English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 25/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
No one who believes in him will be put to
shame.’For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord
of all and is generous to all who call on him.”
Letter to the Romans 10/04-12/:”For Christ is the end of the law so that
there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Moses writes concerning
the righteousness that comes from the law, that ‘the person who does these
things will live by them.’ But the righteousness that comes from faith says, ‘Do
not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring
Christ down) ‘or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ
up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, on your lips and
in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and
so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture
says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous
to all who call on him.”
Titles For The
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on May 24-25/2025
Video and Text: The “Liberation of the South Day” Is a Lie, a Distortion of
History, and Must Be Cancelled and Forgotten/Elias Bejjani/May 25/ 2025
The terrorist murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky is strongly
condemned/Elias Bejjani/May 22/2025
Lebanon army says receives suspect in Christian party official’s killing
Aoun votes in South, says there are 'guarantees' Israel won't disrupt polls
Interior Minister: No interference in South Lebanon, Nabatieh municipal and
mukhtar elections
Final voter turnout in South Lebanon and Nabatieh municipal and mukhtar
elections
Lebanon's PM Nawaf Salam: Government to begin preparations for 2026
parliamentary elections
Lebanese Army urges citizens to refrain from celebratory gunfire after municipal
elections results
British and Canadian ambassadors host reception celebrating media freedom in
Lebanon
Benjamin Hassan makes history as 1st Lebanese player in Open era to qualify for
French Open
Lebanese Authorities Threaten Sanctions Against Palestinian Factions Rejecting
Aoun praises southern resilience as voters head to polls for municipal elections
Lebanon’s Nabih Berri, The Perpetual Speaker/John Smith/American Thinker/May
24/2025
Cyprus' Maronites fight to stop their Cypriot Maronite Arabic from extinction/Petros
Karadjias/Associated Press/May 24, 2025
What Are the 12 Palestinian Camps in Lebanon?
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on May 24-25/2025
US-Iran latest nuclear talks end with limited progress, as Tehran sources
express skepticism
Israel may change tack to allow aid groups in Gaza to stay in charge of non-food
aid
Israeli strike kills nine of Gaza doctor's children, hospital says
What Are the 12 Palestinian Camps in Lebanon?
Israeli use of human shields in Gaza was systematic, soldiers and former
detainees tell the AP
Trump Is Making Netanyahu Nervous
A sea of controversy as Trump stirs old tensions over Persian Gulf name
Russia and Ukraine swap hundreds more prisoners hours after massive attack on
Kyiv
US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources
African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes
Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa hold talks in Istanbul
Syria reboots interior ministry as Damascus seeks to reassure West
Palestinian Faction Chiefs Supported by Iran Quit Damascus
Syria hails US lifting of sanctions as ‘positive step’
US ambassador says lifting Syria sanctions will preserve US objective of
defeating ISIS
Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sourceson
on May 24-25/2025
To President Trump: The Iranian Regime Will Always Seek Your and
America's Death/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/May 24, 2025
US-Iran Nuclear Negotiations: Is Iran Now a Nuclear Power?/Colonel Charbel
Barakat/May 24, 2025
Will sanctions relief unlock Syria’s potential, spur economic recovery?/ANAN
TELLO/Arab News/May 24, 2025
Lifting sanctions on Syria: a bet on a more prosperous future/Faisal J. Abbas/Arab
News/May 24/2025
How Egypt is wielding influence on a tight budget/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/May
24, 2025
To navigate a new order, hire a historian not a social scientist/Nadim Shehadi/Arab
News/May 24, 2025
Between the President’s Arrival and His Departure/Mohammed al-Rumaihi/Asharq Al
Awsat/24 May 2025
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on May 23-24/2025
Video and Text: The “Liberation of the South Day”
Is a Lie, a Distortion of History, and Must Be Cancelled and Forgotten
Elias Bejjani/May 25/ 2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/05/143643/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_sxlCM-F4Y&t=104s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77eZt5HiaXc
May 25, 2000, was portrayed as a turning point for South Lebanon. The Israeli
army withdrew, fulfilling a promise made by then- Isaeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak ahead of the Israeli elections. But what followed was not liberation—it
was betrayal. A secret deal between Israel, Iran, and Syria sealed the fate of
the "Southern Security Zone", and handed it over to terrorist and Jihadist armed
forces.
The Lebanese citizens of the "Southern Security Zone", along with their defender
the South Lebanon Army—were abandoned to the Syrian Ba'athist occupiers and
Iranian jihadist militias operating under the deceptive and blasphemous name
“Hezbollah.”
Though Barak’s move was packaged as a fulfillment of a democratic promise, the
reality was far darker. Hidden negotiations took place behind the scenes,
brokered through envoys from Germany, Sweden, and Jordan. These talks led to an
arrangement with the authoritarian regimes in Syria and Iran that effectively
delivered the "Southern Lebanon Security Zone"—and its people—into Hezbollah’s
hands.
This deal dismantled the South Lebanon Army and sealed the border with Israel,
leaving the region vulnerable to Hezbollah’s violence and domination.
What Hezbollah falsely markets as “liberation” was nothing more than a
calculated political maneuver, based on lies, betrayal, and international
hypocrisy. The annual celebration of May 25 by both the Lebanese government and
Hezbollah, under the name “Liberation Day,” is a national disgrace and a
historical fabrication.
Let us not forget that, just days before the Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah’s
leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared on every available media outlet to issue direct
threats to the people of the "Southern Security Zone". He terrorized them with
blood-curdling warnings about beheadings and revenge killings. These threats
forced tens of thousands of innocent civilians to flee to Israel, where they
continue to be unjustly labeled as “collaborators” and are forbidden from
returning to their homes.
The reality is clear: the so-called “liberation” was not the result of heroic
resistance, but a consequence of foreign-brokered deals and Syria’s military
occupation. The myth of Hezbollah’s victory was crafted in Damascus and
Tehran—not on the battlefields of the South.
The people of the "Southern Security Zone" were betrayed and abandoned. They
deserve justice—not propaganda, not fear, and certainly not lies wrapped in the
flag of so-called resistance.
We firmly assert that the so-called “Liberation Day” must be abolished from
Lebanon’s national calendar and erased from the collective memory of its people.
Hezbollah is not a resistance movement—it is a terrorist, criminal, and jihadist
militia operating as a proxy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Its
killed leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has repeatedly admitted this affiliation with
pride, acting as a Trojan horse within Lebanon’s borders.
On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into a war by attacking Israel on
orders from Iran. This reckless act was carried out without the consent of the
Lebanese people or its government. Therefore, Hezbollah bears full
responsibility for the devastating retaliation that has followed and still going
on—the deaths, destruction, and displacement.
Despite the loss of many of its leaders and suffering crushing blows in the
ongoing conflict, Hezbollah still hijacks the Lebanese state. It is not
Lebanese. It is not Arab. It is not a representative of Lebanon’s Shiite
community. It has taken the Shiites hostage—killing their youth, destroying
their towns, and disfiguring their history and identity.
This Iranian armed Jihadist proxy is not just a political problem; it is a
national, ethical, and civilizational disaster. It engages in terrorism,
smuggling, assassinations, and organized crime. It is one of the most dangerous
mafias on Earth. Accordingly, Lebanon will never be saved until the Hezbollah
occupation is ended—politically, militarily, culturally, and institutionally.
For all these reasons, President Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese government, and all
political leaders—regardless of sect or affiliation—must summon the courage to
speak the truth. They must name Hezbollah for what it truly is: a terrorist
Iranian proxy militia. The false label of “resistance” must be stripped away,
and Lebanon must fully and publicly support the implementation of all relevant
United Nations resolutions and the recent ceasefire agreement.
The military, security, and political structure of Hezbollah must be
dismantled—by force if necessary—to liberate the Shiite community and the rest
of Lebanon from this foreign-imposed nightmare.
No Hezbollah member should ever be allowed to serve in the Lebanese Armed Forces
or any state security agency. The group’s remaining leaders must be prosecuted
and permanently banned from political life. The time for hollow dialogue has
passed. Hezbollah must be disarmed, and its intelligence networks and parallel
state apparatus dismantled.
In conclusion: A draft resolution must be urgently submitted to Parliament to
abolish the lie of “Liberation Day.” This toxic myth must be buried, so that
Lebanon may finally begin to heal.
The terrorist murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky is strongly
condemned
Elias Bejjani/May 22/2025
I am deeply saddened by the tragic crime that claimed the lives of Sarah Milgrim
and Yaron Lischinsky at the Capital Jewish Museum..USA
Terrorism and violence targeting innocent civilians must have no place—neither
in the United States nor in any other country in the world.
My heartfelt condolences to their families and friends, and mercy upon their
souls.
Lebanon army says receives suspect in Christian party official’s killing
AFP/May 24, 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army said Saturday it had taken into custody a suspect in last
year’s killing of a Christian political official, with help from Syria’s new
authorities, in a case that sparked public outrage. Pascal Sleiman, a
coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area north of Beirut for the Lebanese Forces
(LF) Christian party, was abducted and killed in April 2024. The army had said
he was killed in a carjacking by Syrian gang members who then took his body
across the border. The army received “one of the main individuals involved in
the crime of kidnapping and killing” Sleiman after coordinating with Syrian
authorities, a military statement said. The suspect “heads a gang involved in
kidnapping, robbery and forgery and has a large number of arrest warrants
against him,” the statement said, adding that investigations were underway.
Sleiman’s LF party opposed Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar Assad, who was ousted
in December, as well as its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which last year was engaged
in cross-border fire with Israel that escalated into all-out war. Beirut and
Damascus have been seeking to improve ties since the overthrow of Assad, whose
family dynasty for decades exercised control over Lebanese affairs.
Anti-Syrian sentiment soared after Sleiman’s disappearance and death, in a
country hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. Some accused Hezbollah
of having a hand in the killing, but then chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was later
killed in a massive Israeli air strike, denied his party was involved. The LF
had said it would consider Sleiman’s death a “political assassination until
proven otherwise.”
Aoun votes in South, says there are 'guarantees' Israel
won't disrupt polls
Naharnet/May
24, 2025
President Joseph Aoun voted Saturday in his southern hometown al-Aishiyeh in the
fourth and final round of the country’s municipal and mayoral elections. Aoun
headed to al-Aishiyeh after inspecting the electoral operations rooms in Sidon
and Nabatieh. “These elections prove that the will of life is stronger than
death and that the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” Aoun said
in Sidon. Speaking to reporters after casting his vote in his hometown al-Aishiyeh,
in the Jezzine district, Aoun said: “I protected the elections throughout 40
years (as an army officer and commander), and today I’m casting my vote for the
first time in an electoral juncture.”Asked whether there are “guarantees” that
Israel will not stage attacks in the South during the electoral day, Aoun said:
“There are guarantees and I call on voters to turn out heavily.”“The message
should be is that the South belongs to Lebanon and is the heart of Lebanon and
nothing should deter the resilience will of the Lebanese,” the president
added.Israel carried out a wave of intensive airstrikes on alleged Hezbollah
targets in the South on Thursday, one of the fiercest since the latest war. Calm
has however prevailed since Friday morning in a sign that the international
community may have managed to rein in Israel to secure the success of the
electoral process.
Interior Minister: No interference in South Lebanon,
Nabatieh municipal and mukhtar elections
LBCI/May
24, 2025
Interior and Municipalities Minister Ahmad Al-Hajjar announced that several
complaints were received and followed up on with the security agencies during
the municipal and mukhtar elections in the South Lebanon and Nabatieh
governorates, but no breaches or interference were recorded. Speaking from the
Interior Ministry after polls closed, Al-Hajjar acknowledged that voter turnout
was low compared to the 2016 elections. However, he emphasized that after a
nine-year hiatus, the most important achievement was that Lebanese citizens
exercised their democratic rights.
He described uncontested wins as a legitimate democratic outcome, stating that
there are no legal issues with such results. Al-Hajjar concluded by expressing
hope that the elections will pave the way for renewed energy in local
governance, affirming that all recorded incidents were referred to the competent
security and judicial authorities, and stressing that no political influence
marred the electoral process.
Final voter turnout in South Lebanon and Nabatieh municipal
and mukhtar elections
LBCI/May
24, 2025
The Lebanese Interior and Municipalities Ministry announced the final voter
turnout for the municipal and mukhtar elections held in the South Lebanon and
Nabatieh governorates on Saturday. According to official figures, the turnout in
South Lebanon reached 42.34%, while Nabatieh recorded a participation rate of
35.90%.
The detailed breakdown of voter turnout by district is as follows:
Hasbaya: 36.89%
Jezzine: 42.90%
Marjeyoun: 32.19%
Bint Jbeil: 28.22%
Nabatieh: 44.74%
Tyre: 39.52%
Sidon: 44.85%
Lebanon's PM Nawaf Salam: Government to begin preparations
for 2026 parliamentary elections
LBCI/May
24, 2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that the Lebanese government will begin
preparations for the upcoming parliamentary elections, drawing on the lessons
learned from the recently concluded municipal and mukhtar polls. Speaking after
the close of polling stations, Salam expressed satisfaction with how the
electoral process unfolded, acknowledging that each round helps address and
improve past shortcomings. He also reaffirmed Lebanon's unwavering demand for
the release of Lebanese detainees and the complete Israeli withdrawal from all
occupied Lebanese territory.
On reconstruction efforts, Salam stated that the government is actively working
with the World Bank and donor agencies to secure necessary funding and is
continuing outreach to friendly nations to increase aid and support.
Lebanese Army urges citizens to refrain from celebratory gunfire after municipal
elections results
LBCI/May
24, 2025
As the municipal and mukhtar elections conclude in the South Lebanon and
Nabatieh governorates, the Lebanese Army announced it will continue implementing
strict security measures throughout the vote-counting process, and until the
official results are issued.
In a statement, the army urged citizens to refrain from celebratory gunfire when
announcing the results, warning that such actions endanger public
safety—especially given the sensitive security conditions in southern Lebanon.
British and Canadian ambassadors host reception celebrating
media freedom in Lebanon
Naharnet/May
24, 2025
Celebrating the role of Lebanese media in reform and accountability, British
Ambassador Hamish Cowell and Canadian Ambassador Stefanie McCollum co-hosted a
reception to reaffirm "the essential role of a free media in Lebanon," the
British embassy said. The event brought together journalists, civil society
representatives, diplomats, and advocates to recognize the "indispensable role
that a free and independent press plays in holding power to account, to reaffirm
its essential part in Lebanon’s reform agenda, and safeguarding democratic
societies," the embassy said in a statement. The reception paid special tribute
to the journalists working on the front lines in South Lebanon, and those that
have lost their lives reporting under challenging and dangerous conditions. In
their remarks, both ambassadors emphasized that media freedom is not only a
cornerstone of democracy but also a vital mechanism for transparency,
accountability, and informed public opinion. British Ambassador Hamish Cowell
said: “The UK is a firm advocate for media freedoms here in Lebanon and across
the globe. Free press is the watchdog of democracy. I commend the courage of
journalists who risk their lives, and those that face prosecution, to bring
truth to light. Their courage strengthens our shared commitment to human rights
and democratic values”."As Lebanon continues to navigate complex political and
social challenges, the role of a free and independent media remains more
critical than ever," he added.
Canadian Ambassador Stefanie McCollum said: "Media freedom is a cornerstone of
democratic societies and is essential for protecting human rights. It is only
through accountability and the eradication of impunity that we can ensure
journalists are able to fulfil their essential role without fear of reprisal.
Canada is proud to stand with the UK to promote and support media freedom here
in Lebanon and all over the world.”“Canada stands with journalists who risk
their lives to bring truth to light. Their courage strengthens our shared
commitment to human rights and democratic values," McCollum added.
Benjamin Hassan makes history as 1st Lebanese player in Open era to qualify for
French Open
Naharnet/May
24, 2025
Benjamin Hassan made history Friday by becoming the first Lebanese tennis player
in the Open era to qualify for the main draw of the French Open. The 30-year-old
defeated Japan's James Trotter 6-2, 7-6 (5) in the final round of qualifying.
Germany-born Hassan secured his place at Roland-Garros by winning three straight
matches in the qualifying tournament on the clay courts of Paris. Ranked No. 177
in the world, Hassan is no stranger to breaking new ground for Lebanese tennis.
Last summer, at the Paris Olympics, which also took place on the clay courts of
Roland-Garros, Hassan became the first player to represent Lebanon. He defeated
American Christopher Eubanks in the first round, claiming the first win in the
history of the competition for his country. His qualification is the second
major milestone for Lebanese tennis this year. In January, Hady Habib, who is
currently ranked 159th, won a first-round match at the Australian Open. This was
the country's first Grand Slam match victory. Following Hassan's win on Friday,
the Lebanese Tennis Federation congratulated him in a message published on
Facebook. "The journey continues," said the federation. "Keep making Lebanon
proud."In the first round of the French Open, which begins Sunday, he is
scheduled to face another player who also came through the qualifying round, the
Italian Matteo Gigante.
Aoun praises southern resilience as voters
head to polls for municipal elections
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/May 24,
2025
BEIRUT: Residents of southern Lebanon voted on Saturday in the country’s
municipal elections. The fourth and last stage of the elections took place in
the southern and Nabatieh governorates. “The will of life is stronger than
death, and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” President
Joseph Aoun said during a tour of south Lebanon. Aoun’s visit, which came just
minutes before ballot boxes opened at 7 a.m., was particularly significant as he
is from the border village of Al-Aaishiyah.
The president exercised his right to vote for the first time in 40 years. Under
national law, he had been forbidden from voting due to his active military
service. His presence in the far south provided a sense of reassurance,
particularly as the elections were taking place less than 48 hours after intense
Israeli airstrikes in the region. When asked if there were assurances against
Israeli attacks on election day, Aoun said: “The guarantees are in place. The
south is part of Lebanon and the heart of the nation, and nothing should deter
the Lebanese people from exercising their will to persevere.”The streets of Al-Aaishiyah
were adorned with Lebanese flags, and residents welcomed the president with
chants supporting his positions, showering him with rice and flowers. After
casting his vote, Aoun said: “I have spent 40 years protecting elections, and
today, for the first time, I am voting in an electoral event to support the
town’s development. “Elections by consensus represent a form of democracy, and
the country is founded on consensual democracy.”
Aoun delivered several messages during his tour, saying: “Today is not only
Liberation Day, but also a day for democracy and making the right choice.”
He urged citizens to take part in the vote in large numbers, and described the
election as developmental rather than political. “Vote for representatives who
support development in our cities and villages, honor the sacrifices of our
people and contribute to reconstruction,” he said. Aoun commended the resilience
of people in the south and acknowledged the many challenges they have faced. He
highlighted the efforts of security and judicial agencies, as well as civil
servants, in managing the electoral process at every stage. The elections were
held one day before the anniversary of Liberation Day, which Lebanon celebrates
each year on May 25 since 2000 — the year Israel withdrew from the south after
decades of occupation. The Lebanese army, Internal Security Forces and State
Security members secured the polling stations, deploying personnel at entrances
and outside. Voters in Sidon and its surrounding villages took part in electoral
contests, with politicians from the city present at polling stations to cast
their votes.
Among them were former prime minister Fouad Siniora, former MP Bahia Hariri and
MP Abdul Rahman Bizri. Interior Minister Ahmed Hajjar monitored the electoral
process, traveling between border villages and areas north of the Litani River.
No one was preventing southerners from exercising their democratic rights, he
said.
“We did not seek guarantees for conducting the elections from anyone. Instead,
we communicated with the countries involved in the ceasefire agreement. “As a
state and government, we have decided to hold these elections to ensure that
every citizen and every southerner can exercise their right to vote and practice
sovereignty, with the state fully supporting this process with all its effort
and determination,” the minister added. Army Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haikal
inspected the central operations room located in the southern region at the
Mohammed Zgheib Barracks in Sidon. He assessed the security protocols adopted by
military units to safeguard the electoral process. Gen. Haikal visited the
command of the Fifth Infantry Brigade in Bayada and was briefed on the brigade’s
deployment in its operational sector and the security measures being
implemented. In a speech, he said: “The success of the electoral process holds
significant importance in light of the current exceptional challenges.”
Addressing military personnel, he said the success of the electoral process was
a testament to the commitment of the people of the south to their land, and the
presence of the army was a crucial factor for reassurance and resilience.
Gen. Haikal said: “Our message is that the army stands firmly with the Lebanese
people. Israel, which continues to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty and occupies
part of its territory, will not deter the military from fully fulfilling its
duties.”Among those who voted on Saturday were Hezbollah members wounded in the
2024 pager attack, which saw thousands of booby-trapped devices blow up
near-simultaneously in an operation carried out by Israel. Border town residents
who had fled their homes south of the Litani River amid the Hezbollah-Israel war
cast their votes at dedicated centers in Nabatieh, north of the river.The
displaced voters expressed anger over having to vote outside their towns as well
as their continued displacement, with no reconstruction on the horizon. Dozens
of complaints were filed with the central operations room, while the Lebanese
Association for Democratic Elections, or LADE, complained of “harassment against
its representatives.”Elections in most of the border towns, which suffered
Israeli attacks 48 hours beforehand, were won by default, except for Houla and
Aitaroun, as well as mixed towns like Yarin, Yaroun, Shamaa and Dhahira. Towns
where Hezbollah and the Amal Movement failed to secure the endorsement of loyal
candidates witnessed a grassroots surge. Mixed towns or those with Sunni,
Christian or Druze majorities experienced fierce competition. The Interior
Ministry allowed candidate withdrawals to continue until Saturday morning. Out
of 272 municipalities, 109 won by default in both governorates.
Leftist parties and independents competed in towns where the Shiite duo’s
attempts at reaching a consensus failed, and in towns witnessing competition
between the two. The towns that witnessed electoral contests include Kfar Reman,
Doueir, Kfar Tebnit and Adloun. The Lebanese Forces competed against the Free
Patriotic Movement in Jezzine. In towns where competition between candidates was
intense, voter turnout reached almost 40 percent by the afternoon. Hezbollah MP
Hassan Fadlallah said that winning by default is “the most important message
sent by the people of the south to the Israelis.” MP Ali Fayyad said:
“Southerners prove once again that they support the resistance and endorse the
national duo as a political choice.”
Lebanese Authorities
Threaten Sanctions Against Palestinian Factions Rejecting
Al-Arabiya/24 May 2025
In a landmark decision during the first meeting of the joint
Lebanese-Palestinian executive committee on Friday, Lebanese authorities
approved a phased plan to seize all weapons – heavy, medium and light – from
Palestinian refugee camps across the country. According to a report by Al-Arabiya
citing government sources, factions that refuse to cooperate with the
disarmament effort risk facing serious repercussions, including the revocation
of entry visas and expulsion from Lebanese territory. The withdrawal of arms is
scheduled to begin in mid-June in the Beirut-area camps of Burj al-Barajneh,
Shatila and Mar Elias. The operation will then expand in July to camps in the
Beqaa Valley, northern Lebanon, and the south – with a particular focus on those
controlled by the Fatah movement. Ain al-Helweh, the largest and most volatile
camp in Lebanon, presents the most significant challenge. The disarmament plan
divides the camp into three zones based on factional control: one under the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), another dominated by Hamas and Islamic
Jihad, and a third governed by radical Islamist groups.
Lebanon’s Nabih Berri, The Perpetual Speaker
John Smith/American Thinker/May 24/2025
In most democracies, a legislative speaker in power for more than three decades
would be an anomaly, if not a scandal. In Lebanon, Nabih Berri’s uninterrupted
rule over parliament since 1992 is treated as political furniture—imposing,
immovable, and ultimately untouchable. Now aged 87, Berri is more than a
political survivor; he is a symbol of the entrenched, unaccountable elite that
has overseen Lebanon’s descent into economic ruin, institutional collapse, and
international irrelevance.
A lawyer by training and a warlord by origin, Berri rose to prominence during
Lebanon’s civil war as head of the Shiite Amal Movement (“Amal”). Though
originally a rival to Hezbollah, Berri long ago cemented an alliance with the
Iran-backed group, together forming Lebanon’s dominant Shiite bloc. If Hezbollah
is the muscle, Amal is the mechanism—the party that manages the state from
within, ensuring that key ministries and public contracts remain within loyalist
hands.
Today, the two Shiite factions divide influence over Lebanon’s state and
society. Amal dominates the state bureaucracy; Hezbollah holds the weapons.
Though Amal claims to be secular and nationalist, Berri’s politics are anything
but. For decades, he has cultivated a base in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa
Valley, where loyalty is rewarded with public sector jobs and government
contracts.
It is within this nexus of state control and political patronage that Berri and
his family have prospered. This patronage machine extends beyond politics. His
wife, Randa Berri, has long been accused of exploiting public institutions for
personal gain, notably within education and health programs. Activists have
alleged that she exerts undue control over NGOs and international aid projects
in the south, where Amal’s networks are strongest. Critics accuse her of turning
public institutions—especially those related to education and social
programs—into fiefdoms of personal enrichment.
Oversight is nonexistent; transparency, irrelevant. The Berri family’s alleged
involvement in skimming public funds and monopolizing local development projects
has been a common theme in Lebanon’s media and protest slogans. Transparency,
needless to say, is not a family value.
More quietly, Berri’s extended family has also thrived under his shadow. Ayman
Zakaria Jomaa, a telecommunications entrepreneur married to Berri’s daughter,
Maysaa, is emblematic of Lebanon’s oligarchic elite: politically connected,
economically mobile, and remarkably insulated from accountability. This year,
Jomaa and his brother Imad Jomaa—the latter allegedly involved in several
questionable business deals in Iraq, according to an Iraqi government
source—were part of the Lebanese delegation to the SelectUSA 2025 Investment
Summit in the United States.
Before traveling to the summit, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut hosted the
delegation, publicly honoring them as part of its push to boost American
investment ties. For many Lebanese watching from a collapsing economy, the
optics were enraging. Here were relatives of one of the most powerful—and
reviled—political figures in the country, receiving diplomatic courtesies from
Washington while Lebanon’s own state institutions remain gutted by the
corruption their families helped institutionalize.
But behind the scenes, that tolerance may be fraying. According to a U.S.
government source, officials in Washington increasingly view Berri’s unwavering
alliance with Hezbollah as a serious impediment to Lebanon’s recovery. With
frustration mounting, the Trump administration is now considering targeted
sanctions—not only against Berri himself, but also against his family members
and closest associates, whose entrenchment in public institutions and business
networks is seen as central to the country’s entrenched dysfunction.
The irony is hard to miss. While Berri has consistently resisted U.S.-backed
reforms, obstructed IMF negotiations, and aligned himself with Iran and
Hezbollah, his inner circle can still gain access to American prestige events
and soft diplomatic platforms. For critics, it’s another example of Western
double standards in the region: condemning corruption on paper while empowering
its beneficiaries in practice.
Though Berri presents himself as a centrist broker—between Christians and
Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites, East and West—his record tells a different story.
He has consistently resisted any American-led initiative in Lebanon, from
political reform to military aid conditioning. In fact, his loyalty has long
tilted toward Tehran. During times of regional tension, Berri has reliably
aligned himself with Iran’s strategic calculus, echoing Hezbollah’s rhetoric and
shielding its political interests.
He has rarely, if ever, condemned Hezbollah’s unilateral wars or its defiance of
state authority. When Israel and Hezbollah traded fire in 2024, Berri played the
role of mediator only after the fighting paused—careful never to criticize his
partner’s recklessness.
Domestically, Berri’s reign has brought paralysis. Parliament under his
leadership has become a mausoleum, convened only when his interests or those of
his allies are at stake. Key reforms demanded by international lenders—such as
restructuring the banking sector or curbing clientelism—have been shelved,
watered down, or sabotaged.
He has used procedural games and informal “consensus” rules to block votes, bury
legislation, and kill off investigations. His role in preventing the election of
a new president between 2022 and 2024 was emblematic: Berri simply refused to
call voting sessions until he could dictate the outcome.
For all his maneuvering, Berri commands little legitimacy outside his shrinking
base. Among Lebanese youth, especially those who led the 2019 uprising, he is
reviled. “All of them means all of them,” the protesters chanted, but Berri was
often singled out with special venom. The streets of Beirut have long been
defaced with graffiti reading “Berri = Thief.” And yet, he endures.
Part of the reason is the system itself. Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing
arrangement grants the speakership exclusively to a Shiite, and Amal, by
historical inertia and brute force, has monopolized that role. But part of the
reason is also international. Western and Arab diplomats, reluctant to provoke
Hezbollah, have often tolerated Berri as the “acceptable” Shiite—forgetting, or
ignoring, that his power depends on preserving the very dysfunction they hope to
overcome.
Though Berri styles himself as a political balancer—bridging sectarian divides
and mediating during crises—his legacy is largely one of obstruction. Parliament
under his leadership has served as a graveyard for reform. Key financial
accountability measures have been buried. Presidential elections were stalled
for years. Investigations into the Beirut port explosion and banking sector
fraud were sabotaged with his quiet blessing.
Still, Berri remains indispensable to the system he helped engineer. Sectarian
politics insulate him; international actors, fearing a vacuum, treat him as a
necessary evil. But inside Lebanon, the patience is gone. Protesters chant his
name with venom. His family’s wealth and visibility are symbols of elite
impunity.
That a Berri in-law and his politically connected brother can walk into U.S.
investment summits while ordinary Lebanese face blackouts, food insecurity, and
blocked bank accounts, is not merely offensive—it is clarifying. Lebanon’s
crisis is not accidental. It is the product of elite capture and international
indulgence.
Lebanon is now a failed state in everything but name. Its currency has
collapsed. Its institutions are hollow. Its elites are richer than ever. And its
speaker of parliament—unchanged for 33 years—sits at the very heart of the
wreckage. For all the talk of reform, Berri is a reminder that Lebanon’s problem
is not just bad policies. It is a political class that has mastered survival
while the country beneath them dies.
Nabih Berri will remain speaker not just of Lebanon’s parliament, but of its
long, slow death. Until figures like Nabih Berri and the networks they anchor
are confronted—rather than celebrated—there can be no real path forward for
Lebanon.
**John Smith is a law enforcement professional with decades of experience in
risk, sanctions, and compliance.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/05/lebanon_s_nabih_berri_the_perpetual_speaker.html
Cyprus' Maronites fight to stop their
Cypriot Maronite Arabic from extinction
Petros Karadjias/Associated
Press/May 24, 2025
A painting of St. George hangs on the wall of St. George Church as the faithful
attend a service, in the Maronite village of Kormakitis in the breakaway north
of the ethnically divided Cyprus on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros
Karadjias)The Associated PressMore
KORMAKITIS, Cyprus (AP) — Only about 900 people in the world speak Cypriot
Maronite Arabic. The offshoot of Syrian Arabic has been passed on orally over
the centuries. Now it is at risk of extinction. That’s according to the Council
of Europe’s minority language experts. But the Maronite community in Cyprus is
fighting back. It has help from the Cypriot government and the European Union to
save the language. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Cyprus Maronites Vanishing Language
MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS/Associated Press/May 24, 2025
KORMAKITIS, Cyprus — Ash dangled precariously from Iosif Skordis' cigarette as
he reminisced with fellow villagers in a language on the edge of extinction, one
that partly traces its roots to the language Jesus Christ once spoke. The
97-year-old Skordis is one of only 900 people in the world who speak Cypriot
Maronite Arabic, or Sanna. Today, his village of Kormakitis is the last bastion
of a language once spoken by tens of thousands of people across dozens of
villages. The tongue, an offshoot of Syrian Arabic that has absorbed some Greek,
has been passed from generation to generation in this windswept community in
Cyprus. Until less than two decades ago, there was no written script, or even an
alphabet, since parents transmitted it to children in conversation. Only a
handful of people are trained to teach it. Sanna is at risk of disappearing,
according to the Council of Europe’s minority language experts. One Indigenous
language dies every two weeks, the United Nations estimates, diminishing the
tapestry of human knowledge one strand at a time. But the 7,500-strong Maronite
community in Cyprus is pushing back. With help from the Cypriot government and
the European Union, it has built schools, created a Sanna alphabet to publish
textbooks and begun classes to keep the language alive and thriving. “Sanna … is
undoubtedly one of the most distinguishing features of our cultural identity,”
said Yiannakis Moussas, the Maronite community’s representative in the Cypriot
legislature. He spoke in the Kormakitis coffeehouse adorned with soccer trophies
and banners emblazoned with a Lebanese cedar. “And it’s striking evidence of our
heritage. The fact that we speak a kind of Arabic over so many centuries makes
it clear that we descend from areas of Syria and Lebanon.”
Roots in Syria and Lebanon
The language was brought to Cyprus by waves of Arab Christians fleeing
persecution by invading Arab Muslim fighters in what is now Syria, Lebanon and
Israel, starting as early as the 8th century. Sanna at its root is a semitic
language that, unlike other Arabic dialects, contains traces of the Aramaic that
was spoken by populations prior to the Arab invasion of the Levant, according to
University of Cyprus linguistics professor Marilena Kariolemou, who leads the
team responsible for the language’s revitalization. That’s because the Maronite
community in Cyprus was isolated from other Arabic-speaking populations. But as
Maronites increasingly interacted with the island’s majority Greek-speaking
population and became bilingual, Sanna evolved to incorporate several Greek
words, adding to its uniqueness among the many Arabic dialects. According to
Kariolemou, Sanna contains five vowels similar to Greek and another three
similar to Aramaic, while consonants whose sounds are formed in the back of the
throat have diminished, likely because of the Greek influence. Sanna also
adopted Greek syntax, she said.
The effects of a Turkish invasion
Until the mid-1970s, the Maronite community was largely centered around four
villages: Asomatos, Ayia Marina, Karpasia and Kormakitis as the cultural center.
But the 1974 Turkish invasion that split Cyprus into a breakaway Turkish Cypriot
north and a Greek Cypriot south, where the internationally recognized government
is based, saw most Maronites dispersed throughout the south. Asomatos and Ayia
Marina are empty of Maronite inhabitants and are now Turkish army camps. Moussas,
the community representative, said the consequences of 1974 were “catastrophic”
for the Maronites as they gravitated toward the island’ It’s said that
currently, only one in five Maronite marriages are between members of the
community.
A hope for revival
That left Kormakitis as the linguistic “hive” for Cypriot Maronite Arabic, only
spoken by residents over 50, according to retired teacher Ilias Zonias. Born in
Kormakitis, Zonias is the only native Sanna speaker qualified to teach the
language.
Kormakitis was a closed society in which residents spoke Sanna, while their kids
went to school not knowing Greek. That’s how the language was preserved, Zonias
said. Still, speakers after 1974 began to dwindle until around the turn of the
millennium, when the Maronite community with the help of the Cypriot government
increased efforts to save the language. Cyprus’ 2004 membership in the EU was a
milestone for Sanna as the bloc poured resources into safeguarding Indigenous
minority languages, a designation that Cypriot authorities had bestowed.
Kariolemou said her team in 2013 set up a recorded archive of spoken Sanna, some
280 hours long, for further study. A 27-letter alphabet was created in mostly
Latin characters, thanks mainly to the work of linguist Alexander Borg. Grammar
was formulated and refined, enabling the publication of books for teaching Sanna.
Efforts to attract young families
Language courses are in their early stages, Skordis said, with about 100
children and adults in classes in Kormakitis and the Saint Maronas primary
school in Lakatamia, a suburb of Nicosia, the country's capital. A summer
language camp for children and adults in Kormakitis has also been created. An
initiative is underway for native-born speakers — primarily Kormakitis residents
— to learn how to teach Sanna. At Ayios Maronas primary school, 20
kindergarten-age children are learning the language with books containing QR
codes that can be scanned so students can follow an audio adaptation on
school-provided tablets. But for Sanna to have a real future, there is no
substitute for young families returning in large numbers to Kormakitis, where
the language can be taught in the newly built, EU-funded school, Moussas said.
Community leaders, however, aren’t pleased with the low number of people
expressing interest. Moussas said community leaders and the Cypriot government
are looking into offering incentives, primarily to make it easier to find
housing. For Zonias, keeping the language alive for the ages would be the
crowning achievement of his career. “I don’t want to be the last teacher of
Sanna,” he said.
What Are the 12 Palestinian
Camps in Lebanon?
This is Beirut//May 24/2025
The disarmament of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon will begin in mid-June,
based on an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is on an
official visit to Lebanon, a Lebanese government official told AFP on Friday.
Following the creation of Israel and the Nakba in 1948, many Palestinian
refugees settled in Lebanon. Lebanon officially hosts 12 Palestinian refugee
camps recognized by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East), spread across the country. Population figures for
the camps vary due to the lack of recent official censuses and the movements of
people, especially the arrival of Syrian and Palestinian refugees from Syria
since 2011, as well as the war with Israel, which has caused further
displacements. According to UNRWA, about 45% of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
live in these 12 official camps. Lebanon also hosts over 40 informal Palestinian
refugee gatherings, not officially recognized, where many refugees live in often
precarious conditions. The wealthier among them live within Lebanese cities. As
of February 2025, UNRWA’s office in Lebanon recorded 222,000 Palestinians
residing in Lebanon, including 195,000 Lebanese Palestinians and 27,000 Syrian
Palestinians. The agency currently estimates that approximately 248,000
Palestinian refugees and their families receive its services in Lebanon.
Beirut:
Burj al-Barajneh: Established in 1948 by the League of Red Cross Societies,
located in Beirut's southern suburbs, 4 km from the city center. Originally
housed about 3,500 people. Partially destroyed during the 1982 Israeli invasion
and the Lebanese Civil War. By the end of 2023, 20,676 people were registered
with UNRWA, half Palestinian and half Syrian. The 2017 official census recorded
18,351 residents. Sabra-Shatila: Established in 1949, located east of the Sports
City Stadium in the Ghobeiry municipality of Beirut. Severely affected during
the 1982 Israeli invasion and the civil war. By the end of 2023, 11,611 were
registered with UNRWA, about two-thirds Syrian. The 2017 census estimated 14,010
residents. Mar Elias: Located in southern Beirut, west of the UNRWA office.
Founded in 1952 by the Saint Elias Congregation for Palestinian refugees from
Galilee. According to the 2017 census, 1,767 people (mainly Palestinians and
Syrians) lived there. UNRWA registered 746 residents by the end of 2023. Dbayeh:
Located 12 km north of Beirut, established in 1956 on a hill overlooking the
Beirut-Tripoli highway. UNRWA registered 4,636 people in 2023, compared to 1,772
in the 2017 census.
North Lebanon:
Nahr el-Bared: Created in 1949 by the Federation of Red Cross Societies for
refugees from Upper Galilee and northern Palestine. Located near the
Mediterranean, 16 km from Tripoli. In 2023, UNRWA registered 48,421 residents,
while the 2017 census recorded 9,470, mostly Palestinians. Beddawi: Established
in 1955 on a hill 5 km northeast of Tripoli. Over decades, received displaced
refugees from camps like Nabatiyeh and Tal al-Zaatar (destroyed in 1974 and
1976). UNRWA registered 22,817 people in 2023, the 2017 census recorded 17,995,
mostly Palestinians and some Syrians.
Saida:
Ain el-Helweh: South of Saida, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
Inhabited since 1948, mostly by coastal Palestinians. Hosts many displaced from
other parts of Lebanon during the civil war and post-2007 Nahr el-Bared
conflict. UNRWA registered 64,143 people in 2023, the 2017 census recorded
21,209 (mostly Palestinian). Mieh Mieh: Located south of Saida, founded in 1954.
Covers 63,000 m². Severely damaged in the 1982 Israeli invasion and again in
1991 during clashes between Palestinian militants and the Lebanese army. UNRWA
registered 6,196 residents in 2023, the 2017 census recorded 2,359.
Tyre:
Rashidieh: Located 5 km south of Tyre, heavily damaged during the 1982–1987
civil war period. Divided into an old section (built in 1936 for Armenians by
the French) and a new one (built by UNRWA in 1963 for Palestinians). UNRWA
registered 36,595 in 2023, the 2017 census recorded 9,656. El Buss: 1.5 km south
of Tyre, near Roman ruins. Initially built by the French in 1939 for Armenians,
later repopulated by Palestinians from Acre. UNRWA registered 13,081 in 2023,
the 2017 census recorded 5,234. Burj Shemali: 3 km from Tyre, founded in 1948
for refugees from Hawla, Tiberias, Saffouriyah, and Lubieh. Also received
displaced refugees from other Lebanese areas. Severely damaged in the 1982
Israeli invasion. UNRWA registered 26,569 in 2023, the 2017 census recorded
10,218.
Baalbeck:
Al-Jalil: Originally a French army barracks, located 90 km east of Beirut in the
Beqaa Valley near Baalbeck. Became a refugee camp in 1948. UNRWA took over
services in 1952. Many residents still live in the old barracks, lacking proper
light and ventilation. UNRWA registered 9,993 in 2023, the 2017 census recorded
2,165. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon do not have citizenship and face strict
legal restrictions. They are barred from many professions, cannot own property,
and have limited access to public services, which contributes to their
marginalization and economic hardship.
Some camps, like Ain el-Helweh, have become “lawless zones” where Lebanese state
authority is limited. These camps host various sometimes-conflicting Palestinian
factions, leading to sporadic violence. The presence of armed groups and the
lack of state control pose major security challenges for Lebanon. Under a tacit
agreement, security in the camps is maintained by Palestinian factions
affiliated with both Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah and its rival Hamas, among others.
However, Lebanon's new government seeks to extend state authority across the
entire country, including within the Palestinian camps.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and the Palestinian president stated in a recent
meeting that there will no longer be weapons outside the control of the Lebanese
State in Lebanon.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News
published
on May 24-25/2025
US-Iran latest nuclear talks end with limited
progress, as Tehran sources express skepticism
Frederik Pleitgen and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN/May 24, 2025
Iran and the United States concluded a fifth round of high-stakes nuclear talks
in Rome on Friday amid growing skepticism in Tehran about the chances of a deal
as Washington hardens its position. A senior Trump administration official said
Friday more talks are needed and both sides agreed to meet “in the near
future.”“The talks continue to be constructive – we made further progress,” the
official said, “but there is still work to be done.” The US side said the
discussions, which was attended by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, lasted more
than two hours. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday’s nuclear
talks with the US “are too complicated to be resolved in two or three meetings.”
He said however that Iran and US delegations “have completed one of the most
professional rounds of negotiations,” in a televised interview on state-run IRIB
news. Two Iranian sources have told CNN the talks seem unlikely to lead to an
agreement, with the US insisting that Tehran dismantles its uranium enrichment
program – a demand Iranian officials say would cause the nuclear negotiations to
collapse. The sources said Iran’s participation in the Rome talks was solely to
gauge Washington’s latest stance rather than pursue a potential breakthrough.
Araghchi reiterated Tehran’s red lines before he departed for Rome on Friday.
“Figuring out the path to a deal is not rocket science,” he posted on X before
his flight. “Zero nuclear weapons = we DO have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do
NOT have a deal.”The Trump administration has demanded Iran stop all uranium
enrichment activity, which Witkoff says “enables weaponization.” Uranium, a key
nuclear fuel, can be used to build a bomb if enriched to high levels. Iran
maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and says it is willing to commit
not to enrich uranium to weapons-grade as part of an agreement. Araghchi met on
Friday with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Rome “during the
continuation of this round of talks,” and the two ministers “reviewed the latest
status of today’s talks and consulted on how to continue the work,” Iran’s
foreign ministry said in a statement. “The time and place of the next round of
talks will be determined and announced later,” the statement added. US officials
have yet to comment publicly on the outcome of Friday’s talks. Al-Busaidi, who
mediated the talks, said, “We hope to clarify the remaining issues in the coming
days, to allow us to proceed towards the common goal of reaching a sustainable
and honourable agreement,” in a post on X on Friday.
Iran preparing for ‘Plan B’
On Saturday, a senior Iranian lawmaker told CNN that Tehran is disappointed with
the progress of nuclear talks and is considering a “Plan B” if they fail –
though he did not specify what it would entail. “We do not have hope yet,
because the American side is still insisting on zero enrichment and I know the
Islamic Republic of Iran will never agree with zero enrichment,” Ebrahim Rezaei,
a member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee,
said in an interview at the Iranian parliament Saturday. “I got disappointed and
do not have much hope that the negotiations will lead to a deal. We are
preparing for plan B.”Rezaei said it was too early to judge whether the talks
could succeed. “So far we have not seen much seriousness on their (US’) part,”
he added. Speaking Thursday, Araghchi said Iran was open to enhanced monitoring
by international inspectors but would not relinquish its right to pursue nuclear
energy, including uranium enrichment. Washington is offering to wind back
crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for de-nuclearization. The US
had previously sent mixed signals about whether Iran would be allowed to enrich
uranium, but in recent weeks it has hardened its stance, insisting that no
enrichment will be permitted. That shift has prompted officials in Tehran to
question Washington’s commitment to a deal, as Iran has repeatedly said
enrichment is a red line in negotiations. The two Iranian sources told CNN that
Tehran harbors mounting doubts about the US’ sincerity in talks. “The media
statements and negotiating behavior of the United States has widely disappointed
policy-making circles in Tehran,” the sources said in a joint message. “From the
perspective of decision-makers in Tehran, when the US knows that accepting zero
enrichment in Iran is impossible and yet insists on it, it is a sign that the US
is fundamentally not seeking an agreement and is using the negotiations as a
tool to intensify pressure.”Initially, the sources noted, some Iranian officials
believed Washington might seek a “win-win” compromise. However, a consensus has
emerged that the Trump administration is steering discussions toward a
deadlock.The sources said that although neither the US nor Iran wants to leave
the negotiating table, the position of the US is making the talks unproductive
and formal meetings are unlikely to continue much longer. They said that Tehran
no longer takes seriously US efforts to distance itself from Israel’s hardline
stance on Iran, and it sees proposals made by the American side as following the
agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has insisted that no
enrichment be allowed in Iran. Witkoff on Friday met with Ron Dermer, a
confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Rome on the sidelines
of talks, a source familiar with the meeting told CNN.
US imposes more sanctions before talks
Washington has kept up the pressure on Iran with fresh sanctions and threats of
war even as diplomatic talks continue. On Wednesday, the US State Department
announced new measures, identifying Iran’s construction sector as being
“controlled directly or indirectly” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
and 10 strategic materials that it said Iran is using in connection with its
nuclear, military or ballistic missile programs.“With these determinations, the
United States has broader sanctions authorities to prevent Iran from acquiring
strategic materials for its construction sector under IRGC control and its
proliferation programs,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said. Iran’s
foreign ministry spokesperson criticized US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for
the move, calling it “as outrageous as it is unlawful and inhuman.”
“The US’s consecutive rounds of sanctions only reinforce our people’s deeply
held belief that the American decision makers are set to make every malign
effort to hinder Iran’s development & progress. These sanctions, announced on
the eve of the fifth round of Iran-US indirect talks, further put to question
the American willingness & seriousness for diplomacy,” Baqaei wrote on X.
A ‘misreading of Iranian psychology’
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group in Brussels,
said there is a misguided perception in Washington that a weakened Iran is more
likely to compromise. “The weaker Iran is, the more reluctant it will be to make
major concessions,” he said, adding that it is unlikely that Tehran will agree
to a deal that is based solely on US terms. “That’s a complete misreading of
Iranian psychology,” Vaez said. For Iran, capitulation is seen as a worse than
an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, he added. “Iran would be reluctant
to make concessions from a position of weakness, because if it does so, then it
will put itself on a slippery slope that could result in regime collapse,” Vaez
said. Multiple American officials told CNN this week that the US has obtained
new intelligence suggesting that Israel is preparing to strike Iranian nuclear
facilities even as the Trump administration pursues a diplomatic deal with
Tehran.
But threats of war will only lead to Iran “doubling down on its current
position,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme
at London’s Chatham House think tank, told CNN. “The best way to invigorate the
talks would be through backchannelling and quiet discussions between both
sides.”In an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Thursday, US Ambassador to
Israel Mike Huckabee signaled potential American support for Israel’s nuclear
plans under the right conditions. “I can’t imagine the US would object to a
sovereign nation defending itself against what they perceive as a legitimate
threat to their very lives,” Huckabee said. He acknowledged that the US is aware
Israel is making preparations for potential military action. “We certainly are
aware of what the Israelis are at least preparing for. But it’s not that they
have made a firm decision. I think they recognize they face an existential
threat from Iran.”Experts say an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities
would likely spell the end of its negotiations with the US, and could even
prompt Tehran to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT), which promotes nuclear disarmament. Trita Parsi, executive vice
president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, said the Trump
administration has “unnecessarily walked themselves into a dead-end by insisting
on zero enrichment,” fueling the idea that Israeli strikes will follow if Iran
doesn’t back down. Iran, he added, is probably not taking those threats
seriously.
But if they do materialize in the midst of nuclear talks with the US, he said,
Tehran is likely to respond with massive retaliation. “They won’t play the
patience game any longer,” Parsi said. “If the Israelis were to do anything, it
has to be clearly understood that it is not about destroying the program at this
point, because they don’t have that capability.” Parsi added. “It is only about
destroying diplomacy.”
Israel may change tack to allow aid groups in Gaza to stay
in charge of non-food aid
Sam Mednick/The Associated Press/May 24, 2025
TEL AVIV, Israel/As pressure mounts to get more aid into Gaza, Israel appears to
be changing tack and may let aid groups operating in the battered enclave remain
in charge of non-food assistance while leaving food distribution to a newly
established U.S.-backed group, according to a letter obtained by The Associated
Press. The development indicates Israel may be walking back from its plans to
tightly control all aid to Gaza and prevent aid agencies long established in the
territory from delivering it in the same way they have done in the past. Israel
accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid but the United Nations and aid groups deny
there is significant diversion. The U.N. has rejected Israel’s plan, saying it
allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates human humanitarian principles
and won’t be effective. Israel had blocked food, fuel, medicine and all other
supplies from entering Gaza for nearly three months, worsening a humanitarian
crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians there. Experts have warned of a high risk of
famine and international criticism and outrage over Israel's offensive has
escalated. Even the United States, a staunch ally, has voiced concerns over the
hunger crisis. The letter, dated May 22, is from Jake Wood, the head of the
Israel-approved Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, and is addressed to COGAT,
the Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory. It
says that Israel and GHF have agreed to allow non-food humanitarian aid — from
medical supplies to hygiene items and shelter materials — to be handled and
distributed under an existing system, which is led by the United Nations. U.N.
agencies have so far provided the bulk of the aid for Gaza. The foundation would
still maintain control over food distribution, but there would be a period of
overlap with aid groups, the letter said. “GHF acknowledges that we do not
possess the technical capacity or field infrastructure to manage such
distributions independently, and we fully support the leadership of these
established actors in this domain,” it said. The foundation confirmed the
authenticity of the letter. A spokesman for GHF said the agreement with Israel
came after persistent advocacy. While it acknowledged that many aid groups
remain opposed to the plan, it said GHF will continue to advocate for an
expansion of aid into Gaza and to allow aid groups' work in the enclave to
proceed. COGAT declined to comment on the letter and referred the AP to the
office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which did not respond to a
request for comment.
U.N. officials also did not reply to requests for comment.
Unclear who is funding GHF
The GHF, which is not yet up and working in Gaza, is run by security
contractors, ex-military officers and humanitarian aid officials, and has the
backing of Israel. The group says it plans to handle food aid, initially from a
handful of hubs in southern and central Gaza with armed private contractors that
would guard the distribution. Additional sites will be opened within a month,
including in northern Gaza. The letter says aid agencies will continue providing
food assistance in parallel to the GHF until at least eight sites are up and
running. Aid groups have been pushing back on the GHF and Israel's plans to take
over the handling of food aid, saying it could forcibly displace large numbers
of Palestinians by pushing them toward the distribution hubs and that the
foundation doesn't have the capacity to meet the needs of the Palestinians in
Gaza.It’s also unclear who is funding the GHF, which claims to have more than
$100 million in commitments from a foreign government donor but has not named
the donor.
'Functioning aid'
The letter says that GHF's Wood was on a call with the CEOs of six aid groups
discussing the new plans, including Save the Children, International Medical
Corps, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, CARE International and Project
HOPE. Rabih Torbay, head of Project HOPE, confirmed the call and said his
organization was encouraged to hear that the delivery of medicines and other
non-food items would continue under the current system. Still, Torbay appealed
for food aid to be allowed into Gaza without “obstruction or politicization.”A
spokesperson for CARE said it has shared its concerns regarding GHF’s proposal
for food distribution in the hubs and reiterated the importance of using
existing distribution mechanisms under the U.N. The spokesperson said the
meeting was an opportunity to ask a lot of questions, but CARE's attendance was
not an endorsement of the effort. Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel
for the International Crisis Group, says the letter is a clear sign that both
Israel and the GHF recognize the humanitarian catastrophe people face in Gaza
and the need for immediate aid. “The GHF and Israel are clearly scrambling to
get something that works — or at least the appearance of functioning aid — and
that this mechanism is not ready or equipped or fitting for the needs of the
population in Gaza,” Zonszein said. Ahmed Bayram, Middle East spokesperson for
the Norwegian Refugee Council, said that Israel is part of the conflict and
should not be in control of the aid distribution. “Israel interfering in parts
or all of that process would be damaging to the independence and neutrality of
humanitarian aid,” Bayram said.
Humanitarian principles
The GHF came under more scrutiny this week, with TRIAL International — a
Geneva-based advocacy group focusing on international justice — saying Friday
that it was taking legal action to urge Swiss authorities to monitor the group,
which is registered in Switzerland. The foundation's spokesperson has insisted
that it abides by humanitarian principles and operates free from Israeli
control. The spokesperson, speaking anonymously under the foundation's policy,
told the AP earlier this week that it is not a military operation and that its
armed security guards are necessary for it to work in Gaza.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked
southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s
retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to
Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and
combatants in its count.
Israeli strike kills nine of Gaza doctor's children, hospital says
Mallory Moench - BBC News/May 24, 2025
An Israeli air strike on Gaza hit the home of a doctor and killed nine of her 10
children, the hospital where she works in the city of Khan Younis says. Nasser
hospital said one of Dr Alaa al-Najjar's children and her husband were injured,
but survived. Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who
operated on her surviving 11-year-old boy, told the BBC it was "unbearably
cruel" that his mother, who spent years caring for children as a paediatrician,
could lose almost all her own in a single missile strike. Israel's military said
its aircraft had struck "a number of suspects" in Khan Younis on Friday, and
"the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review". A video
shared by the director of the Hamas-run health ministry and verified by the BBC
showed small burned bodies lifted from the rubble of a strike in Khan Younis.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its "aircraft struck a number of suspects
who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the
area of Khan Younis". "The Khan Younis area is a dangerous war zone. Before
beginning operations there, the IDF evacuated civilians from this area for their
own safety," the Israeli military said.
In a general statement on Saturday, the IDF said it had struck more than 100
targets across Gaza over the past day. The health ministry said at least 74
people had been killed by the Israeli military over the 24 hour-period leading
up to about midday on Saturday. Dr Muneer Alboursh, director of the health
ministry, said on X that the al-Najjars' family house was hit minutes after Dr
al-Najjar's husband Hamdi had returned home after driving his wife to work. Dr
Alboursh said the eldest of Dr al-Najjar's children was aged 12. Mr Groom said
the children's father was "very badly injured", in a video posted on the
Instagram account of another British surgeon working at Nasser hospital,
Victoria Rose. He told the BBC that the father had a "penetrating injury to his
head". He said he had asked about the father, also a doctor at the hospital, and
had been told he had "no political and no military connections and doesn't seem
to be prominent on social media". He described it as an "unimaginable" situation
for Dr Alaa al-Najjar. Mr Groom said the surviving 11-year-old boy, Adam, was
"quite small" for his age. "His left arm was just about hanging off, he was
covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations," he
told the BBC. "Since both his parents are doctors, he seemed to be among the
privileged group within Gaza, but as we lifted him onto the operating table, he
felt much younger than 11." "Our little boy could survive, but we don't know
about his father," he added. Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run Civil
Defence agency, said on Telegram on Friday afternoon that his teams had
recovered eight bodies and several injured from the al-Najjar house near a
petrol station in Khan Younis. The hospital initially posted on Facebook that
eight children had been killed, then two hours later updated that number to
nine. Another doctor, Youssef Abu al-Rish, said in a statement posted by the
health ministry that he had arrived to the operating room to find Dr al-Najjar
waiting for information about her surviving son and tried to console her. In an
interview recorded by AFP news agency, relative Youssef al-Najjar said: "Enough!
Have mercy on us! We plead to all countries, the international community, the
people, Hamas, and all factions to have mercy on us. "We are exhausted from the
displacement and the hunger, enough!" On Friday, UN Secretary-General António
Guterres warned that people in Gaza were enduring what may be "the cruellest
phase" of the war, and denounced Israel's blockade on humanitarian aid imposed
in March. Israel partially lifted the blockade earlier this week. Israeli
military body Cogat said 83 more trucks carrying flour, food, medical equipment
pharmaceutical drugs entered Gaza on Friday. The UN has repeatedly said the
amount of aid entering is nowhere near enough for the territory's 2.1 million
people - saying between 500 to 600 trucks a day are needed - and has called for
Israel to allow in much more. The limited amount of food that trickled into Gaza
this week sparked chaotic scenes, with armed looters attacking an aid convoy and
Palestinians crowding outside bakeries in a desperate attempt to obtain bread. A
UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza's population was at "critical risk" of
famine.People in Gaza have told the BBC they have no food, and malnourished
mothers are unable to breastfeed babies.
Displaced Palestinians reach through a bakery window as they try to obtain bread
after a limited amount of flour entered the Gaza Strip, where humanitarian aid
has been severely restricted since March 2, in Nusseirat Refugee Camp, Gaza on
May 22, 2025.
Chronic shortages of water are also worsening as desalination and hygiene plants
are running out of fuel, and Israel's expanding military offensive causes new
waves of displacement. Israel has said the blockade was intended to put pressure
on Hamas to release the hostages still held in Gaza. Israel has accused Hamas of
stealing supplies, which the group has denied. Israel launched a military
campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023,
in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. At
least 53,901 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in
Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
Israeli use of human
shields in Gaza was systematic, soldiers and former detainees tell the AP
Sam Mednick And Samy Magdy/The Associated Press/May 24, 2025
TEL AVIV, Israel — The only time the Palestinian man wasn't bound or
blindfolded, he said, was when he was used by Israeli soldiers as their human
shield.
Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan
was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs
and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next.
“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we'll kill
you,'" the 36-year-old told The Associated Press, describing the 2 1/2 weeks he
was held last summer by the Israeli military in northern Gaza. Orders often came
from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear
locations, said an Israeli officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear
of reprisal. Several Palestinians and soldiers told the AP that Israeli troops
are systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending
them into buildings and tunnels to check for explosives or militants. The
dangerous practice has become ubiquitous during 19 months of war, they said. In
response to these allegations, Israel's military says it strictly prohibits
using civilians as shields — a practice it has long accused Hamas of using in
Gaza. Israeli officials blame the militants for the civilian death toll in its
offensive that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. In a statement to
the AP, the military said it also bans otherwise coercing civilians to
participate in operations, and "all such orders are routinely emphasized to the
forces." The military said it's investigating several cases alleging that
Palestinians were involved in missions, but wouldn't provide details. It didn't
answer questions about the reach of the practice or any orders from commanding
officers.
The AP spoke with seven Palestinians who described being used as shields in Gaza
and the occupied West Bank and with two members of Israel's military who said
they engaged in the practice, which is prohibited by international law. Rights
groups are ringing the alarm, saying it's become standard procedure increasingly
used in the war. “These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic
failure and a horrifying moral collapse,” said Nadav Weiman, executive director
of Breaking the Silence — a whistleblower group of former Israeli soldiers that
has collected testimonies about the practice from within the military. “Israel
rightly condemns Hamas for using civilians as human shields, but our own
soldiers describe doing the very same.”Abu Hamadan said he was detained in
August after being separated from his family, and soldiers told him he'd help
with a “special mission.” He was forced, for 17 days, to search houses and
inspect every hole in the ground for tunnels, he said. Soldiers stood behind him
and, once it was clear, entered the buildings to damage or destroy them, he
said. He spent each night bound in a dark room, only to wake up and do it again.
The use of human shields ‘caught on like fire’
Rights groups say Israel has used Palestinians as shields in Gaza and the West
Bank for decades. The Supreme Court outlawed the practice in 2005. But the
groups continued to document violations. Still, experts say this war is the
first time in decades the practice — and the debate around it — has been so
widespread. The two Israeli soldiers who spoke to the AP — and a third who
provided testimony to Breaking the Silence — said commanders were aware of the
use of human shields and tolerated it, with some giving orders to do so. Some
said it was referred to as the “mosquito protocol" and that Palestinians were
also referred to as “wasps” and other dehumanizing terms. The soldiers — who
said they're no longer serving in Gaza — said the practice sped up operations,
saved ammunition, and spared combat dogs from injury or death.
The soldiers said they first became aware human shields were being used shortly
after the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, and that it
became widespread by the middle of 2024. Orders to "bring a mosquito” often came
via radio, they said — shorthand everyone understood. Soldiers acted on
commanding officers' orders, according to the officer who spoke to the AP. He
said that by the end of his nine months in Gaza, every infantry unit used a
Palestinian to clear houses before entering. “Once this idea was initiated, it
caught on like fire in a field," the 26-year-old said. "People saw how effective
and easy it was.”He described a 2024 planning meeting where a brigade commander
presented to the division commander a slide reading “get a mosquito” and a
suggestion they might “just catch one off the streets.”The officer wrote two
incident reports to the brigade commander detailing the use of human shields,
reports that would have been escalated to the division chief, he said. The
military said it had no comment when asked whether it received them. One report
documented the accidental killing of a Palestinian, he said — troops didn't
realize another unit was using him as a shield and shot him as he ran into a
house. The officer recommended the Palestinians be dressed in army clothes to
avoid misidentification. He said he knew of at least one other Palestinian who
died while used as a shield — he passed out in a tunnel. Troops unsuccessfully
pushed back, a sergeant says. Convincing soldiers to operate lawfully when they
see their enemy using questionable practices is difficult, said Michael Schmitt,
a distinguished professor of international law at the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point. Israeli officials and other observers say Hamas uses civilians as
shields as it embeds itself in communities, hiding fighters in hospitals and
schools. “It’s really a heavy lift to look at your own soldiers and say you have
to comply,” Schmitt said. One soldier told the AP his unit tried to refuse to
use human shields in mid-2024 but were told they had no choice, with a
high-ranking officer saying they shouldn’t worry about international
humanitarian law. The sergeant — speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisal — said the troops used a 16-year-old and a 30-year-old for a few days.
The boy shook constantly, he said, and both repeated “Rafah, Rafah” — Gaza’s
southernmost city, where more than 1 million Palestinians had fled from fighting
elsewhere at that point in the war. It seemed they were begging to be freed, the
sergeant said. ‘I have children,’ one man says he pleaded. Masoud Abu Saeed said
he was used as a shield for two weeks in March 2024 in the southern city of Khan
Younis. “This is extremely dangerous," he recounted telling a soldier. "I have
children and want to reunite with them.”The 36-year-old said he was forced into
houses, buildings and a hospital to dig up suspected tunnels and clear areas. He
said he wore a first-responder vest for easy identification, carrying a phone,
hammer and chain cutters. During one operation, he bumped into his brother, used
as a shield by another unit, he said. They hugged. “I thought Israel's army had
executed him,” he said.
Palestinians also report being used as shields in the West Bank. Hazar Estity
said soldiers took her from her Jenin refugee camp home in November, forcing her
to film inside several apartments and clear them before troops entered.
She said she pleaded to return to her 21-month-old son, but soldiers didn't
listen. “I was most afraid that they would kill me," she said. “And that I
wouldn’t see my son again.”
Trump Is Making Netanyahu Nervous
Daniel Byman/The Atlantic/May 24, 2025
Donald Trump’s itinerary for his recent trip to the Middle East featured a
glaring omission. The president visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
and Qatar, but not Israel, ostensibly America’s main ally in the region. When
asked about the snub, he insisted that it wasn’t a snub at all: “This is good
for Israel,” Trump said, referring to the alliances he’d be strengthening with
countries that were, notably, not named Israel. By passing over the country,
Trump gave a clear signal that Israel’s concerns are not his top priority in the
Middle East, and perhaps haven’t been for some time. Judging by his
administration’s approach to the region, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Trump has pursued policies that have repeatedly undermined the agenda of Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—and show that divisions between the United
States and Israel are widening.
Most Israelis welcomed Trump’s reelection: Almost two-thirds of them believed he
would support their interests more than Kamala Harris would, and with good
reason. In his first term, he’d moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, torn up
America’s nuclear deal with Iran, recognized Israelis’ annexation of the Golan
Heights, and helped normalize their relations with several Arab countries.
Unlike Harris, their thinking went, Trump wouldn’t compromise with Iran or make
them yield to Hamas. Four months into his administration, their faith is being
tested.
Let’s start with Iran. For weeks, the U.S. has been negotiating with Israel’s
archenemy over its nuclear program, raising the possibility that the Trump
administration might relieve sanctions and soften its stance toward the regime.
A deal isn’t inevitable, but the prospect alone is anathema to Netanyahu, who
detested America’s previous nuclear agreement and has made opposition to Iran
his signature foreign-policy mission. Gaza, too, has become a source of
disagreement, particularly this month, as Israel has ramped up missile strikes
on the region. The renewed offensive not only disrupts Trump’s (ridiculous) plan
to “take over” the region and rebuild it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”; it
also highlights his failure to end the conflict, which he’d promised to do in
short order. Netanyahu wants Hamas to be “totally defeated,” a goal he can’t
achieve without substantially prolonging the war. But earlier this month, Trump
called for a cease-fire, prompting fears in Israel that American support for its
military campaign might not last. In another worrisome sign for Israel, the
Trump administration recently negotiated the release of an Israeli American dual
citizen, Edan Alexander, without the country’s involvement. This bolstered
Netanyahu’s critics, who say he hasn’t done enough to free the remaining several
dozen Israeli hostages, more than 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Syria is another sore subject for Israel. During his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump
met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new head of state—the first time a U.S.
president has met with a leader from the country in 25 years. Trump announced
that he was lifting U.S. sanctions and called al-Sharaa “attractive” and “pretty
amazing.” Those probably aren’t the words Netanyahu would use. Israel sees al-Sharaa
as a threat, not least because of his former ties to al-Qaeda. In hopes of
weakening his new regime, Israel has bombed Syria, built military bases along
their shared border, and supported the Syrian Druze opposition. Israeli
officials had asked the Trump administration to keep sanctions in place. Trump
didn’t listen.
The United States is also defying Israel’s interests in Yemen. After the October
7 massacre, the Houthis in Yemen began attacking American naval vessels and
conducting missile strikes on Israel in solidarity with Hamas. The U.S.
responded by attacking the Houthis, which Israel applauded. Then, earlier this
month, the Trump administration negotiated a cease-fire with the Houthis. Israel
was pointedly excluded from the deal and left to fend for itself: The agreement
was announced only two days after a Houthi missile struck the country’s main
airport, and additional strikes on Israel have followed the cease-fire.
More broadly—and perhaps most important in the long term—the Trump
administration is less inclined to take on the assertive role that America has
traditionally played in the Middle East, and which Israel has come to depend on.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. maintained a sizable military presence in
the region and provided enormous support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, even as
his administration pushed Israel to negotiate a cease-fire and work with
moderate Palestinians. Trump, by contrast, is withdrawing some troops from Syria
and has staffed his Cabinet with officials who share his skepticism of foreign
intervention. America’s leadership in the Middle East has shaped the region in
ways that have massively benefited Israel: deterring and coercing Iran,
neutralizing the Islamic State and other terrorists, and conciliating moderate
Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration won’t
abandon those roles, but it is already pulling back from some of them. None of
this means, however, that the U.S.-Israel alliance is in crisis. Disagreements
will continue to emerge, but Israelis have reason to believe that America’s
support will generally remain strong. Most of Trump’s advisers still see
themselves as backers of Israel, as do most congressional Republicans. Despite
fears from some Israelis, Trump seems unlikely to withdraw support from their
military operations in Gaza, in part because he has expressed so little concern
for the humanitarian crisis afflicting Palestinians. And the president has
continued to support militant Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and appointed
an ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who has previously backed Israel’s campaign to
annex the region. (Ironically, some of this support has made Netanyahu’s job
harder by emboldening the far right of his coalition, whose calls for sweeping
policy changes are getting more difficult for him to ignore.) Nevertheless,
Israel’s situation has fundamentally changed compared with only a few years ago.
Relative to previous presidents, Trump is much more willing to ignore the
country’s interests and pursue goals that openly subvert them. Israel isn’t
likely to lose America as an ally. But that ally could soon make the Middle East
look a lot more threatening.
A sea of controversy as
Trump stirs old tensions over Persian Gulf name
RFI/May 24, 2025
Ahead of a May tour of the Middle East, US President Donald Trump revived a
long-running dispute over the name of the body of water between Iran and the
Arabian Peninsula – should it be called the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Gulf or
just the Gulf?
A few days before the trip that took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates (UAE), Trump reportedly floated the idea of renaming the Persian
Gulf the "Arabian Gulf". It echoed an earlier decision to rename the Gulf of
Mexico the "Gulf of America" in an executive order signed hours after he took
office in January. In the end, Trump gave up on the idea during his week in the
Middle East, resorting to realpolitik – perhaps wary of upsetting the Iranians
even if it meant disappointing his Arab partners. The sea – bordered by Iraq,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and the Musandam Peninsula (an
exclave of Oman) on one side, and Iran on the other – has been at the centre of
a naming dispute for decades.
Centuries of use
The 251,000 km² gulf in the Indian Ocean has been known as the Persian Gulf
since at least the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The name
refers to the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire in history. By the
18th and 19th centuries, the name Persian Gulf appeared in treaties signed by
regional leaders and the British, who dominated the area at the time.
Russia and Ukraine swap
hundreds more prisoners hours after massive attack on Kyiv
AP/May 24, 2025
KYIV, Ukraine: Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds more prisoners on Saturday
as part of a major swap that amounted to a rare moment of cooperation in
otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire. The exchange came hours after
Kyiv came under a large-scale Russian drone and missile attack that left at
least 15 people injured. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s
defense ministry said each side brought home 307 more soldiers on Saturday, a
day after each released a total of 390 combatants and civilians. Further
releases expected over the weekend are set to make the swap the largest in more
than three years of war. “We expect more to come tomorrow,” Zelensky said on his
official Telegram channel. Russia’s defense ministry also said it expected the
exchange to be continued, though it did not give details. Hours earlier,
explosions and anti-aircraft fire were heard throughout Kyiv as many sought
shelter in subway stations as Russian drones and missiles targeted the Ukrainian
capital overnight. In talks held in Istanbul earlier this month — the first time
the two sides met face to face for peace talks since Russia’s 2022 full-scale
invasion — Kyiv and Moscow agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war and civilian
detainees each.
‘A difficult night’
Officials said Russia attacked Ukraine with 14 ballistic missiles and 250 Shahed
drones overnight while Ukrainian forces shot down six missiles and neutralized
245 drones — 128 drones were shot down and 117 were thwarted using electronic
warfare.
The Kyiv City Military Administration said it was one of the biggest combined
missile and drone attacks on the capital. “A difficult night for all of us,” the
administration said in a statement. Posting on X, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister
Andrii Sybiha called it “clear evidence that increased sanctions pressure on
Moscow is necessary to accelerate the peace process.”Katarina Mathernova, the
European Union’s ambassador to Kyiv, described it as “horrific.” “If anyone
still doubts Russia wants war to continue — read the news,” Katarina Mathernová
wrote on the social network.
Air raid alert in Kyiv
The debris of intercepted missiles and drones fell in at least six Kyiv city
districts. According to the acting head of the city’s military administration,
Tymur Tkachenko, six people required medical care after the attack and two fires
were sparked in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district. The Obolon district, where a
residential building was heavily damaged in the attack, was the hardest hit with
at least five wounded in the area, the administration said. Yurii Bondarchuk, a
local resident, said the air raid siren “started as usual, then the drones
started to fly around as they constantly do.” Moments later, he heard a boom and
saw shattered glass fly through the air. “The balcony is totally wiped out, as
well as the windows and the doors,” he said as he stood in the dark, smoking a
cigarette to calm his nerves while firefighters worked to extinguish the flames.
The air raid alert in Kyiv lasted more than seven hours, warning of incoming
missiles and drones. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, warned residents ahead of
the attack that more than 20 Russian strike drones were heading toward the city.
As the attack continued, he said drone debris fell on a shopping mall and a
residential building in Obolon. Emergency services were headed to the site,
Klitschko said. Separately, 13 civilians were killed on Friday and overnight
into Saturday in Russian attacks in Ukraine’s south, east and north, regional
authorities said. Three people died after a Russian ballistic missile targeted
port infrastructure in Odesa on the Black Sea, local Gov. Oleh Kiper reported.
Russia later said the strike Friday targeted a cargo ship carrying military
equipment. Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday claimed its forces overnight
struck various military targets across Ukraine, including missile and
drone-producing plants, a reconnaissance center and a launching site for
anti-aircraft missiles.
A complex deal
The prisoner swap on Friday was the first phase of a complicated deal involving
the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side
It took place at the border with Belarus, in northern Ukraine, according to a
Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak publicly. The released Russians were taken to Belarus for
medical treatment, the Russian Defense Ministry said. However, the exchange —
the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving
Ukrainian civilians so far — did not herald a halt in the fighting. Battles
continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where tens of
thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its
deep strikes. After the May 16 Istanbul meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan
Fidan called the prisoner swap a “confidence-building measure” and said the
parties had agreed in principle to meet again. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said on Friday that there has been no agreement yet on the venue for the
next round of talks as diplomatic maneuvering continued. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would give Ukraine a draft document outlining
its conditions for a “sustainable, long-term, comprehensive” peace agreement,
once the ongoing prisoner exchange had finished.
Far apart on key conditions
European leaders have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his
feet in peace efforts while he tries to press his larger army’s battlefield
initiative and capture more Ukrainian land. The Istanbul meeting revealed that
both sides remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting. One
such condition for Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, is a temporary
ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. Russia’s Defense
Ministry said that overnight and early on Saturday its forces shot down over 100
Ukrainian drones over six provinces in western and southern Russia. The drone
strikes injured three people in the Tula region south of Moscow, local Gov.
Dmitriy Milyaev said, and sparked a fire at an industrial site there. *Andriy
Kovalenko, of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Saturday
that the drones hit a plant in Tula that makes chemicals used in explosives and
rocket fuel.
US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security
sources
AFP/May 24, 2025
DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United
States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.
“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members
were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the
seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden. “The US strike on
Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source,
referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda. The second
security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were
not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.
Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),
as the militant network’s most dangerous branch. Born in 2009 from the merger of
Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of
Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants
against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government. Earlier this month, the
United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large
swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American
strikes on militant-held areas of the country. The Houthis began firing at
shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start
of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain
beginning in January 2024. The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of
thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises,
although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce
in 2022.
African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after
clashes
AFP/May 24, 2025
ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on
Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and
demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation. The latest fighting
in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with
the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle,
resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations. Despite a
lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya
Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence,
calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”In a statement on X, the
council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals
for no external interference.”Libya is split between the UN-recognized
government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival
administration in the east. The country has remained deeply divided since the
2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group
aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third
group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s
airport. It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to
dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the
444 Brigade.
Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa
hold talks in Istanbul
Reuters/May 24, 2025
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian
President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, news channel CNN Turk and
state media said, broadcasting video of the two leaders greeting each other. The
visit comes the day after US President Donald Trump’s administration issued
orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria. Trump had pledged
to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after its devastating civil
war. Video footage on Turkish television showed Erdogan shaking hands with
Sharaa as he emerged from his car at the Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the
Bosphorus Strait in Turkiye’s largest city. The two countries’ foreign ministers
also attended the talks, as well as Turkiye’s defense minister and the head of
the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, according to Turkiye’s state-owned Anadolu
news agency. The Syrian delegation also included Defense Minister Murhaf Abu
Qasra, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.MIT chief Ibrahim Kalin and
Sharaa this week held talks in Syria on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militant group
laying down its weapons and integrating into Syrian security forces, a Turkish
security source said previously.
Syria reboots interior ministry as Damascus seeks to
reassure West
AFP/May 24, 2025
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities on Saturday announced an interior ministry
restructuring that includes fighting cross-border drug and people smuggling as
they seek to improve ties with Western nations that have lifted sanctions. Keen
to reboot and rebuild nearly 14 years after a devastating civil war broke out,
the new authorities in Damascus have hailed Washington’s lifting of US
sanctions. The move was formalized Friday after being announced by President
Donald Trump on a Gulf tour this month during which he shook hands with Syria’s
jihadist-turned-interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba
said the interior ministry restructure included reforms and creating “a modern
civil security institution that adopts transparency and respects international
human rights standards.”It includes setting up a citizens’ complaints department
and incorporating the police and General Security agency into an Internal
Security command, he told a press conference. A border security body for Syria’s
land and sea frontiers will be tasked with “combating illegal activities,
particularly drug and human smuggling networks,” Baba said. The restructure
includes “strengthening the role of the anti-drug department and further
developing its importance within Syria and abroad” after the country became a
major exporter of illicit stimulant captagon, he added. Another department will
handle security for government facilities and foreign missions, as embassies
reopen in Syria following Bashar Assad’s ouster in December.
A tourism police body will secure visitors and sites as the war-torn country —
home to renowned UNESCO World Heritage sites — seeks to relaunch tourism.
Syria’s foreign ministry welcomed Washington’s lifting of sanctions, calling the
move “a positive step in the right direction to reduce humanitarian and economic
struggles in the country.”Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said
the recent US and European Union steps to lift sanctions were “of critical
importance in efforts to bring stability and security to Syria.”The European
Union announced the lifting of its economic sanctions on Syria earlier this
month. Sharaa met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday on his third visit
to Turkiye since taking power on a visit to discuss “common issues,” Syria’s
presidency said.Ankara is a major backer of Syria’s new authorities, who are
negotiating with Kurdish forces that control swathes of the northeast and that
Turkiye considers “terrorists.” A government delegation made a first visit
Saturday to the notorious Al-Hol camp in the northeast that hosts families of
suspected Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.Trump said he wanted to give
Syria’s new rulers “a chance at greatness” after their overthrow of Assad. While
in Istanbul, Sharaa met with the US ambassador to Turkiye, who doubles as
Washington’s Syria envoy. In a statement, Tom Barrack said: “President Trump’s
goal is to enable the new government to create the conditions for the Syrian
people to not only survive but thrive.”He added that it would aid Washington’s
“primary objective” of ensuring the “enduring defeat” of IS.
US sanctions were first imposed on Syria in 1979 under the rule of Bashar
Assad’s father Hafez. They were sharply expanded after the bloody repression of
anti-government protests in 2011 triggered Syria’s civil war. The new
administration has been looking to build relations with the West and roll back
sanctions, but some governments expressed reluctance, pointing to the Islamist
past of leading figures. The sanctions relief extends to the new government on
condition that Syria not provide safe haven for terrorist organizations and
ensure security for religious and ethnic minorities, the US Treasury Department
said. Concurrently, the US State Department issued a 180-day waiver for the
Caesar Act to make sure that sanctions do not obstruct foreign investment in
Syria. The 2020 legislation severely sanctioned any entity or company
cooperating with the now ousted government. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
said the waiver would “facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water
and sanitation, and enable a more effective humanitarian response across Syria.”
However, Rubio cautioned that Trump “has made clear his expectation that relief
will be followed by prompt action by the Syrian government on important policy
priorities.”He said lifting the sanctions aims to promote “recovery and
reconstruction efforts.”Syria’s 14-year civil war killed more than half a
million people and ravaged its infrastructure.The interior ministry’s spokesman
said around a third of the population had been under suspicion by the Assad
government’s feared intelligence and security services. Analysts say a full
lifting of sanctions may take time, as some US restrictions are acts that need
to be reversed by Congress.Syrian authorities also need to ensure an attractive
environment for foreign investment.
Palestinian Faction Chiefs
Supported by Iran Quit Damascus
Asharq Al Awsat/24 May 2025
The leaders of pro-Iran Palestinian factions close to former ruler Bashar
al-Assad have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities, Palestinian
sources said Friday, a key US demand for lifting sanctions.
A pro-Iran Palestinian faction leader who left Syria after Assad's December
overthrow said on condition of anonymity that "most of the Palestinian factional
leadership that received support from Tehran has left Damascus" to countries
including Lebanon, while another still based there confirmed the development.
"The factions have fully handed over weapons in their headquarters or with their
cadres" to the authorities, who also received "lists of names of faction members
possessing individual weapons" and demanded that those arms be handed over, the
first added.
A third Palestinian faction source in Damascus said that after Assad's
overthrow, "we gathered our members' weapons ourselves and handed them over, but
we have kept individual light weapons for protection... with the (authorities')
authorization".
In the Yarmuk Palestinian camp in the Damascus suburbs which was devastated
during the war, factional banners usually at the entrance were gone and party
buildings were closed and unguarded, AFP photographers said. Factional premises
elsewhere in Damascus also appeared closed.
'No cooperation'
Many Palestinians fled to Syria in 1948 following the creation of Israel, and
from the mid-1960s Syria began hosting the leadership of Palestinian factions.
Pro-Iran Palestinian factions had enjoyed considerable freedom of movement under
Assad. Washington last week announced it was lifting sanctions on Syria after
earlier saying Damascus needed to respond to demands including suppressing
"terrorism" and preventing "Iran and its proxies from exploiting Syrian
territory". According to the White House, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia last
week, US President Donald Trump gave new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa a list of
demands that included deporting Palestinian factions. The factions along with
groups from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen are part of the Iran-backed "axis of
resistance" against Israel, some of which fought alongside Assad's forces after
civil war erupted in 2011. In neighboring Lebanon, a government official told
AFP that the disarmament of Palestinian camps, where factions usually handle
security, would begin next month based on an accord with visiting Palestinian
president Mahmud Abbas.Sharaa's opposition group led the offensive that ousted
Assad, a close ally of Iran.
Last month, Sharaa met Abbas on a visit to Damascus.The factions "did not
receive any official request from the authorities to leave Syrian territory" but
instead faced restrictions, the first Palestinian factional leader said, noting
that some factions "were de facto prohibited from operating" or their members
were arrested.
'Unwelcome'
The new authorities have seized property from "private homes, offices, vehicles
and military training camps in the Damascus countryside and other provinces", he
said. The Syrian authorities did not immediately provide comment to AFP when
asked about the matter.Earlier this month, officials from the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) said Syrian authorities
briefly detained factional chief Talal Naji. In April, the Al-Quds Brigades said
Islamic Jihad's Syria official Khaled Khaled and organizing committee member
Yasser al-Zafri had been detained "without explanation".The second Palestinian
official, from a group that has remained in Damascus with limited
representation, said there was "no cooperation between most of the Palestinian
factions and the new Syrian administration".
"The response to our contact is mostly cold or delayed. We feel like unwelcome
guests, though they don't say that clearly," he added, also requesting
anonymity.
The Fatah movement and militant group Hamas appear to be unaffected.
A Hamas official in Gaza told AFP that it had "channels of communication with
our brothers in Syria". Hamas left after the civil war began as ties with the
government deteriorated amid the Palestinian group's support for opposition
demands, and has minimal representation there. Yarmuk camp resident Marwan
Mnawar, a retiree, said that "nobody knows what happened to the factional
leadership", adding that "people just want to live, they are exhausted" by the
conflict and factional infighting.
Syria hails US lifting of
sanctions as ‘positive step’
AFP/May 24, 2025
DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday hailed the formal lifting of sanctions by the United
States as a “positive step” that will help its post-war recovery. “The Syrian
Arab Republic welcomes the decision from the American government to lift the
sanctions imposed on Syria and its people for long years,” a foreign ministry
statement said. The United States lifted comprehensive economic sanctions on
Syria on Friday, marking a dramatic policy shift following the December
overthrow of Bashar Assad and opening the door for investment in the country’s
reconstruction. The ministry described the move as “a positive step in the right
direction to reduce humanitarian and economic struggles in the country.”It
formalized a decision announced by US President Donald Trump during a visit to
Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The sanctions relief extends to Syria’s new
government with conditions that the country does not provide safe haven for
terrorist organizations and ensure security for religious and ethnic minorities,
the US Treasury Department said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the waiver
would “facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water and sanitation,
and enable a more effective humanitarian response across Syria.”The
authorization covers new investment in Syria, provision of financial services
and transactions involving Syrian petroleum products. “Today’s actions represent
the first step on delivering on the president’s vision of a new relationship
between Syria and the United States,” Rubio said. The United States had imposed
sweeping restrictions on financial transactions with Syria during the country’s
14-year civil war and made clear it would use sanctions to punish anyone
involved in reconstruction as long as Assad remained in power. Since Assad’s
ouster, Syria’s new government, led by Islamist former rebels, some of them with
past links to Al-Qaeda, has been looking to build relations with Western
governments and roll back sanctions.
US ambassador says lifting
Syria sanctions will preserve US objective of defeating ISIS
Al Arabiya English/24 May ,2025
US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in
Istanbul on Saturday, according to an official statement seen by Al Arabiya
English. The US ambassador said lifting sanctions on Syria will preserve the
American objective of defeating ISIS. “I stressed the cessation of sanctions
against Syria will preserve the integrity of our primary objective – the
enduring defeat of ISIS – and will give the people of Syria a chance for a
better future,” he said in the statement released after the meeting. “I also
commended President al-Sharaa on taking meaningful steps towards enacting
President Trump’s points on foreign terrorist fighters, counter-ISIS measures,
relations with Israel, and camps and detention centers in [Northeast] Syria,” it
added. Barrack said Syria and US affirmed their commitment to investment in the
private sector in order to rebuild the Syrian economy: “The Syrian side and I
affirmed our commitment to continuing these important conversations and to
working together to develop private sector investment in Syria to rebuild the
economy, including through investment by regional and global partners such as
[Turkey], the Gulf, Europe, and the United States.”He said the issue of
sanctions on Syria was resolved, and that it was now time to beacon a “new,
welcoming Syria without sanctions.”
Iraq seeks deal to swap
kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian
Arab News/May 24, 2025
BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic
Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US
civilian, security sources said Saturday. The deal depends on US approval, the
senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the
matter is considered sensitive. Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton
University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023. There was no claim of
responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb
Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov. The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was
not involved. Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the
Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an
American citizen,” a senior security source said. The three Iraqi sources said
that Washington has not yet agreed to this. “The Americans have not yet agreed
to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held
for killing an American citizen,” one official said. Iraq is both a significant
ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years
negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes. The Iranian and
another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering
American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was
unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to
the country as part of her doctoral studies. Security and diplomatic sources
have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken
to Iran.In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage
video of Tsurkov since her abduction. AFP was unable to independently verify the
footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on May 24-25/2025
To President Trump: The Iranian Regime Will Always
Seek Your and America's Death
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/May 24, 2025
"When you chant 'Death to America!' it is not just a slogan – it is a policy." —
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Channel 1 (Iran), November 1,
2023.
What did Iran do with this windfall of billions in cash and at least $100
billion in unfrozen assets received during Obama's term? They funneled the money
into Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), and a sprawling regional terror network. Iran enriched uranium and
built long-range ballistic missiles -- some with a range far beyond what is
needed to attack Israel. Iran expanded its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and
Venezuela -- all while promising America's destruction with renewed fervor.
The dangerous reality is that while the United States continues to dangle olive
branches, Iran continues to rebuild its air defense systems and enlarge up its
ballistic missile arsenal for future attacks.
Like Russia's and China's, Iran's is not a regime seeking peace.
The willingness of many American foreign policy elites to believe that everyone
can be "brought in from the cold" is what continues to place the U.S. in
constant danger. The cruel fact is that the China, Russia and Iran have
different goals than the United States. The US and Trump want peace and
prosperity. China, Russia and Iran do not give a flying lawbook about their
citizens; they want conquest
We are not victims of Iran's deception; we are victims of our own delusions.
[E]very time a new U.S. president takes office, the same tired fantasy sprouts
up: "This time, it will be different." No, it will not. The regime has not
changed. We keep forgetting, and keep hoping that if we are nice enough or bribe
them enough, or if they bribe us enough, they will give up their dreams of an
Islamist empire.
America, and especially Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National
Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and all Congress need to wake up and acknowledge that
the U.S. cannot find peace through isolationism, and that Iran, Russia and China
will not be America's partners in peace.
As Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said, "When you chant 'Death
to America!' it is not just a slogan – it is a policy." The Iranian regime was
birthed through hatred of America and anti-Western rage, and over four decades
later, that hatred has not only endured — it has intensified. This is the
all-important truth that too many U.S. leaders, across both parties, have failed
to internalize. Their failure to understand this fundamental reality has made
America more vulnerable, not less. (Image source: MEMRI)
Since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, its regime has
operated with one unshakable and unwavering ideological mission: to defy,
destabilize and ultimately destroy the influence and presence of the United
States and its allies, especially Israel. This is not speculation. It is in the
slogans shouted in their streets, in the sermons delivered by their clerics, and
in the laws enshrined in their constitution.
Iran's constitution explicitly declares its goal to export the Islamic
Revolution beyond its borders. Jihad is not merely permitted -- it is
prescribed.
The preamble states:
"The Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps... will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers
of the country but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God's
way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God's law throughout the world."
Article 11, based on the Quranic verse 21:92, declares:
"All Muslims form a single nation and the government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran is required to base its overall politics on the merging and unity of the
Muslim nations. It must continuously strive to achieve the political, economic,
and cultural unity of the Islamic world."
Article 152 states that Iran's foreign policy is based on "the rejection of all
forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it," and on the
defense of the rights of all Muslims.
In short, nothing Western, thank you.
As Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said, "When you chant 'Death
to America!' it is not just a slogan – it is a policy." The Iranian regime was
birthed through hatred of America and anti-Western rage, and over four decades
later, that hatred has not only endured — it has intensified. This is the
all-important truth that too many U.S. leaders, across both parties, have failed
to internalize. Their failure to understand this fundamental reality has made
America more vulnerable, not less.
From President Jimmy Carter's indecisive handling of the Iran hostage crisis to
President Barack Obama's disastrous JCPOA "nuclear deal," the U.S. has
repeatedly tried to rehabilitate and "normalize" Iran's terrorist regime. Each
attempt was met not with gratitude or moderation from Iran, but with increased
hostility and aggression.
Carter offered silence and diplomacy during Iran's holding American citizens as
hostages; in return, he received humiliation. Obama offered billions of dollars
in sanctions relief, secret pallets of cash, and a weak agreement that let Iran
maintain its nuclear infrastructure and promised it the ability to acquire
nuclear weapons -- "not on my watch" but, conveniently, after his "watch," in
October 2025.
What did Iran do with this windfall of billions in cash and at least $100
billion in unfrozen assets received during Obama's term? They funneled the money
into Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), and a sprawling regional terror network. Iran enriched uranium and
built long-range ballistic missiles -- some with a range far beyond what is
needed to attack Israel. Iran expanded its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and
Venezuela -- all while promising America's destruction with renewed fervor.
As President Donald Trump takes on the challenge of confronting America's
enemies once again, he has shown a willingness to offer Iran a peaceful path
forward. Despite years of Iranian hostility and terrorism, Trump is offering a
new deal.
If you think that such regimes -- which include Vladimir Putin's Russia and Xi
Jinping's China -- would express gratitude or at least restraint towards the
U.S., you would be wrong. Instead, Khamenei launched a vicious tirade against
America and Israel, calling for the destruction of the Jewish state and publicly
denouncing Trump by name. Khamenei wrote on May 17:
"Some of the remarks made during the US President's trip to the region aren't
even worth a response at all. The level of those remarks is so low that they are
a source of shame for the American nation."
He later added:
"Trump said he wants to use power for peace. He's lying."
Even as Trump offers Iran's mullahs a lifeline, in return they spit venom. Like
Russia's and China's, Iran's is not a regime seeking peace.
The dangerous reality is that while the United States continues to dangle olive
branches, Iran continues to rebuild its air defense systems and enlarge up its
ballistic missile arsenal for future attacks.
In 2024, U.S. authorities exposed a chilling plot orchestrated by Iran to
assassinate Trump. Let that sink in: Khamenei's regime did not just threaten
Trump rhetorically -- it mobilized actual assets to try to murder him. Iran also
plotted to assassinate former senior US officials, and at least one journalist
in New York. Iran's bloodlust is not bound by international law, diplomatic
norms or any kind of human decency -- even for its own citizens, whom it
unhesitatingly imprisons, tortures and executes. Once someone is on Iran's hit
list -- whether a general, a diplomat, a president or even a novelist -- they
stay, with the mullah hovering for an opportunity to murder them. Iran's hit
list is not likely to expire with time or term limits. This ideological
intractability should terrify every American.
Iran's is not a normal regime with the conventional foreign policy goals of
building a prosperous state, at peace with its neighbors, for the benefit of its
citizens. Iran is run by a fanatical, revolutionary regime built on the bones of
jihad and "martyrdom." The Iranian regime's foreign policy is its religion, and
this religion, as an obligation, preaches the destruction of America (here and
here, here and here).
Every Friday, in mosques across Iran, state-paid imams whip the faithful are
into a frenzy with sermons calling for America's downfall (such as here and
here). Every year, the regime holds "Quds Day" rallies, where hundreds of
thousands pour into the streets to burn American and Israeli flags, chanting for
the annihilation of Western civilization. Khamenei does not hide this hate. It
is institutional. It is public. It is proud.
The willingness of many American foreign policy elites to believe that everyone
can be "brought in from the cold" is what continues to place the U.S. in
constant danger. The cruel fact is that the China, Russia and Iran have
different goals than the United States. The US and Trump want peace and
prosperity. China, Russia and Iran do not give a flying lawbook about their
citizens; they want conquest. How many more decades must we endure chants of
"Death to America" before we believe them? How many plots must we foil before we
stop offering peace to those who seek our destruction?
We are not victims of Iran's deception; we are victims of our own delusions. For
45 years, we have watched this regime assault our embassies, kill our soldiers,
kidnap our citizens, destabilize our allies, and defy every international norm.
Yet, every time a new U.S. president takes office, the same tired fantasy
sprouts up: "This time, it will be different." No, it will not. The regime has
not changed. We keep forgetting, and keep hoping that if we are nice enough or
bribe them enough, or if they bribe us enough, they will give up their dreams of
an Islamist empire.
Iran's nuclear program is not peaceful. It never was. Iran possesses enough
highly enriched uranium to build at least six nuclear warheads within a matter
of weeks -- if it has not already built them. Iran has accelerated the
installation of advanced centrifuges and reduced its cooperation with
international inspectors. Iran's leaders do not fear international law or
diplomatic pressure -- they exploit it. They sign agreements only to buy time.
They talk peace while they arm for war.
America, and especially Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National
Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and all Congress need to wake up and acknowledge that
the U.S. cannot find peace through isolationism, and that Iran, Russia and China
will not be America's partners in peace.
It is time to stop pretending that negotiations, sanctions relief and promises
of prosperity can undo the ideology of regimes that exist to destroy everything
America stands for. The US would benefit from adopting a policy grounded in
deterrence, and — if necessary — preemptive military action. Such a policy, at
least regarding Iran, would only be strengthened by working hand-in-hand with
America's strongest and most reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel, which has
long warned the West about Iran's true intentions. Such a policy would include
putting military options firmly back on the table — not as a bluff, but as an
actually credible threat.
The era of appeasement needs to end. If appeasement worked, that would be great.
Unfortunately, as we have seen from Emperor Montezuma on, it does not. The cost
of continued delusion is high.
We are now in the fifth decade of waiting, pleading, hoping and praying for Iran
to reform. Oh, please. No more olive branches. No more photo-ops. No more dreams
of a kinder, gentler Islamic Republic. This regime, Mr. President, will always
seek your death and that of your America. Every day that we pretend otherwise is
a day we give America's enemies more time to prepare their war machines for the
next strike. The time for illusions is over.
**Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and
board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on
the US foreign policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu
**Follow Majid Rafizadeh on X (formerly Twitter)
© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21644/iran-death-to-america
US-Iran Nuclear Negotiations: Is Iran Now a Nuclear
Power?
Colonel Charbel Barakat/May 24, 2025
Global observers are closely monitoring the trajectory of US-Iranian
negotiations, especially after the fifth round of talks held in Rome on Friday,
May 23/2025. The unexpected and premature departure of U.S. envoy Whitkov was
widely noted, sparking speculation that the discussions may have hit a
roadblock. However, neither the U.S. delegation nor their Iranian counterparts
issued any public statements. Oman’s foreign minister offered only a cautious
remark about “inconclusive progress” — a diplomatic phrase that suggests the
talks remain unresolved, without signaling a complete breakdown. Notably,
neither side has officially declared the dialogue over.
Adding a layer of complexity, the U.S. Secretary of State informed the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that Iran must not be allowed to enrich
uranium domestically. He emphasized that if Tehran seeks to maintain a peaceful
nuclear program, it must rely on externally supplied enriched uranium, limited
to internationally acceptable levels. This position was swiftly rejected by
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who declared Iran’s right to enrich
uranium as non-negotiable.
Meanwhile, issues such as Iran’s ballistic missile development and support for
regional proxies have seemingly faded from the spotlight. This does not
necessarily reflect U.S. acquiescence to these threats, but rather suggests a
strategic decision to address issues sequentially — with uranium enrichment
taking precedence. Under President Trump, known for his impatience with Tehran’s
negotiating tactics, this prioritization may point to intelligence assessments
indicating that Iran is approaching the nuclear threshold.
The core question remains: What are Tehran’s true objectives? Why did Iran agree
to resume negotiations — particularly with President Trump at the helm — when
the primary U.S. concern is Iran’s potential nuclear weaponization, a
development that would gravely destabilize the oil-rich region?
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Arakji reiterated that Iran will not
surrender its enrichment capabilities, citing massive state investments in the
program. He claimed Iran now possesses the ability to enrich uranium to
weapons-grade levels and even build nuclear weapons — though he insisted they
have no intention of doing so. He stressed that Iran will defend this capability
at all costs. These statements confirm the fears voiced by President Trump and
many of Iran’s neighbors, from the Gulf Arab states to Israel. The long-feared
scenario — an open declaration of weapons-grade enrichment capability — now
appears to be reality.
This echoes the strategy pursued by earlier Iranian negotiators, from Rafsanjani
to Rouhani and Zarif, who were widely believed to have used diplomacy as a cover
to buy time for Iranian scientists to advance enrichment efforts. Their ultimate
goal: to position Iran as a de facto nuclear power, capable of imposing its
terms on the international community.
These developments raise urgent questions:
Is the world on the brink of another major military confrontation?
Will Israel consider unilateral military action to neutralize Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure?
Has the United States reached a diplomatic dead end?
Could there be a global push for the forceful dismantling of Iran’s nuclear
program?
And does the Iranian regime — long known for its practice of taqiyya (religious
dissimulation) — possess hidden nuclear or military capabilities capable of
inflicting grave harm on its adversaries?
These questions demand urgent answers at this critical juncture, before the
world either slides into confrontation or successfully navigates toward an era
of stability — one that all parties claim to desire, albeit on very different
terms.
A brief review of the geopolitical landscape reveals that Iran’s so-called "axis
of resistance" — spanning Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza — is presenting
itself as a pivotal regional force, bolstered by alliances with Russia and
China. Yet this axis may be weakening. The influence of Hamas, Assad’s regime,
Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels appears to be waning — and similarly in Iraq.
This could indicate not only a decline in Iranian regional clout but also a
moment of opportunity for the international community to challenge Tehran’s
nuclear and military ambitions more decisively.
Yet serious questions remain about whether Iran would ever agree to give up its
nuclear capabilities — whether overt or covert — including potential small
nuclear devices acquired from Soviet-era stockpiles or developed through secret
testing. Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, naval capabilities, cyber warfare
programs, and covert intelligence networks remain deeply entrenched and
dangerous.
The coming days are crucial. They must provide clarity on these pressing issues.
Citizens across the Middle East are watching nervously, many praying for divine
intervention to avert disaster, and for their leaders to act with wisdom in
steering the region toward peace with minimal losses.
Inside Iran, there are growing signs of public fatigue with the clerical
regime’s rigid and authoritarian grip. That sentiment is echoed — and perhaps
intensified — in Lebanon and among Palestinians, where years of conflict and
devastation have failed to break the stranglehold of armed factions like Hamas
and Hezbollah. These groups continue to refuse disarmament, reject
accountability, and cling to narratives of resistance that have cost their
people dearly. In doing so, they serve the interests of Eastern dictatorships
that exploit regional instability and manufacture external enemies — from
Nasserism to Baathism to Khomeinism — all while sacrificing their own
populations at the altar of ideological tyranny and anti-Zionist propaganda.
Will sanctions relief unlock Syria’s potential, spur
economic recovery?
ANAN TELLO/Arab News/May 24, 2025
LONDON: In a dramatic shift in US foreign policy, President Donald Trump
recently pledged to lift sanctions on Syria — a move that has sparked cautious
optimism among Syrian entrepreneurs eyeing a long-awaited path to economic
recovery after years of war and isolation. The announcement was quickly followed
by a high-profile meeting in Riyadh on May 14 between Trump and Syria’s interim
president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, ahead of a broader summit of Gulf leaders during
Trump’s regional tour, signaling a renewed emphasis on diplomatic engagement
with Damascus.
Hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the meeting marked the most
significant international overture to Syria since the fall of Bashar Assad’s
regime in December. It also marked the first meeting between a sitting US
president and a Syrian head of state in more than 20 years. Further cementing
this policy change, the US on Saturday issued a six-month waiver of key Caesar
Act sanctions, authorizing transactions with Syria’s interim government, central
bank, and state firms. The move also clears the way for investment in energy,
water, and infrastructure to support humanitarian aid and reconstruction. In a
further boost, the EU announced on May 20 that it would follow the US lead and
lift its own remaining sanctions on Syria. “We want to help the Syrian people
rebuild a new, inclusive and peaceful Syria,” EU foreign policy chief, Kaja
Kallas, posted on X. Analysts believe that these developments suggest a thaw in
relations, opening the door to future cooperation, particularly in rebuilding
Syria’s war-ravaged economy. “Lifting sanctions is a necessary and critical
measure,” Syrian economic adviser Humam Aljazaeri told Arab News, highlighting
that a key sector poised to benefit is energy, particularly electricity
generation.
Syria’s energy infrastructure has been decimated by more than a decade of civil
war and sanctions. Before the conflict erupted in 2011, Syria produced about
400,000 barrels of oil a day, nearly half of which was exported, according to
the Alma Research and Education Center.
Since then, oil and gas output has plunged by more than 80 percent, as fields,
refineries and pipelines were destroyed or seized by warring factions, according
to World Bank data. Power generation dropped 56 percent between 2011 and 2015,
the local newspaper Al-Watan reported at the time. Today, daily blackouts —
sometimes lasting 20 hours — are a grim feature of life across Syria. Beyond
energy, Aljazaeri highlighted the humanitarian sector as another area in urgent
need of relief. If sanctions are lifted, Syria “would enjoy a frictionless flow
of programs through various UN and other international agencies,” he said. That
relief cannot come soon enough. The UN estimates that 16.7 million Syrians —
roughly three-quarters of the population — will require humanitarian aid in
2025. Syria is now the world’s fourth most food-insecure country, with 14.5
million people in need of nutritional support.
Lifting sanctions on Syria: a bet on a more prosperous
future
Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/May 24/2025
Despite the scale of need, international funding remains woefully short. As of
late February, only 10 percent of the $1.2 billion required for early 2025
humanitarian operations had been secured, according to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.Even when funds are available, getting aid
to those in need is an ongoing logistical challenge. Continued conflict,
insecurity and decimated infrastructure — especially in the hard-hit northern
and northeastern regions — make delivery slow and difficult. Conditions are
worsening. Severe drought this year threatens to wipe out up to 75 percent of
Syria’s wheat crop, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization,
placing millions at even greater risk of hunger. The crisis is further
compounded by the return of about 1.2 million displaced Syrians between December
and early 2025. Many have returned to towns and villages in ruins, overwhelming
humanitarian services. While sectors such as transport and trade could see quick
wins if sanctions are eased, Aljazaeri cautioned that a full recovery would
require time and clearer international policy direction. “Sectors like
infrastructure, health, education and general business are not expected to move
quickly in the interim period,” he said. “These areas need a clearer
international policy on sanctions and a more stable investment climate.”
Lifting sanctions is a necessary and critical measure
Humam Aljazaeri, Syrian economic adviser
For now, Aljazaeri said, the US is expected to offer only limited relief —
temporary exemptions and executive licenses for 180 days — before reassessing
its stance, potentially through a broader congressional review. “This piecemeal
approach won’t provide enough assurance for serious investors,” he said.
“Against this backdrop, it is important to see how the government will act in
the coming weeks and months to justify further international integration and a
more sustainable lifting of sanctions.”Rebuilding Syria could cost between $400
billion and $600 billion, according to Lebanese economist Nasser Saidi. Syria’s
natural resources and its regional pipeline network could attract investors, he
wrote in an essay for Arabian Gulf Business Insight magazine. However, he
emphasized that tapping this potential would require dismantling the country’s
“corrupt, politically controlled, state-owned enterprises and government-related
entities,” and reviving a vibrant private sector. Some positive steps, however
small, are already underway. The Karam Shaar Advisory, a New Zealand-based
consulting firm, noted that 97 new limited liability companies were registered
in Syria between Assad’s fall in December and March 26. While the firm called it
“a modest rise in formal company formation,” it said that economic stagnation
persists. Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild shattered infrastructure are gaining
traction, particularly with the Syrian diaspora poised to play a role.
INNUMBERS
• 84% Syria’s GDP contraction between 2010 and 2023.
• $400–$600bn Syria’s projected reconstruction and redevelopment needs.
(Sources: World Bank & Nasser Saidi & Associates)
“Conversations are underway about involving all stakeholders to create enabling
frameworks,” Mohamed Ghazal, managing director of Startup Syria, a community-led
initiative supporting Syrian entrepreneurs, told Arab News. Government buy-in
will be essential. “Think tanks and task forces are working on this, but strong
cooperation from the Syrian government is crucial — and there are promising
signs in this direction,” Ghazal said. He highlighted the diaspora’s potential
to drive investment, skills transfer and community development. “There is a
growing recognition that the Syrian diaspora can significantly contribute to
ecosystem-building,” he said. Still, many in the diaspora remain cautious.
Ghazal said that the tipping point for engagement included sustainable peace,
rule of law, property rights, improved governance, reduced corruption,
investment incentives, infrastructure reconstruction and a coordinated
international approach. Aljazaeri echoed those concerns, noting that lifting
sanctions alone would not stabilize Syria or improve living conditions. “Issues
related to law and order, reconciliation and good policies are detrimental,” he
said. “In our view, it is not inflation, corruption, or cronyism that would pose
a challenge at this stage, rather ‘right economics’ or the lack of it. The
Syrian administration needs to demonstrate competency in running the economy and
applying the necessary reforms. “It has the power, maybe also the will, but must
have the capabilities to do the right thing,” he said, stressing that “to do
that, it needs to engage more and widen the pool of dialogue and trust.”However,
the path ahead remains fraught with dangers. Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy
for Syria, warned on Wednesday of “the real dangers of renewed conflict and
deeper fragmentation” in the war-torn country. Since Assad’s fall, Syria has
seen new waves of violence, particularly along the coast, where his Alawite sect
is concentrated. Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Islamist group that led the offensive
that toppled Assad, now controls much of the area, which has been wracked by
sectarian violence. Reports of mass executions, looting and arson have
heightened fears of renewed sectarian conflict. Al-Sharaa’s government is
reportedly struggling to assert control, facing clashes with Druze in the south
and standoffs with Kurds in the northeast. “The Al-Sharaa government has two
options in Syria; bring the minorities into government in a meaningful way so
they feel invested in the future of the country and believe that they can
protect themselves from within the state, or to suppress the minorities and
force their compliance,” Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East
Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Arab News.
FASTFACTS
• By 2023, the Syrian pound had collapsed 300-fold from SYP47 per dollar in 2011
to over SYP14,000.
• Hack for Syria, a hybrid event held Feb. 22–28, drew 5,500 participants from
Syria and abroad.
“So far, Al-Sharaa has been using both methods. With the Alawites, he has
favored the second method — force. With the Druze and Kurds, he has offered
deals.”
Despite the instability, experts argue the interim government and international
partners can still take steps to foster investment and recovery. “Temporarily
unlocking frozen financial assets could provide a lifeline,” Aljazaeri said.
“How those resources are used will define the government’s direction.” Ghazal
said that capital is urgently needed to fuel entrepreneurship. “Transparent
financial channels, encouragement of diaspora investment and attraction of
impact investors could bring necessary seed and growth capital,” he said. He
noted Syria’s growing startup scene, with more than 200 active ventures. Events
such as the “Hack for Syria” hackathon, held from Feb. 22–28, showcased the
country’s talent and drive to solve local problems.
“However, these entrepreneurs need support to scale and access global
opportunities,” he said. Sanctions imposed on the Assad regime and inherited by
Al-Sharaa’s government targeted key sectors such as banking, transport and
energy.
Syria’s gross domestic product plunged from $67.5 billion in 2011 to about $21
billion in 2024, according to the World Bank. The sanctions cut Syria off from
the global financial system, froze government assets and strangled trade —
especially in oil — crippling state revenues and economic activity. This
contributed to widespread poverty, with more than 90 percent of Syrians forced
below the poverty line.
As Syria emerges from more than a decade of turmoil, the lifting of US and EU
sanctions offers a rare economic lifeline — and the possibility of a new chapter
in its complex relationship with the West.
How Egypt is wielding influence on a tight budget
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/May 24, 2025
Despite hemorrhaging nearly $10 billion in foreign reserves since 2020, and Suez
Canal revenues that plunged 38 percent in early 2024 as a result of Houthi-linked
Red Sea disruptions around the Horn of Africa, Egypt is playing a high-stakes
regional game with remarkable tactical discipline. Cairo is pursuing an
asymmetric strategy rooted in diplomatic agility, encirclement, and targeted
military cooperation.
At home, inflation remains stubbornly above 35 percent, with the Egyptian pound
having lost more than half its value since 2022, and the threat of International
Monetary Fund-led austerity measures hanging heavy. Yet abroad, Egyptian policy
architects are engineering low-cost counter-offensives that are shifting power
dynamics, from the Gulf of Aden to the Eastern Mediterranean. By drawing closer
to Somalia, reviving dormant ties with Eritrea, and aligning with Turkiye
against an ascendant Ethiopia, Egypt has effectively militarized its diplomacy
without breaching its fiscal constraints.
Cairo’s posture in the Horn of Africa is less about projection of power and more
about geopolitical denial: boxing out Ethiopia’s Red Sea ambitions and forcing
negotiations from an advantageous position.
While Addis Ababa lobbies to legitimize Somaliland in exchange for coastal
access, Cairo is quietly encircling, exploiting every fracture from Puntland to
Djibouti. It is a strategy shaped by scarcity but executed with sharp
calculation. It is less a case of empire building than geopolitical maneuvering,
redirecting the momentum of rival states to serve its own ends.
If Egypt’s maneuvers succeed in Somalia, and resonate into Yemen, it might
reposition itself not as a power in decline but as the regional broker-in-chief.
So, what triggered all this? Ethiopia’s agreement in January 2024 to lease 20 km
of coastline from Somaliland, a self-declared state not recognized by the UN,
for a naval base ignited immediate regional tremors. From Cairo’s perspective,
the deal threatened to establish an Ethiopian military presence along the Bab
Al-Mandab Strait, a maritime bottleneck through which passes 12 percent of
global trade and 30 percent of the world’s container traffic, and which is
critical to nearly $10 billion of annual Suez Canal revenues. Moreover,
Ethiopia’s activation of the Nile Basin Agreement, a framework that challenges
colonial-era water allocations, directly threatened Egypt’s freshwater lifeline,
the Nile, which supplies more than 90 percent of the country’s freshwater for
agriculture and domestic use. Surprisingly, unlike the bluster and
saber-rattling of the past, especially concerning perceived threats to Nile
flows downstream, Cairo’s immediate response was calibrated for cost-efficiency
rather than kinetic escalation. Cairo is pursuing an asymmetric strategy rooted
in diplomatic agility and military cooperation.
Egypt quickly established a military pact with Somalia that permitted the
deployment of up to 5,000 Egyptian troops, alongside modest arms transfers to
Mogadishu. Yet these commitments, worth an estimated $300 million annually, are
dwarfed by investments from regional rivals. Hence, Egypt’s strategy has had to
bet on tactical alliances rather than financial heft, capitalizing on existing
regional fissures in an attempt to isolate Ethiopia. At the core of Cairo’s
rather frugal approach is the pursuit of strategic triangulation in hopes of
limiting Addis Ababa’s options. By partnering with Turkiye, a former adversary
that now shares concerns about Red Sea instability, Egypt gains indirect access
to Ankara’s extensive drone capabilities and naval assets without footing the
bill for their deployment.
Simultaneously, a trilateral summit with Eritrea and Somalia consolidated a
coalition anchored in the former’s 30-year rivalry with Ethiopia, during which
Eritrea has hosted foreign military bases and maintained a 300,000-strong
standing army. The end result is a loose coalition that amplifies Egypt’s
influence at minimal cost, contrasting sharply with Ethiopia’s $1.4 billion
military expenditure.
But there are looming risks. Cairo’s $4.8 billion defense budget is already
stretched thin by concurrent crises in Libya and Gaza. Regardless, Egypt’s moves
have so far managed to avoid the pitfalls of mission creep. As the African Union
Transition Mission in Somalia has wound down after 17 years and $21 billion of
expenditure, Egyptian troop deployments, focusing on the training of Somali
forces and securing supply lines, have been a targeted investment with plausible
deniability. The restraint is deliberate. With nearly 90 percent of its military
assets concentrated on the Sinai and Libyan fronts, Egypt cannot afford to
divert resources to open-ended conflicts. Instead, it must capitalize on the
overextension of others.Another critical factor in Egypt’s strategy for the Horn
of Africa is its inextricable links to developments in Yemen. Cairo’s sudden
openness to hosting delegations from a group it once rejected signals more than
just a tactical pivot; it is a calculated overture in regional geopolitics that
now includes both Yemen’s war economy and Red Sea security. By adopting the role
of mediator in Yemen while quietly reshaping supply-chain security, from Bab Al-Mandab
to the Gulf of Aden, Egypt is transforming its fiscal scarcity into valuable
geopolitical currency. It is not appeasement but conditional engagement, an
approach that costs little upfront and yields regional influence.Whether the bet
will pay off remains uncertain. But for a country that is managing $165 billion
in external debt and facing persistent inflation, even modest diplomatic gains
count as a credible return on investment. Overall, while Egypt’s clever
maneuvering in the Horn of Africa is not without its share of risks, for now it
all seems to be paying off rather well.
**Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa
Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. X: @HafedAlGhwell
To navigate a new order, hire a historian not a social
scientist
Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/May 24, 2025
What if you became the most powerful man in the world, the president of the
United States of America? What would you do? Obviously, create a new world
order. That is what every American president has tried, from Harry Truman to
Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush to Donald Trump.
A new executive order sends everyone scrambling to understand it, sometimes
everyone and their ex, like Christiane Amanpour and her former husband James
Rubin, who have just started a podcast for that purpose. Their advantage is
having lived through major global changes from different angles; while he was in
the policymaking business, she was on the ground living the consequences. The
stories they will tell are of lived experience deciphered with tools that
include their backgrounds, upbringings, and educations, along with some common
sense, instinct, and wit. It is more of an art than it is a science and does not
have to be either precise or certain. It is a process that includes human
interactions and emotions that no algorithm or artificial intelligence can
emulate.
They are, in fact, acting like traditional historians, telling the story and
interpreting the changing world. This will help them understand the present and
speculate, with a healthy degree of uncertainty, on what is to come. The rise
and fall of empires and nations was very much the domain of such historians,
before modern social sciences emerged.
But what about the rest of us? Do we have the tools to understand the new world
order? The rest of us may well be part of another story — that of the rise and
fall of the social sciences. It is a fairly short history of disciplines born
out of theological controversies in Europe in the second half of the 19th
century and later in the US. The social sciences, which include disciplines like
economics, politics, and sociology, dominated the ideas of the 20th century and
accompanied the rise of nationalism. Economics, in particular, rationalized or
scientifically justified the ever-growing role of the state, on which
international affairs and international relations were built.
But doubts have been emerging for quite a while about the adequacy of the
individual disciplines and whether they are enough to help us understand the
changing world. In a recent piece in the Financial Times, the economist Gillian
Tett described the rise of a new discipline, geoeconomics, with a recent
conference near the White House and with universities and think tanks rushing to
create programs in it. Tett also mentioned the idea that companies should hire a
chief geopolitical or geoeconomics officer to help navigate the changing world
order, especially after the disruptions brought about by President Trump.
Geopolitics, geoeconomics, and geostrategy are imprecise and sometimes
meaningless words. In a nutshell, they mean that the cult-like social scientists
are out of their depth and have no clue what they are talking about. They are a
product of theological debates resulting from Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution, which attempted to explain the origin of species through science and
scientific observation, as opposed to the religious belief of divine creation.
The contradictions between Darwin’s theory of evolution and the biblical story
of creation sparked huge controversy. This quickly expanded into a heated debate
about science versus faith. Disciplines like eugenics were an offshoot of the
scientific study of society. For that was the key question: can scientific
methods be applied to the study of society?
To understand the intensity of such debates, we should bear in mind that it was
not until 1871 that old universities like Oxford and Cambridge started offering
degrees to people who were not members of the Anglican church. It was also
expected that any fellows of a college would resign their position at the
university if they so much as developed doubts about any of the 39 articles of
the Anglican faith.
A future historian may evaluate the extent of the damage done by the
20th-century doctrine of social sciences.
An Oxford education generally consisted of studying the classics in their
original Latin and Greek and developing philosophical ideas. It was considered
that reading the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and other classical philosophers,
along with historians like Herodotus and Thucydides, was enough to prepare a
young man for any pursuit, be it in the natural sciences, mathematics, medicine,
or a career in the church, the army or in the rule of India. Darwin himself had
such an education before turning to medicine. The works of Adam Smith and other
political economists were introduced as part of moral philosophy and the
political economy component was meant to help understand history, which was only
really introduced as a faculty in the 1850s.
The social sciences as we now know them were therefore a result of the trend
toward using the scientific method to understand the world. To believe in its
results and recommendations, it is therefore necessary to have faith in science.
Elite education — conferring the tools that were considered necessary and
sufficient to equip decision-makers in the art of statecraft — evolved with that
trend toward science. The basic degree in classics, or greats, became modern
greats and evolved into the study of philosophy, politics and economics, the
Oxford “PPE” degree. These subjects replaced the classics as the necessary
intellectual tools to understand the world.
In fact, the discipline of economics is still not a stand alone subject for an
undergraduate degree in Oxford. It must be combined with something like history.
At the more scientifically inclined Cambridge University, it became a subject in
1905.
Economics, which dominated the post-Second World War world, became established
as a dominant discipline in the interwar period. It was akin to a religious cult
using faith in science instead of faith in God. Its theories were based on quite
rudimentary mathematics to advance its principles. The growth of the state’s
role, for example, was justified by arguments like increasing marginal returns
to scale or the multiplier effect.
Simply put, this argues that the larger the scale, the larger the profit. And
because state control would work on a larger scale, it would become more
efficient and profitable. These were dangerous tools in the hands of
power-hungry politicians.
A future historian may evaluate the extent of the damage done by the
20th-century doctrine of social sciences. A cult of economists, political
scientists, and sociologists ran the world and provided the justification for
politicians to expand their power and that of the state. When such “scientific”
theories did not fit with reality, it was reality and people that needed to
change, not the theories. This was in the name of science, which is synonymous
with indisputable fact.
In fact, it is not Trump’s chaotic disruptions that are the problem. In days
when we are on the verge of surrendering our lives to mega-processors and AI,
and in which we interact more with our screens than with each other, it is not
too late to introduce a serious element of doubt into the disciplines we feed
these machines. As a repentant economist, I put my trust in Amanpour and Rubin
and would hire a historian over an economist anytime.
**Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser. X: @Confusezeus
Between the President’s Arrival and His Departure
Mohammed al-Rumaihi/Asharq Al Awsat/24 May 2025
Last week, global and regional media outlets focused on President Donald Trump’s
visit to Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi. Some of the piles of analysis we saw were
objective and fact-based; others were fanciful and prejudiced.
Some theories have now been shown to be misguided. One is the theory that the
United States has pivoted to China and South Asia, abandoning the Middle East.
Trump’s first state visit proved the exact opposite: under the new
administration, the United States sees the Middle East, particularly the Gulf
capitals, as central to its interests. In fact, Middle Eastern issues have also
become a focal point for Europe.
Most of the Middle East's problems, though not all of them, have emerged around
the past half-century, following the pursuit of “exporting the revolution” by
the revolutionary government in Iran that had come to power in the early 1980s.
“Exporting the revolution” has taken various forms. Initially, it was an attempt
to incite Arab communities around Iran to overthrow their regimes. However, the
conditions in pre-revolution Iran were different from those of Arab countries.
The Iranian revolution began to look for allies, and it found them in two
places: first, among certain segments of society that shared its revolutionary
sectarian ideology, and second, in the Palestinian cause. Iran could not go very
far with the first group because the economic and social conditions in their
countries were not conducive to toppling their regimes. Moreover, not all
members of these sects were loyal to Iran, as the many services provided by Arab
states had not been provided to most Iranian communities, neither before nor
after the revolution.
Iran once again sought to find allies through the Palestinian cause, given the
enormous sentimental weight that Palestine carries among Arabs. It initially
experimented with Fatah, eventually falling out with the movement and finding
what it had been looking for in Hamas, which Iran probably instructed to carry
out the attack of October 7, 2023, according to a Financial Times report
published on June 13. Hamas launched the operation assuming that Iran’s axis
would be ready to provide support.
Under the broad banner of “liberating Palestine,” Iran also succeeded in
recruiting a significant segment of the Lebanese population to join Hezbollah.
Having long claimed that Iran had had the power to erase Israel within hours, if
not less, through its immense propaganda networks, the Iranian axis presented
all the actions taken by these factions, which hurt other communities in their
own countries, as sacrifices for Palestine.
After October 7, 2023, this ground unpinning this assumption broke: Gaza became
uninhabitable, Hezbollah was diminished, and Syria ultimately left the axis.
To make matters worse, the two direct clashes between Israel and Iran exposed
the limitations of Iran’s military capabilities, both in terms of equipment and
firepower. For the first time, Iran’s own security took a hit.
There was a strong wave of opposition to Iran’s growing influence. Iran had
expended considerable effort and money to spread instability in the Middle East,
particularly in the Arab region, creating resentment in a number of Arab states.
In the lead-up to Trump’s visit, the drums of war had been growing louder.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials engaged in shuttle diplomacy to Gulf capitals.
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman also delivered a message to the
Iranian leadership: “We in this region do not want a war between any two
parties.” Wars are destructive and do not serve any regional power’s interest.
De-escalation was the goal, and the Kingdom succeeded.
During Trump’s visit, he was told that war would be unacceptable. Along with his
own desire for peace, these warnings were pushed to backtrack. The US armada
that had been mobilized to the region withdrew. One key question remained: Did
Iran get the message? Had Iran understood that its neighbors are growing weary
of its interference in their domestic affairs, and that it would be better for
everyone, including Iran, if it abandoned that irrational slogan of “exporting
the revolution.”
The Iranian people have every right to live as they wish, but so do others. The
model that the Iranian revolution established does not appeal to its neighbors,
who have begun to build a different model of their own, and they have already
made strides.
The question is: Has scaling back the threat of war shown Iran that the path it
has taken over the past five decades is a dead end and that a durable peace -
one that enables economic, social, and political development and meets the
aspirations of our societies - would be better for both Iranians and their
neighbors? Or will it prefer returning to the past once again?
The Iranian leadership has the right to present the results it has achieved so
far in whatever way it finds satisfactory. What truly matters is not how the
results are sold domestically, but whether there is a shift in Iran’s compass.
Will it turn away from its regional ambitions and focus on achieving domestic
objectives that fuel development and improve the well-being of Iranians?
The coming days and weeks will show us the direction Iran has chosen to take.
The ultimate indicator will be whether Iran reaches an agreement with the United
States regarding its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and its regional
interventions. Will there be a change on these three fronts, or will things
remain the same? Indeed, even if war is avoided, a severe blockade could be
imposed, and it would have even more bitter implications for the Iranian people.
Solving this dilemma is the bridge between Trump’s visit to the region and his
departure. Everyone is awaiting the answer in this region that has already
suffered, far more than it deserves to, from populist sloganeering that has
exhausted its people and paralyzed its development. To conclude, every society
that has been infected by the Iranian “virus” has unfortunately experienced
state failure, currency collapse, and the spread of poverty.