s
policy cemented sectarianism as the default mode of American discourse about—and
eventually policy related to—the Middle East.
If the year 2001 was the first turning point for America and its interaction
with the Middle East, then 2014 was a major milestone in its sectarian path.
Although by then we’d been over a decade deep in the mysteries of “sharia” and
“hadith” and other exotic local nonsense valorized by our increased engagement
with that part of the world, 2014 brought on a new and infinitely more toxic
phenomenon.
That year, reports emerged of the remnants of Iraqi Christians fleeing the city
of Mosul as a reorganized terrorist group, known as ISIS, which overran the
city, was demanding they convert, pay a tax, or face death, and had identified
their homes by spray-painting them with the Arabic letter “n”—the first letter
in one of the Arabic words for Christians, which then became a fashionable
marker on social media profiles and a trending hashtag. Whereas in 2001 our
initial reaction to Islamic terrorism was to look inward and draw on our
American identity against those who were attacking it, the response this time on
both the left and the right was to identify as fellow victims with a contrived,
foreign category: Middle Eastern Christians.
While “Middle Eastern Christians” meant the specific sects and communities
affected by ISIS’s takeover of parts of Iraq and eastern Syria, they quickly
became conflated as a group, the same way all Spanish-speaking people are lumped
together into the U.S. Census category of “Hispanics.” More importantly, “Middle
Eastern Christians” were suddenly now presented as an overseas extension of
“American Christians”—themselves now conceived as an identity group, who might
bond with Mideast co-religionists over a sense of shared victimhood.
It’s hard to overstate how ahistorical these assertions were, and how much they
would come to corrupt American foreign policy—inspiring new and ever more
deformed politics, including and up to today, where it’s become fashionable to
argue that America’s foreign policy should be explicitly sectarian,
conceptualized to side with Christians in the greater Middle East, from Lebanon
to Armenia—rather than a foreign policy based on advancing American interests.
This foundational idea—that there exists some sort of pan-Christian
“identity”—was entirely an American fabrication. Sectarian division has been a
constant in Christianity from the outset (see Paul’s letters), with schisms
shaping it throughout the centuries, including a defining split between its
western and eastern iterations, and with factional violence being a regular
feature in its history. The internal segmentation of Western Christianity is
integral to an important part of America’s story as a refuge for European
factions that were persecuted or alienated from the practices and beliefs of
their nominal co-religionists in Europe—not just Catholics but also mainstream
Protestants.
What’s more, the idea of Americans forming common identity with Middle Eastern
Christians runs counter to our historical interaction with these Churches.
Beginning in the first half of the 19th century, American Protestant
missionaries began working in the Ottoman Empire. While the purpose of the
mission was to convert Muslims, very early on the missionaries decided instead
to work among the Eastern Churches. The missionaries saw these Churches as
deficient, idolatrous, and in need of spiritual renovation, having lost the
essential principles of the gospel. The missionaries deemed this reformation and
revival necessary before proselytizing the Muslims—who as it happened, showed
very little interest in converting anyway—apostasy being both a crime and a
cause for social ostracism.
Attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity not being practical, American
missionaries focused instead on the Eastern Churches. Far from identifying with
these Churches, let alone regarding them as receptacles and guardians of
authentic faith, American missionaries looked at them as a broken tool that
needed repairing before they could in turn be used in the field of mission to
the Muslims—for whom they were now positioned as a stand-in, which itself was in
need of saving.
The attitude of American Protestant missionaries toward the Catholic Church was
hardly more positive. As a committee of the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions made up of Jedidiah Morse, Samuel Worcester and Jeremiah
Evarts, declared in 1811, “Prophecy, history, and the present state of the world
seem to unite in declaring that the great pillars of the Papal and Mahometan
impostures are now tottering to their fall…Now is the time for the followers of
Christ to come forward boldly and to engage earnestly in the great work of
enlightening and reforming mankind.”
Whereas the missionaries saw the local rituals as superstitions—a testament of
how much these Churches had corrupted the faith—the local Churches looked at the
Protestants’ lack of ceremonialism as evidence of deviance or even atheism.
Their hostility was both doctrinal and political. These Churches, Catholic and
Orthodox, operated under the Ottoman millet system, which allowed them to govern
their own institutions and thereby exert significant influence over the daily
lives of their flocks, such as through personal status laws (marriage,
inheritance), thus providing a strong incentive against conversion for fear of
loss of legal status. In order to maintain their status, they were more than
happy to work with the Ottoman authorities, and their local representatives, to
disrupt Protestant missionary activity.
In 1823, for example, when American missionaries in Mount Lebanon met at a house
which was to be turned into a mission center, the Maronites complained that this
would be an affront. The (Maronite) ruler of the Mount Lebanon Emirate then
ordered the missionaries abandon the residence. In 1825, a Maronite convert to
Protestantism by the name of Asaad al-Hasruni was hounded by the Church,
forcibly detained and tortured. Both Orthodox and Catholic clergy, with Ottoman
support, regularly met Protestant distribution of tracts and Bibles with
protests and bans. In 1841, the Maronite Patriarch petitioned the Ottomans to
ban Protestant missionaries throughout the empire.
The lens through which the local Churches viewed the Protestant missionaries was
power. The 19th century was the period of Great Power competition and
intervention in the declining Ottoman Empire. This power dynamic manifested
itself in sectarian terms as the Great Powers claimed protector status over
various Eastern Christian sects, who served as a pretext for European
interventions.
The point of this local history is to illustrate the fact that—very far from
supporting any imaginary notion of a unified Christian identity—Great Power
patronage over local sects during the Ottoman period only underscored sectarian
rivalry and the lack of any cohesion or common purpose among Christian sects. As
a result of the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, the French claimed
protection over the Eastern Churches which had entered into communion with the
Catholic Church and over the institutions of the various Catholic missionary
orders, which had been working among the oriental Churches for a couple of
centuries, resulting in splits within these Churches. Meanwhile, Russia claimed
protection over the Orthodox. The British, who could not make such claims over
any of the Eastern Christian sects, looked instead to even more exotic minority
groups like the Druze—although British missionaries did take an interest in the
Nestorians in the Kurdish regions.
The sectarian policy of the Great Powers only underscored the artificiality of a
common Christian identity or purpose as it relates to the Churches of the East.
Both the missionaries and the Great Powers wished to elevate their interests,
and denominations, at the expense of their competitors. For this reason, the
British (and Prussia), who wished to block the French, and thereby Catholic,
advantage in Syria, preferred backing continued Ottoman control. French
sectarian machinations in Syria directly led to the pogrom against the Jews of
Damascus in 1840, which was fanned by the French consul. That episode only
reinforced the soundness of Britain’s policy with the Ottomans.
All of this was over a century before the establishment of the state of Israel.
To be sure, American Protestant support for Jewish independence, seen as a
fulfillment of prophecy, exacerbated the pre-existing chasm, theological and
political, between America and Eastern Christians. But it was hardly the cause
of that chasm.
All that history was no match for America’s post-9/11 political landscape. Of
course, promoting religious freedom or waging war on behalf of Christian-coded
concepts like “the West” is hardly a novelty in American foreign policy. But the
trend towards embracing Middle Eastern sectarianism that emerged at this point
in history was of another nature. U.S. Middle East policy was now being used to
mainstream a fundamentally sectarian outlook, which distorted the realities of
the region while introducing a distinctly un-American way of thinking into
mainstream American political discourse, especially on the right.
The full public expression of this new American sectarianism and its constituent
elements came in September 2014, when the gala dinner of a newly-founded Middle
Eastern Christian advocacy group called In Defense of Christians (IDC) went off
the rails.
In advance of the event, IDC had brought in pro-Assad clerics and monastics from
the region for meetings in Washington, including at the Obama White House. But
they also made the mistake of inviting Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to give a speech
at their gala.
Cruz understood this event as a politicized theater with state-approved
representatives of the Syrian dictatorship. Rather than back out or shy away
from this, he challenged it head-on. Christians, he told the audience, “have no
greater ally than the Jewish state.” “Those who hate Israel hate America, and
those who hate Jews hate Christians. And if this room will not recognize that
then my heart weeps … If you hate the Jewish people, you are not reflecting the
teaching of Christ.” Cruz was promptly booed off the stage.
This entire conceit rests on a fundamental misunderstanding: Their aversion to
Jews aside, Middle Eastern Christians are not members of some wider Christian
political entity, which exists nowhere on earth. They are subjects of their
ruling regimes. And as a result of their constant need for patronage, they are
generally instruments and agents of influence for the nastiest regimes in the
region—for the very simple reason that the closer they cling to these regimes,
the better their domestic position, earning them protection against both regime
predation and broader sectarian hostility.
Consequently, the representatives and spokesmen of the many fractured minority
Christian sects in Middle Eastern countries are routinely corrupted by this
power dynamic. To give but one example, one of the bishops in attendance at the
2014 IDC event, then-Greek Catholic patriarch Gregory Lahham, was know for his
close association with the regime and was also accused by other European
Catholic bishops of being a “financial ally” of Assad and acting as his
informant at the Vatican. These regime instruments also went on to meet with
then-president Obama and lobbied on behalf of Assad, claiming that he “protects
Christians.”
Sectarian maneuvering and minority balancing acts are elementary knowledge for
anyone familiar with the Middle East—as is the recognition that minorities in
the region are often at odds with one another, and are often divided internally.
Which is why the IDC gathering rejecting alignment with the Jews was so
predictable: The clerics’ job was to lobby Washington on behalf of their local
rulers, who approved their visas and would likely be debriefing them, over tea
or coffee, when they came home. Since most were from the Levant, that meant they
were subject to Iranian power, and therefore, their advocacy was, by definition,
in favor of Iran. The fact that these clerics were pushing an alignment with
Iranian power itself was a reflection that they, and their political masters,
had picked up on Obama’s policy, and saw a role for themselves in clothing that
policy in a way that they imagined might be useful to the White House—which
quite obviously agreed.
Indeed, after initially dismissing ISIS as the junior varsity team of
terrorists, Obama quickly saw in the group’s rampage, and the reaction it
elicited in the U.S., an opportunity to advance his vision of a regional
realignment with Iran. By 2014, White House messaging had already mainstreamed
talkers that “anyone calling for regime change in Syria is, frankly, blind to
the past decade,” and that stabilizing Syria (and Iraq) would need to involve
partnering with Iran. When the Eastern Christian leaders, based in Beirut,
Damascus and Baghdad, came to Washington and met with Obama that same year, they
reinforced the president’s messaging, which aligned with that of their
overlords. One of them made sure to tell a pro-Hezbollah paper in Lebanon that
Obama told them at the meeting, “we know that President Bashar Assad protects
Christians.”
Again, there is nothing surprising about this stance, which is hardly worthy of
condemnation—considering that any local clergyman who traveled to Washington and
did the opposite would have likely run into a world of trouble as soon as he
returned home. Those who were surprised at these clerics’ and their D.C.
handlers’ loud rejection of making common cause with Israel and the Jews, as
well as their evangelical allies in the U.S., only betrayed their own ignorance
and naivety of the political, cultural and even theological positions of Eastern
Christians toward Jews and American evangelical Protestants alike.
What was of note, however, was how American pundits from various Christian
denominations, such as Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway and New York Times
columnist Ross Douthat, joined the IDC’s audience’s rejection of the American
worldview that Cruz articulated. The premise of their criticism was that there
was a supposed shared identity between American Christians and the Christians of
the Middle East which superseded the American national interest—which should be
if not subordinated to the preferences of those Christians, then at least
suspended in solidarity with them.
“The United States considers [Assad] an enemy,” wrote Hemingway, “but Christians
in the region view him differently because his regime is fighting the guys who
are killing them and seeking their eradication.” Hemingway proceeded to lecture
the Senator from Texas that he should ignore the political agenda of these
Christian clerics, “especially if our politics aren’t aligned.”
With the incorporation of Third World magical cosmology to amplify a narrative
of sectarian grievance, the sectarians of the right embraced Obama’s revisionist
proposition for America: Disjoining the nation from its Judaic foundation is the
path for dismantling American exceptionalism. Indeed, as it turned out, the IDC
episode marked the beginning of a major influence campaign focused on American
evangelicals. What began at the time as an attack on a specific evangelical, Ted
Cruz, for insisting on the bond with the Jews and rejecting a substitute
alignment with Eastern Christians that necessarily demands severing that bond,
would, a decade later, reach its endpoint as a campaign anathematizing
evangelicals as a group, precisely for their attachment to this biblical
bond—which is the underpinning of America’s own covenantal story.
Although the new American sectarianism was arguably a byproduct of Civil Rights
legislation and the resulting notion of “protected groups,” which was given
added significance by George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror, this contrived
ecumenism, which lumps together numerous sects and denominations in a new
socio-political package, only came into fruition as a mainstream political
framework under Barack Obama.
Bush’s failed experiment in re-engineering the Middle East had already heralded
America’s acceptance of sectarian categories as a primary policy instrument,
both at home and abroad. Obama put this understanding on steroids. Sectarianism
defined Obama’s worldview in both the domestic and foreign spheres. In fact, the
elimination of the distinction between those spheres was a major feature of his
political program. At home, Obama supercharged identity politics, turning
communal grievance, often imagined, into the coin of the realm, through his
public approval of movements like Black Lives Matter, and his attempt to use the
Iran Deal to push Jewish Democrats to the back of the bus. In a sectarian quota
system, the state, which is to say the Obama Democratic Party, would dole out
pieces of the pie, often according to its own hierarchical structure that it
sets—at the core of which was a reordering of the place of Jews in the
Democratic Party, by elevating Iran and Palestine above Israel.
The sectarian current was crucial for Obama’s program for re-making America in
his image. In turn, the categories he needed could only find necessary grounding
in the politics of the Middle East. This is why despite declaring a so-called
pivot to Asia, Obama refused to let go of the region. In fact, the defining
initiative of his second term in office was to tie the U.S. to Iran, leveraging
American power to prop up Iranian intervention from the Gulf to the Eastern
Mediterranean.
At home, Obama’s hierarchy of sectarian grievances offered an avenue for party
factions to each have their piece of the identity politics rainbow pie. Part of
Obama’s pivot on ISIS was his realization that he could jiujitsu his opponents
by using their position to advance his own. Republicans think that jihad is the
primary enemy of civilization and Christianity? No problem—Obama agrees!
Furthermore, he believes Iran shares our enmity towards these Sunni jihadists,
who threaten our common holdings from Baghdad to Beirut. So, as a matter of
fact, does Russia, with whom Obama partnered to avoid striking Assad in 2013
following his chemical weapons attacks. No more regime change wars that
disintegrate “state institutions”! After all, Assad, who is supported by Iran
and Hezbollah, protects Christians.
You know who the real problem is, as then-VP Joe Biden put it? Our allies—Turkey
and Saudi Arabia. And of course, Bibi Netanyahu.
After first seeming like a rare public gaffe, the ISIS crisis allowed Obama’s
messaging to reframe the conversation by tapping into nascent resentment in the
ranks of his domestic opponents, many of whom had become disillusioned with
nearly a decade and a half of the Global War on Terror, which turned out to be a
colossal waste of time, money and American lives. Obama played to this room with
studied talkers such as “there are no good guys in Syria,” or by describing the
conflict as a primordial Sunni-Shia conflict in which we had no stake, which
projected the false pretense of detached neutrality even as he consciously and
deliberately aligned the U.S. with one of those two sides—the one killing Sunnis
en masse. By publicizing his meeting with the Eastern Christian clerics, Obama
validated and stoked this nascent “Christian” sectarianism on the right to his
advantage.
Obama’s policy, which was to align with the Death to America regime and its
terrorist tentacles, now was about backing the camp that “protected Christians.”
Just as seamlessly, the appeal of sectarianism on the right, while expressed in
terms of foreign policy, was tailored for Obama’s domestic agenda: Instead of
thinking about themselves as Americans, who approach foreign policy through the
lens of the American national interest, right-wingers—now identified as
“American Christians”—were crudely baited to think of themselves as a minority
identity group, one that’s simultaneously tribal/subnational and
global/transnational, and this way get themselves a piece of the sectarian pie
like the other grievance groups which nurturing their resentment towards their
rivals.
For people with any self-confidence, or even a slight investment in and
knowledge of American history, the offer was an obvious con, an exchange of some
lumps of fool’s gold for the contents of the vaults at Fort Knox.
The Obama era laid the groundwork for the entrenchment of sectarian discourse
even after the 44th president’s departure from office and the victory of Donald
Trump in 2016.
In fact, it was right after Trump entered the White House in 2017 that Tucker
Carlson began to lean into the Middle Eastern Christians op in earnest. Carlson
was ostensibly focused on shaping the incoming president’s policy toward Syria.
To that end, he found an ally in then-Democrat member of Congress Tulsi Gabbard,
who would become a regular on Carlson’s Fox News show. Although framed as a call
to abandon Obama’s “regime change” policy, Carlson and Gabbard’s proposition in
fact was an affirmation of Obama’s actual policy: that is, backing Assad’s
remaining in power—and getting Trump to sign on to that policy.
Fresh off her visit to Syria in January 2017, during which she met with Assad,
Gabbard appeared on Carlson’s show. He proceeded to pitch her, repeatedly, on
whether Assad was open to an “alliance” with the U.S. against ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Gabbard spoke of a coming “genocide” of “religious minorities” should Assad be
toppled.
Four months later, Assad used chemical weapons—again—on the town of Khan
Shaykhoun in northwestern Syria. In response, Trump ordered a missile strike
against the Syrian dictator. Almost exactly one year after that, in April 2018,
Assad would use chemical weapons again, this time in Douma, north of Damascus.
Seemingly anxious about a possible U.S. response, a couple of days before Trump
ordered another strike Carlson aired a segment where he warned that should we
“go to war” with Assad, “we might likely see the genocide of one the last
remaining Christian communities in the Middle East and we ought to care about
that.”
The following month, Carlson returned to this theme in another segment.
“Christianity is nearly extinct in the Middle East, where of course it was
born,” Tucker said in his opening remarks. “One of the largest surviving
communities of Christians is in Syria, but they could find themselves targeted
even more than they already are by Islamists if President Bashar al-Assad falls
from power, as many in Washington are hoping he does.” “Why does nobody care?”
Tucker began by asking his guest. “There are a lot of Christians in Syria, why
is there no concern for them?”
Under Biden, this view of America as unexceptional and sinful became official
policy, both domestically and globally, rooted in a politics of resentment and
despair. Americans’ loss of confidence in themselves and their historical
definitions of their own country made them susceptible to the peddlers of that
most un-American of sentiments, self-pity, which now manifested itself in the
manufactured identification with Middle East Christians—people who lacked
control over their own lives.
This demoralization attracted grifters. It also drew in predators, both domestic
and foreign, who would come to see their ticket in amplifying the politics of
despair and delirium on the American right.
Having understood that the number one asset in a sectarian grievance system was
victimhood, “influencers” on the right needed a unifying narrative of
persecution. In the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, they would find their instrument.
The sectarianism fostered over the previous decade would, almost naturally, come
to channel grievances toward the Jews—with “Middle Eastern Christians” serving
as the wedge.
By attaching themselves to this amorphous and seemingly universalist category of
“Christians,” operators like Carlson, Candace Owens, and others have been able
to foster an identity of shared victimhood—one that appropriates the
victimization of Christians abroad and leverages it as part of the new grievance
politics at home. Based on this dynamic, “Middle East Christians” became a
projection of Americans’ own narrative: the larger the former’s suffering—framed
as a consequence of U.S. government policies—the more it reflects our own, at
the hand of the same government, or the nefarious forces that control it.
Although Syria by and large had taken a backseat since 2020, the dynamics and
secondary effects of the war on Israel in 2024 would hurl it back into the
spotlight. With Israel having decimated Hezbollah—which had opened the Lebanon
front against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023—over the course of the year, and with
Russia still preoccupied in Ukraine, in early December 2024, Assad was exposed.
What began as a limited operation by the Turkish-backed opposition forces in
northern Syria quickly, and unexpectedly, snowballed into a total rout. Within
days, Assad had fled the country to Moscow.
To explain what had just happened, Carlson invited the globalist pro-China
economist Jeffrey Sachs on his show. “This is Netanyahu’s war to remake the
Middle East,” Sachs explained. It goes back to right after 9/11, when “the
neocons and the Israelis” decided they were going to launch wars in seven
countries to remake the Middle East. “We’ve been at war in six of them now. And
I mean the United States, on behalf of Israel, including in Syria.” In Sachs’
telling, what happened in Syria was, actually, “a culmination of a longterm
effort by Israel to reshape the Middle East in its image.” It’s all part of the
“Greater Israel” idea. All of this had been hidden from the public, Sachs
helpfully explained. “Israel has driven so many American wars,” he added.
Funnily enough, it was Obama who, as part of reorienting America away from
Israel and toward Iran, made “neocons” into code not just for Israel supporters
but for any Jew who engaged in American politics in ways that the Democratic
Party did not like. Obama reframed these people as perennial warmongers, and
denounced them as a cabal that drags the U.S. into never-ending wars on Israel’s
behalf.
The reality of “neocons” was beside the point for Obama, as well as for the
sectarians on the right. So was the fact that none of the main-decision makers
in the run-up to or during the Iraq War—George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin
Powell, Richard Armitage, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Richard Myers—was Jewish, or the fact that most of the key
“neocon” intellectuals, who included such well-known Jews as Daniel Patrick
Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, were dead by 2014. Bill Kristol, the manqué son
of actual neocon intellectual Irving Kristol, would soon join Obama in 2017 as a
founding partner of the Russiagate hoax. By “neocons,” Obama and his court meant
Jews.
The sectarians on the right followed Obama’s lead, seeing in “neocons” what
Obama saw in it—a useful category in the inter-party battle, this time on the
Republican side, where they could be used to blame someone else for George
Bush’s legacy of failure. Having been used by Obama and his sectarians on the
left, and then adopted by Carlson and the sectarians on the right, “neocons” now
transmogrified into a stand-in for something else—a powerful clique that
controlled American presidents irrespective of their political or ideological
affiliation, and which exercised irresistible influence over the direction of
American foreign policy.
Since a primary function of the victimhood narrative is to shape
sectarian-political alignments, the selection of which narrative of Christian
persecution to identify with most closely must serve this purpose. This is why,
for example, the very real slaughter of Christians in Africa must take a back
seat to imaginary “massacres of Christians” in countries where “neocons pursued
regime change.” In addition, Africa cannot be as easily tied to Israel—as much
as Candace Owens can ramble on about a “Mossad plot” in the Democratic Republic
of Congo to explain the beheading of Christians in the Evangelical and Baptist
Center at the hands of Islamists. You can make it work with Armenia, for
example, despite its distance from Israel. But that’s because Armenia’s neighbor
and foe, Azerbaijan, is an ally of Israel, which works well for the sectarians
on the right who demand that the U.S. forgo all strategic and geopolitical
reasoning and act exclusively on sectarian grounds behind the Armenians, because
they’re Christians, and sectarian ‘asabiyya supersedes everything. That Armenia
is a close ally of Iran—Obama’s ally—and that supporting it would fold us into
the Iranian camp, much like what happened in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, and
thereby reinforce Obama’s regional order, is surely just a coincidence.
Similarly, it was no coincidence that the fake story in March of a “mass
slaughter of Christians” in Syria pushed by the sectarian influencers on the
right was an information campaign run directly on Iranian state media and
amplified by their validators on social media in support of a kinetic operation
by Iranian-backed militia on the Syrian coast. In other words, much like it was
in 2014, this sectarian foreign policy from the right is simply Obama’s regional
program, recast in language that defines “American Christians” as the equivalent
of their imaginary Middle East Christian cousins—a low-ranking victim group.
The new sectarians know they aren’t going to convince all American evangelicals;
their aim instead is to divide them. And why? Maybe it’s because they are, as of
today at least, a cohesive voting bloc that predictably votes for MAGA. In
contrast, the faction that is targeting them, already openly admit that they’re
anti-Trump. It seems, then, that the whole project is for the wolves to snatch
and scatter the flock.
There’s another irony here. For all its denunciation of neoconservatism, the new
sectarian foreign policy on the right is itself a parody of actual neocon
foreign policy.
The primary criticism of neoconservative foreign policy is that it divorced
military interventionism from the national interest, attaching it instead to
more abstract “values.” This resulted in ill-thought military adventures in the
region, which—not least because those societies are fundamentally alien and
American values are not simply one-size-fits-all apparel that could be easily
adopted elsewhere—turned these campaigns into constant features, with no end in
sight.
The new sectarian right, under the banner of “ending forever wars,” pushes
exactly the same outlook. America is supposed to adjust its foreign policy
posture abroad to align with Christian sects overseas, and especially in the
Middle East, that demand U.S. patronage regardless of who they are—and
irrespective of their geopolitical alignments, and how that affects U.S.
interests and national security.
And why? Because the new American sectarian foreign policy lens is distorted by
inherent antisemitism. It cannot see what is plainly obvious: that Israel as an
asset of American power, not a sectarian extension of a domestic grievance
identity group that enjoys quasi mystical influence. Which is why what was at
first hinted at with Syria and Iraq has now become explicit: the true persecutor
of Middle East Christians, and therefore the truly evil force in the world, is
Israel.
“For decades, Bashar al-Assad protected minority religious communities in Syria,
including the country’s large Christian population,” Carlson tweeted, in a post
that now has more than 34,000 retweets. “Assad protected the Christians. The
weaker Assad was, the more Christians died. During the years that neocons in the
west backed the war against Assad, the percentage of Christians in Syria went
from ten percent to two percent. Now that Assad has been driven from power, many
of the remaining Syrian Christians are being slaughtered and their holy places
desecrated. Bari Weiss and John Bolton haven’t said a word about it. But no one
who’s paying attention can be surprised it’s happening. Neocon projects in the
Middle East invariably destroy ancient Christian communities, from Iraq to Gaza
and in many places in between. Can this be an accident? You wonder.”
In this view, Israel is not waging a defensive war against a multipronged
Iranian-backed terror group that attacked its territory and murdered and
kidnapped its citizens. That’s a false consciousness. Rather, Israel is
implementing a global “Neocon project” designed to murder Christians.
The following day, The Federalist’s Sean Davis articulated the implied answer to
Carlson’s rhetorical wondering, presenting the fictional massacre of Christians
in Syria as a veil-lifting moment. The “mass slaughter of Christians,” said
Davis, “seems to follow every single neocon foray into regime change in the
Middle East.” It “happens so regularly,” he added, “that you begin to
wonder”—there’s that word again—“whether the mass slaughter of Christians was
the whole point of the project in the first place.”
Ah, so that’s what the Zionists have been up to all along!
The bottom line is, for all their pretense about “realism” and “the American
interest,” in reality the sectarian cosmology is fundamentally delirious. To
describe this howling madness as any form of “realism” is a sign of intellectual
and moral collapse—which is where those people are right now, and where the
country will be if this thinking is adopted by any large or influential segment
of Americans.
The effort to torque American Protestantism away from its biblical heritage is
the latest manifestation of the process of reverse proselytization that has been
taking place since the mid-20th century, and was given much greater velocity and
force by the U.S. response to 9/11. Ironically, the fruits of the Protestant
mission to the Arab Middle East, Arab Protestants, have shown that the dominant
Arab political culture wins out in the end, rendering their politics
indistinguishable from that of the Catholic or Eastern Churches in the region.
The result of American Protestant proselytization in the Middle East is that
Arabs targeted for conversion have instead became drivers of the reverse
cultural and political conversion of Americans to the defining regional
religion, which is finally not Islam but sectarian hate.
If Barack Obama’s unique personal biography and political outlook, and the
political machine he built, were all necessary preconditions for this reversal,
it was the American right that finally took the bait he offered, emptying the
categories of “left” and “right” of whatever meaning they once held, in return
for the dubious benefit of becoming “American Christians” in the new sectarian
system. To say that Jesus weeps is highly speculative and probably blasphemous.
What seems true enough is that the foes of America and Americanness—at home and
abroad—are watching the spectacle with glee.
***Tony Badran is Tablet’s news editor and Levant analyst.
https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rights-sectarian-moment-syria-christians
Pressure Putin ...That’s what Trump must do to achieve a
ceasefire
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/March
20/2025
First, President Trump muscled Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting, without
security guarantees or other preconditions, a 30-day ceasefire in the brutal war
that Vladimir Putin has been waging against Ukraine for more than three years.
Next, President Trump sent a message asking Mr. Putin if he was willing to do
the same. “We agree with the proposal to cease hostilities,” the Russian ruler
said at a Moscow press conference last week. “But we have to bear in mind that
this ceasefire must be aimed at a long-lasting peace, and it must look at the
root causes of the crisis.”
Allow me to translate: He said no. Mr. Putin then met with Aleksandr Lukashenko,
president of Belarus, a Russian vassal state, while Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s
Special Envoy, was made to cool his heels for eight hours. Do I need to
translate that message? When Mr. Witkoff finally was permitted to enter the
Kremlin, Mr. Putin presented him with a list of demands – concessions he wants
in advance of a ceasefire which would make Ukraine more vulnerable to future
aggression.
So, now it’s show time – time for Mr. Trump to show his mettle by putting
maximum pressure on Russia, an American adversary, as he has on Ukraine, a
nation that wants nothing more than to be an American ally. On a Tuesday phone
call, Messrs. Trump and Putin agreed to “an energy and infrastructure
ceasefire.” Does that mean Ukrainian kindergartens and hospitals are still fair
game? We should know within hours.
Of this you can be sure: The dictators in Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang – all
of them making contributions to Mr. Putin’s war against Ukraine – are watching
this test of Mr. Trump’s strength, will, and leadership. The outcome will guide
their future actions.
Because the president’s approach to problem-solving is deal-making, he has
positioned himself as the intermediary between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky.
But between Vladmir and Volodymyr – the former a dictator, the latter a
president elected in a multiparty democracy – there is no moral equivalence.
Mr. Zelensky is fighting a defensive war. For him, winning means Ukraine retains
its sovereign independence, expels Russian invaders from Ukrainian lands, and
welcomes home the thousands of Ukrainian children that Mr. Putin has kidnapped
and taken to Russia for brainwashing and forcible adoption.
Mr. Putin, by contrast, is fighting a war of conquest. For him, winning means
turning Ukraine into a colony or, failing that, a vassal like Belarus.
I don’t think Mr. Trump – or anyone else – can put Russia and Ukraine on a “path
to peace.” Predators don’t make peace with their prey. What is achievable is a
cessation of hostilities leading to a frozen conflict. For how long can the
conflict remain frozen? The conflict between the two Koreas has been on ice for
72 years – thanks to the United States. Freezing the conflict would mean that
Russian troops continue to illegally occupy about 18% of Ukraine’s territory,
along with Crimea, conquered and annexed in 2014. But it would also mean that
Ukraine survives as a political entity and a unique culture, with most
Ukrainians not forced to live under the jackboot of a former KGB lieutenant
colonel. Such an outcome would not represent a victory for justice. But it would
be preferable to the bloody status quo.
If Mr. Trump were to bring this about, he would deserve plaudits. And he would
be able to turn his full energies to the many other foreign policy crises he’s
inherited from President Biden. Last week, Mr. Trump warned that he can “do
things” that would be “devastating for Russia.” Researchers at my think tank,
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, have compiled a list of economic
sanctions that would bite like a crocodile rather than a mosquito. Sticking with
the animal metaphors, the sanctions would eat into Russia’s only cash cow, its
oil revenues.
To add pressure, Mr. Trump could increase the flow of weapons to Ukraine and
remove restrictions – imposed by President Biden – on the use of those weapons
to strike targets inside Russia. Would that induce Mr. Putin to agree to a
ceasefire without preconditions? Many military analysts believe he’s running low
on munitions and has insufficient human cannon fodder to replace the corpses
he’s been laying down to take additional inches of Ukrainian soil. So, he may
see a temporary ceasefire as in his interest, though he’s shrewd enough not to
admit that. Should there be a ceasefire, Ukraine would then need to rearm to the
gills, to turn itself into (last animal metaphor for today, I promise) a
porcupine – difficult for the predator to swallow. The Europeans – the Germans
in particular – should foot the bill. They could also spend the $300 billion in
frozen Russian funds being held in Europe. Stationing European peacekeepers –
British and French in particular – along the current lines of control could help
keep the conflict from reigniting. As for Mr. Putin, he’d claim that he’d not
spilled blood and spent treasure in vain because he had enlarged Mother Russia
and established a firm land bridge to Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet
is based. Would Ukraine, America, and our European allies need to recognize
these Russian conquests? No, just as the U.S. and most Western nations never
recognized the Soviet takeover of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 –
nations that now fear what Mr. Putin will do to them should he defeat Ukraine. A
ceasefire leading to a frozen conflict would give Ukrainians time to rest and
rebuild, always keeping in mind: Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace,
prepare for war). That is a more trustworthy “security guarantee” than anything
written on a scrap of paper.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD), a columnist for the Washington Times, and host of the
“Foreign Podicy” podcast.
The Iran Nuclear File
Mark Dubowitz & Richard Goldberg/The Iran Breakdown/March 20/2025
https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2025/03/19/the-iran-nuclear-file/
About
Welcome to The Iran Breakdown, hosted by Mark Dubowitz.
If you know anything about Mark, you know he lives and breathes one mission:
stopping a nuclear Iran and ending the Islamic Republic.
Back in 2018, The New York Times put it this way: “Mark Dubowitz’s campaign to
draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken
its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think
tank leader.”
This excerpt was actually a hit piece that blamed Mark for President Trump’s
decision to withdraw from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal — the Times later
issued multiple corrections to the piece because it was riddled with so many
errors.
A year later, The Atlantic dubbed FDD “D.C.’s ground zero for research and
policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the
flaws in the nuclear agreement.”
Even Tehran took notice. In 2019, the Islamic Republic sanctioned FDD and Mark,
accusing them of being “the designing and executing arm of the U.S.
administration” on Iran policy. Guilty as charged.
Why? Because a nuclear Iran isn’t just a threat — it’s the threat. The regime’s
race for the bomb is the most dangerous challenge coming out of Tehran, and in
this episode, you’ll learn why.
Rich Goldberg
Here to help Mark break down Iran’s nuclear file is Rich Goldberg, who served on
the National Security Council as the director for countering Iranian weapons of
mass destruction. He helped architect key parts of President Trump’s “maximum
pressure” campaign — a campaign that aimed to block Iran’s every pathway to
nuclear weapons. Or as the regime calls the campaign: “economic terrorism.” Rich
also served in the Senate and the House where he drafted many of the key pieces
of legislation sanctioning the Islamic Republic. Like Mark, Rich is proudly
sanctioned by the Islamic Republic.
Transcript
DUBOWITZ: Rich Goldberg, great to have you on the podcast.
GOLDBERG: It’s great to be here. I feel like we know each other and now we’re on
a podcast together. It’s amazing.
DUBOWITZ: Well, it’s amazing. It occurred to me, Rich, I think I’ve known you
almost two decades. I worked with you on Iran policy, beginning when you were a
young staffer working for then Congressman Mark Kirk, and then obviously, in the
Senate we’re working for Senator Kirk. And then Rich worked in the White House
as the Director in charge of countering Iran’s nuclear program. So big jobs.
Also, I think he took some detours as Chief of Staff to Governor Rauner of
Illinois and obviously served our country with distinction in the U.S. Navy. So
first of all, thank you for your service. Thank you for all you’ve done. I can
think of no better person to talk about Iran policy under the Trump
administration than you, Rich. So, let’s break it down.
Nowruz a time of unity and hope, resilience and renewal
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 20, 2025
Nowruz, which means “new day” in Persian, is one of the oldest and most widely
celebrated festivals in the world. Marking the arrival of spring and the
beginning of the Persian New Year, this ancient tradition is observed by more
than 300 million people across countries including Iran, Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkiye and Uzbekistan.
For Iranians, Nowruz is more than just a holiday, it is a deeply embedded
cultural and social event that represents renewal, hope and the triumph of light
over darkness. Despite economic hardships and political tensions, Nowruz remains
a time for reflection, family gatherings and the preservation of centuries-old
customs. However, this year, as inflation soars and geopolitical conflicts
intensify, many Iranians are finding it increasingly difficult to celebrate in
the way they once did.
Nowruz dates back more than 3,000 years, with its origins linked to
Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest known religions. In Zoroastrian
belief, the transition from winter to spring is seen as a divine moment of
balance and renewal; a time when nature comes back to life and the forces of
light overcome darkness. Over the centuries, Nowruz transcended religious
boundaries and became a secular celebration embraced by various cultures,
evolving into a major festival that continues to be cherished today.
For Iranians, Nowruz is more than just a holiday, it is a deeply embedded
cultural and social event. The festival takes place on the vernal equinox, the
precise moment when day and night are of equal length, symbolizing harmony and
new beginnings. This alignment of celestial forces was historically seen as a
sign of cosmic order, reinforcing the belief that Nowruz represents not only the
rebirth of nature but also a fresh start for individuals, families and
societies.
In addition, Nowruz is a time of profound social significance, as it fosters
connections among families, friends and communities. It is a period when people
set aside their daily struggles and come together to celebrate unity and
renewal. The preparations for Nowruz begin weeks in advance, with an emphasis on
cleansing one’s home and spirit.
One of the most cherished customs is “khane takani,” which literally means
“shaking the house.” This tradition involves deep-cleaning homes, washing
carpets, replacing old items and organizing belongings. Beyond its practical
purpose, this custom symbolizes a fresh start, the removal of past negativity
and the welcoming of a prosperous year ahead.
The days leading up to Nowruz are also filled with social visits, with people
reconnecting with relatives, neighbors and friends. It is customary for younger
members of the family to visit their elders, offering respect and receiving
blessings for the new year. Gift-giving, particularly “eidi” — money given to
children as a symbol of prosperity — is another integral part of the
celebration.
So, Nowruz serves as a powerful social equalizer, as people from all walks of
life participate in the festivities regardless of economic status, religion or
ethnicity. Whether rich or poor, young or old, everyone embraces the spirit of
renewal and hope.
Nowruz is not confined to Iran. It is celebrated across a vast geographical
region, each country adding its own unique customs while preserving the core
essence of the festival. In Afghanistan, for example, the beginning of Nowruz is
marked by the “Guli Surkh” (red flower) festival, involving outdoor celebrations
and poetry readings. In Central Asia, horse racing and traditional games
accompany the holiday, while in parts of the Caucasus, large public feasts are
held.
Music, dance and poetry play an essential role in Nowruz festivities. In Iran,
“ta’zieh” (passion plays) and “naqqali” (traditional storytelling) bring
centuries-old narratives to life, reflecting themes of heroism, love and moral
lessons. The recitation of Persian poetry, particularly from the works of Hafez
and Rumi, is also a cherished part of Nowruz gatherings.
Despite regional differences, the underlying themes of Nowruz — renewal,
gratitude and unity — remain universal. It is one of the few celebrations that
transcends political and religious divisions, uniting millions across different
backgrounds in a shared expression of hope.
It is one of the few celebrations that transcends political and religious
divisions, uniting millions across different backgrounds
In Iran, Nowruz festivities officially begin on the last Wednesday before the
new year with “Chaharshanbe Suri,” the fire festival. On this night, people
light bonfires and jump over them while chanting, “My sickness to you, your
warmth and health to me.”
The centerpiece of Nowruz celebrations is the Haft Seen table, an arrangement of
seven symbolic food items that each start with the Persian letter “S.” The
festivities conclude on the 13th day with “Sizdah Bedar,” when families leave
their homes to spend time in nature.
While Nowruz is meant to be a joyous occasion, this year’s celebrations in Iran
are clouded by economic struggles. Iranians are facing severe inflation, with
rates consistently nearing 50 percent, making it increasingly difficult for
families to afford traditional Nowruz essentials.
The Iranian rial has also devalued significantly, further reducing purchasing
power. Many families that formerly celebrated Nowruz lavishly are now forced to
cut back, forgoing traditional feasts and new clothing for their children. In
many households, the Haft Seen table will be more modest than in previous years,
reflecting the financial hardships that continue to weigh on the population.
Adding to these economic struggles are escalating tensions between the Trump
administration and Israel on one side and Iran on the other.
Despite these challenges, Nowruz remains a symbol of resilience and renewal. It
is a time to reflect on the past year, embrace the hope of new beginnings and
hold onto traditions that have endured for thousands of years. Even in difficult
times, the spirit of Nowruz reminds people that brighter days lie ahead.
Happy Nowruz to all those who celebrate. May this new year bring prosperity,
happiness and fulfillment. May hardships ease and may the light of renewal shine
upon all.
**Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian American political
scientist. X: @Dr_Rafizadeh
Iran v. The Islamic Republic
Mark Dubowitz & Reza Pahlavi/FDD/March 20/2025 | The Iran
Breakdown
About
Welcome to inaugural episode of The Iran Breakdown, hosted by Mark Dubowitz.
There’s a truth we’ll come back to again and again on this show: The Iranian
people are extraordinary. Whether in Tehran or Los Angeles, Berlin or Toronto —
Iranians are known for their brilliance, resilience, and drive. Here’s the
tragedy: Only Iranians living outside the Islamic Republic are free to thrive.
Inside Iran under the grip of this brutal regime, that potential is crushed. But
it wasn’t always this way.
Just a few decades ago, Iran was a very different place. Women walked the
streets in high fashion, Tehran’s vibrant nightlife rivaled Paris, and yes —
Iran’s vineyards produced world-renowned wines that you could enjoy in the open.
The people of Iran used to be free — before the Islamic Revolution of 1979
turned their lives, and their country, upside down.
Before we dive into today’s regime — its nuclear ambitions, its terror networks,
and its stranglehold on the Iranian people — on this series, we need to first
understand how we got here. In this episode, we’ll explore the regime’s
relentless crackdown on dissent, the courage of Iran’s opposition, and the
critical role the free world must play in standing with the Iranian people in
their fight for liberty.
Joining Mark to break down how we got here is Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince of
Iran. As the son of the last Shah, he was raised to one day take the throne —
but history took a brutal turn when the 1979 Revolution forced him and his
family into exile. Since then, he’s become a leading voice for freedom, calling
for an end to the Islamic Republic and the birth of a secular, democratic Iran.
Transcript
DUBOWITZ:
So, Your Highness, thank you so much for joining The Iran Breakdown. It’s really
wonderful to have you.
PAHLAVI:
Thank you so much.
DUBOWITZ:
And so, let’s break it down. I want to start with – for many of our listeners,
they know you, many of them are supporters of yours, but for those who aren’t,
tell us a little bit about your background, the story, how you came to America,
your life in Iran. Really interested to know the man behind the myth.
PAHLAVI:
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on your program. I will start by
saying that I was pretty much getting groomed to be the successor to my father
as a Crown Prince. So my life in my early years of childhood and my teen years
was, apart from going through the same educational process that every other
Iranian would go through in school, I was also getting prepared for the role
and, therefore, would have separate briefings by representatives of various
branches of government, civil and military. Also participate in some more
official ceremonies by, for instance, presiding over the sport event or giving
prizes to workers or visiting factories, things of that nature, which is pretty
much what, in most royal families, you see is being played by…
DUBOWITZ:
And you became Crown Prince at a very young age.
PAHLAVI:
Well, I was officially nominated when I was almost seven years old. That was in
1967. My father delayed the whole coronation ceremony of himself by many years,
because when he assumed power, as a result of when my grandfather had to
abdicate and went into exile in the middle of the Second World War, that’s where
my father took over. And that was back in 1943, if I’m not mistaken. So, it was
not until 1967 that he deemed it appropriate then to say, “Okay, at least the
country’s now on track. We’re beginning to move forward.” And then, he said, you
know, “I finally will have the coronation ceremony.” And it was during that
ceremony where I was officially proclaimed the Crown Prince. Even though, at
birth, it was established, but it was a way to officialize it.
So, it was back in 1967. At the time, I was like six or seven years old. And so,
I stayed in Iran until the summer of 1978, which is when I graduated from high
school. And the plan was for me to travel to the United States to formally
undergo pilot training program in Reese Air Force Base. This is six months
before my parents had to leave Iran for the last time. So, it was six months
before the revolution.
DUBOWITZ:
And you were about 17 at the time?
PAHLAVI:
I was 17 and a half at the time, yes. So basically, I left Iran with the idea
that I would be returning to it a year later, after my training would be over.
So, I did arrive in the United States. I went to a short orientation visit at
Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy, and I started my training in Reese Air
Force Base in Lubbock, Texas, back towards the end of August of 1978. And that
pretty much was the plan. And then, in the meantime, we started seeing more and
more upheavals in Iran, the revolutionary fervor and all of that led to,
ultimately, my father leaving Iran in January 16th, of 1970. So that’s
practically about six months after I left Iran for the last time.
And then, from there on, the exile period started. Meaning that, about a month
after my father left Iran, Khomeini returned to Iran. The new revolutionary
government was put in place, and in the meantime, my family was moving from
country to country during this whole exile period. So that pretty much changed
the whole, you know, process from where it was supposed to lead to now a
completely different set of circumstances.
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah, that’s incredible upheaval in your life. And so, you’ve gone to Cairo, and
then, you went to a number of different countries and then, ended up in the
United States. What was the trajectory?
PAHLAVI:
Well, the way it started is that, when my parents left, they first stopped in
Aswan in Egypt for about six days when President Sadat welcomed them. From
there, they moved to Morocco. That was in January of 1979. I was still in Reese
Air Force Base. I left Texas to come and visit with them, first time I saw them
again since I had left Iran, you know, six months prior. Stayed with them
shortly in Morocco, went back to Texas to continue finish my training. At the
time, the revolutionary government had started exerting pressure to terminate
the training of all military pilots, Iranian Air Force pilots, training in the
United States bases. And I remember, at the time, the decision was made to
expedite my graduation. They knew I knew how to fly already. Before I came to
the States, I was flying F-5s in Iran. I was 16 when I soloed on an F-5 in Iran.
So, it’s not that I didn’t know how to fly a plane. It was just to go through
the formal training.
So they expedited the training, so I could get my US Air Force pilot wings
before the cutoff point of terminating the training program for Iranian pilots
was to take place. So instead of graduating in June of 1979, I finished my
training at the beginning of March, right about this time of the year, back at
that time, which is when I then left to join with my parents.
We were still in Morocco. And I would go quickly through the various phases:
from Morocco, we went to The Bahamas. We were in The Bahamas for about a couple
of months. From there, in Mexico. My father had his operation in New York.
That’s where the hostages were taken in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. We couldn’t
go back to Mexico. We ended up in Panama. Finally, from Panama, the last stage
of my father’s exile was back in Cairo, where he went there and then,
ultimately, passed away in July of 1980. So probably about a year and a half
since he left Iran was the period from where he left Iran to…
DUBOWITZ:
And when did you come to the United States?
PAHLAVI:
I was – after my father passed away, I was in Cairo for almost about a year,
together with my mother and my siblings. At that time, I moved to Morocco. I
lived in Rabat, Morocco for about three years, between 1981 and 1984. At that
point, at some point in 1984, I moved to the United States. We figured that,
strategically, the location made more sense, in terms of, back then, you didn’t
have smartphones and be able to connect with everyone on the planet. It was hard
to get an outside line.
DUBOWITZ:
I’m old enough to remember those days.
PAHLAVI:
There was no such thing as social media or anything like that. And so, the West
Coast of the United States, I mean the East Coast of the United States was
somewhere between Europe and the Iranian diaspora in Europe, the East Coast
diaspora, and of course, the West Coast diaspora was kind of a logical move. And
also, from a security standpoint, it made much more sense for me to be in the
States, which was more protected than the situation in Europe, where was far
less secure. And as you may recall, a lot of the regime’s successful
assassination attempts against dissidents and their opponents took place on
European soil.
DUBOWITZ:
I was going to ask you about that actually, because obviously, it’s 46 years
later, the trajectory of your life completely changed because of the Islamic
Revolution. You’ve been in the US now, you say, since the eighties.
PAHLAVI:
Since ’84.
DUBOWITZ:
And have become very popular. You’ve got huge support, huge social media
following. For somebody who, like me, didn’t grow up in the internet age or the
social media age, you’ve certainly mastered it. And I think that it’s remarkable
the level of support that you have outside of Iran and seemingly inside Iran.
And the regime has been brutal against its opponents.
I was digging up, in my research, some names of people that I know you were very
close to. And recently, Mohsen Rafighdoost, who was a former Minister of the
IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Mousavi’s government, and he was
Head of the Mostazafan Foundation, he talked about his role in the assassination
of people, I think, who you knew very well: Shahriar Shafiq, General [Arteshbod
Gholam-Ali] Oveissi, Bakhtiar. And then, I found this TV personality, Fereydoun
Farrokhzad. These were people you knew well, and these were people who were
assassinated by the regime.
Tell us a little bit about these people. Tell us a little bit about what
happened and also the kind of impact that it had on your life and on your
family’s life.
PAHLAVI:
Well, when we went through the first wave, and that’s at the time we were in The
Bahamas in May, June of 1979. That’s where the massive number of people who were
executed by Khomeini, who were former ministers in the government and/or
military officers started back then. But beyond the executions, we came to a
phase of assassination of opponents to the regime or dissidents. One of the
first victims was, as you refer to, my late cousin, Shahriar Shafiq, who was,
not because he was a member of my family, but he was probably one of the most
popular young officers in the Iranian Navy. Very much revered and adored by his
supporters. He came out of Iran, he had to escape the country, obviously being a
member of the family. And he came to Paris. And it was not long after he arrived
in Paris that he was assassinated by the regime. So obviously, it was somebody
who could have played a very significant role, vis-a-vis the forces that were
still loyal to my father or in the military. And obviously, he had to be
eliminated by the regime.
Same thing in the case of General Oveissi, who was one of the most prominent
senior generals in the Iranian military. Also quite revered among his peers. And
General Oveissi, together with another member of the Iranian Armed Forces,
General Aryana, who, at the time, were two of our prominent military officers
now in exile, were trying to organize, you know, whatever they need to do in
opposition to the regime. He was taken out as well. Shapour Bakhtiar, who was my
father’s last-nominated Prime Minister, who obviously was very much opposed to
the regime, both the Marxist forces and the Islamists at the time, and was, as a
nationalist, always professing his ideas. I was working quite closely with him
when the Iranian opposition was beginning to first form and assemble itself in
Paris. It was, of course, himself, and there was also Dr. Ali Amini, who was
also a former Iranian Prime Minister, but Bakhtiar was also assassinated by the
regime.
DUBOWITZ:
Where was he killed?
PAHLAVI:
He was actually killed in his own home in Paris.
DUBOWITZ:
In Paris.
PAHLAVI:
It was an inside job of some form, or at least infiltration, as far as we know.
And of course, the personality that you mentioned, Fereydoun Farrokhzad. The
interesting story about Farrokhzad is that Farrokhzad himself was of leftist
background. In fact, at some point, I think he was a member of the Tudeh Party,
or at least had sympathy to the Tudeh Party…
DUBOWITZ:
Right, the Iranian Marxist Party.
PAHLAVI:
Communist Party.
DUBOWITZ:
Communist Party, right.
PAHLAVI:
And not that he was necessarily a revolutionary, but he had sympathies to the
left. He was one of the first people to openly say how wrong they were in their
visions. He pretty much denounced that opinion, was very nationalist, very
supportive to the cause. He was a big supporters of myself from the very
beginning, and he was quite a well-known figure. And he also did not escape the
wrath of the regime. Anybody who would stand against the regime from the very
beginning would be subject to assassination.
Other people were also lost. There are people who work with a former Education
Minister of ours, Dr. Gangi, and his organization. We had [inaudible 00:12:42],
who was the leader of a Kurdish Party. He was assassinated in Mykonos, which was
a nightclub in Germany. And so on and so forth. If I’m not mistaken, there were
66 successful assassinations by the regime on European soil of Iranian
dissidents in the early eighties.
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah. So, on The Iran Breakdown, we’re going to do a future episode on Iranian
regime assassination campaigns around the world. But I wanted to ask you,
because many of these men were assassinated either inside Iran or in Europe, you
mentioned that you’d moved to the United States to be more secure. And yet, all
these years later, decades later, the regime is operating on American soil.
Masih Alinejad, a well-known Iranian dissident, who has been very active in
Iranian women’s rights movements, has been targeted three times in American
soil. They’ve tried to kill her, including in her home in Brooklyn. In fact, as
we’re recording this podcast, the trial is taking place in New York. The three
men who were hired as agents by the Islamic Republic to kill her are being
indicted and hopefully will be convicted.
But it does suggest that the regime feels that it can operate with impunity. On
American soil, it’s been going after former American officials, like Mike Pompeo
and John Bolton, Brian Hook and General Milley, so U.S. officials, anti-regime
dissidents, prominent people that speak out against this regime. And I think, at
FDD, we obviously take this personally, because we’ve been sanctioned by Iran,
and six of us have been designated by the Islamic Republic. So we all are very
concerned about this issue. What are you – what can the US do to prevent the
regime from succeeding in harming us and our supporters?
PAHLAVI:
Well, I’m really glad that you asked this question. And by the way, it’s not
just only Iranian targets. I know, at some point, the Saudi ambassador here was
subject to a terror plot that failed. So, I mean, the regime with impunity will
try to eliminate anything that they consider being harmful to their interest.
And to your point, what I would like to start saying is that, as of late, we
have seen that many governments have unfortunately bowed towards blackmail by
the regime, in the sense of hostages that they take. And all of this started
with the beginning of a position of appeasement, that only emboldened the
regime, to realize that, actually, it pays to take hostages. They pay ransom for
them, and as a result, they feel more empowered to continue on the same path.
Not only starting from the very beginning, but even as of last month, when I
visited Europe, I was supposed to attend a conference at the Munich Security
Conference. There was a last-minute intervention by the Foreign Ministry of
Germany stopping that from happening, although they claim that they don’t have
any direct involvement in the decision made by the Security Conference. But
people at the Security Conference themselves said that, “Well, we were placed
under pressure,” because some hostage was supposed to be returned, or I think it
was the body of a German-Iranian who was there. In fact, I know his daughter
very well. And there’s a whole process over there.
DUBOWITZ:
Because that got a lot of publicity that you had been disinvited from the Munich
Security Conference, right?
PAHLAVI:
And from the Foreign Committee of the Dutch Parliament where I was supposed to
also visit. And similar to the German Foreign Ministry, the Dutch Foreign
Ministry exerted the same pressure, saying that this will threaten the
diplomatic relationship with the regime and so on and so forth. My point being
is that the minute you start, as a French senator told me when I visited with
them a few weeks ago in Paris, he says, “We have become hostages to our
hostages.” When we start accepting, that it’s like dealing with terrorists or
playing to that, then there’s no end in sight. And that pretty much gives free
rein to the perpetrators of this crime to feel totally free to operate the way
they want, fund radical organizations on various territories. Khamenei has many
offices based in Europe who finance anti-Semitic organizations that threaten
journalists or intimidate the Jewish community and so on and so forth.
We’ve seen the case of how much funding came from Iran indirectly to
universities in this country as a result of October 7th and the entire Hamas
elements and so on and so forth. You know, I think a lot of it has to do with a
laissez-faire attitude that lead us to where we are today. And the only language
that the regime has proven to respond to has been strength.
Let me give you a tacit graphic. Perhaps you have seen it already, this is
something that NUFDI [National Union for Democracy in Iran] has provided, as you
know, an organization that we work together with, that provide this kind of
data. When you take the number of assassinations that the regime has conducted
in Iran itself, between the Obama administration and the Biden administration,
during President Trump’s first term, it was literally half, if not more than
half, of the amount that we are back to today, in direct response to the amount
of pressure that they felt on themselves as opposed to none.
When you have a regime that was on its way down, in terms of the first campaign
of President Trump, in terms of maximum pressure, all of a sudden, the Biden
administration decides that we have to counter that. We have to go back to the
root of practically appeasement, that led to the non-enforcing of the oil
sanctions, which allowed Iran to sell over $200 billion worth of oil to the
Chinese, a revenue that they should not have had access to, which did not go
towards building schools or hospitals in Iran or paying the salaries of factory
workers or what have you. Instead, it went to reinforcing their proxies in the
region.
And I think, in some – perhaps quite a direct way, perhaps led to the October
7th attack. And by the way, it was a few weeks after the paying of the ransom
for the six hostages that were released in Iran that they went ahead and did
that. And even took some U.S. Navy personnel hostage in the seas. This sort of
behavior has only emboldened the regime to take this action. So when you ask me,
“are we safe?” in terms of this regime feeling free to do whatever it wants on
foreign soil, as long as this attitude remains, we can only expect to see more
of the same.
DUBOWITZ:
Right. And I want to talk to you about that later in the podcast, because
obviously, President Trump is back, with at least an announced policy of a
return to maximum pressure. And hopefully, under President Trump, a clear
message that, if the regime harms Americans, there’ll be, quote “hell to pay,”
as he said in a number of other different contexts. But because of the threat to
Iranians, to outspoken opposition leaders, you’re obviously one of the most
popular opposition leaders out there.
And I want to talk a little bit about your popularity. Where do you think it
comes from? You’ve obviously been, for now, I guess, 46 years, if I’m counting
that right, that you’ve been out there as a figure of opposition, starting as a
young man and now into your sixties. And you have huge support, as I said, in
social media, huge support in the diaspora, and presumably also inside the
country. Where does it come from? Is it your name? Is it the legacy of your
father? Is it a memory of what Iran used to be before the Islamists took over?
How do you account for that?
PAHLAVI:
I think it’s a little bit of all of these elements that you have alluded to. I
think there are several aspects to it. Most Iranians, when they meet me,
especially those who belong to the previous generations, at least the generation
of my parents, those who were old enough to remember the day I was born, they
always say that one of the most vivid memories in their lifetime of an event
that was for them very, very important, was the day I was born. The reason being
that, you know, when my father had, as a result of his first marriage, a
daughter, then the constitution in Iran said that the heir to the throne has to
be a male descendant of the king. My father divorced his first wife, married his
second wife who couldn’t bear children so he had to divorce her, and finally
married my mother. And as a result of this marriage, I came to this life. And it
was a day of celebration for the Iranian people. I mean, everybody tells me,
“The day you were born, we remember this, we remember that.” I say, I’m glad I
could contribute to some joy in your family.
But I was literally the adopted son for millions of Iranians, and they always
looked at me as if I were their son, certainly before the revolution. And then
we went into the period of the revolution. And in the passage of 40 years, there
is one element that could be nostalgia of the past and what they associated the
family name to, what was brought to Iran in terms of modernity. Today, I think
the level of popularity that my father has, and my grandfather in particular, is
multiple of whatever it might have been at the peak of their popularity at their
time. There’s not a day that people don’t chant the slogan “Reza Shah, Roohet
Shad,” which means “my grandfather, may your soul rest in peace.” And that’s of
course in remembrance, but also in defiance of the regime. When you look at the
end of every soccer match in Iran, most of them, you hear that chant being
chanted by the Iranian people.
But also, the fact that today’s Gen Z of Iranians, as opposed to their parents
who called me their child, they call me father. So you know, the seven-year-old
of the day of the coronation to the 64-year-old that they now look almost like a
father figure, it’s a story of a lifetime. It’s a story of 44 years of, at
least, my life since I’ve been outside of Iran, but including the life where I
grew up to this position. And my own track record and what I’ve done and the
positions I’ve taken and my vision. They buy into my vision. They see that I
speak what is inherently their ultimate aspiration. So, it’s not just nostalgia,
it’s not just name. I think a lot has to also do with my track record.
And one thing that I would be proud to say that defines me, and I think most
people including my worst enemies will not argue against, is that what I’ve been
saying for the past 40 years has always remained one and the same. I have never
wavered from my core principles. I’ve always stayed committed to it. And I think
this is something rather rare when you see people changing their tune depending
on the circumstances. I’ve always stood the course, and I said one day hopefully
they will catch up to the vision that I have had for my country. And I’m glad
that today, the trust that they have in me, the [foreign language 00:24:25] is
something that tells me that I haven’t wasted 44 years of my life, that it was
worth something and it is still going to be an element that could make a huge
difference, by the role I intend to play to liberate Iran from this mess and
usher in this transition that I’ve been talking about as part of my general
program…
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah, I want to talk about that because – so you’ve been very clear, and as you
say, very consistent about your role in a transition from the Islamic Republic
to a free Iran and to an Iranian democracy. Some of your supporters have thought
of you, as sort of, playing the role of a Constitutional Monarch. Some
supporters have thought of you playing the role of an absolute monarch, sort of
a Reza Shah II. How do you see your role and what do you say to supporters and
critics out there about your vision of your role in a new Iran?
PAHLAVI:
And let’s not forget, there are some Republicans who want to see me run as a
President. But the point that everybody’s missing regardless of, whether they
are Monarchists or Republicans, is that my entire ambition in life and my
mission in life has not been about running for office. My dedication has been to
make sure that Iran ultimately ends up with a secular democratic system as an
alternative to this clerical dictatorship. That has been my goal in life. And
I’ve always said that the day the Iranian people go to cast their vote in the
national referendum, I would have considered my mission in life accomplished.
And I’m not looking beyond that point.
Now, if you want to discuss what could be the alternative form of governance in
the future, I think there are multiple examples we can point to, both in the
Republican system and the Monarchic system. For instance, you can have the type
of Republic that you see in India or Israel, where you have the president who
plays more of almost like a monarch role that is not directly involved with
policy making or governance, but the prime minister is. You have the kind of
Republic in France where you have the president and it has a prime minister. You
have a kind of Republic in America where the head of the executive is the
president. You have the constitutional monarchy the way you see it in Japan or
in Sweden or in Norway or in Belgium and so on and so forth. Certainly not
absolute monarchy. That’s not even fathomable in terms of a legitimate
democratic alternative.
But the way you achieve that, the way you ultimately decide what’s the best
course and option to the nation, that I think is exactly the reason why I’ve
been behind a democratic process to determine the outcome as opposed to
pre-designate the outcome. And the reason I say this is for multiple reasons.
Number one, in contrast to what happened in 1979, if you ask any Iranian whether
they were pro-regime, against the regime, wherever they stood, how many of them
actually knew what Khomeini was going to be? The answer to that question is 99%
didn’t have a clue, didn’t even understood what it is that he’s really talking
about. Back then, they used to say, “the Shah has to leave, then we’ll see what
happens.” Well, guess what? The Shah did leave and then we saw what happened.
But by the time it happened, it was too late.
So contrary to that totally obscure, untransparent process, I am an all for
CSPAN-type process wherein absolute transparency, you would have the Iranian
people observe and understand exactly what is being proposed to them as a
constitutional project. Now, in order to get to that, I have to explain that
right now we are in the phase of liberation, meaning until the time that the
regime is no longer in place. So, we are in phase one of this process. Right
after phase one, we enter the transition process. This is where my role becomes
the most critical for the people who are following my activities. Because we
want to make sure that the vacuum is filled, post-regime collapse, that you’re
dealing with an element of stability where there is a plan as to how to address
the transition.
DUBOWITZ:
Because by the way, that’s been used as an excuse by U.S. policymakers, European
policymakers for years, that they don’t want to support the undermining of the
Islamic Republic or the collapse of the Islamic Republic because they fear what
comes next. They fear there’s no day-after plan. And they also make the
argument, which I don’t necessarily agree with, but they make the argument that
whatever comes next could be worse than the Islamic Republic.
PAHLAVI:
Well, I have an answer to all of that. If you allow me to just finish that
segment, then I can certainly address what you just said. So, what happened
during the transition period, you have an interim government that obviously has
to make sure the country continues to function in the meantime. But we prepare
the stage for the election of a parliamentary assembly, a constitutional
assembly, which is exactly where people’s representatives will debate whether
and how the final form of this secular democratic system we’re proposing could
be. And this time by offering alternatives. If it’s a Republic, in what form; if
it’s a Monarchy, in what form, so on and so forth. So, people this time have a
clear understanding of the options that they could opt to and then let the
ballot box decide in majority what Iranian people ultimately want.
I think that the final form that it takes is not so much critical as the content
of it. And that’s where we come with the elements of separation of powers, we
come with the element of a secular system where there’s a clear separation of
religion from state as a prerequisite to democracy, that we’re talking about a
constitution that is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So, any
form of discrimination is, by a factor of law, eliminated, whether it’s
discrimination about women or peoples’ sexual orientation or political beliefs
or ethnicity or religious beliefs and so on and so forth. This is pretty much
guarantees of liberty that you will seek in any kind of constitution that gives
every citizen of Iran equal treatment under the law.
I think that’s very important, but also to make sure that the process is
democratic. So, if there’s any foreign government looking in, at the end, they
say the result will be the most legitimate result because it is at the hand of
the people of Iran. It is not by means of foreign intervention or occupation or
installing a puppet regime here and there. So, the Iranian people will consider
it one of theirs, and the world could say, “Well, you know, that’s a legitimate
representation.” So that’s one aspect of it.
But coming to your point, if they’re dodging the question of not knowing what
happens next, I must say that first of all, the scenario of change in Iran is
very different than what we have recently observed occurring in our immediate
region. And by the way, I know that in some corridors of diplomacy or politics
in this country, the concept of regime change has gotten a bad name. Well,
because you poorly executed it in other places. Example: Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, and the De-Ba’athification.
DUBOWITZ:
But you’re not talking about… I mean, I want to clarify this for our listeners
because I think when I’ve said this before, when people say “regime change” in
Washington, the brains of our policymakers and our experts freeze. And
immediately they think of Iraq, or they think of Afghanistan, or they think of
Libya; they think of a military-led regime change, 500,000 mechanized troops
invading Iran. You’re not talking about that…
PAHLAVI:
Of course not. And that’s why we need to talk about this…
DUBOWITZ:
And none us talk about that, right?
PAHLAVI:
That’s precisely one of the reasons we have to talk about this is because I
think that the false fear they have of this scenario is based on an assumption
that is just not there. That’s not what we’re asking for. In fact, if you follow
what has been my strategy and the way it should make sense to a foreign
government, whether it is here in the United States or in Europe, is that the
scenario that I am professing does not require the kind of intervention or
involvement that you have seen in those other scenarios, which by the way, ended
up with a not-quite-successful end.
But let me explain how I look at this. Look, the agent of change are the Iranian
people themselves. Number one. It’s not a foreign intervention, it’s not as a
result of a military intervention of any form, whether it’s against Bin Laden in
Afghanistan, or for that matter what we saw in Iraq. The process by which we
want to bring about change is based on civil resistance in terms of campaigns of
civil disobedience, labor strikes, something that can paralyze the regime from
within, which is why I’ve been suggesting to world governments that it’s
understandable why you need to exert maximum pressure. As a matter of fact,
President Trump did that. But maximum pressure has to have a path of maximum
support to the Iranian people as a parallel, in so far as you’re willing to
finally make the decision that the solution to the problem is regime change in
Iran, as opposed to 46 years and counting of Western diplomacy expecting a false
change of behavior by the regime. The whole premise was wrong from to begin
with. We had the carrot and the stick approach…
DUBOWITZ:
I mean, the Iranian people, I think you would agree, also recognized that. I
mean, there was a time where there was a belief that Iranian “reformists” could
reform the Islamic Republic. And that changed. I mean – I think 2009, millions
of Iranians were on the streets yelling, “Death to the dictator. President
Obama, are you with us or are you with the dictator?” In protest of a fraudulent
reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
PAHLAVI:
Right.
DUBOWITZ:
But the leaders of that protest movement, at least the most public leaders of
that, were regime insiders who were pretending to be reformists.
PAHLAVI:
Mhm.
DUBOWITZ:
You would agree that that fundamentally changed,,,
PAHLAVI:
It has. There’s a big contrast.
DUBOWITZ:
…with “Woman, Life, Freedom”, but even earlier, maybe even the protests of 2017
or ’18 or ’19 where they’ve now – it seems to me, and you obviously follow this
much more closely than I do, particularly in your native language, but it seems
to me that Iranians have given up on regime reform, and now they are absolutely
committed to getting rid of the Islamic Republic. You would agree with that?
PAHLAVI:
Yes. I mean, there was a slogan that started about two, three years ago that
would say [foreign language 00:35:26] which basically means, whether you are a
moderate or radical in the system, the game is up, the gig is up. I mean, it’s
over. That game between the hawkish or the doves within the system – it’s a
little bit like at the end of the Soviet Union, there was a look towards the
Soviet Union, who are the more moderate elements as opposed to the more hawkish
elements within the Soviet Communist Party. I remember that as I was old enough
to remember the narrative within Western diplomacies, especially back here in
America, where they said, “You know, maybe we should talk to Andropov. He seems
to be more manageable than, let’s say, Brezhnev or the others.”
DUBOWITZ:
Well, that’s right. I mean, we had a generation, I’m old enough to remember too,
we had a generation of Sovietologists.
PAHLAVI:
You remember they used to say, “Well, why we can talk to him more?” Say, “Well,
he likes jazz music and drinks whiskey.” That was the rationale back then. Not
understanding that at the end of the day, it’s the Communist Party. It doesn’t
matter which represents them. And I’m making the same comparison to the Islamic
Regime of Iran, that when you have Ali Khamenei at the head, and you’ve wasted
time thinking that Khatami, or I don’t know, his successors all the way to today
are in fact the difference makers, they’re all just puppets to Khamenei. They
don’t represent anything other than the will of the supreme leader at the end of
the day.
DUBOWITZ:
But yet American policymakers, American presidents and secretaries of state have
really walked into that trap, “Rouhani is the moderate, Zarif is the moderate.”
Right? “And now we have a new moderate Iranian President who really is committed
to moderation and reform and openness.” I mean, they keep falling into that
trap.
PAHLAVI:
They keep falling into the same trap.
DUBOWITZ:
And it’s the same trap.
PAHLAVI:
Absolutely. And that’s what’s delaying the problem. And that’s what’s
frustrating millions of Iranians on the streets who are risking their lives
every day, they’re getting shot in their face, they are surviving sometimes
getting caught, because if they get caught, they get tortured and they probably
end up being executed by the regime. And they keep saying to the outside world,
for instance, chanting slogans like [foreign language 00:37:36] which means,
“They lie to us when they say it’s America. Our enemy is right here.” So you see
a regime that is so antagonistic to the outside world, particularly to America.
This is a regime that wanted to assassinate President Trump, whether the Iranian
people are standing there in demonstration asking for their liberty with the
Israeli flag along the Iranian national flag against the narrative of a regime
that simply want to wipe off Israel from the face of the map.
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah.
PAHLAVI:
That’s the contrast. And as long as you have politicians, including today’s
administration in the United States, thinking that they can reason or come to
terms or make a deal with this regime and its representatives, especially when
they have no legitimacy left whatsoever, and they do not represent Iranian
people, my friend, this is adding insult to injury. This is a slap in the face
of millions of Iranians who have the very same values that are cherished by
American citizens, by French citizens, by anybody living in the outside, free,
democratic world.
DUBOWITZ:
So, I think you know that at FDD, we absolutely agree with you. But I would say
this, it’s been heartbreaking for me, and I’m sure it’s been much more
heartbreaking for you given the trajectory of your life. I remember Israel’s
last ambassador to Iran, Uri Lubrani, who I think you knew as well. It was 30
years ago that he was predicting that the Islamic Republic was on the precipice,
and it just needed a little more outside pressure to crack the regime or this
much more support to the Iranian people. And I think that even members of the
clerical regime thought that “Woman, Life, Freedom” was going to be generating
enough outrage that it would crack the regime’s security forces. And yet,
unfortunately, the regime has triumphed. In fact, they launched chemical weapons
attacks against Iranian schoolgirls to break the back of the “Woman, Life,
Freedom” movement.
Instead of a million protests in Iran, we’ve now seen kind of an unorganized
opposition, and they’re falling back to weekly sporadic protests. We track them
at FDD. We have a weekly tracker here where we’re tracking protests. They exist,
but it’s dozens of protests, it’s not hundreds of thousands of protests. And
it’s hundreds of people, not millions of people. I guess the question I have to
you: after seeing these protests erupting since 2009 and yet the regime
continuing to win, how do you see the regime’s string of victories ending?
PAHLAVI:
First of all, if you want to have a realistic viewpoint, we have to understand
that when you’re fighting such totalitarian, dictatorial, repressive regimes,
there are always ebbs and flows. When I was in Geneva a few weeks ago for the
Human Rights Conference, and I had the opportunity to visit with some of the
representatives of different countries as dissidents from Venezuela, from Cuba,
from Hong Kong, from other places, you know we all realize, being in the same
boat, of how many ebbs and flows we have to face, moments where we are closer to
success, sometimes it backfires. I must say unfortunately, the policy of the
Biden administration delayed the process. The regime was on its heels, and they
got a second lease on life as a result of all that appeasement approach. So,
there is a direct correlation, but how much outside pressure is exerted with the
survival of these kind of regimes?
And by the way, let’s not go too far. We have successful models that proves that
with direct support, many campaigns that did not include any kind of foreign
military intervention put an end to unwanted regimes. The end of the Soviet
Union did not come with a single bullet fired by a Western soldier or tank or
aircraft.
DUBOWITZ:
Well, certainly not against Soviet troops.
PAHLAVI:
Certainly not against Soviet troops. When the Red Army did not stop Boris
Yeltsin when he was standing in front of the Duma, they ultimately ushered in
the end of the Soviet Union. And Gorbachev had to sue for glasnost and
perestroika, but also because there were two strong leaders at the time that put
the ultimate pressure on the Soviet system, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Let’s not forget that. So strong leadership in the free world does matter.
DUBOWITZ:
Oh, yeah. No, I have to say this is a model that we talk about all the time at
FDD, is the Reagan model against the Soviet Union, which really combined, in
your words, maximum pressure on the regime…
PAHLAVI:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:42:08] would not have been successful.
DUBOWITZ:
…and maximum support.
PAHLAVI:
Nelson Mandela would not have been successful without that kind of support.
DUBOWITZ:
That’s right.
PAHLAVI:
And what we’re asking in Iran, and I think that’s something that President Trump
should appreciate, because at least if that’s what he’s calling for, that we
don’t want to get engaged or involved in anything. Again, Mr. President, the
best way you can guarantee that American troops or American taxpayer dollars
will not have to sustain endless years of campaign and presence in the Middle
East is by helping Iranians liberate themselves from this regime. Because we
will be the boots on the grounds, not your soldiers. We can repurpose frozen
Iranian assets that belong to the Iranian people in the first place to finance
the kind of campaigns we need to put pressure on the regime from within, without
a single American tax dollar being paid. I’m a U.S. taxpayer, by the way. I
don’t want my money to be spent on those kind of elements either.
So, I think that’s exactly one thing that if he intends to divest from being
engaged, well, the best way you can disengage is by allowing something to
replace what would otherwise force you to be involved, whether you like it or
not, which is bound to happen if this regime continues to be there. Why? Because
it will continue to be a threat, because it will continue to be a problem for
the world; whether it’s disturbing maritime traffic in the Middle East, in the
region, whether it is the regime continuing to finance these proxies, whether it
is the existential threat against Israel because of the nuclear threat, and so
on and so forth, or further proliferation in the region. No matter how you look
at it, everything ties back to this regime continuing to be in place.
And in 46 years and counting, not a single government came and said, “It is time
we start thinking that the alternative does not lie as a result of our diplomacy
that has failed, or our military campaigns that have not ushered in an Iran[?]
stability.” But this could be a different scenario that is win-win in the sense
that it’s good for the people of the Iran, the people of the region, but also in
the best interest of the citizens of the free world.
DUBOWITZ:
So, I’ll tell you what policy makers say to me, and they’ve been saying this to
me for over 20 years in Washington, right? I’ve been through now a number of
administrations, from Bush to Obama, to Trump to Biden and back to Trump, and
that is – I want to get back to this issue of the opposition. There’s no doubt
in my mind that millions of Iranians despise this regime. Maybe it’s even the
majority of Iranians that want to see the end of the Islamic Republic. There’s
no doubt to me that a free Iran would be a prosperous and successful Iran,
because I’ve always said that the only place where Iranians don’t succeed in the
world is inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. I grew up in Toronto, “Tehranto”,
as they call it. I’ve been in communities in Los Angeles and in New York and
around the world, and it’s always remarkable to me how successful Iranians are
wherever they go. The only place where they’ve been denied that success is
inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, because of its brutality and its corruption
and its repression.
But what policymakers say to me is, “You know Mark, if we could only get a
unified Iranian opposition inside the country and outside the country, then we
would have a unified opposition to work with. And we must have a unified
opposition if we’re able to take on the thugs of the Islamic Republic. So, bring
me back a unified opposition and then we’ll talk about maximum support for the
opposition.” What do you say to that objection?
PAHLAVI:
Look, the expectation of seeing more unity among opposition is not an unfair
expectation. The question is, there are many elements that expedites and
encourages more unity in an opposition as a direct result of your own behavior,
vis-a-vis the issue.
Look, what would be the incentive of an Iranian activist, dissident, political
prisoner, irrespective of their political persuasions, to think that they have a
chance to overcome a regime that will execute a singer for just singing a song
against them? While you’re sitting here, continuing to negotiate with the regime
and these representatives, not taking any action against their behavior because
while they’re taking hostages, they still have elements related directly either
to the top heads of the regime and their families that are money laundering in
Toronto or in London, or have members of their families that are employed by the
U.S. government that have direct relation to the IRGC, for instance. When they
see all of that happening, they say, “Well, how clear are you in your heads of
assessing the situation properly?’
I want to go back to a point you raised and then tie it into the opposition and
the expectation that they have. We talked about the era of the Green Movement
and the fact that yes, of course Mousavi and Karroubi were of course challenging
the result of the election, but they were still in the context of the regime,
its laws and its constitution. Today’s movement where people say, “Death to the
dictator and an end to the Islamic regime,” and elements who until yesterday
were on their side who were now joining forces with us, that’s the big sea
change that the world needs to see.
When somebody like Mehdi Nasiri, who was a right-hand person to Ali Khamenei,
who was the editor-in-chief of Kayhan newspaper, the equivalent of Pravda in the
Soviet Union, who today says we have to work with Reza Pahlavi to usher in an
era of change beyond this regime, it’s meaning that we’re beginning to peel away
from the regime and converge with us. Those of us who from the very beginning
were secular Democrats, vis-a-vis this regime, and former reformists who now are
disillusioned and want to join with us. And this is a phenomenon that’s
happening inside, not in Los Angeles, not in Toronto, not here in Washington,
but in Iran itself.
DUBOWITZ:
Well, that’s a huge change.
PAHLAVI:
This is a huge change.
DUBOWITZ:
I think people don’t recognize that again, there are millions of Iranians who
despise the regime. There’s no doubt I would say that there are also hundreds of
thousands, if not maybe a few million young men who are Islamists who are
willing to go to the streets and kill their fellow Iranians to defend the
regime. But what you’re pointing at, which I think is really important and it’s
not discussed enough is, there are persuade-ables inside the regime. There are
people who once supported the Islamic Republic who are now recognizing there is
no future for Iran with the Islamic Republic.
PAHLAVI:
Exactly.
DUBOWITZ:
And those people are starting to speak out.
PAHLAVI:
Exactly. And look, many who were the worst enemies of my father want to work
with me today towards that solution. And you know what? I’ve been calling for a
coalition of the willing, and I want to simplify one question, if I may. I
believe that in this world, we have two categories of people in general, whether
they’re Iranian-Americans or others.
The first category are people I would qualify as being part of the problem.
They’re not willing to change. They are hellbent on their own radical ideas.
They’re not willing to compromise. They’re not willing to abandon or admit when
they were wrong in some judgment before. So, they continue to be part of the
problem. And my friend, I don’t waste a minute of my time on them. The second
category of people are people who want to be part of the solution, and they are
willing to change their ideas. They’re willing to adapt to the new
circumstances. They’re willing to see that now we need to be able to do this.
And in my judgment book, I think that the people I want to be able to work with
are people who are today committed to a solution that is the best interest of
the Iranian people, irrespective of where they stood yesterday. That’s the basis
of the coalition I want to create and propose.
So, as long you understand that the demeanor and the mindset of those who can be
part of this diverse coalition of the willing and able, and they are diversified
in opinions, they’re representatives of the left, of the center of the right,
they are Republicans, there are monarchists, but the issue for us is to achieve
the ultimate goal of democratization in Iran on three key fundamental elements:
Iran’s territorial integrity, which is very important to us. The issue of human
rights as a matter of principle and values and systems and laws, and of course,
secular democracy, which means a clear separation of religions or governments. I
think on that you will discover that the majority of Iranian democratic forces
agree on this.
There are some groups that we cannot work with. I’ll be very honest, we cannot
work with the MEK [Mojahedin-e-Khalq, People’s Mojahedin Organization], we
cannot work with separatists. And the reason is very simple, because either they
are inherently non-democratic, or they go against the grain of challenging or
threatening Iran’s territorial integrity. I’ll be very honest with you: I cannot
work with these two groups, but I can work with every other groups, including
those who were at some point revolutionaries of yesteryear but today agree that
they went the wrong path and we need to now regather forces for a better future.
DUBOWITZ:
So, I…
PAHLAVI:
And that’s also goes to the spirit of my view of national reconciliation towards
a better future. Maximizing defections from this regime to minimize the
resistance against Iranian people for that change and guarantee that the
transition will be as smooth and as least costly to the nation, but I need to
have that element of foreign support in this.
So, that’s where I come back and tell those contrarians or naysayers or people
who might be worried that are we yet again, not sure as what the outcome would
be, the devil that we know is better than the devil that we don’t. Which I think
is a big excuse. I say look, look among yourselves. Look how many people – just
by looking at the Iranian diaspora, you made an illusion to it when living in
Toronto. How many successful Iranians who are doctors, who are entrepreneurs,
who are CEOs of this and that company who run the world as we speak, including
here in America? How much potential exists between them being the link between a
once-freed Iran with a country like America?
I think President Trump will understand that at the end of the day, it’s good
for business as well. When you have entrepreneurs including one of his people,
Elon Musk, who could have a Tesla plant in Baluchistan, for instance. Or we have
people from Uber, from eBay, from all of these big Iranian entrepreneurs from
Silicon Valley and elsewhere who can commit billions of dollars of investment to
rebuild Iran in the future. And this is not just limited to America, mind you.
None of this will happen when you have a corrupt regime with a paramilitary
mafia running the show, intimidating the world by taking hostages, threatening
the existence of a country by trying to wage nuclear war against them, and all
of that. And you still think that the solution is to negotiate with them?
Seriously?
DUBOWITZ:
I agree with you, and I think it’s a critical message to the Trump
administration that if you want to make Iran great again, you got to make Iran
free again. And the answer is not some nuclear deal, that it’s some minor
improvement to the 2015 Obama deal. It puts a few more years on the sunsets,
because that deal is only kicking the nuclear can down the road, which is going
to explode in our faces, and it’s only going to send billions of dollars into
the coffers of the regime that it can steal, and that it can use for repression
and to fund its proxies.
Your Highness, I have to tell you, I’m very worried about another Iran nuclear
deal, and I’m very worried about Khamenei running circles around yet another
American president.
Give us your view of where Khamenei is today versus where he has been over the
years.
PAHLAVI:
Our take on the situation is that Khamenei is getting more and more isolated.
The scope of his tent is becoming much more limited than it was before. There’s
more fragmentation within the system. We have seen even in the last few months,
a lot of dissension among the ranks, and this is only an indicator what’s to
come.
I don’t think he can usher in a successful successor to himself. I don’t think
that if he’s hoping that his son, Mojtaba, is going to step in, he will even
have the credential or the legitimacy to play that role of the supreme leader.
There’s been talk about some council ruling.
But the nation is so beyond that, that I don’t think that the nature of the
regime, especially the paramilitary mafia that the IRGC represent, are going to
put up with that anymore. So I think we are facing more and more internal
dissension and conflict, which is an opportunity to utilize, because the regime
is at its weakest in that point.
And I don’t think that Khomeini is going to be… Let me rephrase it. I wouldn’t
be surprised if he rejects this proposal, because either way, it’s lose-lose for
him. But at least by rejecting, he tries to maintain the last remnant of his
hardcore support behind himself. The minute that he caves into that, he loses
that as well, so he only expedites his own demise.
It’s one thing for the calculation in Western diplomacy to think what’s in it
for them to accept. They cannot understand that the minute you ask this regime
to change its conduct, then it’s no longer what it is. The entire response has
been that. The minute Khomeini is to concede on any of this point, he might as
well kiss the Islamic regime goodbye. Of course, he’s not going to do that.
His last-gasp attempt is to keep this regime surviving at any cost. And once
again, they might try to pull the wool over the eyes of naive diplomats in the
Western world and buy some time for themselves. What else is new? I agree with
your point, but guess what? There’re others who don’t see it that way, others
who say, “Whether the rest of the world is lagging behind or not, we have to
take initiatives.”
Bibi Netanyahu took an initiative, if it didn’t strike back against Hamas and
Hezbollah, we’ll still be sitting here. Maybe Bashar al-Assad would still be
sitting in Damascus. Things do change based on certain actions, and today,
clarity of the message is very clear. The regime has lost, let’s understand
that.
That’s what Washington needs to understand, London needs to understand, Berlin
needs to understand, Paris needs to understand, and of course, everybody else in
the world needs to understand. What you need to now understand, it’s not that
the regime has lost the case. It’s that the chances for changing Iran is at its
highest right now.
But we can give certainty to guarantee a better future by being clear on the
alternative. Look, my strategy is to encourage maximum defection. So we smooth
the process of change by including the majority of those who don’t have their
hands soiled in the blood of the Iranian people. Survive regime change, complete
different process of De-Ba’athification in-
DUBOWITZ:
So that’s, by the way, a great strategy. It’s maximum pressure on the regime,
maximum support for the Iranian people.
And maximum defection for those inside the regime, who understand that their
future is tied to a free Iran, not an Islamist Iran.
PAHLAVI:
And that they have a role to play to maintain stability and order. And that’s my
answer to those who say, “Well, we don’t know what’s going to happen next.” I
guarantee you one thing. If you start dragging your feet yet again, you’re only
guaranteeing escalation of conflict and a different reality in the world.
On the other hand, if you helped Iran liberate itself, not only you immediately
eliminate most of the problem associated with the regime at once, but you make
sure that we can have a very soon to be restable future. Because now the people
who are out there dealing with you, are willing to work with you, have the same
values and principles that you are professing.
And we can work in absolute partnership to remedy the problems of our region,
which are numerous. Water shortages, the economic situation, anything that stand
in waiting depending on how long this regime survives. So I think it’s the only
way to look at it as a win-win proposition. As I said, I’m doing my part
together with my fellow Iranians.
I hope we will find some partners in this that are willing to join in on this
mission that could liberate the entire world. We can have a different world as a
result very soon, depending on how fast we are willing to act now.
DUBOWITZ:
You’ve mentioned a couple of times, Israel. And I actually met you for the first
time in Israel, in Tel Aviv, and I remember thinking, “wow, it is remarkable
that you were there.” And tell us a little bit about your decision to go. I
mean, it was quite a brave decision. I would imagine it was quite a
controversial decision within the broader Iranian community, though I think
you’re exactly right. I mean, I’ve been struck by the fact that really sometimes
the only people that are at rallies after October 7th with Jewish Americans or
Jewish Canadians or Jewish Europeans against Hamas and against Hezbollah and
against the Islamic Republic of Iran, are Iranians, are Muslim Iranians who are
at the same rally. And so, it seems to me that at the personal level, there’s a
really deep connection between Jewish Americans and Iranian Americans, between
Israelis and Iranians. Do you get that sense as well? And was that sort of one
of the reasons you wanted to go and really connect with Israelis in the way that
you seem to have done?
PAHLAVI:
Yeah, well, of course. And what made it even more imperative was the fact that
within the last four or five years, we have seen hundreds of thousands of
Iranians, although many of them were denied access but at least tried to get
there, to gather by Cyrus the Great’s tomb in Persepolis. As a symbol of Iran’s
heritage, culture, tradition, civilization, identity. And among them would be
people representing different faiths and ethnicities and that celebrated that
Iranian-ness. Anything that this regime from the get-go was against, anything
that had to do with Iran, the celebration of our history, of our culture, an
anti-Iranian regime, in essence, started there.
And when you start thinking of Cyrus the Great, you cannot help but to remember
that 25 centuries ago when he liberated the slaves in Babylon, helped them
rebuild their temple in Jerusalem, we are talking about the uniqueness of the
relationship of two nations that no other country in the world can claim, to
have that kind of a biblical relationship. Iran and the Jews, and later on, when
the state of Israel were created. It is unique to the world; I don’t think
there’s any parallel that you can name except for these two.
And one of the reasons I wanted to go to Israel was beyond the obvious
taboo-breaking of the issue, but to point that today, Iranians who celebrate
their traditions and their history and their civilization and this, we as
Iranians have no hatred or animosity towards other faiths or other cultures or
nationalities. And what could be more symbolic than to show that unlike this
regime who hates the Jews, who promotes antisemitism, that actually wants to
wipe up a country off the face of the earth, that we Iranians, unlike them, are
certainly looking at Israel as an extremely important partner and strategic
partner in the region. We don’t have any animosity towards our Arab neighbors.
We want to, in fact, be the country that helps seal what was the spirit of the
Abraham Accords, which of course was welcomed by the Israeli counterparts in the
Arab world, only to be sabotaged by the regime, which obviously felt threatened
by that.
But the reason I wanted to go there, and I studied at the press conference in
Tel Aviv, I think it was, that I hope that one day we can elevate the Abraham
Accords to the Cyrus Accords. Whereas Iran, a different Iran, would be the
element that will seal the deal permanently, that will ultimately allow for
actual stability and freedom to exist, which will ultimately be conducive to
eliminating all the proxies that the regime has had, all the elements that have
been preventing from true peace to happen, and ultimately even the dual-state
solution and for the Palestinians to have a real chance to have finally there
their independent state. None of this can happen under this regime being in
place. That has been the delaying factor. And Iranians want to be part of that
equation. They want to prove the world that we, unlike this regime, are the
agent of peace. We want to be part of those who want to be the peacemakers as
opposed to a regime that has been practically representing the warmongers. The
narrative is already there, the story is already there for all to see.
And that’s why it’s important for the world to understand that if we want to
avoid conflict, if we want to avoid escalation, today, we have an opportunity, a
window of time that is not going to remain open forever. This is an opportunity
if we don’t want to get to a point that Israel might have to take the initiative
of striking Iranian facilities or what have you, or there’s an escalation of
conflict, or Iran’s ballistic program begins to threaten Europe. That even if
you have the snapback strategy, how far along is their transparency and
accountability by this regime? In other words, we can always remain nervous
because the finger on the trigger is still sitting there in Tehran. All of that
ties back to the urgency of the matter.
I still think that there’s enough time to remedy the problem. And one of them,
my messages, and the reason I traveled to Israel was also to talk to the
politicians, obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu. And in fact, I’m glad that he
took my advice of talking to the people directly. I said, “Talk to the people,
talk to the Iranian people. Let them hear from you that you make a difference
between them and the regime.”
DUBOWITZ:
And it’s worth pointing out to our listeners who may have missed it, but Prime
Minister Netanyahu, in recent months, has been sending out videos with Farsi
subtitles, speaking directly to the Iranian people over the heads of the regime.
PAHLAVI:
And the fact that because he understand that, he also understand the logic
behind why I say it’s important to have a policy on maximum support. Because by
bringing pressure only, is it sufficient to make the whole thing tip over? You
have to give the Iranian people a fair chance of fighting the regime. So far,
they’ve done it completely unaided and alone. Had it not been for Elon Musk and
Starlink, God knows how much access to the internet will still be available to
the Iranians inside Iran to communicate with one another.
DUBOWITZ:
Well, I would say that I think your visit really made a difference, and I think
Israelis heard you and I think Israeli decision makers were listening. I don’t
want to get into it in detail on an open podcast, but I think there is a sea
change with respect to how Israel sees the Iran issue today. And I think for the
first time ever in Israeli history, they’ve made maximum support for the Iranian
people a central pillar of their strategy. And it’s not just rhetorical, but
it’s…
PAHLAVI:
Because they understand the Iranian people.
DUBOWITZ:
Correct.
PAHLAVI:
Israelis, and I think a lot of people within the international Jewish community,
not to mention the Iranian Jewish community, of course, actually understand and
see why a different Iran can in fact bring about – they know the Iranian people
much better than an American politician, or for that matter, a European
politician might know. At least not as much as they would understand it, which
makes it even more ridiculous where you have a country that understands Iran
better than any of them who understand the necessity for that to happen. And you
proclaim to have that country as your most trustable ally, you don’t even listen
to them. You pursue your own assessments and analysis, which is still based on
that flawed expectation of behavior change.
DUBOWITZ:
Well, that’s certainly…
PAHLAVI:
And we just wasted time.
DUBOWITZ:
Right. I mean, that’s certainly the frustration in Israel as they have
encountered multiple American administrations who aren’t listening to them on
the issue of how to deal with the Islamic Republic.
I mean, it is a good reminder: ancient Persia, ancient Israel, modern Israel,
and hopefully one day a modern and free Iran. And it does remind me that when
President Harry Truman made the decision to support the independence of Israel,
against, by the way, the advice of numerous people in the State Department and
elsewhere in the U.S. government, and he made that decision. And it was
obviously a critical decision to the U.N. vote that brought the modern state of
Israel into being and brought Israel back after 3,000 years.
He said, “I am Cyrus. I am Cyrus.” And Truman had that sense, that historical
sense that he was Cyrus. He was bringing the Jewish people back to Jerusalem, in
the way that Cyrus had brought the ancient Jews back to Israel, as you had said.
So, there’s certainly that kind of continuity.
But I want to end with this, Your Highness, and that is that we’ve covered a lot
of ground. We’ve talked a lot about your background, the Iranian people, the
Iranian opposition. We’ve talked a lot about what has worked, what has failed,
your aspirations. I want to end with a couple of questions, maybe sort of
lightning round questions.
First is, when you think about Iran today, I’ve heard you say that Iran in the
1950s and ’60s and ’70s was on a trajectory to be South Korea, but ended up as
North Korea, or not the people, but the regime. When you think about the Iran of
the future, a free Iran, what country do you have as a model? Is it a South
Korea? Is it a America? Is it a U.K. constitutional monarchy? Aspirationally,
when you think of Iran, what is the model in your mind?
PAHLAVI:
I would say that long before America came to existence and claims to be the
melting pot of the world, Iran was the melting part at least of the region. For
centuries, we had a country that was represented by various ethnicities and
religious communities, that lived side-by-side in peace in nation states for
centuries.
If you look at the Middle East, half of the countries that you see on the map
today did not even exist before the end of the Ottoman Empire. Many of them were
manufactured artificially by some European diplomat at the end of the First
World War.
When you look at Iran and the fact that it goes back centuries of civilization
and tradition, a country that survived multiple invasions, whether it was the
Mongols, the Turks, the Arabs, and what have you and we are still standing as a
nation without losing our identity and culture, that’s a very strong statement
to make.
DUBOWITZ:
So, your answer really, I think, I’m gleaning from this is, your answer is
modern Iran should look in many ways like ancient Iran?
PAHLAVI:
What I’m saying is that in the 21st century, where we are seeing a world where,
how do you serve the best interest of your respective citizens when you start
looking at issues differently than the optic you might have had before? If MBS
today with his ambitions for Saudi Arabia is distancing himself from the
old-school, traditional point of view, and the religious elements of the
Wahhabis and the Salafis, and what have you.
And we had the same problem in Iran. And Khomeini created that problem, as the
clerics that resisted all the advance of Iran into modernity and emancipation of
women, and everything that was the resistance against that, as the Islamists
were at the time. And of course, again, against the free world when you had the
Marxist elements that were stopping that. All of that happened and put Iran on
the wrong trajectory.
But Iranian people are gathering themselves again, having gone through that sad,
tragic episode of having to deal with the Islamic Republic, but you know what?
We are better for it. Why? Because if you were trying to make people in Iran
understand why it is that a secular system is so vital, where separation of
religious from state is so vital…
DUBOWITZ:
They’ve just seen the alternative.
PAHLAVI:
…they have seen now the alternative.
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah.
PAHLAVI:
And that only puts us in much better shape than we were in the ’50s, ’60s and
’70s to achieve that. Because I think that part of a country’s ability to manage
itself, it’s a learning curve. In other words, it’s not just enough to bring in
a text and say, “This is the new law or the constitution.” America started with
a Declaration of Independence, which led, of course, to the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights.
But in between, you had the Civil War, you had many other issues. You had the
movement of a protest, Martin Luther King, all the way until where America is
today, despite the fact that you had the laws and all that. But there has to be
also a culture of tolerance. There has to be also a culture of acceptance, of
diversity, and respecting that this is a learning curve that a text by itself
cannot guarantee.
We have gone through that. The reason I have optimism and faith about my fellow
Iranians, is that I think that they’re best prepared to not only usher in that
era but belong to it and be directly responsible in preserving that. Because
they have paid such a high price to appreciate the importance of it, and that’s
why they’re still fighting, and that’s what gives me hope.
But what I hope the world also understands, is that the best way to guarantee
your interest is to know what horse you’re betting on. If President Trump wants
to be a peacemaker, then he has to stop negotiating with warmongers. The
peacemakers are not the regime and its representatives. You’re wasting your
time, even if you have to it for good form.
But I’m sure he doesn’t realistically believe that this regime would even come
clean. I know there are people in this administration who understand more than
ever where Iran is. At least the first time, I see somebody at the helm of the
State Department, who since the Revolution, has a better understanding of Iran
than any of his predecessors and that’s Marco Rubio.
And I’ve met him, and I know how he thinks. This is very important, because if
we have a misread on what’s happening there, once again, we’re missing the boat.
I’m glad that today the viewpoint in Israel is much closer to our viewpoint
because they understand what can happen. I hope that this administration catches
up to that reality as well and say, “Let’s guarantee.”
Or not having to get engaged by eliminating the problem once and for all. I hope
the European governments will also have a reset in their policies. Because if
they keep dragging their feet, they will have more problem with immigration,
which has a direct play into the way politics is changing in those countries.
The energy dependence and the blackmail coming from Moscow every time the winter
hits.
A different Iran could provide all of those requirements. It’s only win-win, but
for God’s sakes, let’s not waste time.
DUBOWITZ:
So, let’s end with this, your favorite book on Iran. I know there’s a number of
our listeners who want to learn more about Iran. They’re going to learn
obviously quite a bit through this 10-part series.
But if there’s one book you could recommend, it doesn’t have to be about
politics, it could be poetry, history, culture, literature. What book should
they read to give them a real, real insight into your country?
PAHLAVI:
I think to be absolutely on par with the sentiments of the nation today. And
again, I think, the most vivid element and aspect that we have seen in recent
years, is this renewal of an Iranian identity renaissance of some kind. And I
would say what effectually, even though it’s not actual history, it’s more of a
legendary book.
But it’s our most famous poet called Ferdowsi, who wrote The Book of Kings,
which basically shows all the heroism and all the sacrifice of keeping our
identity alive as a nation. And that’s exactly what I see in the spirit and the
resilience of our young kids today.
When I was in Munich a couple of weeks ago, and working together with this new
coalition that we are forming among Iranian opposition groups, that is also part
of my activities and talking to diaspora. I had a chance to visit with some of
the recent victims ever since the Mahsa protests, and the kids who were shot in
the eye and all of those guys.
And when I was asking them, “Well, what keeps you guys going? I want to hear it
from yourselves, how do you look at it?” They said, “What’s a life worth living
if at the end, you don’t think that you haven’t died in vain?” That you have
died because others could one day see you as their heroes, and we have had
heroes.
We have had heroes since the Mahsa movement that today, are celebrated and
remembered in Iranian social media. You can actually feel it’s a sense of
sacrifice, but sacrifice because Iran is too big for an Iranian not to be
willing to do all of he or she can do. And when you’re dealing with that kind of
sentiment, when you’re dealing with that kind of dedication.
And what a far cry it is, that the frenzy that happened in 1978 that ushered in
this regime, that’s a huge contrast. And anybody who has the correct read on
where Iran is today, will finally understand how it can change and what is not
only good for them, but also good for themselves. And that’s my ultimate message
that I leave behind here in Washington or the various capitals in the free world
that I’m visiting.
I say, “Look, we are going to get this done, whether you like it or not, whether
you are with us or not. We are not counting on anybody other than ourselves to
get the job done, but our life will be much easier, much less costly to bring
about this change, if this time you stood on the right side of history.”
Stay with us, the peacemakers. Give up the pursuit of trying to expect a
different behavior and attitude by the warmongers. That is the determining
factor, and you have the time right in front of you to do it. So whether it’s
President Trump or anybody else out there listening, understand that everything
you say, we want it too. But it’s not by pursuing the wrong approach that we’re
going to make it happen.
At least give the Iranian people a chance of proving all the contrarians wrong
that we can get it done, before you have to resort to much more sinister
scenarios, and who knows what will be the outcome?
DUBOWITZ:
Yeah, I think that’s a great message, don’t engage with a dictator. Support the
Iranian people, and I want to thank you. I want to thank you for coming in and
sharing with us your story, and your insights and your courage.
And I hope that, as we say in my faith, we say next year in Jerusalem. But I
would say next year in a free Tehran, I hope to see you next year in a free
Tehran, when the subject of the podcast will be about how the Islamic Republic
of Iran was brought down by the brave men and women of Iran. So thank you, sir.
PAHLAVI:
Well, hopefully we can celebrate our Nowruz and the Jewish New Year in a free
run, as opposed to having to mourn our martyrs and victims and celebrate life.
DUBOWITZ:
And with that, I actually want to also wish you a meaningful and a beautiful,
and soulful Nowruz and to all our listeners out there. And again, thank you,
sir. Thank you for coming in.
PAHLAVI:
Thank you very much, much appreciated.
DUBOWITZ:
Thank you.
PAHLAVI:
Thanks.