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Thursday, April 9, 2026
[Salon] Trump and Netanyahu face a reckoning - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Trump and Netanyahu face a reckoning
Summary: the ceasefire that Donald Trump accepted has stopped the war and with the president signalling he does not want a resumption Tehran has secured a significant victory over its greatest enemies.
Is this the emperor has no clothes moment for Donald Trump? The two week ceasefire he announced at the 11th hour, literally the 11th hour saw him “staring into the abyss in the Trumpiest way possible, as if he were a reality-show producer teasing the season finale” as The Economist’s Greg Carlstrom put it.
The New York Times in an exclusive piece took readers into the Situation Room on 11 February when Benjamin Netanyahu sold Trump the ultimate bad deal convincing him that a quick win was possible and that regime change was a few easy steps away from being achieved:
Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.
He also baldly claim that the Iranian people would rush into the streets to overthrow the regime abetted by Mossad’s intervention to encourage rioting and revolution (see our newsletter of 19 January.)
In the days that followed the Times says that various people questioned the narrative Netanyahu had stitched together. The head of the CIA John Ratcliffe told the president that the notion of achieving regime change was “farcical.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio was a tad earthier. He told Trump it was “bullshit.”
And yet no one, other than the vice president JD Vance, argued in a forceful way that the war was utter folly. Vance noted that the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz with huge consequences for, amongst other impacts, the price of petrol at the pump. He warned the war would alienate his supporters which it did (as Jon Hoffman argued in our podcast of 1 April pointing to a growing split between MAGA always Trumpers and America Firsters angry that the president had broken his promise not to engage in foreign wars.)
Trump brushed aside those concerns because as he told Tucker Carlson who had also intervened at a late stage “everything will be OK because it always is.” The president’s instincts were what mattered and those around him accepted against all the evidence and all the odds that he must be right when in fact he could not have been more wrong.
The president claimed a win even as in an extraordinary volte-face he embraced the Iranian counter-proposal to his 15 point surrender document:
We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated.
Iran has declared a "historic and crushing defeat" of the US and Israel after 40 days of war, forcing Washington to accept a 10-point Iranian proposal that includes a permanent ceasefire, the lifting of all sanctions, and the withdrawal of US combat forces from the region.
The defence and security analyst and our podcast contributor Andreas Krieg (you can find his latest AD podcast here) used social media to describe the ceasefire deal as:
the worst strategic defeat for the US since Vietnam and possibly the worst strategic defeat for Israel ever. IF the ceasefire term are translated into an agreement, Iran will be able to rebuild capabilities within a year.
Benjamin Netanyahu had no choice but to confirm that Israel would join the ceasefire while attempting to save face by declaring the war against Lebanon will continue. As Haaretz noted the prime minister in doing so had not achieved two of his key aims when he and Trump launched the war:
The first is Iran's nuclear program, with the fate of its enriched uranium still unclear. There is also, for now, no Iranian commitment to abandon its ballistic missile program, which Netanyahu has defined as an "existential threat" and which has been a primary focus of Israeli air force operations over the past month.
Netanyahu’s chief opposition rival Yair Lapid who had backed the war when it was launched was quick to go for the jugular:
There has never been such a diplomatic disaster in our history. Israel was not even at the table when decisions were made on core issues of our national security…. Netanyahu failed diplomatically, failed strategically and did not meet a single goal he himself set.
Iran’s National Security Council issued a statement that concluded “Iran has achieved a massive victory and forced criminal America to accept its 10-point plan.” While the degree of the victory will be debated it is without doubt a win for the Iranian regime. Not only has it survived by playing leverage of the Strait of Hormuz with great skill it has won a huge propaganda success by forcing the world’s most powerful military to come to the negotiating table on its terms.
The war has also forced a reckoning on the Gulf states. Another of our podcast contributors Chatham House’s Sanam Vakil in a social media posting argues:
the Gulf will be more vulnerable than ever before and therefore in need of U.S. help. But Gulf populations have begun to question the United States’ reliability and the value of hosting American bases. To better protect themselves, Gulf leaders must therefore now try to wrest some autonomy from the United States by strengthening cooperation, foremost among themselves.
(Sanam Vakil’s latest AD podcast Iran and regime survival is here.)
For Trump a career both in business and politics that has long defied gravity has crashed to earth with a thud that is echoing around the world and most emphatically in America. The loyalists he has surrounded himself with in his second term have seen the would be emperor without any clothes. That will shake them. But beyond the confines of the White House his attempt to sell to a majority of Americans that the ceasefire was a win is not likely to succeed with political implications for the president and the party he had claimed to make his own.
Netanyahu too will face a reckoning. His brutal and genocidal war in Gaza, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the destruction of Lebanon and the ruthless bombing campaign he and the Americans inflicted on Iran have turned Israel into a global pariah state. Most crucially his self-serving policies have squandered support for Israel in the country that matters most: the United States.
Benjamin Netanyahu had boasted that the war would change the Middle East forever. It has but not in the way he thought it would.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
[Salon] Syria on the edge of regional escalation - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Syria on the edge of regional escalation
Summary: Syria is suffering collateral damage as Israel and the US pursue their war against Iran; with its airspace violated by both sides and the economy reeling a country just beginning to emerge from 14 years of civil war risks being pulled further into the conflict.
We thank Sirwan Kajjo for today’s newsletter. Sirwan, a regular contributor to the AD podcast, is a Kurdish American journalist based in Washington D.C. focusing on Kurdish politics, Islamic militancy, extremism, and conflict in the Middle East and beyond. He is the author of Nothing But Soot about a twentysomething Kurdish man whose quest for a permanent home never ends. You can find his latest podcast here.
It is unusual to see Syria not directly involved in a conflict that includes Iran. Under the leadership of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country has so far avoided direct military engagement in the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran war.
Yet despite its formal neutrality, Syria remains deeply entangled in the broader regional dynamics surrounding the war. As the conflict continues, the risk of spillover grows, making it more plausible that Syria could find itself pulled into a wider war with ominous consequences.
Syria is already functionally entangled in the conflict. Its airspace has been used both to carry out attacks against Iran and to intercept Iranian missiles and drones. In practice, Damascus lacks the capacity to enforce or deny control of its airspace, meaning its protestations carry little practical weight in determining who operates there.
From Tehran’s perspective, however, this reality could be interpreted as complicity. Given Iran’s increasingly aggressive actions toward Gulf states since the outset of the war, and should military pressure from the United States and Israel intensify, Iran may expand its regional response to include Syria directly.
On Friday a large group of Syrian pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the UAE embassy in Damascus protesting at the country’s support for Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Syria has seen incidents in which Israeli air defence systems intercept Israel-bound Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. These engagements, often unfolding over Syrian territory, have resulted in both civilian casualities and material damage. A Syrian base near the border with Jordan and Iraq, which until recently hosted US forces, was also struck by drones launched from Iraq, likely by Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Iran’s Iraqi proxies have also launched drone attacks on multiple occasions on two US military installations in Syria’s Hasakah region.
The economic impact of this war is equally visible. For a country still reeling from 14 years of civil war, any regional escalation inevitably casts a long shadow over its fragile recovery. This is especially true for Syria, whose rebuilding efforts remain heavily dependent on regional Arab partners for fuel supplies, investment and broader economic relief. Syria’s energy sector was the first to feel the impact of the war. Just two days after the conflict began on February 28, the Syrian Ministry of Energy announced that daily electricity hours would be reduced due to disruptions in natural gas supplies transiting through Jordan. Syria receives much of its natural gas from Egypt, which in turn imports from Israel – whose natural gas exports were indefinitely suspended on the first day of the war.
Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been major financial backers of Syria’s interim government since the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime. They have pledged substantial investment initiatives aimed at reviving Syria’s devastated economy. However, as Iran intensifies attacks on Gulf states and their infrastructure, their priorities may shift inward, especially as oil production declines significantly. This could reduce their capacity and willingness to sustain external economic commitments.
Prices of everyday commodities have risen sharply, driven by higher shipping costs from regional markets. Economists estimate that inflation for some essential goods climbed between 20 and 40 percent two weeks after the start of the war. This is an especially severe burden in a country where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Syria remains a devastated country, still grappling with significant domestic challenges. Damascus’s efforts to avoid becoming a direct participant in the conflict are rooted in this reality. But Syria’s ostensible neutrality is less a strategic choice than a reflection of its vulnerability. Lacking both the capacity to control its own territory and the resilience to absorb further shocks, Damascus is navigating a conflict whose consequences it cannot fully avoid. The longer the war persist, the more tenuous this posture becomes. With no end in sight for this conflict, Syria risks once again becoming not just a bystander, but a battleground where external rivalries are projected onto a fragile state still struggling to stand on its own.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Monday, April 6, 2026
[Salon] Pope Leo XIV visits Algeria and revisits St Augustine - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Pope Leo XIV visits Algeria and revisits St Augustine
Summary: the upcoming visit by Pope Leo to Algeria is both historic – he is the first pope to visit the country – and symbolic, a statement that in a region and a world plagued by violence the rejection by St Augustine of unjust wars is the only path to take.
We thank Francis Ghilès for today’s newsletter. Francis is a senior associate research fellow at CIDOB and a visiting fellow at King’s College, London. You can find his latest Arab Digest podcast Algeria, Libya and Europe’s urgent energy needs here.
On Palm Sunday Pope Leo XIV delivered a subtle but powerful rebuke to those who use God to justify war:
Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who use war but rejects them saying ‘even though you make many prayers I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.’
Though he did not name them he was implicitly referring to Christian Zionists who embrace the belief that the land of Jesus belongs to the Jews and that when the Jews possess it in its entirety Jesus will return to Jerusalem for the Rapture, the end of time, when Christians will be saved and all those others who do not convert will be consigned to eternal damnation.
It is an ideology embraced by the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Ambassador Huckabee quoted the bible to support his belief that much of the Middle East belongs to Israel. He told Tucker Carlson: “Israel is a land that God gave, through Abraham, to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place and a purpose….It would be fine if they took it all.”
Of Secretary of Defense Hegseth the religion scholar Toby Matthiesen writes:
He called on God to ‘break the teeth’ and kill the ‘wicked’ enemies ‘who deserve no mercy’ and should be ‘delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.’ In other words, for Hegseth this is a holy war in which he calls on God to ‘grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence.’
A week from today and a little more than two weeks since that Palm Sunday rebuke Pope Leo will arrive in Algeria a Muslim country with a great and ancient link to the Catholic church. Algeria is the birth place of St Augustine.
A statue of Saint Augustine of Hippo at the entrance to his Basilica in Annaba, Algeria
In making this historic visit the Pope, a self-proclaimed Augustinian, is paying tribute to this towering figure when he begins a two day visit on 13 April, the start of a trip that will also take him to Cameroon, Angola and Guinea Bissau.
In Book X of his Confessions, St Augustine says of God: “Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new”. The same could be said of a man who, for Christians, remains, nearly sixteen centuries after his death in Hippo Regius - now Annaba in eastern Algeria - the most referenced authority after the Bible. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne was so taken with St Augustine’s City of God that he slept with it under his pillow. St Thomas Aquinas refused to criticise him despite holding a different opinion and the Augustinian influence did not wane after the Middle Ages. It was an Augustinian friar (Martin Luther) who started the Reformation, and its greatest systemiser, John Calvin famously proclaimed: “Augustinus……totus noster est” (Augustine is totally ours). Following the Reformation, St Augustine influenced many important thinkers: both Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal saw him as the foundation of their own philosophical and theological projects even though they were fundamentally at odds with one another. In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzshe wrote The Genealogy of Morals which the Dominican friar Bonaventure Chapman describes as “St Augustine’s City of God argued backwards”.
For Algeria, the first visit by a pope is something of a diplomatic coup. At a time when the country’s relations with France are fraught, far right French commentators have expressed their surprise that the pope should visit a country that they see as a dictatorship. Others in France hope that Algeria’s president Abdelmajid Tebboune might pardon the French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes who was arrested in 2024 and the following year sentenced to seven years in jail for “glorifying terrorism.” Algerians acknowledge in private that the charges are trumped up. The Archbishop of Algiers, Mgr Jean-Paul Falco first suggested to the pope that he visit Algeria. The archbishop regularly visits Gleizes in prison.
The most famous Archbishop of Algiers was Cardinal Charles Lavigerie (1825-1892) who played a key role by reconciling the young Third Republic with the Vatican in 1886. He also founded the White Fathers order in Algeria with the aim of bringing Berbers back to the faith of their ancestors. Christianity had long prospered in what was then known as Numidia which gave three popes to the early Church. Few Berbers were converted by the White Fathers but they did include my paternal grandfather who was the son of the imam of Tizi Hibel in Kabylia, the mountainous region due east of Algiers. The three early popes who hailed from North Africa left a lasting mark on the Church. Victor I (189-199) is best known for insisting that Christians celebrate Easter on a Sunday. Miltiades (311-314) was granted permission by Emperor Constantine to build the Lateran Basilica, now the oldest public church in Rome. Gelasius I (492-496) was the first pope to be called the Vicar of Christ.
The focus of the papal visit is St Augustine who was born in Thagaste - an important Roman community in north east Algeria – in 354 of a pagan Roman father Patricius, who converted on his deathbed, and a native Christian mother Monica. A fiery student in Carthage, he later established a school of rhetoric where he taught for nine years and fathered a son Adeodatus from a long term lover before moving to Rome and Milan. There he was awarded the plum appointment of professor of rhetoric at the imperial court where he met Bishop Ambrose who helped him re-evaluate his relationship with Christianity. He was baptised on Easter Vigil in April 387 in Milan, returning to Africa that same year. He was ordained priest in Hippo Regius in 391, becoming bishop of the city in 395.
In his Confessions, one of the most read books in Christendom, Augustine explained that his conversion was prompted by reading a passage from St Paul’s letter to the Romans, which said: “Not in rioting or drunkenness, nor in clambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof”. During his lifetime, it is believed he preached some 6,000 to 10,000 sermons, of which 500 are accessible today. The Vandals, who had swept down across Gaul, Iberia and the Strait of Gibraltar, laid siege to Hippo Regius. Augustine died during the siege in 430. When they broke into the city the Vandals burned almost everything apart from the library and cathedral Augustine had built.
St Augustine represents the most influential adaptation of the ancient platonic tradition within Christian ideas that ever occurred in the Latin Christian world. Though he was the first to enunciate the concept of just war he did so within a framework of abhorrence of violence and war.
The idea that humans are inherently sinful and that conjugal relations within a Christian marriage was a means of redemption and act of grace was something largely formulated by Augustine. Recognised as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298, he is venerated by Catholics and Protestants alike. The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch states that “Augustine’s impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated.”
There are a few thousand Catholics living in Algeria today though the country boasts hundreds of Catholic cemeteries, a testimony to the 132 years of French colonial rule (1830-1962) and fewer than 200 Jews. At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are increasingly presented by Israeli leaders and Christian Zionist Americans in the eschatological terms of the Rapture the visit of the Pope to Algeria and the lasting influence of St Augustine remind Westerners that Europe’s history is inextricably bound up with that of North Africa and that closer economic, scientific and cultural cooperation between Europe and North Africa would benefit both rims of the western Mediterranean. Pope Leo’s visit underscores that such a vision is achieved not by war but by peace.
Sunday, April 5, 2026
(575) Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord - 4/5/2026 - YouTube
(575) Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord - 4/5/2026 - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa71nFPLmGc
I have observed all four days of service at St. Cecilia this week.
It has been a wonderful four days. But today, Easter Sunday
please listen to the Homily. It will give you an understanding of
what it means to believe and the need for hope.
Saturday, April 4, 2026
The Lord’s Descent into Hell - The Catholic Thing
The Lord’s Descent into Hell - The Catholic Thing
Listen to this article
4 min
What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
Truly He goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; He wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, He who is God, and Adam’s son.
The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, His Cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: “My Lord be with you all.” And Christ in reply says to Adam: “And with your spirit. Amen!” And grasping his hand, He raises him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”
“I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.”
“I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.”
“For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.”
The Harrowing of Hell by Fra Angelico, c. 1441-1442 [Museo Nazionale di San Marco, Florence]
“Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.”
“See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.”
“I slept on the Cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.”
“But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of Heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.”
“The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.”
A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday
Prayer
Almighty, ever-living God, whose Only-begotten Son descended to the realm of the dead, and rose from there to glory, grant that your faithful people, who were buried with him in baptism, may, by his resurrection, obtain eternal life.
(We make our prayer) through our Lord.
(Through Christ our Lord.)
Prepared by Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas
Friday, April 3, 2026
[Salon] As Syrian Christians reel Israel capitalises on state failures - ArabDigestl.org Guest Post
As Syrian Christians reel Israel capitalises on state failures
Summary: with the Al-Sharaa government tightening its hold Syrian Christians are growing increasingly fearful that an Islamist regime will erode their religious and political rights. It is a fear that Israel is playing on.
We thank Andrew McIntosh for today’s newsletter. Andrew is the Director of Research at the NGO SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights. His specialty fields are media analysis, sectarianism and statelessness in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Syria.
2026 has witnessed another milestone in the Syrian transitional government’s consolidation of power, where it integrated the northeast after a brief military campaign. Despite reunification, however, the fragile post-war consensus in the new Syria is being fractured by sectarian incidents, waves of attacks on minorities and policies enacted without national dialogue, which hostile neighbours like Israel are capitalising upon. Continued missteps by the Syrian government, motivated by ideology, are providing Israel with the means to fragment Syrian society further.
Before assuming formal state authority over Syria, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa oversaw a political order in Idlib that was grounded in Sunni religious legitimacy, the hierarchical inclusion of minorities and a phased consolidation of power. As potential alternatives to the transitional government have been absorbed or dismantled since the fall of the Assad regime, executive authority is being concentrated and religious oversight embedded in lawmaking.
Damascus had gradually applied religiously motivated policies with restrictions on swimwear and gender segregation on buses, both of which it rescinded following public backlash. With international recognition the government has become more emboldened as it has consolidated power. Example include the governor of Latakia banning state employees from wearing makeup in January 2026. On 16 March, the governor of Damascus announced that the sale of alcohol would be restricted to Christian-majority districts. This top-down bifurcation of Damascene society, paired with a lack of consultation with the public, caused protests and public rebuke from Hind Kabawat, the only Christian appointee in the government. Unlike previous instances, however, the Syrian government has only conceded that the sale of alcohol will be permitted in some hotels and restaurants and claimed that it did not mean to insult the Christian community.
The Syrian Interior Ministry implemented intensified measures to secure churches and their surroundings on Palm Sunday.
This failed to mollify Syrian Christians, many of whom view the new government with a mixture of caution and suspicion. The Syrian government’s core leadership originates from the now-dissolved jihadist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and its predecessor Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. During the civil war, members took part in sectarian war crimes such as the seizure of at least 550 homes and businesses from Christians living in Idlib province.
Minorities currently hold just 5 of 23 cabinet positions in the new government with Christians, Alawites, Druze and Kurds unaffiliated with any political blocs and limited to less influential positions. The three most powerful posts—Defence Minister, Chief of Staff, and Head of Intelligence—are held by former HTS members with close links to Al-Sharaa.
Since taking power, militants loyal to the new Syrian government have attacked the country’s Alawite, Druze and Christian communities. Following the June 2025 suicide attack on Saint Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus by jihadists, killing 25 during Sunday Mass, some Christians accused the government’s response of being disrespectful, citing that spokespeople initially refused to refer to the Christians killed with the typical Arabic honorific of “martyrs” and seeking to blame the entirety of the incident on the Islamic State, even though an HTS splinter group, Suraya Ansar Al-Sunnah, formally took responsibility.
While the alcohol ban presents Islamist thinking as “public decency”, it implicitly singles out Syrian Christians as “indecent”. This is compounded by attacks on liquor stores by unknown assailants throughout 2025. For some, the new policy confirms some of their worst fears since the revolution in December 2024: that Islamist expansion into the public sphere will directly infringe upon their freedom, dignity and safety.
On the evening of 27 March, the situation escalated further when communal tensions between Christians and Sunnis in the town of Suqaylabiyah, in northeast Syria, saw Sunni men attacking Christian homes and cars and looting businesses while calling Christians “pigs”. A shrine to the Virgin Mary was also exposed to gunfire. While internal security forces intervened and protected the town from further attacks, the turmoil followed a precedent of massacres against minorities by forces aligned with the government, where the perpetrators experienced limited accountability from the authorities. These actions have eroded trust in law enforcement and in the pro-government media.
The violence has drawn wide condemnation from the Syrian Christian community. The Orthodox Patriarchate has officially condemned the attack, and the Catholics have cancelled all Easter celebrations outside church grounds. While protesting the violence in Damascus and Hama, Christians have refused to give interviews to Syrian media, claiming that state media misrepresents them. The government's deployment of armed guards to churches, meant to show the state is prioritising their safety, also serves as a reminder of how insecure the situation is becoming. To Syrian Christians, the alcohol ban and recent violence are warnings of a changing social and political order that leaves minorities exposed. As one Damascene commented, “We’ve never had it like this. [Christians] feel angry… even when the [Assad] regime was there, they never felt like that or saw this many armed guards around the churches.”
Violence against Syrian Christians has been amplified by pro-Israel and pro-Trump influencers on social media, likely hoping to influence a policy change on Syria in the US. That trend has been followed by Israeli media. Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister, used attacks on Syrian Christians to declare “The new Syrian president must be killed.” Playing on sectarian fears is a useful trope for Israel, having successfully capitalised on sectarian violence to secure the southern Syrian city of Sweida as a bastion of influence, acting as a protector to the majority Druze population who were subjected to massacres by forces affiliated with the Syrian government in July 2025.
Damascus took little to no responsibility for the mass killings and the destruction and vandalism of Druze religious sites, despite evidence that the attack was premeditated and findings from the United Nations claiming that government forces and tribal fighters engaged in executions, torture and gender-based violence. These systematic failures by the Al-Sharaa government have opened space for Israel to increase distrust through media campaigns directed at the Druze, fulfilling its purported goals of balkanising Syria into weak and manageable ethnic enclaves. In this scenario, the IDF can maintain a buffer zone, creating conditions that attract illegal settlements in southern Syria.
Although Israeli media campaigns on the Druze are far more prevalent, if Syrian Christians continue to feel threatened and disillusioned, Israel will likely attempt to highlight their plight to Western policymakers, hoping to advance its geopolitical interests. Syria is now closer to pre-war unification than ever before but in a climate where an uneasy, unequal peace is maintained many minorities fear the future. Every policy from the Syrian government that moves the country further from pluralism plays into the hands of the Israelis. It will see distrust weaponised and with that the risk of returning a shattered country to the brink.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
What is "Spy Wednesday" during Holy Week?
What is "Spy Wednesday" during Holy Week?
As the days of Holy Week move forward, specific events occur that directly lead to what will take place on Good Friday. Among these events was the fateful betrayal of Jesus by one of his own disciples.
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.
The 30 pieces of silver recall the betrayal of another biblical figure, Joseph in the Old Testament:
Then Mid′ianite traders passed by; and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ish′maelites for twenty shekels of silver; and they took Joseph to Egypt.
Genesis 37:28
Judas the Spy
This action by Judas earned him the title of "spy" by medieval Christians, in accord with the traditional definition of the English word, "one who keeps secret watch on a person or thing to obtain information."
From Wednesday onward, Judas secretly watched for a chance to turn Jesus over to the chief priests, and so many Christians in the English-speaking world labeled this day as "Spy Wednesday."
In the same vein various cultures reflected the somber mood of this day by calling it "Black Wednesday" or "Wednesday of Shadows," which also corresponds to the liturgical rite of Tenebrae that is celebrated on this day.
It is also called "Silent Wednesday," as the Gospels do not record any activities in the life of Jesus. The only event is the secret meeting of Judas with the chief priests.
Wednesday's events usher in the final days of Jesus' life on earth and directly lead to the sacrifice of Jesus on Good Friday.
Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. How could one of the chosen Twelve turn in the Lord for profit? When Jesus warned Judas “Woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed,” the apostle simply denied the accusation. How could anyone who loved Jesus make such a choice?
Each of us is capable of making bad choices, even while we love Christ. Today’s Gospel invites us to ask these questions: In what ways have we betrayed Our Lord? At what price? Do we deny responsibility for our actions?
Holy Week Rflection: The Judas Within from the Catholic Company Guest Post
Holy Week Reflection:
The Judas Within
It's the Wednesday of Holy Week, colloquially known as Spy Wednesday because on this day just over 2,000 years ago, Judas Iscariot left in secret to betray Jesus.
Matthew and Mark, tell the story similarly. Judas approaches the Sanhedrin and brokers a deal, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” The Gospel of Luke gives us an important new detail. Before approaching the Sanhedrin “…Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot.”
In this transaction, the Sanhedrin name their price: 30 pieces of silver. Under the law of Moses, the price of a slave was 30 pieces of silver (Exodus 21:32). In this interplay between the Sanhedrin and Judas, the learned rabbis acknowledge they are buying a man worth the value of a slave and see Judas as his master in the transaction. In accepting the money, Judas agrees to the terms. He sees himself as the master of Jesus. How did Judas fall so far?
It’s interesting what can happen when we flirt with sin. The Bible tells us Judas took care of the accounts of the Apostles and was known to scrape some off the top. How long had he been doing this? How small did it start? Just a shekel here for an extra bite to eat. Maybe a couple more shekels for a bit of wine? Before you know it he’s getting mad at poor Mary of Bethany for pouring nard on Jesus' feet and wiping it with her hair. “Don’t waste that! We can give it to the poor!” But, did he really care about the poor? Or did he want to take it and sell it for a few more shekels to feed his growing list of sins.
Poor Judas. All those graces stored up from three years living in the presence of the Almighty God are gone. By the time Satan ruled Judas, Judas started thinking like Satan. He thought he was the Master of Jesus. He thought he was better than him, smarter than him. Poor confused Judas. We see this confusion in his approach on Holy Thursday. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. He’s so disconnected he thinks this is ok. The wound many mystics say hurt Jesus the most was the one on his cheek. More than whips or nails, rocks ground into the skin or the bones bruised in his back, Jesus felt the total lack of love present in the kiss of Judas to his core.
There are so many lessons for us in this. It’s a textbook case of how we fall and how Satan works. One sin leads to another. When we lose grace, Satan can confuse the mind. He gets us to think up is down and down is up. That we are our masters, not God. It's so important to stay vigilant. We have to learn to recognize the inclinations we all have to embrace the Judas within, to take just a little bit or brush off our small sins as trivial. We all have to go to confession for the little things too. If you don't, the little things grow until we begin to believe the crazy idea that we are the masters.
In the end, Judas felt deep remorse but Jesus was gone. He couldn’t confess. What a blessing we can, and what a blessing Our Lord Jesus stands ready to embrace us and give us the grace we need to sin no more.
May God Bless you this Holy Week,
[All Things Catholic] What the Conversion of the Good Thief Teaches Us - Guest Post by Dr. Edward Sri, All Things Catholic Guest Post
What the Conversion of the Good Thief Teaches Us
The "Good Thief" was actually mocking Jesus earlier on Good Friday, so what changed? Dr. Sri explores his dramatic conversion and what it reveals about human weakness, repentance, and the limitless mercy of God.
The Good Thief Was Initially Mocking Jesus
In Matthew’s account of the crucifixion (Mt 27:44), we learn that both thieves reviled Jesus. This means the “Good Thief” began by joining:
The crowds passing by
The chief priests and scribes
The general chorus of mockery
All of these voices echo a familiar temptation:
“If you are the Son of God…”
This is the very language used by Satan during Jesus’ temptation in the desert (Mt 4). The implication is profound: the mockery at Calvary is not neutral—it echoes the voice of the Enemy, attacking Christ’s divine sonship. The Good Thief, at first, participates in this.
2. Understanding the “Thieves”
The Greek word used (lestai) suggests more than petty criminals. These were likely:
Insurrectionists
Revolutionaries opposing Roman rule
Crucifixion was reserved for such serious offenders. This underscores that the Good Thief was not only a sinner—but one involved in grave wrongdoing.
3. The Turning Point (Luke 23:39–43)
Luke’s Gospel reveals the moment of grace and conversion.
While the other thief continues to mock Jesus, the Good Thief undergoes a profound change of heart. His conversion unfolds in three essential movements:
The Three Steps of Conversion
1. Rebuking False Voices
“He rebuked him…” (Lk 23:40)
The Good Thief publicly rejects the other thief’s mockery. The word “rebuke” is significant—it is the same language used when Jesus rebukes demons.
Spiritually, this shows:
A rejection of lies
A turning away from the voice of Satan
A break from sin and false thinking
Application:
We, too, must learn to recognize and reject interior voices that:
Justify sin
Shift blame
Lead to despair or self-condemnation
2. Humble Admission of Sin
“We are receiving the due reward of our deeds…” (Lk 23:41)
The Good Thief takes full responsibility for his actions. No excuses. No blame. This is the essence of true contrition:
Honest self-knowledge
Acceptance of justice
Freedom from pride
3. Trustful Surrender to Jesus
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Lk 23:42)
Having rejected lies and embraced truth, the Good Thief turns to Jesus in total trust.
Notably:
He addresses Jesus personally (“Jesus”)
He expresses faith in Christ’s kingship
He entrusts himself entirely to divine mercy
The Greek suggests he repeated this plea—revealing urgency, persistence, and heartfelt longing.
This is the prayer of every repentant soul.
Christ’s Response: Immediate Mercy
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Lk 23:43)
Jesus responds instantly—not with reproach, but with a promise.
This reveals:
The superabundance of divine mercy
The immediacy of forgiveness for the repentant heart
The personal nature of salvation
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
[Salon] America’s Suez and the looming "Civilisational Divorce" - ArabDigest.org. Guest Post
America’s Suez and the looming "Civilisational Divorce"
Summary: the current conflict with Iran represents a "Suez moment" for a declining United States, potentially leading to a "Civilisational Divorce" with implications that would accelerate the collapse of Western hegemony.
The current conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States is more than a regional skirmish; it is America’s “Suez moment”. Just as the 1956 Suez Crisis signalled the end of British imperial hegemony, the present war is a similar history shifting event. Donald Trump’s ‘war of choice’ marks a much larger blunder than even the Iraq War. While that war cost massive amounts in lives and treasure, the current trajectory threatens a total strategic defeat. America was already a slowly declining power before this ill-conceived conflict began. If war is the “locomotive of history,” then the attack on Iran is the engine speeding up that decline and the longer it continues, the faster the descent.
Central to understanding this collapse is the work of the late Egyptian scholar and general coordinator of the opposition movement Kefaya, Dr Abdel-Wahab Al-Messiri (1938–2008). Al-Messiri was the intellectual architect of the “Functional” framework, a systemic sociological theory explaining how Western modernity utilises human beings and states as “tools” rather than ends in themselves. Initially, the “Functional Group” is a “parasite” depending on the host’s resources. Over time, the group takes over vital organs (finance, security, or intelligence), making the host’s survival dependent on the parasite’s health.
Al-Messiri defined a “Functional State” as a geopolitical entity created not for the benefit of its citizens, but to serve as a “buffer,” “base,” or “market” for a distant power, what he called the “Metropole”. These states appear sovereign, with flags and UN seats, but their sovereignty is hallucinatory: their core decisions are made to satisfy their foreign patrons.
The success of this arrangement historically relied on two factors:
A cohesive international system designed by the West to guarantee its influence.
The civilisational decline of the Islamic world, a state the Algerian thinker Malek Bennabi termed “colonisability”. Bennabi argued that nations are not just conquered by force, but by an internal cultural and psychological readiness to be dominated.
An Iranian missile and drone attack badly damaged a U.S. Air Force (USAF) E-3G Sentry airborne warning and control aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on Friday, as well as two other aircraft, and wounded 12 US personnel
Al-Messiri argued that Israel is the most sophisticated example of a functional state in history. It was established via a “Colonial Contract” to solve Europe’s “Jewish Question” (anti-Semitism) by exporting the population that survived the Holocaust to a different geography. Its function is to be a Western bridgehead in the heart of the Islamic world, serving as a highly motivated local military that is more cost-effective for the West than stationing millions of its own soldiers in the Arab world.
Beyond Israel, many Arab monarchies, such as Jordan and most Gulf states, function similarly. Jordan was deliberately established by Britain as a limited-resource buffer to protect Israel. Most Gulf states were created by colonialism to protect maritime navigation and later evolved to control global energy wealth. Saudi Arabia and Oman are notable exceptions; Oman possesses a deeply rooted political history and the components of a truly independent state while Saudi Arabia established its modern state in 1931.
The current war has reached a tipping point because Iran is not going to capitulate, as anyone with a cursory understanding of Iranian history knows. The Iranians have the upper hand a point that the Economist has acknowledged. This shift does not necessarily mean these functional states have ceased to be useful to the Western project; rather, it signals that Al-Messiri’s Metropole has reached the limits of its power. When the Metropole can no longer project the force required to defend these “tools” against a resilient and ascendant adversary, the “utility clause” is effectively rendered void by exhaustion. If the US faces a strategic defeat, it could lead to a “Civilisational Divorce”: the total collapse of these regimes once the protection that is the sole reason for their existence vanishes.
The disappearance of these entities is inevitable if Western hegemony collapses. For the Gulf monarchies, this could mean being absorbed by neighbours: analysts are discussing Kuwait becoming part of Iraq, Qatar joining Saudi Arabia, the UAE being subsumed into Oman, and Bahrain returning to Iran. A retreat by a patron like the US could cause these functional states to fall like dominoes.
The most dangerous phase of this divorce occurs when a Metropole tries to terminate the contract. Terrified of becoming obsolete, functional states often become radicalised, attempting to prove they are “more royal than the King” by creating crises that lock the sponsor into the conflict.
Al-Messiri described this as “Reversed Functionalisation,” where the “tool” begins to dictate the policy of the “creator”. The Israeli lobby in the US is not just an external group; it is an internal component of the Metropole’s political system. This has been achieved over the years through many means, from the Epstein files to epistemological capture, where the colony’s values (like “frontier” values) are sold back to the Metropole as “shared values”. This makes it politically impossible for the Metropole to “terminate the contract” because the Metropole’s public now views the colony’s interests as their own. Al-Messiri identified a specific weakness in the “modern western mind” that allows this to happen: it looks at the relationship in fragments - military, economic, political - rather than tallying the total cost of its lost sovereignty.
History is littered with examples of colonies turning on their Metropoles after feeling abandoned. Between 1780 and 1833, Caribbean sugar planters used their wealth to buy parliamentary seats, holding the British economy hostage to delay abolition. Their manipulation ensured that when the Slavery Abolition Act finally passed in 1833, the Metropole was forced to pay a £20 million ransom - £17 billion in today’s money - nearly 40% of its annual budget to the slave owners.
In 1835 Boer settlers fled the British Cape Colony to establish independent republics after the 1833 abolition of slavery. Their radical exit and subsequent military resistance dragged the Metropole into the costly Boer War (1899–1902), ultimately compelling London to abandon the liberal principles of racial equality to appease the settlers in the 1910 Act of Union.
In the early 20th century, Protestant settlers signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912 and formed the UVF paramilitary in 1913 militantly to oppose Irish Home Rule. By lobbying the Conservative Party and threatening armed resistance, they effectively paralysed Westminster’s legislative agenda before the outbreak of World War I.
The most prominent example of a “tool” turning on its “creator” was after France hinted at Algerian independence in the late 1950s. European settlers launched the 1958 coup and formed the OAS paramilitary in 1961 to conduct terrorist attacks and multiple assassination attempts against Charles de Gaulle. This campaign of violence brought the French Fourth Republic to total collapse, forcing a complete restructuring of the French government to contain the insurrection.
As Israel senses it is being abandoned by America, it will inevitably turn to increasingly extreme methods of control and manipulation to save itself, from false flag operations to political assassinations. The “Samson Option” logic remains the ultimate form of geopolitical blackmail: “If I am to be discarded, I will pull the whole temple down with me”.
Al-Messiri’s final warning was that “Reversed Functionalisation” is the ultimate sign of a Metropole’s civilisational decline. When a radicalised, extremist “tool” in a distant land can manipulate a Great Power, that Power has already lost its status as a true sovereign. America’s insistence on fuelling this war may not save its functional partners and it will almost certainly accelerate its own eclipse.
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