English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News &
Editorials
For September 15/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2026/english.september15.26.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus said to Nicodemus: For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.
John 03/03-21: There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews. 2 The same came to Jesus by night and said unto Him,
“Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, unless God be with him.”Jesus answered and said unto
him, “‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we
have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about
earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about
heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended
from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in
order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are
not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they
have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement,
that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do
not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do
what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds
have been done in God.’”
Titles For The English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published on September 14-15/2026
Farewell to Dory Camille Chamoun: A Champion of Lebanese Sovereignty,
Freedom, and Faith/Elias Bejjani/September 14, 2026
The day the treacherous and hateful hand reached out to assassinate Bachir the
man, yet it failed to kill the dream and the cause he embodied/Elias Bejjani/September
14/2026
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross/Elias Bejjani/September 14,
2026
Emasculated, powerles and puppets/Elias Bejjani/September 12/2026
Exposing MP Melhem Riachi’s Fallacies Regarding Whether Hezbollah Should Be
Tried, and Affirming That the Iranian, Terrorist, and Jihadist Hezbollah Is Not
the Shiites, but Rather Their Enemy… Falling into the Trap of “Forgive and
Forget”/Elias Bejjani/September 12/2026
Israel defense minister warns Ali Taher ridge returnees will be destroyed
Katz says Israel won’t withdraw until Hezbollah disarmed across Lebanon
Iranian report says 48 Hezbollah fighters were in Ali al-Taher, 8 killed
Aoun to meet Macron, Abdullah II prior to Paris conference
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanese town kill 13 as fears of escalation mount
Two days, tough questions: PM Salam government faces Parliament
Hezbollah, Amal call for civil peace, reconstruction and stronger state role
Defense Minister meets new French ambassador, discusses post-UNIFIL arrangements
Sky Lounge Services denies claims of jet fuel smuggling from Qlayaat Airport
Israel and Lebanon to meet in Rome in October, US State Department official says
Israeli army intensifies operations in Mansouri, weighs troop reshuffle in South
Lebanon
Where does Israel's destruction of underground Hezbollah base leave the group?
Report: Bitar to receive prosecution's review within days, to issue indictment
this year
Bassil: Bashir's 10,452 is also our cause
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News
published on
September 14-15/2026
Trump: Weapons Being Delivered to US Forces in the Middle East and Beyond; Trump
Open to Dealing with Iran
CENTCOM Denies Oil Tanker Explosion After Hitting Mines or Drone Strike in
Strait of Hormuz
US Treasury Sanctions Russian Bank, Affirms Zero Tolerance for Support of
Iranian Regime; VTB Among World’s Most Heavily Sanctioned Financial Institutions
Yemeni Prime Minister: The Battle to Restore State Authority Does Not End with
Shifts in Frontlines
Houthi Equipment and Headquarters Destroyed in Dhubab and Al-Khokha (Western
Yemen) Within the "Kill Box" Zone
Saudi Crown Prince Meets President Sisi in Cairo; Egyptian Presidency: Talks
Focus on Regional Developments and Strengthening Bilateral Relations
Al-Zaidi: Iraq Views France as a Trusted Strategic Partner Within a Framework of
Enduring Friendship; Government to Provide Full Support, Facilitation, and a
Favorable Investment Environment
Netanyahu threatens retaliation if Israel’s enemies attack
Senior Sunni cleric killed in Iran area near Pakistan
Saudi Crown Prince to meet Egypt’s al-Sisi in Cairo on Tuesday
Trump taps Wesley Hunt to be next US ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia discovered 110 mln tons of rare earths and uranium in Medina: ABS
US has weapons deployed in orbit, Space Force says
MBS, US Central Command chief discuss latest regional developments
US in direct contact with Yemen’s Houthis, VP Vance says
US imposes Iran-related sanctions on Russia’s VTB
Trump says Ukraine, Russia agree not to hit energy targets
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials
from miscellaneous sources published
on September 14-15/2026
The Palestinians' Dead-End Choice: Fatah or Hamas/Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone
Institute/September 14, 2026
The Human Rights Industry Has a Favorite Kind of Victim/Pierre Rehov/Gatestone
Institute/September 14, 2026
La géopolitique d’une dystopie meurtrière/Dr.Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September
14/2026
The Geopolitics of a Murderous Dystopia/Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September
14/2026
Selected Face Book & X tweets on September 14/2026
Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on September 14-15/2026
Farewell to Dory Camille Chamoun: A
Champion of Lebanese Sovereignty, Freedom, and Faith
Elias Bejjani/September 14, 2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157507/
"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he may die,
yet shall he live." (John 11:25)
With hearts filled with faith in God's will and hope in the Resurrection, we bid
farewell today to a distinguished national and sovereign figure. We mourn the
passing of Dory Camille Chamoun, Honorary President of the National Liberal
Party, former Member of Parliament, former Minister, and former Mayor of Deir
el-Qamar, who has departed to the House of the Heavenly Father after a long life
of national struggle and unwavering commitment to the Lebanese cause.
Born in Deir el-Qamar in 1931, Dory Chamoun was raised in a household deeply
rooted in patriotism and public service. He was the son of Lebanon's late
President Camille Nimr Chamoun, one of the foremost leaders of Lebanese
independence and statehood, and of Mrs. Zelpha Chamoun. From an early age, he
embraced his family's national legacy and remained faithful to it throughout his
life.
Dory Chamoun was one of the pillars of the Chamoun political school and among
the principal figures who helped shape the journey of the National Liberal
Party, alongside his father, President Camille Chamoun, and his brother, the
late Dany Chamoun. Following his brother's assassination, he assumed the party's
leadership during exceptionally difficult times, preserving its historic
principles of freedom, sovereignty, independence, and democracy.
The late leader was known for his clear and steadfast national positions, never
compromising or wavering. He opposed the Palestinian armed presence and
occupation of Lebanon when many remained silent, courageously confronted Syrian
tutelage and domination, and later became one of the earliest and most
consistent voices opposing the Iranian project and its armed proxies in Lebanon.
He firmly believed that a single state and a single legitimate military
authority are indispensable foundations for a free, sovereign, and independent
Lebanon.
He played an active role in the Cedar Revolution and the March 14 Alliance,
remaining until his final years a sovereign voice defending Lebanon's unique
mission of pluralism, coexistence, freedom, and independence. He neither changed
his convictions nor yielded to political expediency. Instead, he remained loyal
to the principles upon which he was raised, convinced that truth is measured not
by the number of its supporters but by the justice of its cause.
From 1998 to 2008, he served as Mayor of Deir el-Qamar, working diligently to
preserve the town's rich historical heritage and to advance its development. He
later served as a Member of Parliament representing the Chouf District, carrying
the concerns of his constituents and his nation to the Lebanese Parliament while
consistently defending sovereignty, independence, and constitutional legitimacy.
Dory Chamoun was also a devoted husband and father. He leaves behind a respected
family that continues his national legacy, foremost among them his son Camille
Dory Chamoun, who today serves as President of the National Liberal Party and
represents its political tradition in Lebanon, carrying forward the torch passed
down through generations of this distinguished patriotic family.
Providence willed that Dory Chamoun depart this world on the anniversary of the
martyrdom of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, as though history wished once more
to unite men of sovereignty who shared the dream of a free, sovereign, and
independent Lebanon—a dream for which they paid a heavy price through sacrifice,
perseverance, and steadfastness.
With Dory Chamoun's passing, Lebanon closes a chapter in the history of a
generation of leaders who stood firm in the face of adversity and remained
faithful to their convictions. Yet the legacy he leaves behind will continue to
live on in the memory of free men and women and in the conscience of every
Lebanese who believes in Lebanon as the final homeland, free, sovereign, and
independent.
As Holy Scripture says:
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
(2 Timothy 4:7)
Indeed, Dory Chamoun fought the good fight, completed his national mission with
faith and steadfastness, and preserved the trust he inherited from his father
and from the generation of Lebanon's independence leaders.
May Almighty God receive him into the dwellings of the righteous and the just,
and may He grant comfort and hope to his family, loved ones, the National
Liberal Party, and all those who walked beside him in the struggle for a free
Lebanon.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May
his soul, and the souls of all the righteous, rest in the peace of God's
heavenly kingdom. Amen.
The day the treacherous and hateful
hand reached out to assassinate Bachir the man, yet it failed to kill the dream
and the cause he embodied
Elias Bejjani/September 14/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/09/147262/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHJIZ6NMN8s
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in 1982, Lebanon
witnessed a tragic day that will never fade from its memory nor from the
conscience of the Lebanese who believe in their unique identity. That day became
a defining milestone in the history of the Lebanese Resistance — a torch still
held high with unwavering faith and the steadfast determination of saints by
Bashir’s faithful followers.
On that day, the treacherous hand of hatred struck and killed Bashir’s body, yet
it utterly failed to kill Bashir’s cause, his ambition, his thought, his
patriotism, and his spirit of resistance. On that day, the Cross of Lebanon was
lifted to heaven bearing upon it the Martyr of Lebanon, President Sheikh Bashir
Gemayel, surrounded by his twenty-three righteous companions who had walked with
him on his earthly journey — a journey he dedicated wholly to Lebanon and its
sacred cause — and who were granted to accompany him as well on his return to
the Paradise of the righteous and the saints.
Bashir was raised upon the Cross of Lebanon after he and his companions had
watered the blessed soil of the Land of the Cedars with their pure and sacred
blood. He was lifted up surrounded by his martyred comrades to stand with them
before his Lord, with a clear conscience, abundant faith, and sacred purity. He
rose to heaven after fulfilling his earthly mission, after having drawn the
clear contours of the Lebanese Cause, planted within the hearts of the Lebanese
the spirit of resistance and sacrifice, and instilled in their souls the
unshakable belief in the inevitable victory of the Land of the Message — the
land where the Lord Jesus performed His first miracle and which the Virgin Mary
blessed, making it a sanctuary for the faithful.
God Almighty willed to distinguish Bashir in his death just as He had
distinguished him in his life, lifting him up to His Paradise on the Feast of
the Exaltation of the Cross — the same Cross on which the Only Begotten Son was
nailed for the salvation of all humanity. And as the Apostle Paul said: “For the
message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved it is the power of God.”(1 Corinthians 1:18)
Bashir embraced the Cross and made it a beacon, a path, and a way of life in
spreading his Lebanese message — a message of coexistence, love, brotherhood,
loyalty, civilization, culture, dignity, and honor. He ascended to heaven
leaving behind his values, his teachings, his spirit, and his love for the
homeland in the hearts and consciences of his people whom he loved, having
offered himself as a sacrifice for their salvation and freedom. And as Jesus
Christ said: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for
his friends.”(John 15:13).
Whoever is protected by the Cross cannot be overcome by demons, nor can the
holiness of his cause be defiled by the heresies of the Pharisees, the scribes,
and their ilk. And just as Jesus Christ conquered death, shattered its sting,
and rose from the tomb on the third day, Bashir’s national and spiritual message
shall remain alive until the Day of Judgment. It is this very message that will
one day raise Lebanon from the grave of subjugation, dependency, servitude,
selfishness, and occupation.
Bashir’s Lebanon will never die, for it lives on in the struggle, resistance,
and pride of every Lebanese who truly believes in Bashir’s dream — the dream of
the Cause — and who wishes to live with head held high, in dignity and pride, in
a free, sovereign, independent, and democratic homeland. A homeland overshadowed
by justice, equality, and decent living; a homeland liberated from foreign
armies, mercenaries, Trojan traitors, and subversive agents; a homeland governed
by its own people, where human rights are respected and human dignity is
preserved.
Bashir struggled to restore unity to the Lebanese land, sovereignty to the Land
of the Cedars, freedom and dignity to the Lebanese person, authority to the
state, and effectiveness to its institutions. He was the one who declared
loudly: “We want to live with our heads held high, and what must be changed is
the mentality — to renew the person in order to renew Lebanon.”
And as the prophet Malachi said in the Holy Bible: “The law of truth was in his
mouth.”(Malachi 2:6)
Bashir, as he offered himself as a living sacrifice upon the altar of the
homeland, was following in the footsteps of Christ, who offered Himself out of
love for the world. He freely chose the path of Golgotha, believing that there
can be no resurrection without the Cross, and no freedom without laying down
one’s life. His blood and the blood of his companions were not shed in vain, for
they mingled with the soil of Lebanon to sanctify it and give it life — just as
the blood of Christ mingled with the wood of the Cross to grant the world
salvation and eternal life.
Thus, Bashir’s martyrdom remains a sign of hope and faith: hope in Lebanon’s
resurrection from the death of bondage, and faith that whoever lays down his
life for his beloved will surely rise with Christ in glory — and with him,
Lebanon shall also rise.
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross
Elias Bejjani/September 14, 2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/29134/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6aH14yxAY8
On September 14th of every year, the Holy Church, East and West, lifts high the
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, not as a wood of shame and death, but as a sign
of victory, life and power. It is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious
Cross, the feast that summarizes the entire mystery of Christianity: that death
was conquered by death, and that love reached its summit on the wood.
How the Cross was lost and how it was found
After the crucifixion on Mount Golgotha, the Romans wanted to erase every trace
of the Cross. They threw the wood into a large pit near Golgotha, and built over
it a temple to the Roman god Venus, to prevent the early Christians from
visiting the place and venerating the Holy Cross.
It remained so until the year 326 AD, when Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor
Constantine the Great, came to Jerusalem with piety and longing, searching for
the wood of the Holy Cross. She was told that the Cross was buried near the
temple of Venus built by Emperor Hadrian. She ordered the place to be excavated,
and three crosses were found.
How would they know which was the Cross of Christ? Tradition says that Patriarch
Macarius suggested that each cross be placed, one after the other, upon the body
of a dead man whose funeral was passing by at that time. When the third Cross
was placed, the dead man rose by a wondrous miracle. They also placed it upon a
sick woman and she was instantly healed. Then Patriarch Macarius lifted the wood
of the Cross high so that all present could see it, and they cried out with
tears of joy, “Lord, have mercy.” And Saint Helena raised the Holy Cross on
Mount Golgotha and built above it the Church known to this day as the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre.
The Cross between captivity and triumph
The story of the Cross did not end there. In the year 614, Chosroes, King of the
Persians, entered Jerusalem victorious, and took thousands of Christians
captive, foremost among them Patriarch Zacharias, and transferred them to his
country, and took the relic of the precious wood of the Cross as booty. It
remained in his possession for fourteen years.
When Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persians in 628, his first condition was the
release of the captives and the return of the relic of the Cross. Chosroes had
died and his son Siroes reigned in his place. He accepted the condition and
released the captives with Patriarch Zacharias and handed the relic of the Cross
to Heraclius. Heraclius brought it to Constantinople, whose entire population
came out to receive him with lamps and hymns of victory and rejoicing.
A year later, Heraclius himself carried the relic to Jerusalem to set it in its
place on Golgotha. The people came out to meet him, headed by Patriarch
Zacharias, with torches and church hymns, and they walked to the road of
Golgotha. There the Emperor suddenly stopped by a hidden power and could not
take a single step forward.
The Patriarch came forward and said to the King: “Our Lord Jesus Christ walked
this road carrying His Cross, crowned with thorns, wearing the garment of
mockery and humiliation, and you are wearing your purple robes and on your head
a crown studded with jewels, so you must imitate Christ in His humility and
poverty.” The King listened to the Patriarch’s words, took off his luxurious
garments, put on a humble garment and walked bareheaded, barefoot, until he
reached Golgotha, where he set the Cross in the place where it had been before.
There is a third account linked to the feast, which is the apparition of the
Cross to Emperor Constantine the Great himself before a battle against his enemy
Maxentius near Rome. While he was in battle, the Cross appeared to him in the
clear sky, surrounded by writing in letters prominent with light: “By this sign
you shall conquer.” He put his trust in the God of the Cross and was victorious,
and he and his soldiers believed in Christ, and made the banner of the Cross
flutter among his flags. He brought the Church out of the darkness of the
catacombs, ordered the demolition of the temples of idols and built churches in
their place. And since that time, since the year 330, the celebration of the
Feast of the Cross has spread throughout East and West.
The Cross… Foolishness or the Power of God?
The world sees in the Cross a defeat, but we believers see in it the summit of
love and victory. This is what the Apostle Paul explains precisely: “The message
about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)
“For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment
of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of
the world?… For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim
Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to
those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s
weakness is stronger than human strength.”
And our Lord Jesus Himself explained the mystery of the Cross with the grain of
wheat: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit… And
I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John
12:20-32)
Here is the secret of the Exaltation. The Cross did not remain an instrument of
execution, but was lifted up to draw all. Christ did not come down from the
Cross to prove His power, but remained upon it to prove His love.
Lebanon and the Cross of Light
Lebanon has been distinguished by this feast since ancient times. On the eve of
the feast, then and now, a flame of lights appears on its mountains and coasts,
fires lit on mountain peaks reminding us of the light that burst forth from the
wood of salvation. The Cross in the Lebanese conscience is not a sectarian
symbol, but it is the identity of a land that was sanctified because, as the
Lord said to Moses, it is set apart for Him.
On this feast, and as we see our many crosses today: a homeland stripped of its
decision, a scattered people, a suffering Church, we remember that the true
Cross was not lifted once and ended, but is lifted every day when we choose
humility instead of purple, truth instead of bargaining, and witness instead of
subservience.
The Cross is the criterion. Whoever does not carry his cross and follow Him
cannot be His disciple. And whoever is ashamed of His Cross, the Son of Man will
be ashamed of him.
So thanks be to the Lord Jesus who said: “And I, when I am lifted up from the
earth, will draw all people to myself.” Amen.
Emasculated, powerles and puppets
Elias Bejjani/September 12/2026
Berri, Qassem, Aoun, Haykal, Salam, Mteri and the mouthpieces of
Iran's deception are parrot-fashion regurgitating the narrative of Israel's
withdrawal, reconstruction and the release of prisoners, while they are
powerless, emasculated, fawn over Hezbollah and grovel to appease it with
humiliation and servility.
Exposing MP Melhem Riachi’s Fallacies Regarding Whether Hezbollah Should Be
Tried, and Affirming That the Iranian, Terrorist, and Jihadist Hezbollah Is Not
the Shiites, but Rather Their Enemy… Falling into the Trap of “Forgive and
Forget”
Elias Bejjani/September 12/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157401/
Below is the link to the full clip containing the question and answer from MP
Melhem Riachi’s interview (the subject of this commentary), running from 16:30
to approximately 18:45–19:00, and covering the question and answer in full. The
link to the full interview, along with the texts of the question and answer, are
also at the bottom of the page.
Beginning of the question: 16:30 — Direct link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NuHBg673UM&t=990s
Beginning of the answer: 17:16 — Direct link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NuHBg673UM&t=1036s
At a time when the Lebanese people, particularly sovereignists and free
citizens, are waiting for a courageous and frank national speech that puts
matters plainly after decades of criminality, assassinations, occupation,
invasions, terrorism in all its forms, and the destruction of the state, MP
Melhem Riachi’s performance in a Youtube-TV interview on “Voice of Lebanon” on
September 10, 2026, constitutes a major disappointment and a resounding
political fall, exposing the deep-seated malicious intentions in his personal
approaches and, most likely, those of whoever employs him and speaks through
him.
When Riachi was directly asked whether the Lebanese Forces would demand that
Hezbollah be held accountable for the entire previous period of assassinations
and looting, extending to the scandals of tunnels crossing sovereignty and
existence (“Lebanon above and Lebanon below”), his answer was shameful and
filled with blatant fallacies promoting the heresy of “forgive and forget,”
disguised in false legalistic language.
The following text dismantles and refutes this dangerous fall through a direct
confrontation between the interviewer’s question and Riachi’s answer:
Journalist Jimmy Francis’s question:
“Regarding the points that Dr. Samir Geagea addressed, he spoke about
dismantling Hezbollah. But many people, after the phrase ‘dismantling Hezbollah’
and holding its responsible figures accountable, wondered: Will the Lebanese
Forces not demand that Hezbollah be held accountable for the entire previous
period in which it is said to have assassinated, stolen, looted, and done all of
this? Even today, the issue of the tunnels in the South—does it not warrant
prosecution, questioning, and accountability? We know: Lebanon above and Lebanon
below. Are you prepared to say ‘forgive and forget’ with Hezbollah, or will you
demand that Hezbollah’s officials be held accountable, as well as any official
connected to a particular assassination that occurred in Lebanon, especially
from 2005 until today?”
MP Melhem Riachi’s answer:
“Any official who has anything to do with a particular assassination that
occurred in Lebanon from 2005 until today, of course, we are in favor of putting
him on trial. But we are against general, mass trials. These general trials—just
as in the old days, during the Middle Ages, when priests would grant general
amnesties—this is not how it works! These are all heresies. You cannot come and
put an entire people on trial and remove them from their environment and from
their people. What Samir Geagea said on Martyrs’ Day was very clear in
addressing the Shia environment, in the relationship with the Shiites, and in
the relationship with all of Lebanon’s founding components, and the Shiites are
part of them. He told them: ‘My sect is my mother.’ But is this holding the
Shiites accountable? What is it… pay attention, this is a precise point; because
you are asking me and saying to me, ‘Putting Hezbollah on trial’: putting
certain officials and leaders on trial, who have been proven to have been
exposed and to have had a hand in it—as happened with the International
Tribunal—we have no objection to that. But putting the Shiites environment on
trial? Certainly, we categorically reject that. And we, the Shiites, are part of
our people, and we want to protect them.”
Refuting the Fall: Why Riachi’s Statement Is a Free Service to the Terrorist
System and the Iranian Axis
What Riachi’s answer contains amounts to three fatal errors—political, legal,
and moral—revealing a desire to evade the issue and exonerate the real
perpetrators:
The Great Lie: Inventing a “Trial of the Environment” to Evade the Trial of the
Killers
Riachi maliciously and Rasputin-like jumps from the charge of putting
“Hezbollah” on trial as an armed terrorist and military organization to an
imaginary charge called “putting the Shiites environment on trial.”The glaring truth is that no one in Lebanon is calling for putting a sect or an
environment on trial. The demand is clear and specific: to put an armed militia
on trial that possesses a missile arsenal, its own security apparatus, a
parallel economy, and the decision to make war and peace outside the
institutions of the state.Turning the discussion from holding a criminal organization accountable into
targeting a sect is precisely the malicious, fraudulent, and diabolical
narrative that Hezbollah promoted for two decades in order to shield itself
behind innocent civilians. For a Christian MP, who is supposedly representing a
sovereignist political stances, to adopt this narrative means that he is
providing the criminals with free Christian cover. The Shiites in Lebanon are
Hezbollah’s first victims, and holding its system accountable is an essential
step toward liberating them, not targeting them.
The Ridiculous Appeal to the International Tribunal to Justify Impunity
Riachi relied on the example of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which tried
individuals in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, to claim
that accountability should be limited only to individuals who actually “pressed
the button.”The fall here is twofold.
First, the International Tribunal limited its jurisdiction to a single crime and
was not mandated to investigate Hezbollah’s accumulated criminal record.
Second, the crimes of the party are not merely individual mistakes; they
constitute a systematic policy and an integrated organizational doctrine that
has extended over 35 years: assassinations targeting sovereignists and free
citizens, including, but not limited to, Bassel Fleihan, Gebran Tueni, Samir
Kassir, George Hawi, Pierre Gemayel, Walid Eido, Antoine Ghanem, Wissam
al-Hassan, Wissam Eid, Mohammad Chatah, Lokman Slim, Joe Bejjani, Elias Hasrouni,
and hundreds of others; the May 7, 2008 coup and the forcible occupation of
Beirut; the futile wars in Syria and the region; the criminal “war of support”
in 2023–2024, which destroyed the South and left its people out in the open,
only for Israel afterward to uncover a vast network of tunnels (“Lebanon above
and Lebanon below”); as well as the Captagon, money-laundering, smuggling, and
mafia-like practices network.
Riachi’s sophistry and his blatantly fraudulent cleverness in reducing
Hezbollah’s bloody terrorist record to “a person who pulled the trigger,” while
exonerating the leadership and the system, is a disregard for the blood of the
martyrs and a legitimization of crimes.
Ignoring the International Reality: Hezbollah Is Not a Lebanese Party but a
Military Brigade Directly Affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps
The attempt to portray Hezbollah as a local party with which one can negotiate
and engage in dialogue, or to apply “forgive and forget” to its criminal record
and its treacherous, Iranianized, and jihadist leadership, is a collection of
errors and sins and an act of political delusion. The United States and
countries around the world have officially come to deal with Hezbollah as an
organization wholly affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
When Hezbollah is a military arm of a foreign state, trying its members as
individuals and within naïve traditional frameworks amounts to denying the
reality of “disguised occupation.” History tells us that terrorist organizations
such as ISIS or the Nazi Party were tried as “organizations” and criminal
entities, not merely through pursuing some of their field operatives.
Conclusion: A Disguised General Amnesty or Genuine Justice?
What MP Melhem Riachi is proposing, through his openly diabolical rejection of
“general trials” and his use of vague references to the Middle Ages and priests,
is in reality a disguised general amnesty aimed at turning the page on crime
without accountability or punishment.
The Lebanese people, and all those who were displaced, whose homes were
destroyed, and whose decision-making was hijacked, do not want revenge against
their neighbors. They want a sovereign state that enforces the law, dismantles
this parallel entity, and brings its political and military leadership before
Lebanese and international courts for all their crimes against the homeland.
Exonerating the system under the slogan of “protecting the environment” is the
greatest crime, one that destroys whatever hope remains for the establishment of
the state.
Israel defense minister warns Ali Taher ridge returnees
will be destroyed
Arab News/September 14, 2026
DUBAI: Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, has warned that any force
approaching the Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon would be 'destroyed', days
after the Israeli military demolished what it claimed as Hezbollah underground
infrastructure beneath the strategic hill. The Israel Defense Forces withdrew
troops from the ridge last Thursday before detonating the underground facility.
Following the demolition, the military said it would adjust its deployment in
the area while maintaining control through surveillance and firepower.“The IDF
is operationally preparing to control the ridge and prevent any attempt by
Hezbollah or any other party to return and establish itself there,” Katz said in
a statement. Katz said the ridge remains part of Israel’s occupied buffer zone
in southern Lebanon, adding that Israeli forces would not withdraw or redeploy
until Hezbollah is disarmed across Lebanon.
Katz says Israel won’t withdraw until Hezbollah disarmed
across Lebanon
Naharnet/September 14/2026
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has stressed that Israel will not leave the
so-called security zone, nor will it withdraw or redeploy its forces in southern
Lebanon, until Hezbollah is disarmed across the country. In a statement, Katz
noted that the Ali al-Taher heights are part of the "Yellow Line" and the
Israeli security zone in Lebanon, explaining that the Israeli army has prepared
to prevent any attempt by Hezbollah -- or any other party -- to return to the
Ali al-Taher ridge. Katz also emphasized that anyone approaching the Ali al-Taher
heights will be eliminated.Israel's Channel 12 earlier reported that Israel was
“considering the possibility of deploying the Lebanese Army to the Ali al-Taher
area and its surroundings.”“The Israeli army will reduce its forces in the
Yellow Line area of southern Lebanon,” the channel added. Israel's public
broadcaster meanwhile said that the Israeli army is preparing to redeploy in
southern Lebanon. The Israeli army has already carried out a limited withdrawal
from the Ali al-Taher heights to the Beaufort Castle (Qalaat al-Shaqif) in south
Lebanon.
Iranian report says 48 Hezbollah fighters were in Ali al-Taher,
8 killed
Naharnet/September 14/2026
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary
Guard, has denied reports suggesting that members of the Revolutionary Guard had
been trapped in the tunnels of the Ali al-Taher ridge in south Lebanon prior to
Israel’s seizure of the strategic area.The agency clarified that the two tunnels
in Ali al-Taher contained 48 Hezbollah operatives during the battles for control
of the hill, noting that eight of the Lebanese fighters were killed. Israel
seized the ridge earlier this month after which it blew up its tunnels with
1,100 tons of explosives, causing what was recorded as a 4.1-magnitude
earthquake in the area.
Aoun to meet Macron, Abdullah II prior to Paris conference
Naharnet/September 14/2026
President Joseph Aoun will hold a summit with his French counterpart Emmanuel
Macron and King Abdullah II of Jordan ahead of a Paris meeting that will prepare
for the Lebanese Army support conference, media reports said. The summit will
tackle the situations in Lebanon and the region and the ongoing conflicts, after
which the preparatory conference will take place, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper
said.It added that the conference is supposed to pave the way for rallying the
broadest assistance for the Lebanese Army and security forces according to
specific conditions and mechanisms.
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanese town kill 13 as fears
of escalation mount
Reuters/September 14, 2026
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on a southern Lebanese town killed at least 13 people
including six children on Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said, in one of the
deadliest days of Israeli bombardment in recent weeks. Fears of a renewed
Israeli military campaign are mounting in Lebanon after days of escalating
strikes despite a June ceasefire that was meant to halt fighting between the
Israeli military and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. A woman who said she was
related to at least three of the dead said one attack hit a residential building
as children were getting ready for school. The Israeli military said it struck
people seen transferring weapons in the area of the town, Kfar Rumman. At the
site, Reuters reporters saw children’s schoolbooks strewn between chunks of
concrete where the building once stood. Rescue workers with heavy machinery had
worked throughout the morning to pull bodies out from underneath the
rubble.Eight-year-old Mustafa Farhat lost his grandparents and his mother in
the strike, locals said. Rescue workers were still searching for his
father’s body on Monday morning while the boy lay in the hospital being treated
for his wounds, they added. One of his relatives, Mona Farhat, told Reuters it
was their home that was hit in the run-up to school-time. “What did they target?
What is the goal they are targeting? Do they want us to leave our land? They are
mistaken,” Farhat said at the hospital. Lebanon’s health ministry said in an
updated toll on its website that 12 people, including six children and three
women, were killed in that attack on a residential building on Monday. State
media had earlier said the attack happened after midnight.
A separate Israeli drone strike on a civilian vehicle in the town killed one
medic, the health ministry said. Two other medics were wounded in the strike,
the ministry said. The strikes on Kfar Rumman came without an online evacuation
warning from the Israeli military.Israel reviewing reports of civilians hurt
Israel’s military said steps had been taken to mitigate harm “to uninvolved
individuals, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.”
The military said it was reviewing the report that “uninvolved individuals”
were harmed as a result of the strikes.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah had launched two explosive drones overnight
toward Israeli troops operating near the Ali Al-Taher ridge, a strategic cluster
of hills in southeastern Lebanon where Hezbollah is thought to have built an
underground military complex. Israel said last week that it had cleared
Hezbollah fighters out of the ridge. Hezbollah has not commented and Reuters
could not independently confirm the military situation at Ali Al-Taher.In the
days since, Israel has ramped up deadly strikes on towns to the ridge’s north
and west where residents had returned after the June ceasefire, Lebanese
security officials told Reuters. The officials said they were anticipating
continued escalations in the south in the coming weeks. On Sunday, at least 11
people were killed in Israeli strikes on three towns near the ridge, Lebanon’s
health ministry said in an updated toll. Two of the dead were women killed in
strikes on the town of Arab Salim, where Israel’s military had issued an online
evacuation warning at 6:04 a.m. local time (0304 GMT). The health ministry said
separate Israeli strikes on Sunday had destroyed the Ghandour hospital in the
town of Nabatieh Al-Fawqa.
Four other people were killed on Friday, including a woman, it added. Those
strikes came without evacuation warnings. Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed
more than 4,300 people since Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on March 2 —
two days after the start of US and Israeli strikes on Iran — triggering an
Israeli air and ground offensive. The dead include more than 250 children,
nearly 400 women and more than 130 medics, according to Lebanon’s health
ministry. The ministry does not otherwise distinguish between civilians and
militants, and Hezbollah has not issued a toll for its own fighters. The
ceasefire saw violence decrease dramatically, but Israeli troops occupying
swathes of southern Lebanon have continued razing villages in the self-declared
security zone. Israel’s military has continued carrying out strikes both within
the zone and to its north, mostly without evacuation warnings.
Two days, tough questions: PM Salam government faces
Parliament
LBCI/September 14/2026
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government faces two days of parliamentary scrutiny
Tuesday and Wednesday, with lawmakers set to debate a wide range of political,
security, economic and public concerns.But there will be another factor at play
that is not on the official agenda: the cameras. The session will be broadcast
live, and once the red light comes on, parliamentary debate can take on a
different tone. Voices get louder, and a soundbite made for social media can
sometimes become more important than the question that needs an answer. Some MPs
will come to hold the government accountable, others to address their political
base, and some may seek to do both. Salam and his ministers will face a
parliament with plenty of questions — and plenty of speeches. On the political
front, one of the most contentious issues is expected to be Hezbollah’s weapons
and the principle of placing all arms under state control, alongside direct
negotiations with Israel. The Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and independent and
reformist lawmakers are expected to question the government over progress on
disarming Hezbollah and its next steps, while reiterating their support for
direct negotiations. Other blocs, particularly Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc,
are expected to reaffirm their support for the group’s weapons and resistance,
reject direct negotiations and call on the government to move forward with
reconstruction. But weapons and negotiations will not be the only issues on the
table. Reforms, the financial situation, bank deposits, public administration,
an amnesty and everyday concerns, particularly electricity, are also expected to
feature prominently. The Free Patriotic Movement’s Strong Lebanon bloc is
expected to question the government over its foreign and financial policies,
energy policy, the budget and displacement. The key question, however, is
whether the government’s confidence is at risk. So far, there is no clear
political push to bring down the government, even if the rhetoric in parliament
may at times suggest otherwise. According to available information, Salam and
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri agree on avoiding a confidence vote. Even if such
a vote were raised, the government still has the parliamentary majority needed
to retain confidence, including the backing of Hezbollah, which remains
committed to its representation in the Cabinet. More importantly, international
and Arab support for Salam’s government remains in place. The debate begins
Tuesday and continues Wednesday, with lawmakers questioning the government and
ministers responding — all live on television.
The challenge will be distinguishing between those using their time to make a
point and those using the live broadcast simply to be seen.
Hezbollah, Amal call for civil peace, reconstruction and
stronger state role
LBCI/September 14/2026
Hezbollah and the Amal Movement held a joint leadership meeting to discuss
developments in Lebanon and the country’s political, economic and social
challenges. In a joint statement, the two groups stressed the need to preserve
civil peace and national partnership, rejecting political exclusion, incitement
and escalation. They called for disputes to be addressed through dialogue and
state institutions. Hezbollah and Amal urged the state to fully assume its
responsibilities and address economic and social challenges, while describing
reconstruction, compensation for those affected and the return of residents to
their towns and villages as urgent national priorities. They called for
mobilizing state resources and available Arab and international support to
rebuild affected areas and help residents return to their homes. The two groups
also urged political forces to avoid further divisions and intensify dialogue
and coordination, saying Lebanon cannot afford additional political paralysis or
tension. Lebanon’s President says efforts underway to address Syrian refugee
issue, welcomes support for security and reconstruction. They said overcoming
the current challenges requires broad political will, prioritizing the national
interest, strengthening state institutions and addressing the underlying causes
of the country’s crises.
Defense Minister meets new French ambassador, discusses
post-UNIFIL arrangements
LBCI/September 14/2026
Defense Minister Michel Menassa received France’s new ambassador to Lebanon,
Patrick Durel, at his office in Yarze on Monday for an introductory meeting
after the ambassador began his diplomatic mission in Lebanon. Menassa welcomed
Durel and wished him success in his new role. He also thanked France for its
continued support for Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces, as well as its
active participation in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The meeting also covered arrangements for the period following the end of
UNIFIL’s mission later this year and a conference to support the Lebanese Armed
Forces, scheduled to take place in Paris on September 17 and organized by
France. The two sides discussed the conference's importance in supporting and
strengthening the Lebanese military’s capabilities.
Sky Lounge Services denies claims of jet fuel smuggling
from Qlayaat Airport
LBCI/September 14/2026
Sky Lounge Services denied reports circulating in some media outlets and on
social media alleging that jet fuel was being unloaded and smuggled out of
Lebanon from President René Moawad Airport in Qlayaat. The company said the
airport has not yet begun commercial operations and that no aircraft linked to
its operations are currently based there, meaning there is no need to maintain
jet fuel stocks at this stage. Sky Lounge Services urged those seeking accurate
information about the Qlayaat Airport project to rely on its official platforms
for updates on the company’s role in developing and operating the airport. It
also called for information to be verified before being shared or published. The
company reiterated its commitment to transparency and to keeping the public
informed of the latest developments related to the project through its official
channels.
Israel and Lebanon to meet in Rome in October, US State
Department official says
LBCI/September 14/2026
Israel and Lebanon will meet in Rome in October to discuss a U.S.-brokered
security agreement intended to ease hostilities along the border, a State
Department Official told Reuters. The continued implementation of the deal
“remains the only viable mechanism to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty and Israel’s
security,” the official said, adding that the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors
will meet in Washington next week.
Israeli army intensifies operations in Mansouri, weighs
troop reshuffle in South Lebanon
LBCI/September 14/2026
The Israeli army has shifted its focus to the southern Lebanese town of Mansouri
following its operations around Ali al-Taher Hill, saying it plans to intensify
attacks on the area. The military says its operations are aimed at dismantling
Hezbollah infrastructure in the town and severing links between Mansouri and the
coastal city of Tyre. Mansouri lies within what Israel refers to as the “Yellow
Line.” Israeli forces are operating there amid reports that Hezbollah may be
planning to return to the town. The Israeli army’s 55th Reserve Paratroopers
Brigade is operating in the area under the command of the 91st Division,
alongside combat engineering forces and with support from armored and reserve
paratrooper units.Under current military directives, Mansouri is being targeted
at least three times a day, with strikes focused on buildings and
infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Israeli army is seeking to deploy another
division alongside the 91st Division near Beaufort Castle to strengthen its
control over the surrounding hills.At the same time, the military is considering
withdrawing an entire brigade from southern Lebanon as it faces pressure to ease
the burden on reservists.
Where does Israel's destruction of underground Hezbollah
base leave the group?
Agence France Presse/September 14/2026
Israel's demolition on Thursday of a tunnel network used by Hezbollah as a
command center in southern Lebanon, near the border, represents a significant
setback for the Iran-backed group. Experts said that while Hezbollah is far from
defeated, the group was now exposed after two fierce wars with Israel in which
it suffered major blows including the loss of much of its top leadership and
Israel's occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.
How big of a blow is it? -
A week after capturing the site, the Israeli military on Thursday demolished the
tunnels in the Ali al-Taher ridge with huge explosions. The United States
Geological Survey reported a 4.1 magnitude tremor in the area. Hezbollah never
acknowledged losing the strategic highland, which lies around 10 kilometers from
the border with Israel and overlooks the major city of Nabatieh. The Israeli
military previously said that the network comprised tunnels containing dozens of
Iranian-made rockets, missiles and drones, as well as other weapons. Experts say
the tunnels, built over two decades, connected a network of villages in the
area, and that the Israeli military now had easy access to Nabatieh, where
Hezbollah holds sway. "This is a major loss, they cannot make another
(headquarters) like it for decades to come," Khalil Gemayel, a retired Lebanese
general told AFP. "Hezbollah is now exposed in the area around the ridge," he
added. Reacting to the tunnels' destruction on Friday, Israeli Defense Minister
Israel Katz said "now there is a strong security zone, stronger than ever
before, which protects the communities from attack and direct fire, and enables
us to maintain control and threaten Hezbollah deep inside the area".
Is Hezbollah militarily defeated? -
While a significant moment, Gemayel believed that "losing Ali al-Taher does not
mean Hezbollah is broken". Israel occupies a swathe of southern Lebanon, where
Hezbollah built a now-dismantled network of tunnels near the border. The group
still maintains its major positions in Iqlim al-Tuffah -- a higher-altitude part
of the south further away from Israel -- in the Jezzine highlands elsewhere in
the south and in the Bekaa region in Lebanon's east and northeast."The
facilities present in Iqlim al-Tuffah are bigger than (Ali al-Taher)," according
to Gemayel. But Hezbollah no longer has a weapons supply route through Syria,
where the new authorities there are hostile to the group.Military expert Hassan
Jouni also said that "the fact that Hezbollah did not carry out a major
operation in Ali al-Taher to defend it is a sign of weakness". Hezbollah has not
claimed any attacks on Israel and its troops since June 20 while Lebanon reports
regular, sometimes deadly Israeli strikes despite a months-long truce.Israel has
accused the group of attacks on its troops in that time.
- Where does the group stand now? -
Hezbollah twice sparked wars with Israel in recent years, the first time with
its attacks in support of Hamas during the Gaza war, and the second in March in
support of Iran. Jouni said that while "Hezbollah lost a solid, fortified
defensive base" when Israel took Ali al-Taher, "it is not a devastating
setback". "It has gone through unprecedented setbacks before the issue of Ali
al-Taher, especially with the assassinations and the (Israeli army)'s ability to
occupy a vast area" of southern Lebanon, he said. During these wars, Hezbollah
lost several of its top commanders, including its former chief, while an Israeli
operation in September 2024 saw hundreds of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies
explode, paralyzing the group's communication systems while killing dozens and
wounding thousands. More than 8,900 people have been killed in Israeli attacks
since 2023, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Hezbollah does not disclose
how many fighters it has lost. On top of these setbacks, Hezbollah is also
dealing with a Lebanese president and prime minister who have vowed to disarm
it.The group's weapons have long been a point of contention in the country, with
critics accusing it of using them to support Iran's regional agenda to the
detriment of Lebanon.Hezbollah is also facing some scrutiny from its core
support base, the Shia Muslim community. In online petitions posted earlier this
month, hundreds of Lebanese public figures, including legal experts and human
rights advocates, called for Lebanon's army to be deployed in Nabatieh and Tyre,
two of southern Lebanon's largest cities. "This city does not belong to any
political group," said the signatories in the Nabatieh petition, referring to
Hezbollah.
Report: Bitar to receive prosecution's review within days,
to issue indictment this year
Naharnet/September 14/2026
Beirut port blast lead investigator Judge Tarek Bitar will receive the public
prosecution’s assessment of his draft indictment in the next few days, which
paves the way for the issuance of the long-awaited indictment, MTV reported on
Monday. It said that the review will be sent to Bitar by Attorney General Judge
Mohammad Saab and that Bitar will issue the indictment before the end of the
year.The Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported that the assessment will be delivered
on Tuesday and that Bitar will only need a few days to issue the indictment. Al-Arabiya's
Al-Hadath channel for its part said that the indictment will be issued before
December. The massive explosion on August 4, 2020 killed more than 220 people,
injured more than 6,500 and laid waste to swathes of the capital. Lebanese
authorities have said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where
tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been stored haphazardly for years,
despite repeated warnings to senior officials. The file has witnessed political
and judicial wrangling over the past six years and Bitar had summoned and
listened to a number of political, judicial, administrative and security
officials none of whom are currently in custody.
Bassil: Bashir's 10,452 is also our cause
Naharnet/September 14/2026
Free Patriotic Movement chief Gebran Bassil on Monday marked on his X platform
account the 44th anniversary of the assassination of president-elect Bashir
Gemayel.
“Bashir was martyred because he refused encroachment on Lebanon the 10,452
square kilometers, and this is also our cause,” Bassil added.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on September 14-15/2026
Trump: Weapons Being Delivered to US
Forces in the Middle East and Beyond; Trump Open to Dealing with Iran
AlArabiya.net and Agencies | September 14, 2026 (Google
translation from Arabic)
US President Donald Trump stated on Monday that weapons are being delivered to
his country's forces in the Middle East and beyond, noting that the United
States possesses a large stockpile of Patriot, THAAD, and Tomahawk missiles. At
the same time, Trump reiterated his "openness" to dealing with Iran in order to
end the war launched by the United States and Israel against the Islamic
Republic in February. The US President wrote on his "Truth Social" platform:
"The failing Iranian nation wants to reach a deal—quickly and urgently. I will
decide whether or not the United States chooses to engage in that; it is
something we are open to." Furthermore, Trump announced that nations that
provided no assistance in the war against Iran would be required to compensate
the United States for all losses incurred once the conflict ends. He wrote on
"Truth Social": "Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Nations around the
world that offered us no help will be required—and compelled—to compensate the
United States for its losses when this conflict concludes." He added: "We do
this for others far more than we do for ourselves, and that is what we have done
for generations!"
CENTCOM Denies Oil Tanker Explosion After Hitting Mines or Drone Strike in
Strait of Hormuz
Riyadh: Al Arabiya. Online/Agencies – September 14, 2026 (Google translation
from Arabic)
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) denied on Monday claims by Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that a Panama-flagged oil tanker had recently
struck a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz, asserting that the allegation is
baseless. In a statement posted on X, CENTCOM said that the Panama-flagged
tanker *El Gaia* was struck by an Iranian missile last month, rendering it
inoperable. Over the weekend, Iran targeted the tanker again with a drone while
it was anchored off the coast of Oman; a regional partner is currently towing
the vessel. The command emphasized that this false claim by the IRGC is yet
another example of its lies and intimidation tactics as it seeks to disrupt
commercial shipping in the strait. Earlier today, the Fars News Agency had
quoted the IRGC as saying that an oil tanker exploded and caught fire after
striking mines in the Strait of Hormuz, without specifying when the incident
occurred. Separately, Iranian television reported that the U.S. military
targeted two Iranian boats with drones in the south of the country.
US Treasury Sanctions Russian Bank, Affirms Zero Tolerance for Support of
Iranian Regime; VTB Among World’s Most Heavily Sanctioned Financial Institutions
Riyadh: AlArabiya.net | September 14, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
As part of the "Economic Isolation" operation, the US Department of the Treasury
announced today that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added the
prominent Russian financial institution VTB Bank to the sanctions list. This
action follows the bank's involvement in assisting Iran to evade sanctions,
including the establishment of correspondent banking relationships with
sanctioned Iranian banks. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated: "Under the
Economic Isolation operation, the Treasury will continue to target and disrupt
entities providing material, technological, or financial support that enables
the Iranian regime to pursue its terrorist activities. The Treasury will not
tolerate any support for the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and
isolate the entities that enable it." OFAC’s action against VTB Bank was taken
pursuant to Executive Order 13902, which targets specific sectors of the Iranian
economy, including the financial sector. Consequently, VTB has become one of the
most heavily sanctioned financial institutions in the world. The "Economic
Isolation" operation has heightened the risk of secondary sanctions and
accelerated enforcement actions against entities that continue to engage with
the Iranian regime. Foreign financial institutions that have continued to deal
with VTB following its designation under US Iran-related sanctions authorities
face increased risk and should immediately sever those relationships. The
Department of the Treasury is also holding meetings this week with global
financial institutions to provide them with the information necessary to cut off
revenue streams and procurement networks linked to the Iranian regime, the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s designated terrorist proxies,
and their supporters. VTB Bank, a public joint-stock company, is one of Russia’s
largest financial institutions. In recent years, it has opened banking offices
in Iran to enhance banking coordination with the Iranian regime and expand trade
between the two countries. Over the past three years, the bank has established
correspondent banking relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial
institutions and, in January 2025, began taking steps to strengthen its presence
in Tehran. VTB has also taken measures to move billions of dollars in frozen
Iranian assets and established a system for settling transactions in national
currencies—using Iranian rial and Russian ruble correspondent accounts—to boost
bilateral trade. VTB Bank is designated pursuant to Executive Order 13902 for
operating in the financial sector of the Iranian economy.
Yemeni Prime Minister: The Battle to Restore State Authority Does Not End with
Shifts in Frontlines
Shaya Al-Zandani: Houthi Militia Crimes Will Not Be Subject to a Statute of
Limitations
AlArabiya.net: Awsan Salem | September 14, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya Al-Zandani stated on Monday that the battle to fully
restore state authority does not end with changes to frontlines. He affirmed
that the state and government would continue working to rebuild their strength
and capacity to regain the initiative, ultimately aiming to end the coup and
restore state authority and institutions in Al-Hudaydah Governorate and across
the entire national territory. These remarks were made as the Prime Minister
received Al-Hudaydah Governor Al-Hassan Taher in the interim capital, Aden. The
Governor briefed him on the latest developments in the governorate following the
major military escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, as well as the
resulting dangerous developments on the ground and the widespread humanitarian
impact on civilians. The Prime Minister noted that events on the West Coast
mirror the Houthi militia's pattern of subjugating local communities through
killing and displacement. He emphasized that these crimes would not be subject
to a statute of limitations and that the government would preserve documentation
of these violations in preparation for holding the perpetrators accountable. Al-Zandani
directed that efforts be redoubled to receive displaced persons and secure their
basic needs. He stressed the necessity of treating the waves of displacement as
a national mission requiring a comprehensive government and humanitarian
response, as well as urgent international support, ensuring that neither host
communities nor displaced persons are left to face the repercussions of the
escalation alone. The Yemeni Prime Minister reaffirmed the commitment to ending
the coup and restoring state authority in Al-Hudaydah Governorate and across the
entire country, noting that Yemenis standing against the Iranian-backed Houthi
project are defending the nation's sovereignty and future.
Houthi Equipment and Headquarters Destroyed in Dhubab and
Al-Khokha (Western Yemen) Within the "Kill Box" Zone
AlArabiya.net: Awsan Salem | September 14, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
On Monday evening, the official spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Colonel
Majid Al-Nazili, announced the execution of military operations targeting the
movements and personnel of the terrorist Houthi militia on Yemen's West Coast.
The military spokesman explained that the strikes hit equipment and terrorist
operatives, as well as headquarters that the militia had occupied and used for
military purposes in the Dhubab and Al-Khokha areas. Field footage captured the
moment the targeted gatherings and headquarters were pounded, resulting in
significant human and material losses among Houthi ranks. This action follows
the Yemeni Armed Forces' announcement of a designated operational zone dubbed
the "Kill Box"—extending from Al-Mukha to Dhubab—aimed at monitoring Houthi
movements and striking military targets within that perimeter. Since Friday, the
Yemeni Air Force has been conducting airstrikes against military vehicles and
Houthi militia gatherings within the "Kill Box," while local sources have
reported heavy human and material losses for the militia. Additionally, the
Media Center of the Yemeni Armed Forces released a video showing artillery and
drone strikes targeting Houthi militia gatherings across various battlefronts.
Saudi Crown Prince Meets President Sisi in Cairo; Egyptian Presidency: Talks
Focus on Regional Developments and Strengthening Bilateral Relations
Riyadh – Al Arabiya | September 14, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
The Egyptian Presidency announced that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is
receiving Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman on
Tuesday to discuss a number of issues of mutual interest. The Presidency added
that the meeting involves an exchange of views on regional developments in light
of current events in the region, as well as discussions on ways to strengthen
Egyptian-Saudi relations and advance joint cooperation.
Al-Zaidi: Iraq Views France as a Trusted Strategic Partner
Within a Framework of Enduring Friendship; Government to Provide Full Support,
Facilitation, and a Favorable Investment Environment
Riyadh: AlArabiya.net and Agencies | September 14, 2026 (Google
translation from Arabic)
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi stated on Monday that Iraq views France
as a trusted partner within the framework of enduring friendship and recognizes
its need for strategic partners. While receiving the heads and representatives
of major French companies at his residence in Paris, the Prime Minister said,
"The government will provide all support, facilities, and a favorable investment
environment for French companies wishing to invest in Iraq," according to a
government statement. He added, "An agreement was reached with President Macron
to prepare for the Baghdad-Paris Conference in Baghdad, as Iraq seeks to
increase its crude oil production capacity from 4.8 million barrels per day to
10 million barrels per day—alongside associated projects for the production,
extraction, and utilization of associated gas." Al-Zaidi also noted, "Iraq
possesses other mineral resources available for investment and expanded
extraction—such as sulfur, phosphate, silica, and petrochemicals—in addition to
infrastructure projects and a broad investment roadmap covering the economy,
energy, industry, pharmaceuticals, railways, and other sectors." He explained
that the strategic "Development Road" project—globally significant as a vital
corridor—would enhance economic connectivity and support the smooth flow of
supply chains. Iraq had previously signed six memoranda of understanding for
future cooperation with French companies in the fields of military cooperation,
gas projects, and cultural collaboration.
Netanyahu threatens retaliation if Israel’s enemies attack
AFP/14 September ,2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday of heavy reprisals on
Israel’s enemies if they attacked, as he lauded the recent demolition of a
Hezbollah tunnel network in southern Lebanon. Netanyahu said Israel’s
destruction of Hezbollah positions at the Beaufort and Ali al-Taher ridges was a
“massive victory” and vowed to “continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure.”“I
say to our enemies: If you haven’t learned the lesson by now, and you choose to
attack us again, you will suffer even heavier blows. There is still work to
complete,” Netanyahu added, according to a video published by his office. On
Thursday, Israel blew up what it described as a vast network of tunnels under
the Ali al-Taher ridge where Hezbollah kept a command center, living quarters
and stocks of weapons with which to strike northern Israel and invading Israeli
troops. A huge fireball was seen in the area, with the US Geological Survey
recording a tremor equivalent to a 4.1 magnitude earthquake. The blast came a
week after Israeli troops said they had seized the strategic highlands as they
solidified control of a “security zone” in southern Lebanon. Israel said the
tunnel network was built over two decades with the help of Hezbollah’s patron
Iran, whose clerical government has also backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel
and the United States attacked Iran in late February, sparking the Middle East
war. Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the wider conflict when it fired rockets at
Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israel has struck south Lebanon during the war
and its forces continue to occupy what it calls a “security zone” there. The Ali
al-Taher ridge lies on the edge of Israel’s security zone just a few kilometers
from the UNESCO-listed Beaufort castle, another strategic site that Israel
captured in recent months. Israel and Lebanon signed a US-sponsored framework
agreement in late June that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual
withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon’s south and the deployment of the
Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as “pilot zones.”
Senior Sunni cleric killed in Iran area near Pakistan
Al Arabiya English/14 September ,2026
A Sunni cleric in Iran was killed on Monday in front of his home in a region
bordering Pakistan that has been plagued by violence, state television reported.
The incident took place in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, one of
Iran’s poorest regions that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Youssef Gargij, a
Sunni cleric... was killed by Zionist mercenaries in front of his house” in the
province’s capital Zahedan, Iranian television reported, claiming that he was a
supporter of the Iranian government. Authorities in Iran frequently accuse
militant groups operating in the province of having ties to Israel.The region is
home to a large Baloch ethnic minority, who practice Sunni Islam in Shia-majority
Iran. While killings of religious figures in Iran are less common, security
forces regularly clash with armed groups, including drug traffickers and
separatists, in the area. On Saturday, three members of the security forces were
killed in clashes with gunmen, five of whom died, according to state television.
Saudi Crown Prince to meet Egypt’s al-Sisi in Cairo on
Tuesday
Saudi Arabia/Al Arabiya English/14 September ,2026
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will receive Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman in Cairo on Tuesday for talks on a range of issues of mutual
interest, the Egyptian presidency said. The two leaders will exchange views on
regional developments amid ongoing changes in the region, the presidency
added.The meeting will also focus on ways to strengthen relations between Saudi
Arabia and Egypt and advance bilateral cooperation. Earlier this month, the two
leaders voiced the importance of de-escalating current regional tensions in a
phone call.
Trump taps Wesley Hunt to be next US ambassador to Saudi
Arabia
Al Arabiya English/15 September ,2026
US President Donald Trump has nominated Texas Congressman Wesley Hunt as the
next US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, filling a position vacant since shortly
after he took office.Hunt’s nomination was sent to the Senate on Monday,
according to notice from the White House. If confirmed, he will succeed Michael
Ratney as the previous top US diplomat to the Kingdom. “It is the honor of a
lifetime to accept President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next United
States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Hunt said in a post on X. He
added that he understands the “strategic importance of the partnership between
the United States and Saudi Arabia and the profound responsibility of this
position.” Hunt vowed to serve with humility and honor, advance the US
president’s “vision of peace through strength and deepen this vital
partnership.”Hunt is a West Point graduate and spent eight years in the US Army.
He served one deployment to Iraq and two more to Saudi Arabia, where he was a
Diplomatic Liaison Officer.He was first elected to Congress in 2023 and
currently sits on the House Natural Resources and Judiciary Committees.Hunt is
married and has three children.
Saudi Arabia discovered 110 mln tons of rare earths and
uranium in Medina: ABS
Al Arabiya English14 September ,2026
Saudi Arabia has discovered 110 million tons of raw materials containing uranium
concentrations in Medina, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said
on Monday.Speaking at the IAEA General Conference in Vienna, Prince Abdulaziz
said the Kingdom is working to invest its diverse energy and mineral
resources.For more Saudi news, visit our dedicated page.He added that
diversifying these energy resources has become essential to supporting economic
growth and supply security. Meanwhile, ABS said that Saudi Arabia had solidified
its position as an active partner in energy markets. As for its civil nuclear
program and the recent landmark deal struck with the US, Prince Abdulaziz said
the agreement was subject to the 123 Agreement, “special voluntary safeguard
arrangements,” and IAEA oversight. He also pushed back on critics and concerns
over Saudi Arabia possessing a nuclear program. The Kingdom does not seek to
develop a nuclear program in isolation from the international community, “nor
through activities conducted in secrecy or facilities concealed deep within
mountains,” he said, in an apparent reference to the decadeslong underground
Iranian nuclear program. “The Kingdom follows a clear approach founded on
transparency, openness and international cooperation,” he said.
US has weapons deployed in orbit, Space Force says
AFP/15 September ,2026
The United States has weapons deployed in space, the US Space Force said on
Monday, confirming the presence of such capabilities in orbit for the first
time. “The US has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint
Force against hostile adversary action,” a US Space Force spokesperson said in a
statement that did not provide specifics on the weapons. “Space control
encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain
-- employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities,”
the statement said, adding that “these capabilities can be employed for
offensive and defensive purposes.”Both Russia and China -- the two main
geopolitical rivals of the United States -- pose potential threats to US
interests in space. China “develops and operates space and counterspace
capabilities as part of a military modernization strategy,” while Russia “views
space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive
factor in future conflicts,” according to the US Space Force. The militarization
of space is as old as the space race itself -- as soon as Sputnik was launched
into orbit in 1957, Washington and Moscow began exploring ways to both arm and
destroy satellites. The biggest worry was once about nuclear weapons in space,
but the superpowers and other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967,
banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit. Since then, Russia, the United
States, China and India have explored ways to fight in space outside of that
treaty, including by targeting rivals’ satellites, which are key for military
communications, surveillance and navigation.
MBS, US Central Command chief discuss latest regional
developments
Al Arabiya English/14 September ,2026
“CENTCOM has a longstanding and strong military relationship with the Saudi
Arabian Armed Forces,” a spokesman told Al Arabiya English. Saudi Arabia’s Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with the top US military commander for the Middle
East on Monday in Jeddah, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. The two sides
reviewed bilateral relations and the latest regional developments, according to
the SPA. US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. Brad Cooper met senior civilian
and military leaders in Saudi Arabia to discuss regional security cooperation,
CENTCOM Spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins told Al Arabiya English. “CENTCOM has a
longstanding and strong military relationship with the Saudi Arabian Armed
Forces,” Hawkins added. MBS had spoken with US President Donald Trump multiple
times as Riyadh and Washington coordinate over the escalating situation in
Yemen, sources familiar with the matter said last week. Trump told MBS that the
US would provide intelligence and targeting assistance, one source told Al
Arabiya English, as the Iran-backed Houthis make significant gains along Yemen’s
Red Sea coastline.
US in direct contact with Yemen’s Houthis, VP Vance says
Al Arabiya English/14 September ,2026:
The US is directly speaking to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, Vice President JD
Vance said on Monday. The Houthi militia has stepped up its attacks on
commercial shipping as well as against Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. Saudi
Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with the top US military commander
for the Middle East on Monday in Jeddah, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
Al Arabiya English reported last week that MBS and US President Donald Trump
spoke several times to coordinate over the escalating situation in Yemen. Trump
told MBS that the US would provide intelligence and targeting assistance, one
source told Al Arabiya English, after the Houthis made significant gains along
Yemen’s Red Sea coastline. On Monday, the US vice president said Washington was
in constant contact with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “So, it’s something the
United States administration is very much on top of,” Vance told reporters.
“We’ve also been engaged in direct conversation with the Houthis themselves. So,
we actually feel like we are on top of the situation. It’s a very fluid and
dynamic thing; we want to keep on monitoring it,” Vance said.
US imposes Iran-related sanctions on Russia’s VTB
Reuters/14 September ,2026
The United States imposed Iran-related sanctions Monday on Russia’s VTB Bank
Public Joint Stock Company, accusing it of involvement in Iranian sanctions
evasion, the Treasury Department said as Washington seeks to ramp up economic
pressure on Tehran. The action builds on sanctions imposed against VTB, Russia’s
second-largest lender, in 2022, when the bank was targeted following Moscow’s
full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will
continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or
financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist
enterprise,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement. “Treasury
will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify,
expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers.”Bessent warned last week that President
Donald Trump’s administration would sanction a large bank as it continues to
apply economic pressure on Tehran to end a more than six-month US conflict with
Iran. The United States has imposed a range of economic measures against Iran
since the conflict began in February, targeting oil exports, shipping networks,
weapons procurement channels, financial intermediaries, digital asset exchanges
and aviation links.
Trump says Ukraine, Russia agree not to hit energy targets
AFP/14 September ,2026
US President Donald Trump said Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to
target each other’s energy facilities, a day after he chastised Kyiv for hitting
Russian oil refineries. “Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets.
Russia has agreed to do, likewise!” Trump said on his Truth Social network.“The
World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not
Iran.”There was no immediate confirmation from Kyiv or Moscow of any deal.
Trump’s claim comes as oil prices continue to soar in the seventh month of the
Iran war, raising American fuel costs and inflation just weeks before crunch US
midterm elections. The US leader has insisted that the Iran war will finish
immediately after the midterms and gas prices will drop - but has in the
meantime apparently found a new target to blame for the cost at the pump. Trump
had lashed out at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a trip to
Ireland on Sunday, saying he had to do “one thing” and “stop knocking out diesel
fuel” refineries in Russia due to growing shortages. “Let him go after targets,
but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel,” Trump said,
again insisting the Russia-Ukraine war - not the US-Israel conflict with Iran -
was to blame.Trump added he had spoken to Ukraine’s leader about the country’s
stepped-up attacks on such sites over recent months. “There are plenty of other
targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel because that’s hurting. That’s hurting the world.
We don’t want him to hit diesel fuel... He’s hitting diesel refineries.”Ukraine
has hit numerous Russian oil refineries far from its border with Russia, while
Moscow has also intensified its long-range attacks in recent months, leading to
a jump in civilian deaths. Kyiv has been firing record numbers of drones at
Russia, while Moscow has been launching all-time high missile attacks. Trump
said last week he had a “great conversation” with Russian President Vladimir
Putin, insisting that Putin wanted to make a deal to end Moscow’s war on
Ukraine. Putin “is wanting to make a deal, and if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a
deal, that’d be very nice,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. Zelenskyy said
last week he would be willing to meet Putin at the G20 summit at Trump’s own
Doral resort in Miami in December, but the Kremlin immediately ruled it out.
The Latest LCCC analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on September 13-14/2026
The Palestinians' Dead-End Choice:
Fatah or Hamas
Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/September 14, 2026
Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority [PA] owe the Palestinian people – as
well as Israelis and other victims – countless apologies. They owe apologies for
corruption and mismanagement. They owe apologies for failing to build
transparent and accountable institutions. They owe apologies for suppressing
dissent and freedom of expression and for persecuting political opponents,
journalists, human rights activists, and critics. They owe apologies for
repeatedly rejecting compromises and peace initiatives and for policies that
have contributed to decades of Israeli and Palestinian bloodshed. They owe
apologies for failing to use international assistance to build a functioning
economy and institutions that serve ordinary Palestinians. They owe their people
an honest explanation for why Palestinians remain divided between two rival
governments and without a functioning democratic political system.
The timing of this latest dispute is particularly significant.
Hamas has decided to participate [in the upcoming PA elections on November
28]... if true, such an arrangement would allow Hamas to re-enter Palestinian
politics through the back door.
So, instead of changing its goals – brutally ruling Gaza and destroying Israel –
Hamas will simply change its "name, structure and framework"?
Changing the label does not change the organization. A Hamas-affiliated
candidate does not cease to be affiliated with Hamas simply because the word
"Hamas" does not appear next to his name on the ballot.
Such a maneuver would turn the election into a political fiction: Hamas would be
permitted to obtain parliamentary representation while avoiding the political
consequences of openly running as Hamas. Allowing Hamas— in disguise or not – to
run in the election would also legitimize the terrorist group without requiring
it fundamentally to change.
That would be a serious mistake. The Palestinians have already seen what happens
when Hamas acquires political power.
Hamas is bad, but who said that the PA is any better?
Palestinians have experienced corruption, political repression, and an absence
of meaningful political renewal.
The problem is: What if one of the negotiating parties decides never to come to
the table? Is the other party just supposed to hold everything in abeyance –
unsettled forever – in case one day the other party might change its mind?
The Palestinians need a genuine third way – not merely another faction with a
different name. They need leaders who are prepared to challenge the entrenched
political culture of Fatah and Hamas. They need leaders who believe that the
Palestinian national interest is more important than factional interests. They
need leaders willing to confront corruption, reject authoritarianism, protect
freedom of expression, build functioning institutions, and end the glorification
of violence.
Above all, Palestinians need leaders courageous enough to tell their people an
uncomfortable truth: there can be no genuine progress so long as the political
choice remains confined to Fatah and Hamas, and that the primary objective of
both groups remains the obliteration of Israel.
The Palestinians remain trapped between two bad choices: the Fatah-dominated
Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group. The
Palestinians have tried both. The result has been corruption, authoritarianism,
political repression, terrorism, violence, division and, ultimately, immense
suffering for the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians remain trapped between two bad choices: the Fatah-dominated
Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group.
The Palestinians have tried both.
The result has been corruption, authoritarianism, political repression,
terrorism, violence, division and, ultimately, immense suffering for the
Palestinian people.
Yet, as the Palestinians prepare for another parliamentary election, they are
once again being offered essentially the same political choice.
The latest quarrel between Fatah and Hamas illustrates the problem.
Majed Faraj, director of the PA's General Intelligence Service, recently called
on Hamas to apologize to the Palestinian people for the catastrophe that has
befallen them since Hamas's October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel. Faraj, who was
recently elected as a member of the Fatah Central Committee, a key
decision-making body, said that such an apology should be a precondition for
Hamas to return to participating in Palestinian political life.
At first glance, demanding accountability from Hamas may appear reasonable.
Hamas launched the October 7 attack, in which 1,200 Israelis and foreign
nationals were murdered and more than 250 abducted and held as hostages. The
attack triggered a devastating war whose consequences have been catastrophic for
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
There was, however, something revealing about Faraj's demand. He did not ask
that Hamas apologize to the families of the Israelis and foreign nationals who
were murdered by the terrorist group on October 7 and after, or to the surviving
hostages. He only requested that Hamas apologize to the Palestinians for the
disaster that befell them.
The distinction is telling. For many Palestinian leaders, the main problem with
October 7 is not what Hamas did to its Israeli and foreign victims, but what
happened to the Palestinians afterwards.
Hamas, predictably, rejected Faraj's demand. Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim
responded that if Hamas must apologize for October 7, then Fatah and the late
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat should also apologize for the
"disasters" that have befallen the Palestinian people over the decades.
Naim was most likely referring to major episodes in Palestinian history,
including the 1970-71 Black September conflict in Jordan, when the PLO attempted
to overthrow the government of Jordanian King Hussein, who ultimately expelled
the PLO from Jordan; the PLO's instigation of the Lebanese civil war between
1975 and 1990; and the 1990-91 Gulf War, particularly Arafat's decision to align
with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein when Iraq invaded Kuwait, even though for
decades, Kuwait had generously welcomed and employed hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians.
These hostile initiatives led to severe consequences for the PLO and
Palestinians, including the loss of financial and political support from Gulf
states and the expulsion of roughly 400,000 Palestinians from Kuwait.
In short, Hamas's answer to the PA's Fatah was essentially: If we are guilty, so
are you.
This response illustrates the fundamental problem with Palestinian politics.
Fatah points to Hamas's crimes and failures. Hamas points to Fatah's crimes and
failures. Each side demands accountability from the other while refusing to
undertake any serious examination of its own record.
Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority owe the Palestinian people – as well as
Israelis and other victims – countless apologies. They owe apologies for
corruption and mismanagement. They owe apologies for failing to build
transparent and accountable institutions. They owe apologies for suppressing
dissent and freedom of expression and for persecuting political opponents,
journalists, human rights activists, and critics. They owe apologies for
repeatedly rejecting compromises and peace initiatives and for policies that
have contributed to decades of Israeli and Palestinian bloodshed. They owe
apologies for failing to use international assistance to build a functioning
economy and institutions that serve ordinary Palestinians. They owe their people
an honest explanation for why Palestinians remain divided between two rival
governments and without a functioning democratic political system.
The timing of this latest dispute is particularly significant.
It comes less than two months before the parliamentary elections scheduled for
November 28. Hamas has decided to participate, although it has not yet announced
its own electoral list or candidates.
Reports that Hamas may participate through affiliated candidates who are not
formally or openly identified as Hamas raise even more serious questions. If
true, such an arrangement would allow Hamas to re-enter Palestinian politics
through the back door.
Palestinian Authority Vice President Husein al-Sheikh recently told Palestinian
journalists that Hamas's "participation would take a different form, and that it
would not participate under its current name or structure." He claimed that
Hamas had reached an agreement with the United States not to participate in
Palestinian political life in its current form. Al-Sheikh indicated the
possibility of figures affiliated with Hamas participating under a new political
framework.
So, instead of changing its goals – brutally ruling Gaza and destroying Israel –
Hamas will simply change its "name, structure and framework"?
Changing the label does not change the organization. A Hamas-affiliated
candidate does not cease to be affiliated with Hamas simply because the word
"Hamas" does not appear next to his name on the ballot.
Such a maneuver would turn the election into a political fiction: Hamas would be
permitted to obtain parliamentary representation while avoiding the political
consequences of openly running as Hamas. Allowing Hamas— in disguise or not – to
run in the election would also legitimize the terrorist group without requiring
it fundamentally to change.
That would be a serious mistake. The Palestinians have already seen what happens
when Hamas acquires political power.
In the 2006 parliamentary election, Hamas won a stunning victory over Fatah. The
results were not simply the product of Hamas's popularity. They also reflected
widespread Palestinian frustration with Fatah's corruption, incompetence,
internal divisions, and failure to deliver good governance.
If the same conditions that helped Hamas win remain in place, another election
could simply reproduce the same cycle. This is why the Palestinian Authority
cannot credibly present itself as the answer to Hamas. Hamas is bad, but who
said that the PA is any better?
The PA remains dominated by an aging leadership that has repeatedly failed to
establish genuine democratic accountability. Palestinians have experienced
corruption, political repression, and an absence of meaningful political
renewal.
For almost two decades, Fatah and Hamas have fought each other, arrested each
other's supporters, and accused each other of betraying the Palestinian cause.
Yet neither has succeeded in building a political system that serves the
Palestinian people. Now, they are preparing to compete for parliamentary seats
again.
This should not inspire excessive optimism. At the end of the day, the new
parliament could once again be dominated by loyalists of Abbas and Fatah on one
side and Hamas-affiliated figures on the other.
Where is the alternative?
In the past, Palestinians were offered a "Third Way." Former PA Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad ran in the 2006 election at the head of the Third Way list. It won
only two seats. Fayyad represented a radically different model from both Fatah
and Hamas. He was associated with institution-building, economic development,
administrative reform, and international engagement rather than armed struggle.
Fayyad, nevertheless, created a "Fayyad Plan" for the surreptitious takeover of
the West Bank by Palestinians, apparently with the goal of creating a
Palestinian state on land that the Palestinians had agreed was to be negotiated.
The plan consisted of building illegal "facts on the ground" in Area C — land
that is, by mutual agreement, under the control of Israel and waiting to be
negotiated.
The problem is: What if one of the negotiating parties decides never to come to
the table? Is the other party just supposed to hold everything in abeyance –
unsettled forever – in case one day the other party might change its mind?
The acquisitive Fayyad Plan was financed largely by the European Union, whose
members evidently do not see anything wrong with illegally seizing land, or with
"illegal construction," so long as that land belongs to the Jews.
Fayyad did not spend years in an Israeli prison. He did not encourage his son to
attack Israel. He studied at the University of Texas at Austin.
In Palestinian culture, graduating from an Israeli prison carries greater
political prestige than graduating from an American university. This is
precisely the culture that needs to change.
The Palestinians need a genuine third way – not merely another faction with a
different name. They need leaders who are prepared to challenge the entrenched
political culture of Fatah and Hamas. They need leaders who believe that the
Palestinian national interest is more important than factional interests. They
need leaders willing to confront corruption, reject authoritarianism, protect
freedom of expression, build functioning institutions, and end the glorification
of violence.
Above all, Palestinians need leaders courageous enough to tell their people an
uncomfortable truth: there can be no genuine progress so long as the political
choice remains confined to Fatah and Hamas, and that the primary objective of
both groups remains the obliteration of Israel.
The Palestinians do not need another election contest between Fatah and Hamas.
They need an escape from this political monopoly.
**Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made
possible through the generous donation of a couple who wish to remain anonymous.
Gatestone is most grateful.
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.
The Human Rights Industry Has a Favorite Kind of Victim
Pierre Rehov/Gatestone Institute/September 14, 2026
The human rights industry's favorite kind of victim is the politically useful
one: the victim whose suffering can be attached to an adversary — a designated
"villain" — preferably one that Western activists already know how to hate,
pressure and organize against.
That is why Palestinian victims, when Israel can be cast as an alleged
perpetrator of wrongs, generate an extraordinary machinery of outrage, while
Sudanese victims of genocide, Afghan women under the Taliban, Iranian protesters
murdered by their own regime, or persecuted Christians in Nigeria largely do
not.
The hierarchy is not determined by the severity of the suffering; it is
determined by the political usefulness of the victim and, even more importantly,
by the identity of the "villain" supposedly committing these wrongs.
A United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in February 2026 that the mass
executions, gang rapes and engineered starvation... in Sudan bore the hallmarks
of genocide, and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference the
evidence allowed.
The finding produced -- communiqués! No American campus has been covered with
Sudanese encampments. No international campaign demands that corporations prove
their innocence regarding Khartoum....
No permanent encampment stands outside Harvard demanding freedom for Afghan
women, no divestment movement has become fashionable, no symbol has reached a
red carpet. UN Women warns that the repression is being normalized.... The women
remain where they were; the audience has left.
The West's response to Iran's January massacre took the form of diaspora rallies
and a condemnation signed by 800 film professionals. The industry that produced
five thousand signatures against Israeli film festivals produced eight hundred
against a government that had just shot thousands of its own citizens in 48
hours, and its own trade press said so.
The American students who occupied buildings for Gaza risked nothing worse than
a disciplinary hearing and offered the Iranian protesters nothing.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has spent
seventeen years asking Washington to treat Nigeria as a country of particular
concern, counts nearly 53,000 civilians killed there in targeted violence since
2009.
[A] successful cause needs more than victims. The favorite victim is not the one
who suffers most, but the one whose suffering can be put to political use. A
successful cause needs a usable "villain," ideally one already circulating in
the narrative. Israel serves that purpose almost perfectly. It is
Western-aligned, democratic, backed by Washington and permanently accessible to
journalists. Its politicians answer questions, its courts rule against its
government, and all of it can be pressured.
Western outrage has acquired a political economy: a successful cause needs more
than victims. It needs a usable villain, ideally one already circulating in the
narrative. Israel serves that purpose almost perfectly. It is Western-aligned,
democratic, backed by Washington and permanently accessible to journalists. Its
politicians answer questions, its courts rule against its government, and all of
it can be pressured.
Nothing comparable can be organized against the Taliban.
Dictatorships make poor targets for performative activism because dictators are
immune to performance. Attacking Israel connects an activist to an apparatus of
campus groups, NGOs and networks assembled over decades, with the slogans
pre-written and the vocabulary standardized. A 19-year-old needs to know nothing
about the Middle East to take part. He needs a placard.
Sudan requires homework, and knowing about Iran's regime would require him to
concede that the enemies of American power are frequently worse than what they
oppose.
Consistency is the one thing the machinery fails to supply. A movement that
really meant what it says about universal rights would mobilize for captives
whose slaveholders, such as Qatar, enjoy vast assets. It would protest child
trafficking and organ harvesting, and defend Afghan women and Iranian
dissidents. Palestinian civilians would be defended as civilians rather than as
evidence. Such a movement would be difficult to manipulate, impossible to
monetize and useless to every exploiting faction, which explains well enough why
nobody has built one.
A UN fact-finding mission concluded in February 2026 that the mass executions,
gang rapes and engineered starvation in Sudan bore the hallmarks of genocide,
and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference the evidence
allowed. The finding produced -- communiqués! No American campus has been
covered with Sudanese encampments. No international campaign demands that
corporations prove their innocence regarding Khartoum. Pictured: Sudanese Armed
Forces soldiers take part in a parade on August 17, 2026, in the city of Gedaref
in eastern Sudan. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The human rights industry's favorite kind of victim is the politically useful
one: the victim whose suffering can be attached to an adversary — a designated
"villain" — preferably one that Western activists already know how to hate,
pressure and organize against.
That is why Palestinian victims, when Israel can be cast as an alleged
perpetrator of wrongs, generate an extraordinary machinery of outrage, while
Sudanese victims of genocide, Afghan women under the Taliban, Iranian protesters
murdered by their own regime, or persecuted Christians in Nigeria largely do
not.
The hierarchy is not determined by the severity of the suffering; it is
determined by the political usefulness of the victim and, even more importantly,
by the identity of the "villain" supposedly committing these wrongs.
There are victims who acquire a constituency. Their faces appear on banners,
their names are read aloud at demonstrations, actors on red carpets wear their
symbols, students occupy university buildings on their behalf, and institutions
discover an urgent moral obligation to issue statements. Then there are victims
who die mostly alone, counted briefly by the organizations paid to count them
and noticed by no one else.
Sudan belongs to the second set. The war that erupted in April 2023 between the
Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces has produced what the UN refugee
agency calls the largest displacement and humanitarian crisis in the world, with
close to thirteen million people driven from their homes. Already a year ago, in
late October 2025, after an eighteen-month siege, the RSF entered El Fasher and
killed its inhabitants with such thoroughness that researchers at Yale
identified the bloodstains in satellite imagery. A United Nations fact-finding
mission concluded in February 2026 that the mass executions, gang rapes and
engineered starvation of the Zaghawa and Fur communities bore the hallmarks of
genocide, and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference the
evidence allowed.
The finding produced -- communiqués! No American campus has been covered with
Sudanese encampments. No international campaign demands that corporations prove
their innocence regarding Khartoum, or the transfers of weapons to Sudanese
warlords assessed by American intelligence. Darfur now carries the word
genocide, applied by the United Nations itself -- and no constituency.
The comparison with Gaza is not a competition between corpses. Palestinian
civilians deserve the sympathy owed civilians anywhere. What deserves
examination is the propaganda factory of war. Within months of October 7, 2023,
encampments, building occupations and mass arrests had spread from Columbia to
Yale to New York University and onward across Europe. In September 2025, a
pledge to refuse all work with Israeli festivals, cinemas and production
companies gathered more than 5,000 signatures from film professionals, including
some of the industry's biggest names.
Afghanistan tests the proposition further. Five years after the Taliban returned
to Kabul, UNESCO recently reported that 2.4 million Afghan girls are shut out of
secondary education. Afghanistan remains the only country that formally forbids
girls and women to study beyond primary school. More than seventy decrees have
narrowed their lives, and since September 2025 Afghan women have been barred
even from entering United Nations premises, or are able to leave their home more
than once or twice a month.
Western feminism spent decades insisting that women's rights are universal.
Afghanistan is the purest available test of the claim: an entire female
population removed by decree from education, employment and public life, and
even a public presence -- a condition UN experts call gender apartheid. No
permanent encampment stands outside Harvard demanding freedom for Afghan women,
no divestment movement has become fashionable, no symbol has reached a red
carpet. UN Women warns that the repression is being normalized and reports a
fifty percent funding gap for its Afghan work this year. The women remain where
they were; the audience has left.
Iran removed whatever doubt was left. Protests that began at the end of December
2025 spread to every province, and on January 8-9, 2026, the security forces
answered with rifles and shotguns fired from rooftops and the back of trucks.
Amnesty International describes mass unlawful killings as on an unprecedented
scale. More than 52,000 men, women and children were massacred this year alone,
accompanied by a total internet blackout and tens of thousands of arrests. The
UN Special Rapporteur on Iran put the toll above five thousand.
The regime already held the record. Amnesty International documented 2,159
executions in Iran in 2025, more than double the previous year, and roughly
four-fifths of executions recorded worldwide, the highest national figure since
1981. At least 48 women were among the condemned, the largest number in two
decades. The West's response to Iran's January massacre took the form of
diaspora rallies and a condemnation signed by 800 film professionals. The
industry that produced five thousand signatures against Israeli film festivals
produced eight hundred against a government that had just shot thousands of its
own citizens in forty-eight hours, and its own trade press said so.
Iranian students returned to campuses in Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan in February
holding photographs of classmates killed in January, many students are still
being arrested and expelled for it. The American students who occupied buildings
for Gaza risked nothing worse than a disciplinary hearing, and offered the
Iranian protesters nothing.
In November 2025, gunmen took 303 children and 12 teachers from St. Mary's
Catholic school in Papiri, Nigeria, an abduction larger than the 276 girls
seized at Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014, when a hashtag circled the world and an
American first lady was photographed actually holding a placard! The Papiri
children came home a month later after ransom talks, having drawn no campaign at
all. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has spent
seventeen years asking Washington to treat Nigeria as a country of particular
concern, counts nearly 53,000 civilians killed there in targeted violence since
2009. Persecuted Christians present a marketing problem: Christianity registers
in the Western imagination as a historical power rather than present
vulnerability.
Racism and scale also do not explain the pattern. Palestinians are neither
Western nor close to the campuses where their cause became dominant, and the
demonstrators advocate nothing that would truly help the Palestinians, such as
freedom from torture and arbitrary arrest by corrupt leaders, freedom of speech
and of the press, and an education that will prepare them for a productive and
prosperous life.
Western outrage has acquired a political economy: a successful cause needs more
than victims. The favorite victim is not the one who suffers most, but the one
whose suffering can be put to political use. A successful cause needs a usable
"villain," ideally one already circulating in the narrative. Israel serves that
purpose almost perfectly. It is Western-aligned, democratic, backed by
Washington and permanently accessible to journalists. Its politicians answer
questions, its courts rule against its government, and all of it can be
pressured.
Nothing comparable can be organized against the Taliban. Columbia has no Taliban
investment committee to picket, the Revolutionary Guards run no cultural
exchange program to boycott, and Sudan's warlords are perfectly indifferent to a
student senate in California. Dictatorships make poor targets for performative
activism because dictators are immune to performance. Attacking Israel connects
an activist to an apparatus of campus groups, NGOs and networks assembled over
decades, with the slogans pre-written and the vocabulary standardized. A
19-year-old needs to know nothing about the Middle East to take part. He needs a
placard. Sudan requires homework, and knowing about the regime in Iran regime
would require him to concede that the enemies of American power are frequently
worse than what they oppose.
An industry that never stops talking about "intersectionality" has built a
hierarchy of compassion, in which victims and what was done to the victim count
for less than who did it and what political story can be assembled around it.
None of this diminishes Palestinian suffering, which was inflicted on real
people. It leaves everyone else outside the door.
Consistency is the one thing the machinery fails to supply. A movement that
really meant what it says about universal rights would mobilize for captives
whose slaveholders, such as Qatar, enjoy vast assets. It would protest child
trafficking and organ harvesting, and defend Afghan women and Iranian
dissidents. Palestinian civilians would be defended as civilians rather than as
evidence. Such a movement would be difficult to manipulate, impossible to
monetize and useless to every exploiting faction, which explains well enough why
nobody has built one.
**Pierre Rehov, who holds a law degree from Paris-Assas, is a French reporter,
novelist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of six novels, including
"Beyond Red Lines", "The Third Testament" and "Red Eden", translated from
French. His latest essay on the aftermath of the October 7 massacre " 7 octobre
- La riposte " became a bestseller in France. As a filmmaker, he has produced
and directed 17 documentaries, many photographed at high risk in Middle Eastern
war zones, and focusing on terrorism, media bias, and the persecution of
Christians. His latest documentary, "Pogrom(s)" highlights the context of
ancient Jew hatred within Muslim civilization as the main force behind the
October 7 massacre.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22846/human-rights-industry
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here
do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute
La géopolitique d’une dystopie meurtrière
Dr.Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 14/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157513/
La géopolitique régionale évolue d’impasse en impasse et rien ne
semble se dénouer. Les négociations, la stabilité régionale, la paix civile au
sein des États et les perspectives d’une guerre civile généralisée s’avèrent
prépondérantes dans une région où plus rien ne tient. Tout est voué à
l’obsolescence, à commencer par les narratifs, en passant par les impondérables
géostratégiques d’une région en état de convulsion permanente, ainsi que
l’instabilité endémique qui prévaut au croisement des effondrements
géopolitiques.
Il est impossible d’esquisser des schémas de stabilisation dans des sociétés en
état de décomposition, des équilibres systémiques inexistants, des idéologies
totalitaires et leurs corollaires sur le plan géostratégique. Nous sommes face à
des abîmes que rien ne peut colmater vu que les ossatures de l’État territorial
et ses infrastructures sont non seulement inexistantes mais invraisemblables. Un
ordre régional est difficilement constructible lorsque les États sont
défaillants et les sociétés sont réfractaires à toute logique contractuelle qui
servirait de support aux États territoriaux.
Le régime iranien opère sur la base d’un ordre islamique qui transcende la
notion de territorialité ou qui, dans le meilleur des cas, s’en servirait comme
caution à une politique impériale. La politique de subversion instrumentalisée
par le régime iranien prend source dans une idéologie islamique aux étayages
scripturaires et dont les modulations stratégiques sont explicites et hautement
revendiquées. La recherche d’une paix négociée ne fait aucun sens parce qu'elle
se refuse à toutes concessions idéologiques alors que la politique de conquête
avance de manière insidieuse.
Les négociations sur les enjeux énergétiques, sécuritaires et géopolitiques
s’effectuent à partir des présupposés idéologiques non négociables alors que
tout le reste repose sur la reconnaissance du projet idéologique et de la
mainmise de l’islamisme révolutionnaire sur la trame diplomatique. Sinon, le
revers de l’obstructionnisme idéologique est la stratégie des plateformes
opérationnelles intégrées qui sert de levier aux politiques de déstabilisation.
Le mémorandum signé entre les États-Unis et le régime islamique iranien n’a
jamais gagné en substance alors que les extrémistes s’employaient à le miner de
l’intérieur.
L’éclatement du pouvoir iranien n’est pas de nature à favoriser des scénarios
diplomatiques ou à tempérer l’effervescence idéologique d’un régime aux abois.
Le régime iranien doit sa survie à la répression aveugle pratiquée par le régime
des mollahs et la mafia militaire et sécuritaire. Cette recherche présumée de la
paix ne s’est pas accompagnée d’une normalisation des rapports entre le pouvoir
islamique, son appareil sécuritaire et les velléités libertaires d’une société
civile imperméable aux injonctions idéologiques et aux styles de vie imposés par
l’islamisme. Ceci étant dit, rien ne semble favoriser la libéralisation du
régime islamique comme prélude aux réformes internes ainsi qu’à la création d’un
ordre interétatique consensuel et pacifié.
La diplomatie américano-iranienne n’a pas créé une dynamique qui permet
d’avancer sur la voie de la paix. Le totalitarisme islamique en question est
plutôt soucieux d’avancer ses pions, de sanctuariser ses acquis et de préparer
la voie à des stratégies de prédation. Le Hezbollah et ses clones, les Houthis
au Yémen et les communautés chiites d’Arabie, illustrent de manière poignante la
nature des défis qui se posent dès lors qu’on est à la recherche d’une solution
négociée à des conflits installés dans la durée. Ce n’est pas un hasard si
l’État iranien n’arrive pas à normaliser sa raison d’être, ses relations avec la
société civile et à engager la communauté internationale.
Le régime iranien est toujours dans la manœuvre. Il tente de déjouer les
défaites politiques et militaires, d’accroître la violence domestique et de
prendre refuge dans des alliances altermondialistes qui ne cessent de démontrer
leurs échecs cumulés tant sur les plans géostratégiques, géo-économiques et
financiers. Cette précipitation vers l'avant ne fait que creuser les impasses
d’un régime incapable de se réformer et de promouvoir une voie alternative. Il
ne reste plus que la posture agonistique et paranoïaque d’un système totalitaire.
Les calculs stratégiques, loin de toute rationalité discursive et opérationnelle,
ne font que reproduire les paramètres d’une dictature irréformable.
La politique impériale n’est que l’autre face d’une dystopie qui se refuse à
toute rétrospective critique. Les réunions du BRICS n’apportent rien de neuf à
la scène politique internationale et peuvent difficilement causer des
réagencements stratégiques d’envergure. Les dissensions internes doublées des
intérêts nationaux relativisent les diktats idéologiques au profit des
convergences d’intérêt et des règlements négociés quelle que soit la gravité des
enjeux. Les intérêts sino-américains et indo-américains, ainsi que les impasses
de la dictature guerrière en Russie, finiront par prendre le pas. En revanche,
les enfermements idéologiques et bellicistes de la dictature iranienne ne font
que répercuter les impasses d'une folie en acte et ses revers.
The Geopolitics of a Murderous Dystopia
Dr. Charles Chartouni/Ici Beyrouth/September 14/2026
(Translated from French by Artificial Intelligence)
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/09/157513/
Regional geopolitics is evolving from deadlock to deadlock and
nothing seems to be unraveling. Negotiations, regional stability, civil peace
within States, and the prospects of a generalized civil war are proving to be
preponderant in a region where nothing holds anymore. Everything is doomed to
obsolescence, starting with narratives, moving through the geostrategic
imponderables of a region in a state of permanent convulsion, as well as the
endemic instability that prevails at the intersection of geopolitical collapses.
It is impossible to sketch stabilization patterns in societies in a state of
decomposition, non-existent systemic balances, totalitarian ideologies and their
corollaries on the geostrategic level. We are facing abysses that nothing can
fill, given that the frameworks of the territorial State and its infrastructures
are not only non-existent but implausible. A regional order is hardly
constructible when States are failing and societies are refractory to any
contractual logic that would serve as a support for territorial States.
The Iranian regime operates on the basis of an Islamic order that transcends the
notion of territoriality or which, at best, would use it as a guarantee for an
imperial policy. The policy of subversion instrumentalized by the Iranian regime
takes its source in an Islamic ideology with scriptural underpinnings and whose
strategic modulations are explicit and highly claimed. The search for a
negotiated peace makes no sense because it refuses all ideological concessions
while the policy of conquest advances insidiously.
Negotiations on energy, security and geopolitical issues are conducted on the
basis of non-negotiable ideological presuppositions while everything else rests
on the recognition of the ideological project and the stranglehold of
revolutionary Islamism on the diplomatic fabric. Otherwise, the reverse side of
ideological obstructionism is the strategy of integrated operational platforms
which serves as a lever for destabilization policies. The memorandum signed
between the United States and the Iranian Islamic regime has never gained
substance while extremists worked to undermine it from within.
The fragmentation of Iranian power is not of a nature to favor diplomatic
scenarios or to temper the ideological effervescence of a regime at bay. The
Iranian regime owes its survival to the blind repression practiced by the regime
of the mullahs and the military and security mafia. This presumed search for
peace has not been accompanied by a normalization of relations between the
Islamic power, its security apparatus and the libertarian aspirations of a civil
society impermeable to ideological injunctions and lifestyles imposed by
Islamism. That said, nothing seems to favor the liberalization of the Islamic
regime as a prelude to internal reforms as well as to the creation of a
consensual and pacified interstate order.
American-Iranian diplomacy has not created a dynamic that makes it possible to
move forward on the path to peace. The Islamic totalitarianism in question is
rather concerned with advancing its pawns, sanctuarizing its gains and paving
the way for predation strategies. Hezbollah and its clones, the Houthis in Yemen
and the Shiite communities of Arabia, poignantly illustrate the nature of the
challenges that arise when one is looking for a negotiated solution to conflicts
entrenched over time. It is no coincidence that the Iranian State fails to
normalize its raison d'être, its relations with civil society and to engage the
international community.
The Iranian regime is still maneuvering. It tries to thwart political and
military defeats, to increase domestic violence and to take refuge in
alter-globalist alliances that continue to demonstrate their cumulative failures
on both geostrategic, geo-economic and financial levels. This headlong rush only
deepens the deadlocks of a regime incapable of reforming itself and promoting an
alternative path. There remains only the agonistic and paranoid posture of a
totalitarian system. Strategic calculations, far from any discursive and
operational rationality, only reproduce the parameters of an unreformable
dictatorship.
Imperial policy is only the other face of a dystopia that refuses any critical
retrospective. The BRICS meetings bring nothing new to the international
political scene and can hardly cause major strategic rearrangements. Internal
dissensions coupled with national interests relativize ideological diktats in
favor of convergences of interest and negotiated settlements whatever the
gravity of the stakes. Sino-American and Indo-American interests, as well as the
deadlocks of the warrior dictatorship in Russia, will end up taking precedence.
On the other hand, the ideological and bellicose confinements of the Iranian
dictatorship only reflect the deadlocks of a madness in action and its setbacks.
Selected Face Book & X tweets
on September 14/2026
Apranik
Why don't the Iranian people just take to the streets?
The regime’s Chief of Police went on state TV last night and threatened the
nation: “Our fingers are on the trigger, just like the IRGC.”Iranians aren't
facing normal riot police with shields and tear gas. They are held hostage by a
heavily armed, occupying terrorist regime with a literal shoot to kill mandate
against unarmed civilians.
So next time the outside world wonders why millions aren't in the streets every
day, they need to realize: Iranians are unbelievably brave, but they are facing
ruthless occupying terrorists barehanded. https://x.com/patriot_apranik/status/2099276643085025483/video/1
Omid Djalili
Finally someone on the political left with a backbone telling the truth about
what happened inside Iran behind an enforced digital blackout. The urgent
question now for everyone, whatever your political persuasion, is this: as the
people of Iran prepare to rise up again in a fight for freedom from the Islamic
Republic, a fight they’ve been engaged with for last 47 years, will they be
supported or ignored?
Jon Gambrell | جون
I start today with The Wall Street Journal, working as their deputy Middle East
bureau chief. I've admired and read the @WSJ for years for their smart analysis
and news-breaking coverage. I look forward to meeting and collaborating with
their fantastic journalists and editors.
Justin Massie
Canada seeking to become an “Associate Member of the European Union," according
to the WSJ. Ideas on the table include: allowing Canadians to live and work in
Europe visa-free; laying underwater cables to link Europe and Canada; jointly
constructing data centers, cloud storage and new satellite networks; pipelines
to redirect gas to Europe; create a network of scientific output to compete with
the U.S. university system. In my view, any partnership must include joint
defence research, development, production, and procurement.
Basha باشا
With high confidence, Houthi forces are no longer able to
exercise effective control over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and have withdrawn most
of their forces from the area. Government forces have not yet fully secured the
territory, but sustained close air support has effectively
ME24 - Middle East 24
Despite Mecca Pact- Saudi Arabia Seeks Israeli Help Against
Houthis
Saudi Arabia has reportedly sought intelligence and other assistance from Israel
to counter the Houthis and prevent them from blocking the Bab al-Mandab.
Alberto Miguel Fernandez
Seems like the (astonishing) Houthi offensive in Yemen has been,
at least in part, rolled back. Part of the reason may have been Saudi airpower
and that the Houthis overextended into a much more easily targeted coastal
plains area.
Dalia Ziada
Egypt is definitely losing its political compass!
I saw this coming and I have been warning against Egypt’s changing alliances and
strategic priorities for the past three years… Egypt is no more the ally that
the U.S., the free world, or even the regional axis of peace can fully trust.
I hope you believe me now! So sad to see this picture of Egypt’s Sisi with
Iran’s Pezeshkian today!