English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May07/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 06/34-40: “They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 06-07/2025
May 07, 2008 – The Barbaric Invasion of Beirut and Mount Lebanon/May 07, 2008 – The Barbaric Invasion of Beirut and Mount Lebanon/Elias Bejjani/May 07/2025
The Sacred Duty of Praying for Others/Elias Bejjani/May 06/2025
Video Link to a commentary by: Nadim Koteich/Peace is flawed, but resistance has become a crime against its own people
Video Link for an Interview with Journalist Ali Hamada
Link to a video interview with sovereign activist Marwan Hindi from the “Syriayo” website.
May 6, Day of Martyrs of Lebanese Press/Lokman Slim Foundation/May 06/2025
Lebanon says one killed in Israeli strike on south
Gulf countries to reportedly lift travel ban on Lebanon
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon visits Saudi Arabia
Report: US pressing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and respect ceasefire
Palestinian president confirms Beirut visit after disarmament call
Report: Turkey seized 1,300 pagers en route to Lebanon days after pager attack
Main political parties agree on coalition list for Beirut municipal elections
What do Catholics in Lebanon and around the world hope for from new pope?
Guillain-Barré Syndrome: A Frightening Journey Through My Husband’s Ordeal/Roula Kehdy/Face Book/May 06/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 06-07/2025
Trump says will make 'very, very big announcement' before Mideast trip
Oman announces US-Houthi ceasefire deal
Israel says it struck Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa
Druze near Damascus resist demand to turn in arms as tensions boil
Gazans desperately need food, water — ‘they’re getting bombs’: UN
Hamas dismisses further Gaza ceasefire talks amid Israel's 'hunger war'
Trump says only 21 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now believed to be alive
India says it attacked nine sites in Pakistan, Pakistani Kashmir
UAE mediates deal for release of further 410 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war
Carney tells Trump Canada is not for sale, president praises PM as a 'very good person'

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sourceson on May 06-07/2025
Does The European Union Actually Expect Radical Islamists to Reform Themselves?/Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/May 6, 2025
Israel’s claim to protect Syria’s Druze is a smokescreen/Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/May 06, 2025
The Druze experience … an opportunity for everyone to save Syria/Eyad Abu Shakra/Arab News/May 06, 2025
Perfect storm brings UK and EU together/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/May 06, 2025
How Africa should negotiate with Trump/Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman/Arab News/May 06, 2025
Gaza’s famine and the erosion of our humanity/Dr. Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/May 06, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 06-07/2025
May 07, 2008 – The Barbaric Invasion of Beirut and Mount Lebanon
Elias Bejjani/May 07/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/118016/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WOToQkmfMU&t=72s
May 7, 2008, is forever etched in Lebanon’s collective memory as a criminal day of shame—when murderers, invaders, and mercenary militias serving the Iranian regime launched a barbaric coup against the Lebanese state, its people, and its sovereignty.
Hezbollah, in collaboration with Amal Movement, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), and other armed groups loyal to the Syrian-Iranian axis of evil, invaded the capital Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon. In this coordinated and premeditated assault, these militias violated the sanctity of the capital, terrorized its peaceful civilians, displaced families, looted properties, tortured innocents, and murdered the defenseless—all under the pretext of resisting “government decisions” that challenged Hezbollah’s illegal military communications network.
This day, now known infamously as the "Black 7th of May," marked a turning point in Lebanon’s modern history—a moment when the mask of so-called "resistance" fell and exposed the true face of Hezbollah: a terrorist militia acting on behalf of Tehran to subdue Lebanon through force and intimidation.
Michel Aoun, the political Iscariot of modern Lebanon, opportunistically justified and later benefited from this criminal invasion. His alliance with Hezbollah paved his path to the presidency in 2016. During his tenure, Aoun dismantled the state from within, surrendered its institutions to Hezbollah’s authority, and contributed to Lebanon’s total collapse—politically, economically, and morally.
The May 7 invasion was not just a military operation. It was an Iranian-led coup attempt against the legitimate Lebanese state. It desecrated Beirut’s freedom, targeted Sunni neighborhoods, occupied media outlets, and left dozens dead. Its goal: to prove that no Lebanese authority—civil or military—could ever stand against Hezbollah without paying a deadly price.
To this day, the invasion’s consequences remain: Hezbollah continues to act as an armed state within a state. Palestinian and Syrian armed elements still operate freely in their camps. The sovereignty of Lebanon remains hostage to Tehran's regional ambitions.
Justice Delayed Is Not Justice Denied
This criminal and barbaric invasion must not be forgotten. The perpetrators—local and foreign—must one day be brought to justice. The Lebanese people, especially those in the diaspora, must continue to demand accountability, justice, and full implementation of international resolutions that uphold Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty.
As the Prophet Isaiah (33:1) warned:
“Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you cease betraying, you will be betrayed.”
What Must Be Done
To ensure May 7 is never repeated, the following urgent measures must be taken:
Full disarmament of Hezbollah and all other Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian militias operating illegally within Lebanon.
Reclaiming all territories currently run as militia-controlled “mini-states,” including Hezbollah’s southern stronghold and armed Palestinian camps.
Immediate implementation of all relevant UN Security Council resolutions—particularly:
Resolution 1559 (2004): Calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.
Resolution 1701 (2006): Demands the cessation of hostilities and prohibits the presence of any armed forces in South Lebanon other than the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL.
Resolution 1680 (2006): Urges Lebanon and Syria to delineate their border and establish full diplomatic relations.
The 1949 Armistice Agreement with Israel: Must be revived and fully enforced to restore border stability and end militia cross-border provocations.
Declare Lebanon a failed state under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, enabling international intervention to restore state authority and protect civilians.
Empower UNIFIL with an expanded mandate to enforce disarmament and administrative restoration across all Lebanese territories—not only the South.
A Call to Action
All free and patriotic Lebanese—at home and abroad—must unite to rescue their homeland from occupation, collapse, and sectarian tyranny. We must raise our voices at the United Nations, in international forums, and in the global media to demand an end to Hezbollah’s armed rule and the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty.
May Almighty God protect Lebanon and its people, and may justice prevail.

The Sacred Duty of Praying for Others
Elias Bejjani/May 06/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143054/
The duty of praying for others—regardless of who they are, especially those in need of help, support, and compassion, whether family, relatives, strangers, or even enemies—is a deeply spiritual and emotional act. It reflects the mercy, tenderness, and love of the Almighty Creator who is capable of all things. This sacred practice is a genuine expression of the strength, depth, and resilience of the believer’s faith and hope. It demonstrates a steadfast belief that God is the loving Father of all, merciful and forgiving, who listens and responds to those who call upon Him and seek His mercy.
The Miracle of the Paralytic’s Healing
In the Gospel of Saint Mark (2:1–12), we read:
“When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—’I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’ Then he went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them.”
This miracle, in its theological core, affirms without doubt that intercessory prayer and supplications on behalf of others are not only acceptable to God, but are heard and answered by Him. As recounted in the Gospel, the paralytic did not seek healing himself. He did not ask for mercy, nor did he seek forgiveness for his sins—even though, as many theologians suggest, Jesus frequently visited Capernaum, where the paralytic lived.
What’s even more striking is that it was the paralytic’s friends, relatives, or perhaps even some of Jesus’ disciples, who had such strong faith that they believed Jesus could heal the man simply by touching him. Their unwavering faith drove them to carry the man, push through the crowd, climb the roof, break it open, and lower him down to Jesus. Because of their faith and certainty in the Lord’s mercy and power, Jesus responded to their plea and healed the paralytic, acknowledging the strength of their belief.
Since sin is a form of eternal suffering and death in the fires of Hell—and because sin’s temptations, traps, and allurements paralyze a person morally, spiritually, and emotionally—Jesus first forgave the man’s sins, then healed his physical paralysis, saying: “Stand up, take your mat, and go.”
God never turns away those who seek Him with true faith and trust. With fatherly love and attentiveness, He hears our prayers and answers them. As the Lord Himself said: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7–8)
From this, we understand that intercessory prayer—for both the living and the dead, for friends and enemies alike—is a holy obligation and is accepted by God, who is love, compassion, and mercy. He does not turn away those who ask sincerely, nor does He ignore the needs of the suffering.
In the Gospel of Matthew (18:19–20), Jesus confirms the power of collective prayer: “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
And Saint James says in his letter (5:16): “Pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” He also adds (5:15): “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and if they have committed sins, they will be forgiven.”
Praying for those in need is a sacred duty for every true believer—especially for those caught in the snares of sin and temptation, and for those mentally or emotionally unable to comprehend or resist sin’s consequences, such as the mentally ill, the psychologically distressed, and the physically or verbally impaired.
The miracle of the paralytic is not the only example in the Bible where Jesus or the apostles performed a miracle in response to someone else’s plea. For instance, Jesus healed the servant of the Roman centurion in Capernaum at the centurion’s request (Matthew 8:5–13). He also raised Lazarus from the dead in response to the plea of his sisters, Mary and Martha (John 11:1–44).
This rich spiritual understanding forms the foundation for asking the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the blessings of the saints in our prayers.
Let us pray for the healing of every person weakened by illness—whether physical, spiritual, or moral. God, who is love, never turns away those who come to Him in faith. Let us pray and ask the Lord Jesus to free us from the temptations of this perishable world and to guide us toward spiritual, moral, and cultural growth. Let us pray for our consciences to be cleansed and our hearts to be purified, that we may be freed from selfishness and base desires. May God grant us the grace of humility, that we may be messengers of love, freedom, and justice—true advocates of peace and harmony.
O Lord, grant us strength and patience to endure the shame of this passing world. We ask You in repentance and hope that we may not be disgraced on the Day of Judgment. God sees us, hears us, and is always with us—by our side and in our midst. Let us trust in Him, and fear Him in all our actions, words, and thoughts. 

Video Link to a commentary by: Nadim Koteich/Peace is flawed, but resistance has become a crime against its own people
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143082/

Video Link for an Interview with Journalist Ali Hamada
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143077/
Main tpocs discussed:
*Hezbollah’s refusal to surrender its weapons.
*The Issue of Illegal Naturalized Individuals: This part covers those who were unlawfully granted citizenship and the transfer of their records between regions to manipulate demographics.
*The Druze Situation in Syria: This section examines the circumstances and challenges faced by the Druze community in Syria.
*Berri and Hezbollah’s Delusions and Illusions: This heading refers to what are described as baseless claims by Berri and Hezbollah, suggesting they expect to gain something in the Lebanese political equation in exchange for their weapons, which are deemed worthless.
*The Potential Return of War: This final point addresses the possibility of renewed conflict in the region.

Link to a video interview with sovereign activist Marwan Hindi from the “Syriayo” website.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143088/
A courageous and patriotic reading in all issues that sum up the suffering of the Lebanese under the terrorist occupation of Hezbollah and the corruption and servility of the political class.
Arab identity was imposed on Lebanon by the Syrian regime in Taif.
What is required is the forcible withdrawal of Hezbollah’s weapons!
**Marwan Hindi, political activist, guest on the program “With All Freedom” with journalist Rania Zahra Charbel
May 6, 2025

May 6, Day of Martyrs of Lebanese Press.
Lokman Slim Foundation/May 06/2025
In December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly decided that 3 May would be World Press Freedom Day. But were they aware that, during its own civil war, Lebanon had already named 6 May as Martyrs of Lebanese Press Day in 1980?
This became an annual tradition. It was started by Riad Taha, the head of the journalists' syndicate. Tragically, he was killed two months later.
On this day, the Lebanese press would be blocked in defense of freedom of expression, only to be reinstated the following day.
It was a day when the journalists of this small country wanted to honor the memory of the six journalists who were hanged in 1916 by Jamal Pasha, known as the Butcher, in what is now known as Martyrs' Square in Beirut.
Mohammed Mahmassani, a political analyst and writer, was the first of them, so the story goes.
It also says that, like Lebanon, the history of the world is full of bloodshed.
Dozens of names. A constellation of political affiliations.
May Lokman Slim's assassination, who was silenced for not remaining silent, be the last in this dark series.

Lebanon says one killed in Israeli strike on south
AFP/May 06, 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike Tuesday on a car in the country’s south killed one person, the latest attack despite a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah militants and Israel. The ministry said in a statement that the “Israeli enemy” strike on Kfar Rumman killed one person and wounded three others. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the car was hit with a “guided missile” on the road linking the town of Kfar Rumman with the nearby city of Nabatieh. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has continued to launch regular strikes in Lebanon despite the November 27 truce which sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah including two months of all-out war, with a heavy Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion. Under the deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south. Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five positions that it deems “strategic.” A Lebanese security source told AFP that Hezbollah had withdrawn fighters from south of the Litani and dismantled most of its military infrastructure in that area. Lebanon says it has respected its commitments and has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw from the five border positions.

Gulf countries to reportedly lift travel ban on Lebanon
Naharnet/May 6, 2025
After the UAE allowed its citizens to travel to Lebanon, the fellow countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are inclined to follow suit in the near future, Lebanon’s Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Tuesday. “Intensive meetings are being held with political and security officials, most notably the meeting that PM Nawaf Salam will hold today with the GCC ambassadors to explain the measures that the Lebanese state has taken at the airport, its vicinity and along the road leading to it with the aim of reassuring these countries before they take the ban lifting decisions,” the daily quoted a “highly informed source” as saying. “Subsequent meetings will be held between a number of ambassadors and senior security officials to discuss the taken measures and remove any legal and security obstacles,” the source added. Emirati citizens will be able to visit Lebanon as of May 7 after a ban imposed during a diplomatic row in 2021 was lifted, the official WAM news agency has reported. The Emirati announcement came after President Joseph Aoun met with his UAE counterpart Mohamed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, after which it was announced that the ban would be lifted. In 2021, the United Arab Emirates imposed the travel ban and withdrew diplomats from Beirut in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, after a Lebanese minister criticized the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen. Lebanese citizens were not banned from traveling to the UAE, although some experienced difficulties obtaining visas. Ties between Beirut and Abu Dhabi had soured in the past decade over Hezbollah's influence on Lebanon. But with the group weakened by its recent war with Israel, the UAE is the latest Gulf country to renew its interest in Lebanon. In March, Saudi Arabia said it would review "obstacles" to resuming Lebanese imports and ending a ban on its citizens visiting Lebanon.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon visits Saudi Arabia
Naharnet/May 6, 2025
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has commenced an official visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, her office said on Tuesday. The trip is part of the Special Coordinator’s “ongoing consultations with regional and international stakeholders which focus, among other issues, on opportunities for the international community to support Lebanon in its efforts to advance the centrality and role of the State and to implement United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 (2006),” the office added in a statement.

Report: US pressing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and respect ceasefire
Naharnet/May 6, 2025
There are U.S. pressures on Israel to withdraw from the five border points and fully implement the ceasefire agreement to enable the Lebanese Army to extend its control over the whole of the South, informed sources said. This is aimed at allowing President Joseph Aoun to “move forward in his negotiations with Hezbollah over the issue of restricting arms to the hands of the state,” the sources told the al-Anbaa news portal of the Progressive Socialist Party. “U.S. envoy to Lebanon Morgan Ortagus is seriously working on finalizing this agreement prior to her return to Lebanon next month after the municipal elections to kickstart negotiations with Israel over the demarcation of the land border,” the sources added.

Palestinian president confirms Beirut visit after disarmament call
Agence France Presse/May 6, 2025
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will visit Lebanon on May 21 to discuss extending Beirut's authority to Palestinian camps, a Lebanese government official said Tuesday, as Abbas's office confirmed the date. The visit comes after President Joseph Aoun said late last month authorities were working to "withdraw (unauthorized) heavy and medium weapons from all Lebanese territory", and that he would raise disarmament of the camps with Abbas. The government official, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media, said Abbas and Lebanese leaders would discuss "extending state authority to all Lebanese territory, including the Palestinian camps".By long-standing convention, Lebanon's army stays out of the Palestinian camps -- where Abbas's Fatah movement, militant group Hamas and other armed groups are present -- and leaves the factions to handle security.
Hamas claimed attacks on Israel from Lebanon during more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian group's Lebanese ally Hezbollah that erupted over the Gaza war. A November ceasefire largely halted hostilities, but Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure but occasionally also Hamas members or other allies. After unclaimed rocket fire towards Israel from Lebanon on March 22 and 28, Israel responded by bombing south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs, strongholds of the Iran-backed Hezbollah which denied involvement in the launches. Lebanon's top security body the Higher Defense Council has warned Hamas against using the country for attacks on Israel. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also said illegal weapons must be handed over and that Hamas and other factions must not "undermine security and national stability". Since then, Lebanon's army has said that Hamas has handed over three people suspected of involvement in the March rocket launches.  Last month, the army said it had arrested several Lebanese and Palestinians in connection with the rocket attacks, and a Lebanese security source told AFP three were Hamas members. Abbas last visited Lebanon in 2017.

Report: Turkey seized 1,300 pagers en route to Lebanon days after pager attack
Naharnet/May 6, 2025
Turkish intelligence services intercepted a shipment of over 1,300 pagers in Istanbul that were en route to Lebanon, just days after an Israeli Mossad operation targeting similar devices held by Hezbollah members, Turkish news outlet Sabah reported Tuesday. According to the report, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) received information about the shipment and began inspecting ports and airports, eventually discovering that the delivery was scheduled for September 27.
The shipment reportedly arrived in Turkey on September 16, one day before a series of pager explosions occurred in Lebanon. It consisted of four pallets sent from Taiwan via a cargo flight from Hong Kong. The 61 boxes, weighing approximately 850 kilograms, were declared as “food processors” on the shipping manifest. Turkish security forces, accompanied by a bomb disposal unit, opened the boxes and discovered 1,300 pagers, including devices manufactured by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, alongside about 710 detonators, batteries and cables. The shipment also contained 144 mini handheld blenders, cameras and additional electronic components. The pagers were immediately sent to a lab, where Turkish officials claimed they found “a highly flammable white explosive substance -- approximately 3 grams (0.1 oz) -- hidden inside the batteries.”Similar material was reportedly found in the associated detonators. The owner of the Istanbul-based company listed as the shipment’s recipient was questioned and claimed his firm provides customs consulting services rather than freight or shipping. Turkish media added that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue in a December conversation with former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, informing him of the seizure and destruction of the pagers. The Israeli Mossad’s so-called “pager operation” was launched on September 17 over concerns it would soon be exposed. On the operation’s first day, Hezbollah members’ pagers detonated in Lebanon and Syria. A day later, on September 18, their walkie-talkies exploded as well. According to a Reuters investigation published in October last year, the pagers sent to Lebanon in February 2023 contained miniature plastic explosives embedded in batteries, along with a novel detonation system that was undetectable via standard X-ray screening. The rigged batteries were engineered to appear normal but held only about one-third the energy capacity expected for their size. Experts cited in the report noted that while a standard 35-gram (1.2 oz) battery would typically provide 8.75 watt-hours, the modified battery held just 2.22 watt-hours -- suggesting much of the internal volume was taken up by explosives. On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously in two separate events across Lebanon and Syria, in an Israeli attack nicknamed Operation Grim Beeper. According to an unnamed Hezbollah official, the attack took 1,500 Hezbollah fighters out of action due to injuries. According to the Lebanese government, the attack killed 42 people, including 12 civilians, and injured 4,000 civilians.
Victims’ injuries included losing fingers, hands and eyes, as well as brain shrapnel. The incident was described as Hezbollah's biggest security breach since the start of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict in October 2023.

Main political parties agree on coalition list for Beirut municipal elections
Naharnet/May 6, 2025
The country’s main political parties have agreed on forming a unified electoral list for Beirut’s municipal vote, Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday. “A meeting was held yesterday at MP Fouad Makhzoumi’s home in the presence of representatives of parties and Beiruti figures, which resulted in an agreement on forming a coalition list in Beirut,” the daily said. The list will comprise candidates nominated by Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party, al-Ahbash, the Tashnag Party and the Hunchak Party, the newspaper added. MP Nabil Bader and the Jamaa Islamiya meanwhile stayed outside the coalition, Al-Akhbar said. “Over the past hours, Bader contacted a number of figures trying to convince them to join a list that he intends to form in the face of the political forces’ list, but he is facing difficulty in convincing these figures, who believe that it will be a lost battle,” the daily added. The Beirut Madinati civil society coalition, which garnered one third of the votes in 2016, is meanwhile expected to form a third list.

What do Catholics in Lebanon and around the world hope for from new pope?
Associated Press
Among the roughly 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, many are keenly anticipating the upcoming Vatican conclave at which members of the College of Cardinals will elect a successor to Pope Francis. At a grocery shop in Beirut, a university in the United States, a Black township in South Africa and other far-flung locations, The Associated Press asked nine of them what they hope to see from a new pope.
Bernard Anka, 65, a grocer and Maronite Catholic in Lebanon
Anka says he's concerned that Christians worldwide are moving away from the church and hopes the new pope strives to bring them back to the fold.
The owner of a grocery shop in Beirut, Anka worries that many young people in Lebanon and elsewhere are straying from the church as smartphones open a wider world to them.
"The church is very weak in the face of what we are living through," he said.
Christians make up a third of Lebanon's population of 6 million, the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East. The country is coming out of the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war that left over 4,000 dead.
"The work of the new pope should be to bring back the happiness, confidence and internal peace," Anka said. "Christians used to go and face life without fear."
Nadia Makuc, 20, a junior at Princeton University in New Jersey
Makuc goes to Mass daily at the campus chapel. At a recent service, she joined other young Catholics in a prayer for the cardinals voting in the conclave.
"I'm hoping that we have a leader who can just really share the Christian message of mercy and forgiveness, as well as joy and hope," she said after the service, where a photo of Francis was displayed. "That's something Pope Francis was really good about — spreading the joy and hope found in Christ's resurrection."
She also hopes the next pope will fight for the protection of life from conception to natural death.
The new pope should be "someone who's really able to be a witness to the culture of life," said Makuc, co-president of the Aquinas Institute, the university's Catholic campus ministry.
"As a young American, there's a real want for guidance. ... We kind of look at the political system of America and neither party feels like a home to Catholics," she said. "As we face such a political division, a pope who can bring peace and unity is what's most important."
Alicler Medina, 35, a Venezuelan journalist living in Argentina
Medina said Francis sought to bring youth closer to the church, and his successor should be, even more so, "the pope of the young."
"I expect the same from the new pope: that he calls young people together, that he brings them closer to God, because I feel we live in a society that has lost many of its values; and that he brings them closer to their families, that he reminds them of their principles. … Now we see animal abuse, family abuse, bullying."The next pontiff, he added, should "have the openness of Francis but the love that John Paul II expressed."
Mercyline Bunoro, 64, a mother of 7 in Nairobi, Kenya
Buboiro has been a Catholic since birth. She hopes the next pope will continue to embrace everyone regardless of their background and sexual orientation.
Human rights groups in Kenya have expressed concerns about discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. But Bunoro says "being gay is God's wish" and they shouldn't be spurned by the church.
The mother of seven lives in a Nairobi slum, earning a living through menial work such as washing clothes and cleaning.
Bunoro says more cardinals should be appointed from Africa so the continent has more say in Vatican leadership decisions.
Christoph Rudinger, 49, an educator from Linz, Austria
Rudinger, who teaches at the university of education of the Diocese of Linz in Austria, was in Berlin to prepare a field trip for his students.
Sitting outside St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin's historic center, Rudinger said his paramount hope for the next pope is to have an open mind.
"I expect the pope to have open arms, to have open hands for the concerns of the people who approach him, regardless of whether they're Catholic or not," he said.
He hopes the next pope will tackle difficult issues, such as the role of women in the church and whether they can become priests.
For many Austrian Catholics, he said, it's important the pope hear their concerns about a priest shortage in their region and the possible abolition of celibacy as a requirement for ordination.
Beatrice Rakoma, 64, a pensioner in Johannesburg, South Africa
Rakoma lives in Alexandra, a mostly Black township in Johannesburg, and is president of the Catholic Women's League of Alexandra. She spoke to the AP at a memorial service for Pope Francis at a Catholic church in Soweto last week, when she wore a dress adorned with his image.
Rakoma said she would celebrate if the new pope is the first ever from sub-Saharan Africa. But more important, she said, is that he continue with Pope Francis' message of encouraging unity among the world's people.
"It's not about color, race or gender," Rakoma said. "Whichever pope will be elected, it has to be about the glory of God, not about being whichever cultural, race or gender background you come from."
"The new pope must take over from Pope Francis, lead the way, and walk in his footsteps."
Carlo Caniglia, 60, a civil servant from Mantova, Italy
Caniglia said he's not a frequent churchgoer in his hometown of Mantova but goes for baptisms, weddings or funerals, plus Easter and Christmas services.
"If the Catholic Church wants to survive in this fast-changing world, it needs to change and the pope needs to lead that way," said Caniglia, adding that the new pope must address issues such as gender equality in the church and discrimination against gays and lesbians.
"Pope Francis did a good job regarding those topics and I want the next pope to continue that way," said Caniglia, who spoke to the AP while visiting Berlin with his wife. He thinks it would be nice if the next pope did not come from Europe, but perhaps from Asia or Africa.
"I know many Catholics would have a problem with a Black pope but I don't think it's a problem at all," he said.
Marlen Onal, 58, church volunteer from Quezon, Philippines
In Asia's largest Catholic nation, long plagued by poverty and inequality, Onal longs for a successor to Francis, who, like him, would reach out to society's margins.
Francis' embrace of the poor, sick and neglected refocused global attention on their plight and prompted many clergy to venture beyond church confines and emulate his example, Onal said.
"Hopefully the successor will be like him or somebody who can do even more," Onal said. "The next pope should be truly pro-poor, open-minded to all the issues in the world like poverty and the LGBTQ issue."
Onal serves as a volunteer leader for a church in the Manila region led by a locally prominent priest and human rights activist, the Rev. Robert Reyes. Onal and other volunteers have helped Reyes hold street Masses and Bible-reading sessions in slum neighborhoods.
Santiago Dijkstra, 36, a systems engineer in Buenos Aires
Dijkstra said he hopes the next pope "maintains the same culture" as his predecessor, Francis, "instead of going back 80 years and once again punish people who think differently or are different from what the Church believes."
He said the new leader of the Catholic Church should strive to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community, as the late Argentine pontiff did.
He also said he hoped for a pope with Francis' simpleness, that would advocate for a more accessible Church, free of "internal corruption."
"With the money the Vatican has, poverty would be easily resolved, and I don't see them using that money to help."

Guillain-Barré Syndrome: A Frightening Journey Through My Husband’s Ordeal
Roula Kehdy/Face Book/May 06/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143064/
It began quietly—almost insignificantly. On the night of February 22, 2025, around 11:00 p.m., my husband mentioned a tingling sensation in his toes and some weakness in his feet. We brushed it off. Maybe it was a pinched nerve, or just frostbite from the snow day we’d had. But by 3:00 a.m., things took a terrifying turn. He tried to get up to use the restroom—but couldn’t walk. I held him up, helped him, and tried to stay calm. Something wasn’t right.
That’s when I called Dr. Sandra Sabbagh, a trusted neuro-pediatrician and the person I always go to for medical insight. I described the symptoms. She didn’t hesitate—“Take him to the emergency room. Now.”
We rushed to the ER. Hours passed in a blur—CT scans, X-rays, countless tests. The ER doctor returned with a baffling answer: “Everything looks normal. But... we can’t discharge him. He still can’t walk.”Something deep in my gut said to keep pushing. So I called Dr. Sandra again. She told me, urgently, “Ask them to test for Guillain-Barré syndrome.”The ER doctor resisted. “He still has sensation,” she said dismissively.I repeated this to Dr. Sandra—and she exploded. “Tell her to check his reflexes—NOW.”
They did. And just like that, the puzzle started to come together: Guillain-Barré syndrome.I had never even heard of it. I Googled it on the spot—an autoimmune condition where the body attacks its own nerves and sometimes the lungs. The treatments: IVIG or plasma exchange. Five rounds. No cure—just support, time, and hope.
Dr. Sandra urged me to start IVIG immediately. It took three agonizing hours for the pharmacy to prepare it. By then, my husband couldn’t stand. The weakness was climbing up his body like a shadow. It all happened so fast it didn’t feel real.
He was admitted to the ICU. Within 48 hours, his arms stopped moving. We began plasma exchange therapy. But then his breathing started to fail.On February 28, they intubated him. Just before they placed the tube, he tried desperately to speak. His voice was gone. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t write. I’ll never forget that moment—his eyes locked on mine, pleading. I was breaking inside, but I sat there, holding his hand, pretending to be strong. He was fully conscious, trapped inside a body that had shut down.
The five weeks in the ICU felt like an eternity. I watched my husband endure pain, fear, and silence. I became his voice, his advocate, his strength—when I had none left.He couldn’t speak, but he would blink or squeeze my hand—his way of reminding me, I’m still here.
The support from family abroad—on the phone minute by minute—and from our friends (now family) was overwhelming and sacred.The ICU nurses were kind, compassionate, steady. But some doctors... they leaned on a neurologist I didn’t trust. She painted a bleak future: “He may never move again... he may never get off the trach.” Her words stripped hope from the air. I refused to believe her.
Then, the tide began to turn.
He was weaned off the ventilator. On March 10, they performed a tracheotomy. Two days later, they placed a voice valve.The moment he spoke again—just one word—he wept. So did I. Then, slowly, he began to move. First a finger. Then a hand. Then an arm.It was like witnessing a rebirth—inch by inch, breath by breath.
On April 3, we moved to a rehabilitation center. The transition was seamless. The therapists, nurses, and CNAs were extraordinary. They helped transform him from immobile to walking—with a walker, yes—but walking.
On April 29, we came home. We celebrated. Our family gathered around him. And now we begin the next phase: home health therapy, followed by outpatient rehab.
Recovery is not linear. Some days are hopeful; others are hard.But we’ve left the darkness of the unknown behind. Now we walk the long road ahead—together.
Guillain-Barré changed everything. It cracked us open.But from the brokenness emerged a deeper strength, a fiercer love, and an immense gratitude—for every small step, every breath, and every moment.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 06-07/2025
Trump says will make 'very, very big announcement' before Mideast trip
Agence France Presse/May 06, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday teased that he will make a major announcement ahead of his trip next week to the Middle East, without revealing what it would be. "We're going to have a very, very big announcement to make. Like, as big as it gets, and I won't tell you on what. And it's very positive," Trump said in the Oval Office. "It'll be one of the most important announcements that have been made in years about a certain subject," Trump said. Trump did not offer further clues. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was opening a meeting with Trump, responded drily: "I'm on the edge of my seat." Trump heads next week to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the first foreign trip of his second term other than a brief stop in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis.Diplomats say that the United States is hoping for progress ahead of Trump's trip on Gaza, where Israel has cut off shipments of food and other supplies for two months as it unleashes a renewed assault. Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden have both sought recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia -- a landmark step as the kingdom is the guardian of Islam's two holiest sites -- but the Saudis have stated that they first need to see progress towards a Palestinian state. Israel has said it will further displace most of Gaza's population, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowing Tuesday that the territory "will be entirely destroyed," a year and a half after Gaza-based Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel. The United States has stood by Israel but also held out hope of a new deal that would include the return of hostages from Gaza. Qatar, the key intermediary, has said it is keeping up efforts.Trump is also hoping for major business deals when he visits the three oil-rich monarchies.

Oman announces US-Houthi ceasefire deal
AFP/May 06, 2025
WASHINGTON: The United States and Yemen’s Houthis have reached a ceasefire agreement, mediator Oman announced Tuesday, saying the deal would ensure “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea where the militia has attacked shipping. “Following recent discussions and contacts... with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides,” said Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi in a statement posted online, adding that “neither side will target the other... ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping” in the Red Sea. Earlier on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that the US will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen after the Iran-aligned group agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East. In an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump announced the Houthis have said that they no longer want to fight but did not elaborate on the message. “They said please don’t bomb us any more and we’re not going to attack your ships,” Trump said. The Houthis have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea since Israel began its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The US president said Washington will take the Houthis’ word that they would not be blowing up ships any longer. Tensions have been high since the Gaza war began, but have risen further since a Houthi missile landed near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, prompting Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port on Monday. The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa on Tuesday, its second attack in two days on the Houthis after a surge in tensions between the group and Israel.

Israel says it struck Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa
Reuters/May 06, 2025
ADEN: The Israeli military said it fired on Yemen’s main airport on Tuesday and witnesses said there were four strikes in the capital Sanaa, the latest hostilities as tensions rise between Israel and the Houthis. Israel had earlier warned people to leave the area around Sanaa International Airport, one day after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on Hodeidah port in Yemen in response to a Houthi missile landing near Israel’s main air hub on Sunday. “Not evacuating puts you in danger,” the Israeli military said in its warning, and it published a map of the area surrounding the airport. Three airport sources told Reuters that Tuesday’s strikes targeted three civilian airplanes, the departures hall, the airport runway and a military air base under Houthi control. Tensions have been rising between Israel and the Houthis as the group presses on with attacks in response to Israel expanding its military operations in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis said on Sunday they would impose a “comprehensive” aerial blockade on Israel by repeatedly targeting its airports. The Israelis strikes around Hodeidah on Monday killed four people and wounded 39, the Houthi-run health ministry said. There was no immediate word of casualties in Tuesday’s hostilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate after a missile launched by Houthis landed near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, which led to European and US airlines canceling flights. The Houthis have been firing at Israel and shipping in the Red Sea since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians.

Druze near Damascus resist demand to turn in arms as tensions boil
Yamam Al Shaar and Firas Makdesi/Reuters/May 6, 2025
JARAMANA, Syria - Druze residents near Syria's capital are resisting a demand by the Islamist-led government to hand in their light weapons, saying authorities have yet to address fears of new attacks by Sunni Muslim militants after days of sectarian violence. Clashes last week pitted Sunni fighters against armed Druze residents of the town of Jaramana southeast of Damascus, later spreading to another district near the capital and then south to the predominantly Druze province of Sweida. Such violence threatens the new government's control of Syria, where armed gangs are attacking religious minorities and Israel is stepping up its military intervention under the banner of protecting the Druze community. Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas as enlisted members of Syria's security forces, but this week asked that all weapons held by residents of these areas be turned in to the state."We told them, as soon as there is a state capable of regulating its forces, we'll have no problem handing in our weapons," said Makram Obeid, a member of the Jaramana committee that is negotiating with the Syrian government. Obeid said his committee had told government officials it would be better for them to focus on disarming the gangs now harassing minorities. "It's our right to be scared, because we saw what happened in other areas," he told Reuters, an apparent reference to killings in March of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority to which former President Bashar al-Assad belongs. It was the deadliest episode of sectarian violence in years in Syria, where a 14-year war ended last December when rebels toppled Assad, who fled to Russia. "People want to feel safe. It's enough to have (more than) 11 years of killing, strikes, and worries," Obeid said. "And we're coming to another phase that we thought, with the collapse of the regime, would leave us in a much better place. But until now, we don't feel reassured."
Fahad Haydar, a resident of Jaramana, echoed those fears.
"These weapons that are turned against us - that's what we're afraid of. If those weapons get handed in, then we'll hand in ours," he told Reuters. Mowaffaq Abu Shash, a Druze cleric in Jaramana, said the Druze had already compromised enough. "We take one step, they ask for a second. We take the second step, they ask for a third," he said. "We ask for a guarantee that what happened on the coast will not happen to us."One influential Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hajri, has called for international intervention to protect his community from Syria's leaders, whom he has branded "terrorists". The Druze, an Arab minority sect who practise a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel has vowed to protect Syria's Druze militarily if they face threats. Last week's violence was ignited by a voice recording purportedly cursing the Prophet Mohammad, which Sunni militants suspect was made by a Druze. More than a dozen people were killed in Jaramana before the violence spread west and south. It also drew in Israel, which carried out a drone strike on what it said were fighters preparing to attack Druze in the town of Sahnaya, west of Jaramana. A Syrian security source told Reuters one member of the security forces was killed in the strike. As the clashes reached Sweida province, Israel bombed near the presidential palace in Damascus - the clearest sign yet of its hostility towards Syria's new leaders. Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa once headed a branch of al Qaeda before renouncing ties to the group in 2016.

Gazans desperately need food, water — ‘they’re getting bombs’: UN
AFP/May 06, 2025
GENEVA: The UN on Tuesday accused Israel of trying to “weaponize” the flow of aid into Gaza, leaving the population desperate for food and water while delivering them “bombs” instead. The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA decried the worsening situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory after nearly nine weeks of a total Israeli blockade on Gaza. “The bottom line is that there’s no aid to distribute anymore because the aid operation has been strangled... There’s no more to give,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva. In Gaza, “there’s a desperate need for food getting in; they’re getting bombs,” he said. “They need water; they’re getting bombs. They need health care; they’re getting bombs.” He voiced outrage at Israel’s recent verbal update to representatives of a grouping of around 15 UN agencies and 200 NGOs indicating plans to “shut down the existing aid distribution system” that the organizations run in Gaza. “The Israelis have asked them to instead deliver supplies through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military,” Laerke said. The UN had flatly rejected that proposal, he said, stressing that such a plan would “not live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independent delivery of aid.” Aid, he insisted, must be given “based on needs and nothing else.” “It appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid,” he said, adding that the proposed system seemed “designed to further control and restrict supplies, which is the opposite of what is needed.” Instead, what was required to alleviate the suffering was for Israel to allow border crossings to reopen and for life-saving aid to go through, said Laerke. “We have aid pre-positioned outside of Gaza, ready to go in,” he added. Colleagues on the ground were describing people “rummaging through garbage trying to find something edible,” he said, slamming the “harsh, brutal, inhuman reality” in the territory. He said that despite the towering challenges in Gaza since the war erupted 18 months ago, the UN and its partners have largely managed to deliver aid, provide health care, and roll out vaccination campaigns. “The great frustration of all this is that it is possible, and it can be done,” he said. Laerke’s comments came a day after Israel’s military said expanded operations in Gaza would include displacing “most” of its residents, after the country’s security cabinet approved a plan that an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories.” Nearly all of Gaza’s inhabitants have already been displaced, often multiple times, since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. “Forced relocations of people: they’re not helpful, obviously,” Laerke said. “You need to know where people are in order to be able to provide aid to them... it’s another blow.”

Hamas dismisses further Gaza ceasefire talks amid Israel's 'hunger war'
FRANCE 24/May 6, 2025
Hamas has rejected ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks as futile while Israel intensifies its military campaign and blockade, leading to mass displacement and looming famine. Despite international mediation efforts, the humanitarian crisis is deepening and prospects for a lasting truce are stalled. Hamas on Tuesday dismissed ceasefire talks with Israel as pointless, accusing it of waging a "hunger war" on Gaza as famine looms and Israel prepares for a broader assault on the war-ravaged Palestinian territory. The comments from a senior Hamas official followed Israel's approval of a military plan involving the "conquest" of Gaza, where nearly all 2.3 million people have been displaced and a two-month Israeli blockade has worsened the humanitarian crisis. "There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip," Basem Naim told AFP. Naim, a Hamas political bureau member and former Gaza health minister, said the world must pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to end the "crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings". "Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state," Farhan Haq said.

Trump says only 21 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now believed to be alive
The Associated Press/May 6, 2025
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to be still living. “As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said of the hostages being held by Hamas, noting until recently it had been 24 people believed to be living. He did not elaborate on the identities of those now believed to be dead, nor how he had come to learn of their deaths. “There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies," Trump said. One American, Edan Alexander, had been among the 24 hostages believed to be alive, with the bodies of several other Americans also held by Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel.The president’s comments came as Israel approved plans on Monday to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, in a bid to recover the hostages and try to fulfill its war aims of destroying Hamas. If implemented, the move would vastly expand Israel’s operations there and likely draw fierce international opposition.

India says it attacked nine sites in Pakistan, Pakistani Kashmir
Reuters/May 6, 2025
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan/NEW DELHI -Multiple loud explosions were heard in several places in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday as India said it had attacked "terrorist infrastructure" in nine sites and Pakistan vowed to respond to the attacks. After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear what the explosions were. "A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed," the Indian government said in a statement. "Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution," it said. A spokesman for Pakistan's military told broadcaster ARY that India had attacked Pakistan with missiles in three places and that Pakistan would respond. The development comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. India blamed Pakistan for the violence in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.

UAE mediates deal for release of further 410 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war
Arab News/May 06, 2025
LONDON: The UAE has mediated the 15th in a series of agreements between Russia and Ukraine for the release of prisoners of war, as part of its ongoing diplomatic efforts to help resolve the conflict. Under the latest prisoner-swap deal, 205 Ukrainians and 205 Russians were freed on Tuesday, the Emirates News Agency reported. The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs said a total of 4,181 Russian and Ukrainian captives have now been released as a result of its mediation efforts, the continuing success of which reflects the level of trust Kyiv and Moscow have in the UAE. The UAE remains determined to find a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and to help ease the humanitarian suffering it has caused, the ministry added.

Carney tells Trump Canada is not for sale, president praises PM as a 'very good person'
CBC/May 6, 2025
Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped into the lion's den Tuesday for his first face-to-face with his U.S. counterpart — a high-stakes meeting that appeared to go well with compliments exchanged on both sides as President Donald Trump conceded his dream of annexing Canada will likely never happen. Trump warmly welcomed Carney to the Oval Office, saying the two will discuss some "tough points" during their meeting but he said Carney is "a very talented, very good person" and the former central banker deserved to win the recent federal election.
Trump signalled from the start he wasn't going to give Carney a rough ride like he did with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this year when a similar meeting descended into chaos — a scenario Canadian officials were dreading.
"We had another little blow-up with somebody else," Trump joked. "That was much different — this is a very friendly conversation."Asked by reporters if he's still serious about Canada becoming part of the U.S., Trump said he was but acknowledged it's likely a non-starter.
"It takes two to tango," the president said, adding "as a real estate developer at heart" he would love to see the U.S. span from the Gulf Coast to the Arctic Circle. "I do feel it's much better for Canada," he said, claiming taxes would be lower and defence would be better if the two counties came together as one. Carney diplomatically shot down Trump's talk, saying that as a property developer he should know "there are some places that are never for sale.""Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it's not for sale and it won't be for sale ever," Carney said. Still, the president held out hope it might happen one day. He said "never say never," about uniting the two countries.
In response, Carney said: "Never, never, never, never, never" as reporters shouted questions at the president. Carney and Trump are agreeing to disagree on 51st state talk, for now. Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke in the Oval Office on Tuesday before a scheduled working lunch in the Roosevelt Room. While respectful of Carney, Trump suggested he is not willing to budge on his punishing tariffs that already prompted job losses in Canada and a drop in southbound exports.
Asked why he won't change course, the protectionist president said: "Just the way it is."The president has imposed fentanyl-related tariffs on goods that are not compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) to punish Canada for supposedly lax border security. The country is also grappling with Trump's "Section 232" tariffs on Canadian-made steel, aluminum and autos, with some exceptions.
Carney pushed back at Trump's assertion the tariffs are here to stay, saying the levies are a violation of CUSMA. "Some things are going to have change," Carney said. Despite some of Trump's past heated rhetoric about Canada, the U.S. president was complimentary of the country throughout the press event as he sat side-by-side with Carney. "We're going to be friends with Canada. Canada is a very special place. I love Canada, I have a lot of respect for the Canadians," he said, touting his friendship with hockey great Wayne Gretzky as a sign that he means what he says about the northern neighbour. Trump praised Carney's election victory and seemed to take credit for it in part, saying the Liberal Party's turnaround after being down in the polls for the better part of two years was "one of greatest comebacks in the history of politics."
Trump also signalled he's willing to renegotiate CUSMA, saying "it's good for all countries," but there needs to be some unspecified tweaks — or they may have to do away with it altogether. "We're going to work on some subtle changes, maybe," Trump said, while acknowledging there's nothing concrete on the table at this stage. "We're dealing more with concepts right now." Carney agreed that the existing trilateral trade deal will "be the basis for a broader negotiation," and those talks will start today.
While the meeting started out on friendly ground, the president drifted into denigrating the Canadian economy with his threats to somehow do away with the country's auto industry. Trump also repeated his oft-cited falsehood that the U.S. somehow "subsidizes" this country by $200 billion a year. Carney disembarks a government plane as he arrives in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Carney has downplayed what could come of this first meeting with the U.S. president. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada — which is largely driven by cheap oil imports — is much smaller than that. A trade deficit is not a subsidy. It just means the U.S. buys more goods from Canada than this country does from them. And despite trade data that shows the U.S. relies on Canadian goods — notably importing some four million barrels of oil a day — Trump said that he doesn't need "anything" from Canada.
Working lunch in the West Wing
Next on Carney's agenda is a working lunch with Trump in the storied Roosevelt Room in the West Wing. Both will be accompanied by a cadre of high-level officials. Expected beside Trump is Vice-President JD Vance, a critic of Canada like his boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, — who blasted Canada yesterday as a "socialist regime" — and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, among others. Carney will have International Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty and Canada's ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, with him along with top bureaucrats. A senior Canadian government official, speaking to CBC News on background ahead of the meeting, said this is the first of what will likely be more meetings between the leaders as the two sides start the work of crafting a new partnership. That lunch meeting, beyond the glare of the TV lights, is where the work of getting acquainted and improving relations will begin, the official said.
Carney boards a government plane Monday on his way to Washington.
Prime Minister Mark Carney landed in Washington, D.C., on Monday ahead of his White House meeting scheduled for Tuesday. He is seen here departing from Ottawa. The two sides will start the work of crafting a new economic and security arrangement now that the prime minister has said the last one is "over."Carney was setting the bar low even before this meeting began — saying Canadians shouldn't expect to see any "white smoke," a nod to what will happen when a Pope is chosen in Rome, after this sit-down.
Laura Dawson is a Canada-U.S. relations expert and the executive director of the Future Borders Coalition. She said there may not be a satisfactory end to these trade tensions until Carney and his team broker a new trade agreement with Trump. The current CUSMA deal is up for review next year. While it may be painful to endure tariffs until then, Dawson said it's in Canada's best interest not to rush into a deal. "Right now, Trump feels like he has all the cards. If we settle very, very quickly, it wouldn't be a good deal for Canada. You only get sharp and quick deals if the other side gives in," she said in an interview. Carney is an experienced global player and he will have been well briefed by the diplomats in Washington about a possible standoff, Dawson said. The president is wedded to tariffs as a revenue-generating tool and a way to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and it may be hard to move him from that position, said Everett Eissenstat, who served as deputy director of Trump's National Economic Council during the president's first term."It's unlikely that the relationship will be sorted out within a single meeting, but it's certainly a good start," he said.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on May 06-07/2025
Does The European Union Actually Expect Radical Islamists to Reform Themselves?
Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/May 6, 2025
The European Union's decision to grant the Palestinian Authority (PA) a sum of $2 billion to assist them to "reform themselves" can only be the result of willful blindness, cognitive dissonance and what by now can only be ascribed to a proud European tradition of Jew-hate.
Israel's warnings of the PA continuing to seize Israel's land by phases -- as planned by the PLO 10-Point Program of 1974 and advanced by former PA Prime Minister Salman Fayyad's plan -- to "create facts on the ground" with illegal buildings -- are largely ignored by the West. So far, the PA, with the funding from the EU, has built more than 97,581 illegal structures on Israeli land that is still to be negotiated.
The Palestinian Authority also full-throatedly incites terrorism in its education system and bountifully funds terrorist acts. The total so far disbursed as remuneration for the PA's "Pay-for-Slay" program and acts of terrorism reportedly exceeds $1 billion. This transaction has been in place for decades.
The EU's naiveté (to be kind) is already bringing disaster upon many of its member nations by allowing unlimited Muslim migration, presumably in an unconditional desire for every vote imaginable.
Israelis are understandably against an untenable two-state solution -- which they accurately see as no solution at all.
The European Union's decision to grant the Palestinian Authority (PA) a sum of $2 billion to assist them to "reform themselves" can only be the result of willful blindness, cognitive dissonance and what by now can only be ascribed to a proud European tradition of Jew-hate. Pictured: French President Emmanuel Macron meets with PA President Mahmud Abbas during the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2024. (Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)
The European Union's decision to grant the Palestinian Authority (PA) a sum of $2 billion to assist them to "reform themselves" can only be the result of willful blindness, cognitive dissonance and what by now can only be ascribed to a proud European tradition of Jew-hate.
The PA, despite claiming to be secular, is saturated with an Islamist mentality in support of jihadists. The PA plays the West by displaying a veneer of reasonableness, victimhood and the bogus claim that it would, in an ever-extending future, accept some kind of peace with the Jews. This fiction is supposedly backed by an equally bogus claim that it would be willing -- under conditions which would always be suicidal for the Jews to accept -- to establish a two-state solution in Israel's ancestral homeland.
This romantic fantasy persists in the face of the Palestinian Authority's elaborate, extremely concrete programs with the European Union to appropriate land which, according to the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords, must still be negotiated, as well as a continuing jobs program that the PA offers, similar to Murder, Inc. The PA's "Pay for Slay" program lavishly rewards Palestinians who murder Israelis. The more Israelis they murder, the greater the sum. A 2024 report notes that the PA disburses more than $16 million each month to the Palestinian murderers and their families.
The Palestinian Authority, located in the biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria, is a hugely corrupt, authoritarian, dictatorial, Islamist political entity whose sole agenda consists of ruling the entire State of Israel under Sharia law while ridding the land of its Jewish population.
Not surprisingly, the PA has yet to condemn Hamas's slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023 and the kidnapping of 251 people - 59 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza. Fewer than 24 of them are thought still to be alive.
When PA President Mahmoud Abbas, now enjoying the 20th year of his four-year term, calls Hamas "sons of dogs," this does not mean that Hamas and the PA disagree on obliterating Israel. It only means the PA has not forgotten that Hamas forcibly expelled the PA from Gaza -- including by throwing at least one member of the PA to his death from the 15th floor -- after Hamas was elected in 2006.
Abbas, notwithstanding his corrupt, despotic rule for two decades, is warmly received by Western leaders as he presents them with plans whereby the Palestinian Authority would once again govern Gaza after a make-believe peace is supposedly secured between Israel and Hamas.
According to the Times of Israel:
"'The Palestinian government, under President Abbas's directives, has completed all preparations to assume full responsibility in Gaza,' including the return of the displaced, providing basic services, crossings management, and reconstruction of the war-torn territory, according to a statement from the PA president's office."
In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, unconditionally gave the Gaza Strip to the PA, to be used as an independent home for Palestinians, and ruled by the PA. All Jews were physically forced out of their homes there by the Israel Defense Forces. Several American Jews had even bought greenhouses in the Gaza Strip from the expelled Jews, and gave them to the Palestinians as running start to transforming Gaza into a "Singapore on the Mediterranean." Within days of the transfer, all the greenhouses were looted and destroyed. It was two years later that Hamas vehemently escorted the PA out of Gaza.
To this day, the Palestinian Authority, with its double-standards and corrosive, corrupt governance, is deeply unpopular with Palestinians, and the reason so many had voted for Hamas in the first place. Israel maintains a superficial co-operation with the PA, mainly for matters of security. According to the EU, however, why not try the Gaza experiment all over again? Perhaps this time -- with more money -- it will work?
Oh absolutely! With our funds, the Palestinian Authority will surely reform itself and live peacefully and happily with all its neighbors, the way we do in Europe! Such is the inebriated view of the EU.
Israel's warnings of the PA continuing to seize Israel's land by phases -- as planned by the PLO 10-Point Program of 1974 and advanced by former PA Prime Minister Salman Fayyad's plan -- to "create facts on the ground" with illegal buildings -- are largely ignored by the West. So far, the PA, with the funding from the EU, has built more than 97,581 illegal structures on Israeli land that is still to be negotiated.
The Palestinian Authority also full-throatedly incites terrorism in its education system and bountifully funds terrorist acts. The total so far disbursed as remuneration for the PA's "Pay-for-Slay" program and acts of terrorism reportedly exceeds $1 billion. This transaction has been in place for decades.
Abbas is now calling for unity with Hamas, as "Hamas is part of the Palestinian people," and "Our arms and hearts are open" to Hamas. The PA would doubtless have liked to return to former PA President Yasser Arafat's Gaza Strip house, which Hamas looted in 2005, before IDF troops razed it in 2024.
In the view of the EU, the Palestinian Authority will reform itself even as it blames Israel for the horrific events of October 7, 2023, claiming Hama's massacre was an action in the "context of the defense war our people are waging," due to Israel's "aggression on all the Palestinian lands."
The jihadist ideology of Jew-hatred, apparently issuing from the Qur'an and the Hadith, and amplified by Adolf Hitler's collaborator Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during much of the British Mandate for Palestine, is now enshrined in the PA-PLO charter. Fatah's Central Committee Secretary General Jibril Rajoub asserts that "Hamas is part of our political and social fabric and of our struggle, and their involvement is important." With Hamas's onslaught against civilians, many PA ministers "celebrated what happened."
According to Nan Jacques Zilberdik, a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch:
"[T]he Palestinian Authority (PA)'s Fatah leaders are confident that the PA and Fatah will unite with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations and rule Gaza together.
Some PA and Fatah leaders have been adamant about joining forces with the terror organizations."
The EU's naiveté (to be kind) is already bringing disaster upon many of its member nations by allowing unlimited Muslim migration, presumably in an unconditional desire for every vote imaginable. This unvetted immigration brings with it the rise of violent political Islam combined with unmitigated Jew-hatred, and allows it to thrive in its midst. Europe's leaders, supposedly tasked with protecting Europe's Judeo-Christian culture, are selling out their nations to radical Islam for a mess of pottage.
In all this, no one seriously considers the views of Israel and its people concerning their neighbors and the two million Arab-Muslim Israeli citizens who live and work among them.
Israelis are understandably against an untenable two-state solution -- which they accurately see as no solution at all. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied to the EU's plans calling for an independent Palestinian state, and that Islamists should again rule Gaza, by saying:
"There was a Palestinian state. It was called Gaza. Look what we received. The biggest massacre since the Holocaust. I will not make any agreement that endangers the State of Israel. I will not do it."
In a mid-April telephone call, Abbas and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed "the possibility of the Palestinian Authority assuming 'full responsibility' in Gaza, including security duties, with the goal of 'international legitimacy, one system, one law, and one legitimate source of arms.'"
According to a report in the Jerusalem Post last month:
"Macron said on Wednesday France could recognize a Palestinian state in June, adding that in turn some countries in the Middle East could recognize the state of Israel.
"'We need to move towards recognition (of a Palestinian state). And so over the next few months, we will. I'm not doing it to please anyone. I'll do it because at some point it will be right,' he said during an interview on France 5 television."
Macron might possibly be the stimulating force behind the EU's intent to lavish a non-reforming PA with billions of euros.
A Biblical quotation describes the EU's futile endeavor to reform a dedicated Islamist organization such as the PA: "Can a leopard change its spots?" The question concludes with, "Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil."
Jews and Israelis know this well, but the EU and others apparently do not or, more to the point, apparently do not care: So what, it is only a few Jews we are talking about.
**Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, and many others.
© 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/21586/eu-palestinians-islamists

Israel’s claim to protect Syria’s Druze is a smokescreen
Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/May 06, 2025
Israel will use any excuse to divide and weaken the region. That is the end game, precisely what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes is the way to hammer together a new Middle East. The geopolitical fallout from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel has provided him and his fellow fanatics with a golden opportunity to accelerate the process whose outcome would be a greater Israel that is the region’s uncontested superpower: a “Pax Judaica.”
Whether it is Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or Libya, Israel’s new generation of leaders — ultranationalists aligning themselves with ultrareligious extremists — believe that for Israel to become a regional hegemon, it must destroy the concept of multiethnic and multireligious nation states. The objective is for Israel, a primarily Jewish state, not to be the exception. For that to happen, it must fragment all nation states that stand in its way and create multiple ethnoreligious statelets in their stead. These statelets can then ally themselves with mighty Israel.
In their view, such a scenario can work best in Lebanon and Syria, with their diverse ethnic and religious minorities. The concept of partition and independence has been considered by minority groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria at various stages since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Israel has used minority groups in the region to challenge and upset the existing nation-state structure, leading to or contributing to bloody civil and sectarian wars.
It is, therefore, ludicrous and quite cynical for Israel to threaten and attempt to destabilize the new regime in Syria using the pretext of protecting a minority group there — in this case, the Syrian Druze. It has used recent clashes between state security and Druze activists to issue a stern warning to President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and his government. That warning came in the form of an airstrike close to the presidential palace in Damascus last week.It has used recent clashes between state security and Druze activists to issue a stern warning to Al-Sharaa and his government
Last December, Israel did not need an excuse to send its tanks into the 1974 buffer zone in the Golan Heights, days after the fall of Bashar Assad. Israel was not provoked or attacked, yet its army took over the remainder of the Syrian Golan and ventured deeper into parts of southern Syria, attempting to reach Suwayda, a province that the Druze predominantly inhabit. Netanyahu and his extremist government partners made it clear that Israel was in Syria to stay. Its air force carried out multiple strikes against key Syrian army targets, including airports, air defense batteries and naval bases. Israel’s invasion and aggression were deliberate and part of a larger scheme.
One does not need to look further for Israel’s real motives in Syria than Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionist Party is a major partner in the far-right coalition. At a pre-Memorial Day event in the West Bank last week, Smotrich declared that Israel would only stop fighting following the partition of Syria and the displacement of “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza.
Regardless of Israeli claims and warnings, the new regime in Damascus has the obligation and responsibility to assure minority groups that they are part of one Syria that is for all its citizens. That is the only way it can restore national unity and ensure the territorial integrity of Syria. So far, the regime has come under severe criticism for the bloody events that took place in March in Syrian coastal towns, where a significant number of Alawites live.
Accusations of sectarian infighting have been reported elsewhere in Syria. The new government in Damascus must safeguard all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religion.
So far, Al-Sharaa and his Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani have been saying the right things: underscoring national unity, distancing themselves from sectarian rhetoric and calling for Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory. In a speech at the UN last week, Al-Shibani said: “We have repeatedly announced our commitment that Syria will not constitute any threat to any of the neighboring countries or any country around the world, including to Israel.”
Israel is the clear aggressor in the case of Syria. Its claim that it is intervening to protect Syria’s Druze is both deceitful and ironic. The Syrian state protects its citizens and not any foreign country. Israel’s approach is neocolonial at heart.
One only has to look at Israel’s record in the treatment of its own minorities — non-Jewish citizens — to expose the hypocrisy and fallacy of its claims. While its Declaration of Independence mentions legal equality for all citizens, significant disparities undermine the country’s Palestinian, Druze and Bedouin populations. These disparities manifest themselves across multiple areas of public and private life, creating disadvantages for approximately 21 percent of Israel’s citizenry. These disparities appear in the country’s economic, social and political inequalities, mainly affecting Palestinians and Bedouins. One only has to look at Israel’s record in the treatment of its own minorities to expose the hypocrisy and fallacy of its claims
Perhaps Israel’s most discriminatory piece of legislation is the so-called Nation-State Law of 2018, which marked a significant constitutional shift by formally defining Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people,” without counterbalancing language about equality for all citizens. The law downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.” For many non-Jewish citizens, particularly the Druze, who serve in the military, this law formalized their perception of second-class citizenship.
A closer look at the disparities and segregation opens debate about the education system, in which Arab schools receive lower per-student funding than Jewish schools. The criminal justice system represents another area of inequality for Palestinian citizens, who are subjected to heightened police interventions, while experiencing inferior responses to intracommunity violence. This has contributed to a dramatic disparity in crime rates, with Palestinians accounting for 60 to 70 percent of murder victims, despite being only 21 percent of the population.
There are other issues in the social, economic and political fields, in which Palestinian, Druze and Bedouin minorities in Israel provide evidence of discrimination and inequality. Of course, one can always point to Israel’s apartheid system in dealing with more than 5 million Palestinians under brutal military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s track record in dealing with minorities is dismal, to say the least. Syria’s minorities should be aware of the dangerous game that Israel is trying to play, whose final objective transcends any local community interest or well-being. Syria’s Druze have overwhelmingly rejected Tel Aviv’s overtures. However, Israel’s determination to fulfill its grand desire will not be easy to stop. What it fears is a united Syria along its border.
**Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator in Amman. X: @plato010

The Druze experience … an opportunity for everyone to save Syria
Eyad Abu Shakra/Arab News/May 06, 2025
I have been following the rapidly developing events in my beloved Syria over the past four days with a heavy heart, especially concerned by the events unfolding in the south, where my family’s branches stretch across no fewer than 10 villages and towns. In my academic journey, I have studied the dynamics of integration and divergence in the Druze community during the last half-century of the Ottoman era, from the northwestern edge of Syria near the borders of Alexandretta to Mount Carmel in Palestine and the Azraq Oasis in northern Jordan.
This Druze community is more than 1,000 years old. It has survived the massive shifts that have unfolded in the region over this period: the succession of states, the rise of religious and sectarian groups and movements (some moderate, others extremist), several major wars, and various forms of colonization and occupation. Sensible decision-making is a pillar of this small, inward-looking community’s resilience. The Druze have endured because of their realism, contentment, dedication to intra-communal solidarity, and commitment to the truth and safeguarding brotherhood.
Even the major powers that have nothing in common with the Druze (neither sectarian nor ethnic), whose doctrine grew out of Fatimid Ismaili Shiism, eventually understood that they had a vested interest in accommodating and respecting the community’s priorities and concerns.
Following the initial Ismaili schism that ended the sect’s presence in Egypt, the Druze managed to find a place for themselves in the Levant. After the Sunni Ayyubid state replaced Fatimid rule in Egypt in 1250, it saw the utility of allying with the Druze for defending the Levant and Palestine from Crusader campaigns.
This pragmatism that transcended sectarian differences was sustained. The small sect, whose members are known as “Banu Maruf,” maintained its alliance with the non-Arab Sunni empires (the Mamluks and the Ottomans) that ruled the region in the centuries that followed. Indeed, they remained partners of the Ottomans until the First World War, after which the empire was replaced with foreign mandates and then independent states. The point, here, is that the Druze are not alien to the Arabs, Islam or the Levant. Even when they were offered a state of their own under the French Mandate, they chose to reject it, insisting on remaining an inseparable part of the larger Arab polity that includes all the regions in which Druze communities had a presence.
These facts of geography and national and religious identity must be recognized by anyone who seeks to safeguard Syria’s territorial integrity, unity and future. Otherwise, they will be swept away into the abyss of treason, excommunication and bloodshed.
Watching the protest in Homs a few days ago, in which ignorant and unhinged mobs chanted that they “want to exterminate the Alawites … to exterminate the Druze” was painful. It hurt because genocide is a criminal act that has no place in an ancient homeland striving to get back on its feet and build bridges, rather than raising walls of separation. Settling scores through collective retribution against innocent civilians is alien to Syria’s culture and the spirit of Islam, which teaches us that “no bearer of burdens shall bear another’s burden.”
Settling scores through collective retribution against innocent civilians is alien to Syria’s culture and the spirit of Islam. This is not the Homs of Hashim Al-Atassi and other great national statesmen: the Droubis, Hassamis and Sebais … nor is it the Homs of Diq Al-Jinn, Nasib Arida, Nadra Haddad, Abd Al-Masih Haddad, Maurice Salibi, Abd Al-Basit Al-Sufi, Abd Al-Basit Al-Sarout … Steve Jobs (who was from the Jandali family) or his cousin Malek Jandali. No, this is not the Homs we love. It is not the town that we have been following keenly and whose suffering and pain, at the hands of the criminal thugs in Deir Baalbeh, Al-Waer, Al-Khalidiyyeh and Baba Amr, left tears in our eyes. On the other hand, we continue to hear things that might calm the nerves of those eager to consolidate the new regime: “No areas are off-limits to state legitimacy” and “no special or exceptional cases.”
In principle, there is no reason to disagree. However, consolidating the new regime means prioritizing firm foundations and broad consensus, especially given the ambiguous posture of several international powers and Israel’s ongoing security and military blackmail. Accordingly, there is no harm in giving open wounds time to heal, allowing minds and hearts to recover, trust to be built and state-building to accelerate.
The truth is, no one (first and foremost the state) has an interest in ignoring fears nor in risking the exploitation of these fears by foreign forces to serve their own agendas.
Political experience has taught us that relying on and seeking foreign support is often a losing, and potentially suicidal, bet for minorities. Conversely, pushing minorities into such gambles has always drawn foreign intervention and occupation.
For those who are unfamiliar with the “Eastern Question” — European efforts to “protect” minorities in the Levant, the Balkans and North Africa — the repercussions of these historical episodes continue to influence our world to this day. Just as France made inroads in the Levant in the 19th century through sectarian and religious massacres between Christians and Druze in Mount Lebanon, and between Sunnis and Christians in Damascus, France’s colonial intervention in Algeria came under the pretext of protecting the Jews (specifically the Bakri and Bougna/Bushnaq families).
Accordingly, we must come to terms, across the region, with the frailty of our position, both domestically and internationally.
For international actors, we Arabs are the weakest players in the region. Regrettably, our states are the easiest to violate. Protecting the Druze does not keep the Israeli leadership up at night and the current Syrian regime has not been acquitted by Washington, nor has it received an open-ended mandate from the international community to do as it pleases in Syria.
A little wisdom can prevent immense bloodshed … and give Syria a far, far greater chance of surviving.
**Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @eyad1949

Perfect storm brings UK and EU together
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/May 06, 2025
It is too early to predict the outcome of this month’s all-important EU-UK summit, but there has already been a sea change in terms of more cordial language and a spirit of cooperation between the two sides that has buried the toxicity of the dreadful Brexit years. While the time that has elapsed since the UK left Europe has helped to heal some of the wounds, it is the decisive UK general election victory last year of the more pro-European Labour Party — combined with the dangerously chaotic new US administration’s far-reaching implications for European security, prosperity and values — that has hastened the London-Brussels rapprochement.
In the years since Brexit, the necessity for a new kind of UK-EU partnership has become obvious to both sides. This will not be one that opens old wounds by floating the prospect of Britain returning to the EU, or even to the single market, anytime soon, despite about 55 percent of British voters consistently expressing in opinion polls their support for rejoining the EU. Support for staying out is about 40 percent.
However, last week’s success for the anti-European and anti-immigration Reform UK party in the local elections, and its winning another seat in Parliament by way of a by-election, is a warning sign that Labour’s declared reset of relations with Brussels must remain incremental, target specific areas of cooperation and bear tangible fruit for people up and down the country before any conversation about readmission to the EU can take place. The two sides are on the path to signing a formal declaration that commits to ‘free and open trade’
According to a leaked draft agreement, the UK-EU interlocutors preparing for the forthcoming summit are on the path to signing a formal declaration that commits to “free and open trade.” In a snub to the Trump administration’s declared trade war, this is a clear sign of trying to avert, or at least mitigate, the looming recession that is the consequence of Washington’s protectionist policies.
If, until very recently, the drive for resetting relations with the EU was more about economics, securing borders from illegal immigration and scientific and cultural cooperation, the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the president’s recent spat with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has shifted the center of gravity to defense and security. In the face of Russia’s expansionism and the sense that, at present, the US is no longer a reliable ally with regard to winning the war in Ukraine or in the bigger picture of the defense of Europe as a whole, the UK and the EU have already accelerated their defense cooperation measures and have immediately eased their fiscal restraints on military spending budgets. Germany and Poland are leading this approach, but France and the UK are not far behind.
The public show of support for Ukraine and for Zelensky personally by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who convened a summit to respond to the new and threatening situation, was an important turning point in the continent’s determination to develop a common foreign and security strategy to match external threats. Common interests derived from geography, history, enemies and shared values are almost self-evident, but it is also the conscious efforts to improve the general atmosphere between London and Brussels that is creating the conditions for close cooperation. Much of this is due to Britain’s current prime minister being the most Europe-friendly since Tony Blair and can be felt in the manner of his engagements with other European leaders.
For the slow-growing British economy, the issue of trade is crucial, even if under the pressing circumstances defense is topping the agenda in discussions with Europe. However, it is also a trickier issue in terms of the concessions Europe would expect it to make. In trade, figures rarely lie and, as a bloc, the EU is the UK’s largest trading partner, accounting for 41 percent of its exports and 51 percent of its imports. Meanwhile, for the EU, the UK is the second-largest trading partner, which makes the need to lay to rest any residue of bitterness and resentment that might still linger among EU officials over Brexit. Conscious efforts to improve the general atmosphere are creating the conditions for close cooperation
The circle that must be squared in the negotiations leading to this month’s summit is how to offset the damage Brexit has inflicted without being seen or suspected of toying with the idea of readmitting the UK to the EU by the back door, especially when it comes to freedom of movement. A major test for the UK’s reset readiness is bound to be agreeing to a “youth experience” program that would allow British and European 18 to 30-year-olds to travel and work freely for a limited time of one or two years.
For Europeans, freedom of movement is as much a symbol of what the EU is all about — in terms of constituting a single vibrant continent that shares similar values — as it is a tool of conflict prevention for liberal-democratic multilateralism. Agreeing to this is not reversing Brexit but reintroducing, on a limited scale, a scheme for young people to enjoy the benefits of working and traveling abroad with minimal barriers.
Should this scheme be approved, it would help create the good relations necessary to make progress on trade agreements. Considering that the UK is facing a blanket 10 percent US tariff while the EU faces 20 percent, an increase in trade between them has become more necessary and urgent.
But many other issues that were taken for granted when the UK was an EU member and were not agreed on in its “divorce” agreement also need to be reset. These include a veterinary services agreement to prevent unnecessary border checks and help tackle the cost of food; agreeing to the same agricultural standards; securing a mutual recognition agreement for professional qualifications to help open up markets for UK service exporters; and removing barriers that hinder traveling artists. Many of these issues were not contentious to begin with and hardly played a role in how people voted in the 2016 referendum and, with a new and more pro-European government in London, they can be resolved in the spirit of two allies.
The English Channel, or “La Manche” as the French call it, which physically separates the UK from mainland Europe, was until recently perceived to be much wider than its actual 34 km at its narrowest point. But now, 8,000 years after the British peninsula was separated from Europe, and following the more recent and nasty nationalist storm of Brexit, both sides are thankfully reaching agreement on the issues that matter for their common security and prosperity. The upcoming summit could be a crucial step in restoring long-term cooperation for the benefit of both.
**Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

How Africa should negotiate with Trump
Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman/Arab News/May 06, 2025
In a recent interview, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, how his government would balance continued ties with the US — including the negotiation of a critical minerals deal — with its deepening relationship with China. Tshisekedi responded that China’s influence is not so much “waxing” in Africa, as America’s influence is “waning.”
Tshisekedi is right. In 2000, the US was Africa’s largest trading partner; today, China’s total trade with Africa is more than four times larger than that of the US. Two US-Africa Leaders Summits have been held, in 2014 and 2022, and there is no date for a third, though Congress passed legislation late last year that would compel President Donald Trump to convene a summit this year and every two years thereafter.
Meanwhile, China is preparing to convene its 10th summit with African leaders, through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, in 2027. A Gallup poll published last year showed that, for the first time, China’s approval rating in Africa (58 percent) had surpassed that of the US (56 percent).
Speaking to Baier, Tshisekedi pointed out that his country would be “very happy” to see a renewed US commercial presence there. But Trump’s trade policies could have the opposite outcome. And persistent reports that the Trump administration plans to reduce the number of US embassies and consulates in Africa will only add to this decline in influence. African Growth and Opportunity Act countries are scrambling to salvage their preferential access to the US market.
Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman
For the last 25 years, the cornerstone of America’s commercial relationship with Africa has been the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a nonreciprocal trade agreement that allows more than 6,000 African products into the US without duties or quotas. Between 2001 and 2022, African members of the agreement exported more than $100 billion of goods to the US. The trade was always supposed to be one-way, but that does not mean it did not benefit US companies — such as Levi’s, Gap and Walmart — and consumers. The African Growth and Opportunity Act was designed to help Africa transform its manufacturing base, thereby shifting the basis of its relationship with the US from aid to trade — a goal that one might expect the Trump administration, which has slashed foreign aid programs, to support. Participation was conditioned on African governments’ promotion of political pluralism, good governance and economic liberalization. And studies have shown that trade with the US increases value-added production, labor productivity and labor demand in Africa.
However, early last month, Trump introduced “reciprocal” tariffs on many African countries, with some of the African Growth and Opportunity Act’s strongest performers facing the highest rates: Lesotho (50 percent), Madagascar (47 percent) and Mauritius (40 percent). Meanwhile, the 17 African countries that are ineligible for the benefits of the act, mainly due to poor governance, were effectively rewarded with far lower tariffs. Trump suspended most of these tariffs almost immediately, opening a 90-day window to strike new trade deals. And, to some extent, he is getting what he wanted, with African Growth and Opportunity Act countries scrambling to salvage their preferential access to the US market. Lesotho, for example, granted Trump ally Elon Musk’s Starlink a 10-year license to operate its satellite network in the country.
Nonetheless, Trump’s tariffs are unlikely to deliver quick wins for the US. Already, African trade ministers have agreed to fast-track policies that will promote trade within the continent, as well as to diversify exports to reduce their countries’ dependence on particular foreign markets. Add to that the shuttering of the US Agency for International Development and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the closure of Voice of America and the lapse of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and America’s footprint in Africa is shrinking fast.
But there is a way for Africa to leverage the US administration’s interests to the benefit of both sides. Trump’s top priority in Africa is securing access to critical minerals. This makes countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which boasts the world’s richest copper deposits and four of the world’s five largest cobalt mines — as well as Gabon, Zambia, South Africa and even Chad, strategically important. The US is already in talks over a minerals deal with Kinshasa and others.
African countries must do more to ensure that any critical minerals agreement provides a real boost to their economies.
Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman
The only problem is that China is far ahead of the US on this front. Chinese state-owned companies and banks control 80 percent of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s cobalt production and as much as 90 percent of the world’s supply is refined in China, whereas the US produces less than 1 percent. This imbalance drove former US President Joe Biden’s administration to develop the Lobito Corridor initiative, aimed at expanding the 800-mile rail line that extends from the Angolan port of Lobito on Africa’s Atlantic coast through the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo to Zambia. This initiative — for which the Trump administration has signaled its support — will upgrade African infrastructure by establishing partnerships between the US, African governments, African-led financing agencies such as the Africa Finance Corporation and the EU. But African countries must do more to ensure that any critical minerals agreement provides a real boost to their economies, especially by insisting that some value-add production occurs on the continent.
To complement access to Africa’s critical minerals, the US should also commit to processing them and adding value on the continent — for example, making cobalt into battery precursors before export. Since Chinese companies have shown no interest in doing this, such an exchange would position the US as a more valuable partner, thereby ensuring its long-term access to these vital resources. Given that Africa has all the minerals needed for production, spread across more than 10 countries in Central and Southern Africa, the development of local processing capabilities would also be consistent with the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Africa and the US are both seeking to strengthen their manufacturing sectors, but this is not a zero-sum game. On the contrary, by agreeing to help strengthen Africa’s industrial capabilities, the US could gain greater access to resources that its own industry needs, reverse the decline of its commercial influence on the continent and contribute to the revival of wider, mutually beneficial trade. This could lead to more balanced current accounts, just as Trump desires.
Vera Songwe, a former executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa and undersecretary-general at the UN, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Founder and Chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, and Co-Chair of the Expert Review on Debt, Nature and Climate.
*Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton administration.
Copyright: Project Syndicate

Gaza’s famine and the erosion of our humanity
Dr. Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/May 06, 2025
The situation in Gaza today starkly highlights Israeli exceptionalism. Israel is employing the starvation of 2 million Palestinians in the blockaded and devastated Gaza Strip as a tactic to extract political concessions from Palestinian groups operating there.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs last month described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “the worst it has been” since the outbreak of war in October 2023. Despite the severity of such pronouncements, they often appear to be treated as routine, eliciting little concrete action or substantive discussion.
Israel’s violations of international and humanitarian laws regarding its occupation of Palestine are well-established facts. A new dimension of exceptionalism is emerging, as reflected in Israel’s ability to deliberately starve an entire population for an extended period, with some even defending this approach.
The population of Gaza continues to endure immense suffering, having already experienced the loss of about 10 percent of its number due to deaths, disappearances and injuries. The Gazans are confined to a small, largely destroyed area of about 365 sq. km, facing death from treatable diseases and lacking access to essential services, even clean water. For the people of Gaza, even fundamental needs now seem unattainable after decades of diminished expectations.
Despite these conditions, Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world observes with varying degrees of anger, helplessness or total disregard. The question of the international community’s role remains central. While enforcing international law is one aspect, exerting the necessary pressure to allow a population facing starvation access to basic necessities like food and water is another. For the people of Gaza, even these fundamental needs now seem unattainable after decades of diminished expectations.
During public hearings in The Hague that started on April 28, representatives from many nations appealed to the International Court of Justice to utilize its authority to mandate that Israel cease the starvation of Palestinians. Israel “may not collectively punish the protected Palestinian population,” stated the South African representative, Jaymion Hendricks. The Saudi envoy, Mohammed Saud Alnasser, added that Israel had transformed the Gaza Strip into an “unlivable pile of rubble, while killing thousands of innocent and vulnerable people.” Representatives from China, Egypt, Algeria and other nations echoed these sentiments, aligning with the assessment of Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, who stated in March that Israel is employing a strategy of “weaponization of humanitarian aid.”Even when aid was permitted, Israeli forces targeted desperate civilians, including children, who gathered to receive supplies
However, the assertion that the weaponization of food is a deliberate Israeli tactic requires no external proof; Israel itself has declared it. Then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant publicly announced a “complete siege” on Gaza just two days after the start of the genocidal war. Gallant said: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel — everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” This was not an impulsive outburst but a policy rooted in dehumanizing rhetoric and implemented with extreme violence.
This “acting accordingly” extended beyond closing border crossings and obstructing aid deliveries. Even when aid was permitted, Israeli forces targeted desperate civilians, including children, who gathered to receive supplies, bombing them along with the aid trucks. A particularly devastating incident occurred in Gaza City in February last year, when reports indicated that Israeli fire killed 112 Palestinians and injured 750 more.
This event was the first of what became known as the “flour massacres.” Subsequent similar incidents took place and, in between, Israel continued to bomb bakeries, aid storage facilities and aid distribution volunteers. The intention was to starve Palestinians to a degree that would allow for coercive bargaining and potentially lead to the ethnic cleansing of the population.
Last April, an Israeli military drone struck a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, resulting in the deaths of six international aid workers and their Palestinian driver. This led to a significant departure of international aid workers from Gaza.
A few months later, starting in October 2024, northern Gaza was placed under a strict siege, with the aim of forcing the population south, potentially toward the Sinai desert. Despite these efforts and the resulting famine, the will of the Gazan population did not break. Instead, hundreds of thousands began returning to their destroyed homes and towns in the north once a ceasefire came into effect in January.
When Israel reneged on that ceasefire agreement in March, it once again resorted to using starvation as a weapon. There were few consequences and little strong condemnation from Western governments regarding Israel’s return to war or its starvation policies. Using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is classified as a war crime under international law, as explicitly stated in the Rome Statute. However, the relevance of such legal frameworks is questioned when those who advocate for them and consider themselves guardians of these laws fail to uphold or enforce them. The inaction of the international community during this period of immense human suffering has significantly undermined the relevance of international law. The potential consequences of this failure to act are grave, extending beyond the Palestinian people to impact humanity as a whole.
Despite this, hope persists that fundamental human compassion, separate from legal frameworks, will compel the provision of essential supplies like flour, sugar and water to Gaza. Any inability to ensure this basic aid will lead to profound questions about our shared humanity for years to come.
**Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and author. He is editor of “The Palestine Chronicle” and nonresident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappe, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.” X: @RamzyBaroud