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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applied religiously motivated policies with restrictions on swimwear and gender segregation on buses, both of which it rescinded following public backlash.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.
[Salon] “No quarter, no mercy” - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
“No quarter, no mercy”
Summary: the US-Israeli war on Iran and the IDF offensive in Lebanon have caused millions to be internally displaced. As the wars continue, such numbers are likely to increase, heightening the refugee crisis underway in the Arab world which had already seem 19 million displaced while humanitarian aid has sunk to record low levels.
We thank Paul Cochrane for today’s newsletter. Paul is an independent journalist covering the Middle East and Africa. He writes regularly for Money Laundering Bulletin, Fraud Intelligence and other specialised titles. Paul lived in Bilad Al Sham (Cyprus, Palestine and Lebanon) for 24 years, mainly in Beirut. He co-directed We Made Every Living Thing from Water a documentary on the political economy of water in Lebanon.
A refugee crisis akin to the Syrian refugee crisis - when nearly 5 million fled to neighbouring countries and 2 million onwards to Europe from 2011 to 2016 - has yet to materialise. However over 3.2 million Iranians have been internally displaced and close to a million Lebanese. But while these current wars have not yet caused the same number of displaced people as a decade ago, the region was already struggling to handle millions of refugees prior to the latest illegal US-Israeli wars.
In Sudan there are over 9.1 million internally displaced people (IDPs), in Syria 6.07 million, in Yemen 3.06 million, in Gaza 1.9 million, and in Iraq close to a million, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As the body rightly warns, the escalating conflict in the Middle East is causing a growing humanitarian crisis or perhaps more aptly an even bigger humanitarian crisis. For it is the MENA region that has shouldered the brunt of the crisis and will continue to do so going forward as the doors shutter around the world and Europe enacts increasingly tough border and migration policies.
The Middle East is facing an escalating humanitarian crisis with millions internally displaced across Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza, yet global aid has been drastically cut as Western nations prioritise military spending and border security.
The crisis has also come at a time when humanitarian aid has been seriously curtailed. This is going to make the plight of IDPs even worse with aid agencies overstretched and unable to provide the critical assistance needed by so many desperate people. The US last year cut the budget of USAID by 83% and absorbed the body into the State Department while also slashing funding for NGOs and UN agencies. The Trump administration also extended the Biden administration’s freeze on funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which the Israeli government has banned claiming it is a ‘terrorist organisation.’ Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and other European countries have also cut back on humanitarian aid, in part to fund the military and meet the NATO percentage of GDP quota Trump has demanded.
The cuts in aid are being particularly felt in Lebanon, where nearly a quarter of the country’s population has now been displaced from the South and from Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israel’s forced evacuation orders, the second such mass displacement in less than two years. There is the risk that the displacement may become long-term if the Israelis carry out their threats to destroy and occupy Lebanon south of the Litani River. Palestinian and Syrian refugees meanwhile are feeling the cuts to aid agencies, prompting many Syrians to return to war-ravaged Syria instead of staying in increasingly precarious circumstances in war-ravaged Lebanon. With refugee crisis upon crisis, and economic crisis upon crisis, Lebanon needs major support.
The cruelty of such cuts in humanitarian aid is that the Pentagon spent US$ 11.3 billion in the first week of the war on Iran and is seeking a further US$ 200 billion as, in the words of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, “it takes money to kill bad guys.” In February, the US Congress passed legislation earmarking just US$ 5.5 billion for humanitarian aid worldwide.
It has long been thus, with aid “part of a PR veneer created around justifying the arms industry,” as Andrew Feinstein, author of The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, put it. Far more is spent on arms than aid and far less provided in aid than what arms sales generate, as I researched in 2018, when European countries (nearly all of them) sold arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE during the Yemen war worth a staggering 55 times more than the aid that was donated.
There has also been a correlation between a conflict’s geographical proximity to Europe and the aid received. The closer a conflict is to the European shores of the Mediterranean, and the chances of migrants trying to cross the sea, the more aid that was then typically provided in what can be termed strategic humanitarian aid. This strategy still holds in terms of providing humanitarian aid for Ukraine – which has remained robust – but elsewhere it is certainly on the wane. Indeed, worldwide, between 2025 and 2026, total humanitarian funding has plunged from US$27.60 billion to around US$8 billion, according to Financial Tracking Service (FTS) data.
Such aid, while admittedly fraught with problems – aid dependency, propping up corrupt regimes and so on – does of course assist the victims of war and help people get back on their feet amid a crisis. The aid, in short, provided a stop-gap and meant that IDPs often stayed in their country or a neighbouring one rather than going further afield. The Europeans supported humanitarian aid endeavours to, in part, clean up after US-led wars and proxy wars in the wider Middle East and to prevent migrants heading to Europe.
Yet while the US-Israeli wars are causing another forced migration not much is being done by European nations to stop the wars and avert another migration crisis. Instead, despite a refugee crisis just south of Europe being caused by US-Israeli aggression, the EU Migration commissioner Magnus Brunner told the Financial Times on 23 March, “it’s always [Vladimir] Putin who is involved in those big migration movements”, due to Russia’s historical support for the Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad and its backing of Tehran. “He is actually the biggest driver of migration towards Europe” claimed Brunner.
Iranians, Lebanese and other displaced people in the wider Middle East may find these words hard to take seriously as US and Israeli fighter jets and predator drones wreak havoc. But the message is clear: you are not welcome in Europe. Indeed, several European countries are calling for the gates of Fortress Europe to be fully closed to prevent a repeat of the Syrian refugee crisis. The Danish and Italian prime ministers have called on the European Council to put in “an emergency brake...as force majeure in the event of sudden large-scale migratory movements towards the Union”.
We are in a time where the viciousness of the likes of Trump and Hegseth appear increasingly widespread and accepted by European countries and the UK to give as Hegseth said “no quarter, no mercy” and to proclaim that “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly as it should be.” It is a coarse and dehumanising narrative that applies as much to civilians fleeing war as it does to combatants.
[Salon] Five-Point Peace Initiative from China and Pakistan -
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Monday, March 30, 2026
[Salon] Can we please stop calling Israel the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ now? - Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/03/30/can-we-please-stop-calling-israel-only-democracy-in-middle-east-now/
Can we please stop calling Israel the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ now?
The murder of three Lebanese journalists brings the U.S./Israel war with Iran to a new level of depravity and desperation. But journalists are to blame for this.
It’s hard to fathom what is more shocking about the news of three Lebanese journalists being targeted by Israel’s IDF and killed while working: the actual murder of the journalists or the lack of hue and cry by western media who are partisan to both the practice of murdering journalists and to how the stories of them being killed are framed.
Israel for a long time has had an extraordinary hold on western media which largely operates like a PR platform for its objectives. Journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza and so have to resort to the Stockholm Syndrome working relationship with the IDF’s press office which gives them distorted ’facts’ about what’s going on the ground, omits critical information and in some cases actually feeds them fake news, lock, stock and barrel. We are told journalists cannot enter Gaza for their own safety, which is as preposterous as it is comical, as Israel has an impressive track record by now of targeting and assassinating journalists.
The murder of three Lebanese journalists though has raised the stakes of Israel’s war with Iran and shown us how desperate the government is, as it struggles to cope with the country being slowly reduced to rubble by Iran’s missiles pounding it every day. The war now seems to be less about the scoresheet of who hit what and more about forcing journalists at gunpoint to write up false ’news’ or, in the case of many major western outlets like the BBC, simply not report on Iran’s strikes on the ground. In this environment, of course, public opinion cannot be allowed to go rogue and hold both the U.S. and Israel to account, as what we are seeing on our TV screens is entirely distorted and bears little or no resemblance to reality.
The murder of the three Lebanese journalists will be seen as a great victory by the IDF as it will send a chilling reminder to all journalists in Lebanon that they have to follow the script, or they will be targeted. But it also marks itself as a milestone in war reporting in general, in that now there is no more ambiguity about journalists being seen as legitimate targets on the battlefield, and this will have a knock-on effect around the world as journalists fail to detach themselves sufficiently from armies, governments and regimes, and when they put on a flak jacket marked ’press’ they present themselves as partisan and therefore a regular target just like the soldiers they are with.
Corruption also is at the heart of this sad story. Both Netanyahu and Trump are either being investigated for corruption or will certainly be on a grand scale when they leave office. They simply cannot leave office, and their only way of staying in power is to create mayhem and chaos for media to feast on while the spotlight is turned off them temporarily. New footage has been recently released of Netanyahu being interviewed by police officers who are investigating him on graft allegations surrounding expensive gifts that are given to him by those who seek favours from his office. This is believed to be the tip of the iceberg, though, and when police officers dig deeper they will find larger, more significant examples of corruption. Bibi will certainly serve a prison term if investigators are allowed to work freely and the judiciary system is allowed time to process the case. But in this period of war, it is expected that his case will be stalled. The invasion of Lebanon, which has provoked Hezbollah to hit targets within Israel, served its purpose perfectly to take the state of emergency in Israel to a new level where such proceedings are expected to be left to settle dust. Trump on the other hand seems to have distracted U.S. media away from reporting on the thousands of pages of details about him having relations with children which, one would have thought, would have affected his support from his own base.
Both men desperately need to control the media narrative, and so murdering journalists and telling other media that those who were killed were working for Hezbollah and using the press as a front is straight out of the Donald Trump Art of the Lie handbook. Trump is telling so many lies at the moment on an hourly basis about what is happening in Iran that journalists cannot complain about being targeted for reporting on facts if the vast majority of them simply replicate everything that comes out of his mouth as fact, more or less. This is where the war is. If we don’t ask difficult questions and report what Trump and Netanyahu are saying or claiming as false, it’s easy to understand just how much power they think they can wield over journalists who largely play along with the false reporting simply due to fear of being targeted. Literally.
The losses, just as one example, of U.S. military hardware is pure fiction. According to Trump, warships are out of action due to poor maintenance and fighter jets just keep falling out of the sky due to friendly fire. It’s a Hollywood movie script which a lot of journalists are helping him to develop each day. But the fact is that there are no U.S. journalists who are reporting the plain facts. The Straits of Hormuz has been taken over by Iran, the U.S. has almost no missiles left, its two aircraft carriers are limping home due to strikes, oil prices have risen which has given both Iran and Russia huge amounts of money to spend on their own wars, and Iran has emerged stronger, richer and a bolder new nuclear power which it wasn’t before. As a cherry on top of that spectacular failure by Trump and Israel, the U.S. has lost both its influence in the region and soon its petrodollars. I once wrote a week before the war that fake news will play a huge role in any war that Israel carries out with Iran and we should expect more journalists to be murdered, especially if the land invasion goes ahead and Trump will have to lie about the numbers of dead American soldiers. What I predict is that a second invasion somewhere will be staged just for the cameras which will be fed to journalists as ’handout’ video while the real battle surges forward with record casualties. Trump’s experience in reality TV and Israel’s already remarkable track record of video manipulation will play an empirical role, with the Lebanese journalists’ murder just encouraging them that anything is possible now with journalists.
Sunday, March 29, 2026
[Salon] Egypt’s economy: on a knife’s edge - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Egypt’s economy: on a knife’s edge
Summary: the economic impact on Egypt of the US-Israeli war against Iran may be “relatively contained” but the longer hostilities continue the greater the damage to an already heavily battered Egyptian economy.
We thank our regular contributor Maged Mandour for today’s newsletter. Maged is a political analyst who also contributes to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal and the author of Egypt under El-Sisi (I.B.Tauris) which examines social and political developments since the coup of 2013.
In a press conference on 19 March, the IMF offered its evaluation of the impact of the war on Iran on the Egyptian economy, assessing that it was “relatively contained.” There are reasons for this cautious optimism. For example, the hard currency reserves hit a record of US$ 52.8 billion in February , offering a healthy buffer to meet mounting hard currency obligations. The banking sector as well has posted its highest net foreign currency assets since 2012, reaching US$ 14.5 billion making the banking system more robust. Finally, the outflow of hot money did not reach the level of 2022, when US$ 20 billion exited the Egyptian market in the span of a few weeks. At the time of writing the estimated outflow is anywhere between US$ 5 and 8 billion, with reports of returning inflows. These factors all provide a sense of comfort that there are enough buffers and that market panic has not yet been ignited in a way that would trigger a sudden collapse. There is, however, a degree of wishful thinking and tunnel vision in the above logic with a more holistic view revealing deep structural vulnerabilities that are blissfully ignored. There is good reason to argue that these buffers will buy time but nothing more.
Egypt faces deep structural risks from heavy reliance on volatile "hot money" and a strained state budget, compounded by the regional war's impact which has already slashed Suez Canal traffic by 50% and threatened the vital financial lifelines provided by Gulf allies.
Arguably the most volatile mix in the regime's economic vulnerabilities is the heavy reliance on hot money, which reached a whopping US$ 45 billion last September. A mass exodus would be disastrous. This, however, has not happened yet with markets still underestimating the impact on the global economy of the war dragging on. If investor appetite for risk diminishes and a mass exodus follows, the impact would be catastrophic. There are signs of increased risk aversion against investing in Egyptian debt. For example, on 16 March, and for the third time in a row, the Central Bank refused bids to sell EGP 10 billion worth of long term bonds due to the high interests rates demanded by investors which reached 30%. In the same offering the Central Bank was only able to sell 2% of a targeted EGP 38 billion with two and three year maturities. These are signs of increased perceived risks by investors. The situation is compounded by a fragile currency, which hit a record low against the dollar, trading below EGP 52 for the dollar, recording a drop of 4.3% in a single day driven by the initial exodus of hot money. The weakening of the currency does not only add pressure on the ability of the regime to meet its debt obligations but is bound to increased inflation which in turn will pressure the Central Bank to increase interest rates already at a high of 19%. This in turn will add pressure on an already strained budget to meet debt obligations which consumed 96% of state revenues in the first five month of the fiscal year 2025/26. It is worth mentioning too that in 2026, the total external debt obligation reached US$ 29 billion with the financing gap for the current fiscal year reaching US$ 8.2 billion, showcasing the heavy burden on the state budget.
The other obvious vulnerability is the heavy dependence on imported energy which leaves the country susceptible to imported inflation and a high energy bill that will consume the state's budget. This was reflected in the more than doubling of the energy import bill to reach US$ 1.65 billion per month since the start of the war. If the war continues to escalate then the pressure to raise import levels will increase resulting in higher inflation while hurting growth. Stagflation becomes the order of the day.
Adding to the pressure, the war is also expected to have a negative impact on the Suez Canal, with early indicators suggesting traffic has already dropped by 50% since the start of the war. Another less talked about stress is the expected increase in the price of food, due to the shortage in fertilisers, the price of which has already spiked by 30%, due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. About a third of the world's fertiliser passes through the strait. Egypt, the world's largest importer of wheat and heavily dependent on food imports, is likely to be severely hit thus ramping up food price inflation, affecting the poor the most and causing poverty levels to spike.
The most alarming development, however, is the impact of the war on the GCC economies which will make it more difficult for them to again bail out the government. For example, Qatar's economy is expected to contract by 14%, while economies of the UAE - the Sisi regime's biggest backer - and Saudi Arabia are expected to contract between 3 and 5%. These contractions will make it less likely the GCC will continue to invest in Egypt at the same pace. There are already reports that the war has delayed US$ 20 billion worth of Gulf investments. This could leave the regime without a lifeline and if the war continues it can affect one of the main sources of foreign currency, namely worker remittances - which reached a record US$ 41.5 billion last year - thus leaving the regime in an extremely vulnerable position.
All of these factors speak to a potential crisis with devastating consequences. The regime's reserves are only buying it time but that does not change the fundamental dynamics. In many ways it is even more vulnerable to shocks with the war on the GCC countries making it ever more fragile. Policies that created a debt crisis and have caused near complete dependence on the Gulf reveal just how vulnerable Egypt's economy is. The eruption of another crisis would have consequences that are difficult to imagine, especially if the war continues and the economic damage Iran is inflicting on the GCC states Sisi relies on reaches a critical level.
Fr. Bob's Reflection for Palm Sunday - Guest Post
Holy Week is the perfect mixture of joy and sorrow. We arrive today at Palm Sunday – the first significant moment that leads to Jesus’ passion. The whole scene can often look and feel like a human drama.
As Jesus rides into Jerusalem, the crowds line the road, cheering and waving palm branches, eager to welcome Him as King. Yet everything about Jesus’ entrance challenges the world’s idea of royalty.
Instead of arriving in grand splendor on a warhorse, Jesus comes humbly, riding on a simple donkey. This intentional choice reveals the true nature of His Kingship. Jesus does not rule through force, wealth, or domination. His Kingdom is not built on power as the world understands it, but on humility, mercy and love.
Those who welcome Him are not wealthy or powerful. No rulers or social elites stand at the city gates to welcome Him. Instead, it is ordinary people who greet Him: the poor, the overlooked, the oppressed.
These are the very people Jesus always identified with throughout His ministry. In their simple gestures – waving palm branches and shouting words of hope – we see a faith that is humble, trusting and deeply human.
This moment is a striking contradiction to the expectations of a conquering Messiah. Jesus enters Jerusalem not in triumph as the world defines it, but in humility.
Throughout the Gospels, He teaches that true greatness is not found in status, influence or achievement, but in heartfelt service and self-giving. To follow Jesus is to embrace a path that values humility over pride and compassion over control.
Living this way is not easy. Our culture embraces success and recognition; the idea that you must always be the best. That mindset often leaves little room for us to act humbly. Yet Jesus invites us to something different. He calls us to use our gifts faithfully while also accepting our limitations.
He asks us to recognize that God works not only through our strengths, but through our weaknesses and our dependence on Him. In short, He asks for humility. The same humility Christ showed when He entered Jerusalem on that solemn Sunday more than 2,000 years ago.
Yes, Palm Sunday is an invitation – an invitation to accept humility.
As we enter Holy Week, we are asked to look closely at the kind of King Jesus is – and the kind of disciples we are called to be. Jesus did not come to build a Kingdom based on wealth or power. He came to build His Kingdom through humility and self-sacrifice.
As we walk with Jesus toward the Cross this week, we must do more than admire His humility. We must live it.
This Holy Week, I urge you to choose the quiet path of service. Make room in your hearts for those who are overlooked. Follow the example of your humble King, not only with words and palms, but with action.
Live your lives shaped by humility and always remember the words of Jesus: “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Saturday, March 28, 2026
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