In order to stop the evil-doings of the child-murdering [Zionist] regime and aiding the dear Lebanese people in the current circumstance, we must [do the following]:

1- Iran & resistance groups should enter the war against Israel

2- Close Bab al-Mandab Strait

3- The skies of UAE should light up [with Iranian attacks]

Today, Netanyahu announced that the Zionist regime would expand attacks into Beirut with an alleged green light from Trump’s administration. There was a mass exodus of civilians from the southern suburbs of Beirut causing chaos in the city.

Until now, the Zionists have increased the bombing of areas in southern Lebanon, including the perimeter of Jabal Amel Hospital in the ancient city of Tyre in the south. The following are videos and images from this attack.

After we finished the conversation - I saw that Iran’s central military command (Khatam Al Anbiya) had issued a warning to the ‘Israelis’

Netanyahu, continuing his acts of aggression in the region, has threatened to bomb Dahiyeh and Beirut and has issued an evacuation warning to their residents.

Given the regime’s repeated violations of the ceasefire, if this threat is carried out, we warn residents of the northern areas [of Israel] and military settlements in the occupied territories: If they do not want to be harmed, they should leave the area.

There are initial reports of injuries and possible deaths in the ICU department of the hospital. In Beirut, people brace themselves for the potential strikes this evening.

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18-month old Karim tortured by the Zionist forces in Gaza. Photo: Osama Al-Kahlout

In recent weeks, Zionist forces tortured an 18-month old child to force his father, who witnessed the abuse, to confess. The horrific event took place in Central Gaza, in the Al Maghazi refugee camp.

The father, Osama Abu Nasser was already suffering from Zionist-enforced poverty after his horse, his sole means of income, was killed. He took his son to buy supplies for the family. He was trapped by gunfire near his home and the IOF ordered him to abandon his son on the ground and to approach the Zionist checkpoint. He was then forced to strip naked.

According to witness statements, the Zionists took the child and interrogated the father with the child in front of him. The terrorists burned the child with cigarettes, inserted a metal nail into his leg while the father watched, powerless. This was later confirmed by a medical report.

After 10 hours of abuse, the child Karim was released and handed over to the International Red Cross. The father is still being detained.

A recent headline - variations of which can be found in multiple media outlets, including Hebrew, details the following revelations:

Israeli Settler Council Issues Unprecedented Admission of Ritualistic Child Sexual Abuse After Broadcaster Exposes Cover-up

The Gush Etzion Regional Council in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has publicly admitted that ritualistic sexual abuse of children occurred within its communities, a confession that marks the first time a governing body in Israel’s religious-Zionist settler sector has broken ranks with years of denial.

Zionist public broadcaster Kan 11 ran an investigation which aired accounts from five unrelated women who described identical patterns of ‘multi-perpetrator ritualist sexual abuse’ across certain geographic areas of the Occupation. The investigation is a culmination of gathering survivor testimony for more than a year. It also relies on rabbinical warnings and police investigations that have broken the seal on decades of institutional silence.

A previous Israel Hayom investigation also delved deep into this sinister and sadistic ritualistic abuse and rape of children by family members and religious predators.

Ayala: "It's always a dark place. There are between six and nine men there. Tie me to bed with my hands and feet, stand in a circle, mumble prayers or blessings, and there is the rabbi who always leads the situation and says what to do. There's a ceremony, and every one of them rapes me "

From the Kan investigation:

Survivor Yael Ariel told the committee she had experienced ritual abuse from the age of five until her late teens, and was forced to harm other children during that time. She said she had received testimonies from several women who alleged that ‘doctors, educators, police officers, and past and present members of the Knesset’ were involved in the abuse. She filed a police complaint that was closed after a few months. ‘Speaking out today in the Knesset is a historic moment,’ she said.

Yael Shitrit, another survivor, described abuse that began when she was three years old. ‘You have no idea what ritual abuse is,’ Shitrit told committee members. ‘The human brain cannot comprehend it. You can’t imagine what it means to program a three-year-old girl through rape and sadism so they can do whatever they want without anyone knowing.’ Shitrit described being trafficked across Israel from ceremony to ceremony. ‘Naked men stood in a circle. My therapist, her husband, and her son harmed me, and there were dozens of other girls and boys who harmed me.’ She said police had known of the cases for a year but lacked the tools to act: ‘The people who will fall are very, very senior figures. These people run communities and government agencies.’

The Knesset Research and Information Centre noted in 2025 that the Occupation legislature has no legal definition for 'ritual abuse’ - perhaps because the majority of those in power in this abomination of an entity are the primary predators and abusers of their own children, Palestinian children and adults and this does not remain only in the Occupied Palestinian territories but expands globally. The recent accounts of rape and systemic torture by the Sumud Flotilla participants from all over the world testifies to this sexual perversion and sadism being a societal norm in this depraved pedophile haven.

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I would like to share the following analysis also, from an online source which has been confirmed by other sources in Lebanon:

The Nabatieh Sector: The Occupation’s Graveyard — Talal Nahle Wednesday, May 27, 2026 (Day 89 of the War)

The clock is ticking rapidly toward a comprehensive explosion, while American promises of an imminent peace fade away. Trump and Rubio are selling the illusion of a “great deal” to pacify the oil markets (which are hovering around $98 per barrel of Brent crude). Meanwhile, the bitter truth that Washington evades is that the “frozen Iranian funds” remain a card for blackmail, and that Tehran—through the words of its President and the Supreme Leader’s advisor—has laid all doubts to rest:

“The Strait of Hormuz is the only guarantor, and there is no trust in American signatures.”

However, while diplomacy drowns in a mire of vetoes (no to surrendering uranium, no to ending the war without resolving the Lebanon file), Israel has opened the gates of hell upon itself by expanding its ground operations toward the “red line” in the Nabatieh District (southern Lebanon). Here, we are not talking about a traditional clash; rather, we are facing a scenario where the occupation army is being dragged into the “greatest swamp,” passionately planned for by Hezbollah since the beginning of the war.

Here is a breakdown of the dimensions of this grinding ground battle, and how Nabatieh and its surroundings will become an “open graveyard” that brings down the Israeli strategy of attrition:

First: The Nabatieh Swamp... The Strategic Trap and the Battle of Kornet and Optics

The expanding Israeli offensive toward Nabatieh is not a tactical advance, but a suicidal rush into scorched earth that has been prepared with extreme precision: 1. The Land of Ambushes and Booby-Traps: Hezbollah has not taken the stance of a random defender; it has lured the Israeli army into a fertile environment for the “arts of urban warfare.”

Nabatieh and its surroundings consist of a complex network of built-up and open terrains. Hezbollah, experienced in rigging explosive devices, setting complex ambushes, and launching heavy “Burkan” rockets, possesses a deadly grip in utilizing guided “Kornet” systems.

2. The Fall of the “Aerial Evacuation” Card:

In this complex environment, the occupation army will face a double nightmare: extreme difficulty in advancing, and an even greater impossibility in evacuation operations. Any attempt to summon helicopters to rescue the dead or wounded (or even potential captives) will place them directly in the aerial “hunting net” of MANPADS (man-portable air-defense systems) and the party’s suicide drones.

3. The Israeli Tactic of Preemptive Encirclement:

The enemy realizes the magnitude of this inferno, which is why it is resorting to a “flank security” strategy prior to deep penetration. Its attempt to reach the commanding heights surrounding the city (westward toward Choukine and Mayfadoun, eastward toward Kfar Tibnit and Kfar Remmen, and southward toward Arnoun and Yohmor), while focusing on protecting its northern flank toward Sohmor and Maydoun to reach Rihan and Sejoud (the highest vantage point), is a desperate attempt to create fire cover preceding the infantry and armored incursions.

Second: The Battlefield Belies Claims of Advance... The “Armor Incinerators” Speak

Field figures and facts over the past 48 hours (especially in Zawtar El Charkieh, considered the southern gate to Nabatieh) demolish the Israeli narrative: 1. “Ababil” Brings Down the Armor Doctrine: The Israeli army’s justification for its incursion as being “to solve the drone problem” is strategically foolish. Suicide drones (equipped with fiber-optic technology and thermal sights) excel whenever forces draw closer and become exposed targets.

The Toll of Tactical Fracturing:

Yesterday and today’s statements (32 statements yesterday) documented a true massacre of armor. Seven Merkava tanks were destroyed or disabled in a single day (bringing the documented total to 259 tanks), in addition to the destruction of Humvees, Namer APCs, D9 bulldozers, Iron Dome launchers (Branit Barracks), and command headquarters. Thwarting incursion attempts at the riverbed in Zawtar (luring the enemy into the scout complex and engaging at point-blank range before forcing them to retreat) proves that the resistance’s forward defense lines remain cohesive and lethal.

Third: Retaliatory Annihilation and the Bankruptcy of Israeli Options

As a result of this horrific operational failure, Israel has resorted to a “scorched earth” tactic to compensate for its armored losses: The Belt of Death: The recording of 170 airstrikes and 25 drone strikes, the commission of massacres (31 martyrs in an initial toll, alongside the continued obstruction of civil defense in Maarakeh), and the issuance of hysterical evacuation warnings targeting 50 towns, the entire city of Nabatieh, and the surroundings of Tyre, all reflect the desire of Netanyahu and Smotrich to destroy the urban infrastructure in retaliation against the party’s drones.

Division and Trial Postponements:

The sharp dispute between Netanyahu (who is searching for solutions to protect forces) and Smotrich (who demands the demolition of Beirut), coupled with the cancellation of Netanyahu’s trial session for “security and diplomatic” reasons, reflects the magnitude of the leadership dilemma facing the ruling coalition amid its failure on all fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, Iran). Conclusion and Strategic Outlook (The Fall of the Illusion):

We are facing a scenario of the greatest existential clash, in which the occupier’s military machine will break before what Hezbollah has been longing for since the beginning of the battle.

The Most Likely Scenario for the Coming Phase:

American diplomacy will continue to stall and maneuver (as Senator Cory Booker noted, Trump’s approach has strengthened Iran’s position). Meanwhile, the Lebanese battlefield, specifically in the Nabatieh sector and its surroundings, will witness the fiercest of battles.

We should not be surprised by the sheer scale of destruction that Israeli aviation will inflict on southern villages to present a “façade of victory” to its public. However, in return, the world must prepare for an “Israeli military demographic shock.” The death toll of the occupation army will multiply dramatically, and scenes of burning Merkavas will become a daily occurrence.

Even more dangerous is that Nabatieh’s environment and its terrain, rigged with deep ambushes, may result in Israeli “captives” falling into the grip of the resistance. This is the scenario that will turn the negotiating tables upside down, forcing Trump and Netanyahu to halt the war on the terms of the victorious Axis.

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Chavismo has not been overthrown; it is wounded.

Western/white Latin American watchers are pronouncing the Bolivarian project as dead, claiming that Delcy has “overthrown” Chavismo.

Here’s a thread that rejects this premature conclusion

By our senior editor Dr Carlos Cruz Mosquera.

A more mature and nuanced analysis from the Left is that Venezuela’s Bolivarian project is wounded, and that some aspects are more affected than others. Importantly, reports from within the country indicate that the Bolivarian project continues in terms of providing social and public programmes for the masses.

Furthermore, we continue to see significant efforts to break the ongoing US sanctions in order to sustain these popular programmes.

This is why it is important that we do not fall into simplistic and impulsive denunciations of Delcy and her administration.

Importantly, what the denunciations of the Western leftists fail to focus on is the central role of their own movements and governments in all of this. Their own leftist movements have not only been ineffective in terms of supporting Venezuelan sovereignty, they have failed to bring about anything close to the Bolivarian project.

Moreover, stating that Chavismo has been overthrown or that it’s a spent force ignores the millions of Venezuela - not just those in government - that continue to make up the project. This Eurocentric, frankly racist, perspective ignores the millions of Venezuelans who continue to be on the streets for Chavismo.

We must recognise, however, that there is a serious issue when it comes to certain policies, particularly international solidarity. We have seen that Chavismo’s renowned anti-imperialist stance has been affected.

Importantly, the recent case involving the extradition of former diplomat Alex Saab has led many to portray it as the last nail in the project’s coffin. And while it does appear to be a serious betrayal, the reality is more complicated — a reality that Western Latin American watchers, from their remote offices, are often slow to grasp.

It could be true, as Delcy’s government argues, that Saab was both an effective trade envoy for the Bolivarians and, at the same time, involved in irregular dealings. This is not a stretch, considering that Saab’s lawyer and close associate was none other than Abelardo de la Espriella — Colombia’s Trump-style far-right presidential candidate, known for his close links to criminal networks in Colombia and across the region.

Yes, agreed: if he committed a crime, then he should be tried at home, whether in Colombia or Venezuela. However, portraying Saab as an innocent loyalist being betrayed misses the nuance of the case — nuances often overlooked by overzealous Western leftists with simplistic positions, in which our protracted processes are seen as either wholly heroic or wholly villainous.

The comradely position to take on Venezuela — and on our whole region right now — is to accept that imperialism has impacted our projects in recent times. But also to recognise that our people continue to resist, sometimes forced to compromise, yet always seeking to create social, economic, and political space to continue deepening our projects. In the end, Venezuela’s people will triumph and reclaim the path that Chávez envisioned.

END OF THREAD.

From my own perspective, following conversations with the Venezuelan Ambassador to Syria and Lebanon whom I have known since 2017 - while the situation is critical and definitely precarious, we should not underestimate the below-radar duress that Venezuela is facing. Nor should we underestimate the behind-the-scenes efforts being made by the Chavistas to secure their President and First Lady, to help Cuba and to continue their Resistance Axis alliances.

Biomorgi recently wrote this statement on X:

The far-right scavengers are frantically searching for food. They're failures, and all they have left is to scavenge for scraps. Just like the "CIA influencers." Those who, while profiting from the Revolution, even wrote personalized books about the Bolivarian leaders. Now that their gravy train has dried up, they're strangely critical. Those who speak Spanish very well, but with a thick American accent.

So what I am writing is directed to comrades who may be confused, and with good reason.

A few days ago I posted that this is not the time to throw darts, but to build bridges. To generate solid arguments, based on real facts, so that our comrades who have always fought for and defended this beautiful Venezuelan process of change and justice can continue the necessary battle and we can maintain our firm commitment to the collective construction of a more just system.

I think no one doubts that a new era is dawning in the world. What has been brewing for years is finally coming to fruition. As history has consistently shown, every change of era brings with it traumas and very complex situations.

Venezuela, whose certified oil reserves are the largest on the planet, was not going to go unnoticed or be left out of this global realignment. We must not forget that we live in a world where fossil fuels remain fundamental to the development of nations, especially for global powers.

The empire, whose moral decay is plain for all to see, has dealt a very hard blow to Venezuelans. We must be brave and acknowledge this fact, without hesitation or reservation. The US took advantage of its technological and military supremacy to attack our homeland. They have violated our sovereignty. I think that's quite clear by now.

In my humble opinion, that disproportionate and completely unjustified aggression by the US was entirely unnecessary. Venezuela is a land of peace. It always has been, and we have always welcomed with open arms anyone who has come to our country in search of new horizons.

But the US, whose imperial structure is crumbling and whose credibility is seriously questioned, needed to send a message to the international community. And they used us as cannon fodder for it. Just listen to President Trump's speech in Davos and it all becomes clear.

Perhaps we, in our pacifist leanings, were naive and believed that the US wouldn't dare launch such an operation because it would reflect very poorly on them in the eyes of the world. But the US doesn't care at all what the world thinks. They have an unlimited license for aggression. All the peoples of the world must internalize this.

Brothers and sisters in the struggle. Venezuela has not surrendered. It is not kneeling before anyone. It is not a protectorate. It is not any of that nonsense they have tried to spread to demoralize us. The noble and courageous people of Venezuela have withstood years of intense pressure and aggression, not only from the United States, but from all the subservient governments of this continent, Europe, and other parts of the world; as well as international institutions and organizations such as the UN, the OAS, the IMF, the World Bank, the world's private banks, etc.

Are there other examples of besieged towns? Of course there are. Do those towns have large, enormous hydrocarbon reserves? Yes, they do.

Are these nations possessing vast reserves of fossil fuels and minerals, located in the same hemisphere as the most powerful empire in human history, and is that empire currently governed by highly morally committed individuals? I'm not so sure about that. What is absolutely certain, however, is that Venezuela meets those criteria.

Trying to compare ourselves to other nations or other peoples seems absurd to me. Each country has its own realities, idiosyncrasies, culture, strengths, vulnerabilities, beliefs, and a long list of other things that everyone should be aware of. I insist. We suffered a very hard blow, and that must always be kept in mind in any analysis we do.

Colleagues, I invite you to broaden your perspective and delve deeper into the analysis. Let's examine what is happening in the world and how events are unfolding.

Comrades, I invite you to evaluate and reflect before making any judgments or reaching conclusions that do a disservice to the movements for change and are used by our enemies. The enemies of the people.

History is full of examples where countries in the midst of war conducted parallel negotiations. Countries that were invaded and were fighting and negotiating at the same time.

Some have even spoken of surrender. What a flippant view. A battle should not be seen merely as a confrontation using weapons of war.

We are fighting. We are fighting to prevent fascism from taking over our homeland. We are fighting to keep Venezuela at peace. We are fighting to maintain national unity and the Republic after the lethal blow dealt to us, in which more than 100 Venezuelans were killed, the President and his wife were kidnapped, and our sovereignty was violated. We are fighting to improve our capabilities as a state. In short, we are fighting, putting the national interest first.

I know there are many questions. Many uncertainties. But we must trust in the vanguard of our Bolivarian movement. The Bolivarian leadership has been given a very difficult task. Extremely difficult. Let us not forget that we are the children of Bolívar. Questions? We all have questions and criticisms. We all have doubts and uncertainties. But as Chávez said many times:

"Irreverence in discussion, loyalty in action."

At this moment, perhaps more than ever before, our homeland is threatened, the nation is experiencing very complex times, and its sovereignty is under attack. Therefore, compatriots, brothers and sisters in the struggle, we must act with great caution and maturity. Maintaining peace, ensuring the functioning of the state, preventing bloodshed, and safeguarding the Republic are no easy tasks.

I've heard some very petty people questioning the very concept of the Republic. Again, as Chávez said, let them deal with their selfishness and technicalities. People who, by the way, bear a great deal of responsibility for what's happening to us today. But let's not get distracted by that. This isn't the time for it. History will judge them.

Let us remain steadfast. Let us have faith in the project. Let us remember when Commander Chávez passed away and President Maduro won the election by a very narrow margin in 2013, followed by the electoral debacle of 2015. Many at that time began to criticize, to distance themselves from the Bolivarian movement, and even tried to fracture Chavismo. We have already seen how that story ended: with a profoundly ignorant and incompetent young man swearing himself in as president, with the plundering of the nation, with sanctions, with sabotage, with violent protests, with the blocking of food and medicine for the people, among other abuses. As the saying goes, "You reap what you sow."

It is in setbacks and difficulties that political stature and the capacity for analysis and direction are most required.

It was not for nothing that the greatest politician and military strategist ever born in our land was called the "Man of Difficulties." And remembering that Bolívar, I conclude by saying:

“A man of honor has no other homeland than that in which the rights of citizens are protected and the sacred nature of humanity is respected.”

QUESTION: I totally agree with your points, but sometimes I feel like the government doesn't give us the media tools to defend the revolution, for example, the Alex Saab case, I have no doubt there are reasons for his deportation, but how do we defend that decision?

JB RESPONSE: It's true, compatriot. Perhaps we're failing in our communication. But as President Maduro said many times: it had to be in silence.

We're in a very complex moment and we must be quite bold and cautious. It's widely known that the US was behind Saab, from the very day of the aggression against Venezuela. He was deported more than 4 months after that fateful January 3rd. Our leadership must know something. Something was investigated. Something must have been found. Otherwise, I think, if the idea was to hand him over just for the sake of handing him over, they would have done it just a few days after the aggression.

And, as Interim President Delcy Rodríguez said, every decision is made thinking of the nation's well-being. Let's trust our leadership. The truth will be known at the right time.

A hug.

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It was a huge privilege to sit down with John Helmer to discuss the two summits in Beijing. The first, Donald Trump and his entourage of tech billionaires and rising stars in the Trump administration, the second, President Putin with his team.

Prior to Putin’s arrival, Dimitry Peskov announced:

“The [Beijing] agenda is clear: bilateral relations come first, including our special, privileged partnership and impressive trade and economic cooperation, with its annual value consistently above $ 200 billion. Of course, active discussions of international affairs will also be on the agenda. [On President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing] we are closely following reports in the media, and we also expect to get information straight from the horse’s mouth [sic] once we are in China.”

Putin met with Peng Pai - ‘a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. The President had posed for a photograph with him in Beijing’s Beihai Park in July 2000, during his first state visit to China. Subsequently, Peng Pai developed an interest in Russian culture and science; he came to study at MADI, and after graduating, returned to China to work in his home province.’ Kremlin read out.

During the conversation, Putin said:

That said, our meeting today falls on a momentous date, but our friendship with China is not directed against anyone. We are not fighting anyone. We are simply pursuing our own interests and following our own development path. What is more, we are ready to cooperate with everyone, with all our global partners, including the United States.

How important is Iran in negotiations between China and the US? How important is Taiwan compared to Ukraine in the Putin-Xi discussions? We cover these questions and much more.

You can follow John at his website - Dances with Bears.

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The Honduras tapes picked up by Fiorella Isabel reveal the Zionist sponsorship of the Narco-tyrant Juan Orlando Hernandez’s release from US imprisonment for drug trafficking - with Trump giving assurances that Hernandez would be returned to power in Honduras. Further leaked audios from Hernandez expose Washington’s campaign to destabilise the governments of Colombia and Mexico. As Fiorella reports:

Here’s him telling Asfura, Hondura’s current President, how they set up a disinformation strategy coordinated by Washington and funded with Honduran public money plus $350,000 from Javier Milei, to attack Claudia Sheinbaum and Gustavo Petro. He asks for a further $150,000 and Asfura tells him he should get double.

“We’re going to set up an informational cell from the USA. Dossiers are coming against Mexico, against Colombia, and against the Zelaya family”

We discuss Gaza and the ongoing silent genocide by the Zionist bloc, tents squeezed into an ever-shrinking land mass now overrun by plague-harbouring rats and rodents that prey on the defenceless and vulnerable war torn community.

Lebanon, where the Resistance is battling not only the Zionist expansionist campaign, daily slaughter of the innocent and besieged population in southern Lebanon but also factions within their own government which are fully subjugated to the whims and commands of the Zionists, the US and Saudi Arabia.

As Iran girds itself for a resumption of the US and Zionist aggression and Trump beats his imaginary supremacist chest, the world is spinning out of control towards multiple and complex conflicts that threaten to consume us all - unity is the one thing that can empower us, the little people, to withstand the incoming turbulence.

Substack is preventing my adding Fiorella, so here is her Substack.

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Both guests argue that the so-called ceasefires with Iran and Lebanon are not ceasefires at all, but operational pauses used by the United States and Israel to regroup after failing to achieve their stated military objectives. Myriam sets out why a second round of confrontation is likely to be heavier than the first, including the possible use of tactical or biological weapons on a limited scale, while ruling out any meaningful ground invasion of Iran itself.

The conversation also covers Iran's continued drone production, the attrition facing US forces across the region, the political pressures on Lebanon's government over normalisation with Israel, and the positioning of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain as the conflict develops. Vanessa and Myriam argue that the survival of the resistance axis is itself the measure of victory, and that American power in West Asia is now visibly failing.

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Lebanon’s rivers are more than lifelines; they lie at the heart of a long-standing struggle shaped by external ambition. From the Litani to the Wazzani, the Israeli entity’s efforts to dominate regional water reveal a deeper reality: control over southern Lebanon’s water has been pursued as power, not necessity.

[THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY DR. MARWA OSMAN FOR UK COLUMN]

Water has long shaped the politics of the Middle East, but in Lebanon, it is becoming something more: a fault line of power, pressure, and persistent external interest. In the country’s south, where rivers like the Litani, Hasbani, and Wazzani carve through fertile land and contested borders, freshwater is not just a resource; it is a strategic asset increasingly entangled in regional rivalries.

For decades, Israeli entity efforts to secure water dominance have extended beyond its borders, repeatedly intersecting with Lebanon’s most vital water systems. From attempts to reach the Litani to tensions over the Wazzani’s flow, these moves reflect more than short-term necessity; they point to a deeper, long-standing strategy rooted in control over the region’s hydrological map.

This article explores how Lebanon’s relative water abundance has placed it at the centre of a quiet but consequential struggle, one where geography, politics, and resource security converge, and where rivers have become instruments of influence as much as sources of life.

The Hydro-political Significance of Lebanese Water Resources

Lebanon occupies a uniquely sensitive position within the hydro-political landscape of the Middle East. Unlike many of its regional counterparts, which suffer from acute water scarcity, Lebanon possesses comparatively abundant freshwater resources. This relative abundance, however, is not merely a natural blessing; it is also a geopolitical liability. In a region where water is increasingly securitised, Lebanon’s rivers and aquifers have become embedded within broader regional power dynamics, particularly in relation to the Israeli entity’s long-standing water concerns.

Lebanon’s hydrological system is defined by a combination of surface and groundwater resources. The country hosts approximately 17 perennial rivers alongside numerous seasonal streams and significant underground aquifers. Among these, the Litani River stands out as the most significant internal watercourse, stretching approximately 170 kilometres entirely within Lebanese territory. Its basin supports extensive agricultural activity in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, while also contributing to hydroelectric production through facilities such as the Qaraoun Dam. This internal positioning makes the Litani particularly valuable, as it is one of the few major rivers in the region not shared across international borders.

However, the hydrological importance of Lebanon extends beyond the Litani. Southern Lebanon is home to the Hasbani River and the Wazzani River, both of which form part of the upper Jordan River Basin. Unlike the Litani, these rivers are transboundary in nature, linking Lebanon hydrologically to Syria, Jordan, and occupied Palestine. This interconnectedness elevates their strategic significance, as any alteration in their flow has implications for the broader regional water balance. Transboundary water systems in the Middle East are often sites of asymmetrical power relations, where upstream and downstream actors compete not only over resources, but also over political influence.

The Wazzani River, a modest yet strategically significant watercourse in southern Lebanon, flows through the Marjayoun District within the Nabatieh Governorate, an area where geography and geopolitics intersect with unusual intensity. Despite its relatively small size, the river derives considerable importance from its source, the Wazzani Spring, which constitutes the only perennial and stable contributor to the Hasbani River. In hydrological terms, this spring accounts for approximately one-fifth of the Hasbani’s total discharge, rendering it a vital element in the broader Jordan River Basin.

The Hasbani River in Wazzani, South Lebanon. Photo: Andrew Parsons

What distinguishes the Wazzani River is not merely its hydrological contribution, but its geopolitical positioning. Over a stretch of roughly four kilometres, the river delineates a sensitive boundary zone between Lebanese territory and the Zionist Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, particularly around the village of Ghajar. This dual function, as both a vital water source and a de facto boundary marker, places the river at the heart of regional tensions, where issues of sovereignty, resource allocation, and security converge due to constant Zionist aggressions on Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the Hasbani River originates from the northwestern slopes of Jabal al-Sheikh, descending through southern Lebanon as one of the principal resources feeding the upper Jordan River Basin. Flowing for approximately 24 to 40 kilometres within Lebanese territory, it represents a critical transboundary watercourse whose significance extends well beyond its geographical modesty. Hydrologically, the Hasbani integrates contributions from several springs, most notably the Wazzani, forming a steady flow that plays a vital role in sustaining downstream systems. Its position at the intersection of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian hydrological networks situates it firmly within one of the most politically sensitive water basins in the Middle East.

Lebanon’s shared surface water resources. Image: Fanack Water

This strategic positioning has rendered the Hasbani a recurring focal point of geopolitical tension, particularly in relation to water allocation and control. Disputes over its tributaries, especially the Wazzani Spring, escalated in the early 2000s following multiple Zionist aggressions, when Lebanese efforts to utilise these waters triggered Israeli severe objections and military posturing over pumping rights. Yet, beyond its political dimension, the river also carries ecological importance.

The relative abundance of Lebanese water must also be understood in contrast to the Israeli entity’s structural water deficit. Historically, the Israeli entity claims to have faced significant challenges in securing sufficient freshwater resources to meet domestic, agricultural, and industrial demands. While advancements in desalination and wastewater recycling have mitigated some of these pressures, natural freshwater sources remain a critical component of its long-term water security strategy. This structural imbalance helps explain the persistent greed that can be otherwise explained by Zionist Israel as a ‘strategic interest’ in neighbouring water resources, including those of Lebanon.

From a hydro-political perspective, water in Lebanon is not merely a resource; it is a strategic asset embedded within regional security calculations. The concept of ‘hydro-politics’ refers to the ways in which water resources influence power relations, conflict dynamics, and cooperation between states. In the Lebanese case, hydro-politics is shaped by both internal and external factors. Internally, issues such as infrastructure deficiencies, mismanagement, and seasonal variability affect the efficient utilisation of water resources. Externally, geopolitical pressures, particularly constant aggression from the Israeli entity, introduce an additional layer of complexity.

One of the defining features of Lebanon’s water profile is the paradox of abundance and inefficiency. Despite relatively high levels of rainfall compared to regional averages, Lebanon struggles with water management challenges, including leakage, pollution, and inadequate storage capacity. According to the Ministry of Energy and Water, a significant portion of Lebanon’s water is lost due to outdated infrastructure and insufficient investment. This inefficiency has important geopolitical implications, as it feeds into narratives that portray Lebanon as incapable of effectively managing its own resources; narratives that have, at times, been leveraged to justify external interest or intervention.

At the same time, the geographic distribution of water resources within Lebanon further complicates the picture. The southern regions, which are richest in surface water, are also those most exposed to geopolitical tensions due to their proximity to the Israeli entity. Rivers such as the Wazzani and Hasbani are not only hydrologically significant but also strategically vulnerable, with their locations along contested or sensitive borders. The borders make it vulnerable to political and military pressure, especially during periods of constant Zionist wars on south Lebanon.

Climate change introduces yet another dimension to Lebanon’s hydro-political landscape. Changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, and increasing periods of drought all threaten to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Studies suggest that climate variability could reduce water availability in the region by significant margins over the coming decades, thereby intensifying competition over existing resources. In such a scenario, the strategic value of rivers like the Litani and Wazzani is likely to increase, further embedding them within regional conflict dynamics.

In this context, Lebanon’s water resources cannot be understood in isolation from broader regional dynamics. They are part of a complex system where geography, politics, and security intersect. The Litani River, while entirely Lebanese in its course, has long been perceived as a potential asset within the Zionist Israeli entity’s strategic thinking. Meanwhile, transboundary rivers such as the Wazzani are directly implicated in ongoing disputes over shared water resources.

Ultimately, the hydro-political significance of Lebanese water lies not only in its quantity, but in its position within a contested regional environment. Water, in this sense, functions as both a resource and a lever of power. For Lebanon, this dual nature presents a profound challenge: how to manage and protect its water resources in a way that ensures national development while navigating the pressures of a highly securitised regional context amid constant Israeli entity aggressions.

Historical and Ideological Foundations of the Israeli Entity’s Water Ambitions

The question of water has been deeply embedded in the ideological and strategic foundations of the Zionist project since its earliest formulations. Far from being a secondary or technical concern, access to freshwater resources was conceptualised as a prerequisite for state viability, economic sustainability, and demographic expansion. Within this framework, the water resources of southern Lebanon, most notably the Litani River, were not viewed as peripheral, but rather as integral to long-term strategic planning.

Early Zionist discourse reveals a clear awareness of the hydrological limitations of the territory of occupied Palestine. Historical Palestine, particularly its southern and central regions, suffers from uneven rainfall distribution and limited perennial water sources. This reality shaped early territorial aspirations. Zionist leaders have consistently emphasised the need to secure reliable water supplies, often advocating for borders that would extend beyond purely demographic or historical considerations to include critical natural resources, as if that is something normal or even legal that states usually do.

One of the earliest and most frequently cited examples is the correspondence of Chaim Weizmann with British officials during the period leading up to the establishment of the Israeli entity. Weizmann explicitly argued for the inclusion of the Litani River within the borders of the proposed ‘Jewish state’ on stolen Palestinian land, highlighting its importance for irrigation and energy production. Although these demands that were not met in the official partition agreements, they nonetheless illustrate the centrality of Lebanese water resources within early colonial strategic thinking.

The Litani River, in particular, occupied a prominent place in these early visions. Unlike other regional rivers, the Litani flows entirely within Lebanese territory before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. This makes it both a uniquely sovereign resource for Lebanon and, from an external perspective, a potentially ‘untapped’ source of freshwater. The Litani has long been perceived by Israeli entity planners as a natural extension of the Jordan River Basin, despite the absence of any direct hydrological connection.

Map of the Litani River in Lebanon. Adapted from a 2025 graphic by Anadolu Agency

The transition from ideological aspiration to strategic planning became more pronounced during the 1940s and 1950s. During this period, a number of technical studies and proposals were developed to explore the possibility of diverting the Litani River waters southward toward the Jordan River Basin. These proposals were not merely theoretical; they were grounded in detailed engineering assessments that sought to evaluate the feasibility of large-scale water transfer projects. Such proposals reflected a broader pattern in which water infrastructure was used as a tool of state building and territorial consolidation.

Following the establishment of the Israeli entity in 1948 on stolen Palestinian land, water quickly emerged as a central axis of regional tension. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a series of disputes over the use of the Jordan River system, culminating in the so-called ‘water wars’ of the mid-1960s. While these conflicts primarily involved Syria and Jordan, Lebanon was indirectly implicated through its control of the Hasbani River, one of the main tributaries of the Jordan.

Lebanon’s relative not getting directly involved in those confrontations did not diminish the strategic importance of its water resources. On the contrary, the Hasbani, and by extension the Wazzani, became increasingly significant as components of a broader hydrological system. Israeli entity efforts to secure control over the Jordan River Basin inevitably brought attention to upstream sources, including those located within Lebanese territory. Transboundary water systems often create conditions in which upstream states are drawn into conflicts initiated downstream.

The 1967 war marked a turning point in the regional water balance. With the Israeli entity’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, it gained control over additional water sources feeding into the Jordan River, thereby strengthening its hydrological position. However, this expansion did not eliminate concerns over water scarcity. Instead, it reinforced the perception that long-term security required a diversified and controllable water supply. This was a perception that continued to shape hostile strategic thinking in relation to neighbouring countries, including Lebanon.

The 1982 invasion of Lebanon must also be understood, in part, within this broader context. While the stated objectives of the invasion were primarily security-related, some analysts have pointed to the geographical extent of Israeli entity military operations, particularly their invasion toward the Litani River, as indicative of underlying strategic considerations related to water. Although it would be reductive to attribute the invasion solely to hydrological motives, it is equally insufficient to ignore the role that water may have played within the larger strategic calculus.

In addition to military and territorial strategies, the Israeli entity’s water greed has also been articulated through discursive and legal frameworks. One recurring theme is the portrayal of Lebanese water resources as underutilised or inefficiently managed. This narrative serves a dual function: it highlights the perceived Israeli occupation’s need for water, while simultaneously questioning the legitimacy of exclusive Lebanese control over certain resources. Such narratives are often part of ‘hydro-hegemony’, where dominant actors seek to shape not only the distribution of resources but also the discourse surrounding them in sovereign states like Lebanon.

It is important to note, however, that the Israeli entity’s water policy has evolved. Advances in desalination technology, particularly since the early 2000s, have significantly reduced dependence on natural freshwater sources. Yet, this technological shift has not eliminated the strategic importance of natural water resources. Instead, it has shifted the nature of the discourse, from one of necessity to one of optimisation and regional influence for the occupation leaders.

Within this evolving context, Lebanese water resources continue to occupy a complex position. On the one hand, they are less central to the Israeli entity’s immediate survival than they may have been in earlier decades. On the other hand, they remain strategically relevant within a broader framework of regional power projection and resource security. The persistence of interest in rivers such as the Litani and Wazzani suggests that water, even in an era of technological solutions, retains its geopolitical significance.

Ultimately, the historical and ideological foundations of Zionist Israeli water ambitions reveal a pattern of continuity rather than rupture. From early Zionist thought to contemporary policy, water has remained a central element in strategic occupation planning. Lebanese resources, by virtue of their location and abundance, have been consistently positioned within this framework, not always as immediate targets, but as potential assets within a long-term vision of regional hydrological control.

The Litani and Wazzani Rivers in the Context of Conflict and Control

The Litani and Wazzani Rivers represent two of the most critical contact points between Lebanese sovereignty and Israeli entity strategic interests. While both rivers differ in their hydrological characteristics and legal status, they converge in one essential aspect: each has been situated, at different moments, within the circle of conflict over water control in the Levant. Examining these rivers as case studies allows for a more grounded understanding of how abstract hydro-political ambitions translate into concrete tensions, policies, and occasionally confrontations.

The Litani River occupies a unique position in this equation. As the longest river entirely within Lebanon, it constitutes a rare example of a fully sovereign water resource in a region otherwise dominated by transboundary systems. This sovereignty, however, has not insulated it from external interest. On the contrary, its size, flow, and geographic location have made it a recurring point of reference in Israeli entity strategic colonial discourse. Unlike the Hasbani or Wazzani, which are directly connected to the Jordan River Basin, the Litani flows independently into the Mediterranean. Yet, Israeli entity planners have historically viewed it as a potential supplementary source that could be redirected southward through engineered projects.

The economic and developmental importance of the Litani for Lebanon cannot be overstated. It serves as a primary source of irrigation for the Bekaa Valley, often described as the agricultural heartland of the country, and supports hydroelectric generation through the Qaraoun Dam and associated infrastructure. Any threat to the integrity or control of this river therefore extends beyond resource competition into the realm of Lebanese economic security and national stability.

Despite its internal flow, the Litani has repeatedly appeared within the geographical scope of Israeli entity military operations. During 1978’s Operation Litani and later in the 1982 invasion, Israeli occupation forces advanced up to, and in some cases beyond, the river’s banks. While these operations were officially framed in terms of security concerns, their geographical borders that raised questions among analysts regarding whether control, or at least surveillance, of the river formed part of the broader strategic calculus. The naming of the 1978 operation itself underscores the symbolic and strategic weight attributed to the river by the occupation.

In contrast, the Wazzani River represents a more direct and immediate site of contestation due to its status as a tributary of the Hasbani River, which in turn feeds into the Jordan River system. This hydrological connection places the Wazzani squarely within a transboundary framework governed, at least in principle, by international water law. However, in practice, the asymmetry of power between Lebanon and Zionist Israel has shaped how these principles are interpreted and enforced.

The tensions surrounding the Wazzani reached a peak in 2002, when Lebanon initiated a project to pump water from the river to supply nearby villages in the south. From a legal standpoint, the project was modest in scale and fell well within Lebanon’s rights under the principle of equitable and reasonable utilisation. Nevertheless, Zionist Israel responded with sharp objections accompanied by military threats and diplomatic pressure, arguing, as per the usual rhetoric, that even limited Lebanese use could affect its water security.

This episode illustrates a broader dynamic in which water disputes are not solely about quantities, but about control and precedent. By contesting even small-scale Lebanese projects, the Israeli entity effectively signalled its unwillingness to accept any changes to the status quo that might weaken its position within the Jordan River Basin. Such behaviour is characteristic of hydro-hegemonic systems, where dominant actors seek to maintain control not only over resources, but also over the rules governing their use.

Beyond confrontation, the management of the Wazzani and Hasbani rivers has also been shaped by a climate of deterrence. Lebanon’s approach to these resources has often been cautious, reflecting an awareness of the potential for escalation. This caution, while understandable, has had the unintended consequence of limiting the country’s ability to fully utilise its own water resources. In this sense, control is exercised not only through physical presence or legal argumentation, but also through the shaping of perceived risks and constraints.

The contrast between the Litani and Wazzani thus highlights two different modalities of water conflict. The Litani represents a case of latent strategic interest; an internal resource that is not directly contested daily, but remains embedded within long-term strategic thinking for the occupation. The Wazzani, by contrast, exemplifies active contestation, where even limited use becomes a trigger for diplomatic and military aggression by Zionist Israel against Lebanon.

It is also important to consider the role of infrastructure in shaping these dynamics. Water control is not only about access to sources, but about the ability to store, transport, and distribute water. In Lebanon, infrastructure limitations, ranging from ageing pipelines to insufficient storage capacity, have constrained the effective use of rivers like the Litani. These limitations, in turn, triggered external narratives about inefficiency by the occupation, while also reducing Lebanon’s strategic leverage.

Environmental considerations further complicate the picture. Both the Litani and Wazzani rivers face challenges related to pollution, overuse, and climate variability. In the case of the Litani, industrial discharge and agricultural runoff have significantly degraded water quality in certain sections. These issues not only undermine domestic utilisation, but also intersect with geopolitical dynamics by affecting how the resource is perceived and valued.

Ultimately, the Litani and Wazzani rivers illustrate how water resources can become focal points of broader Zionist greed, denoted as ‘geopolitical struggles’. They are not merely physical entities, but sites where sovereignty, security development, and power intersect. Understanding their role within the Lebanese-Israeli entity context requires moving beyond technical analyses to consider the political and strategic dimensions that shape how water is contested, controlled, and conceptualised.

Legal, Geopolitical, and Future Dimensions of the Water Conflict

The conflict over Lebanese water resources cannot be fully understood without situating it within the broader frameworks of international law, regional geopolitics, and future environmental and strategic trends. Some of my other writing has demonstrated the historical continuity and practical manifestations of Israeli entity acquisitive ambition in Lebanese waters. This article, however, has sought to evaluate the legitimacy of these dynamics, their geopolitical implications, and the trajectories they may take in the coming decades.

At the level of international law, the governance of transboundary water resources is primarily guided by a set of widely recognised principles, most notably those codified in the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. Among these, the principles of ‘equitable and reasonable utilisation’ and the obligation to avoid ‘significant harm’ are central. In theory, these principles provide a balanced framework through which riparian states can share water resources while respecting each other’s sovereignty rights.

In the Lebanese context, these legal norms are particularly relevant to rivers such as the Hasbani and Wazzani, which form part of the Jordan River Basin. From a strictly legal standpoint, Lebanon is entitled to utilise these waters in a manner that is both equitable and sustainable. The modest scale of Lebanese water extraction projects, such as the 2002 Wazzani pumping station, falls well within these parameters. However, the application of international law in practice is often shaped less by legal clarity than by political and strategic realities imposed by an active occupier constantly attempting invasion.

This discrepancy highlights a fundamental limitation of international water law: its dependence on state compliance and the absence of strong enforcement mechanisms. In asymmetric contexts, where one state possesses significantly greater military, economic, or diplomatic power, legal principles may be selectively interpreted or effectively overridden. Water conflicts in such contexts are often governed by ‘hydro-hegemony’, in which dominant actors shape both the rules and their implementation.

Within this framework, the Israeli entity’s practices, which regularly amount to illegal acts of aggression regarding regional water resources, are unlawfully projected by the occupation as reflecting a combination of legal argumentation and strategic leverage. By invoking concerns over water security or downstream impact, Zionist Israel has been able to challenge Lebanese initiatives, even when those initiatives are legally justified. This dynamic underscores the imbalance in how such concerns are articulated and enforced.

Beyond the legal dimension, the geopolitical significance of water in the Lebanese-Israeli entity context is deeply intertwined with broader regional dynamics. Water resources function not only as economic assets, but also as tools for political influence. Control over water can enhance a state’s ability to influence neighbouring actors, shape development trajectories, and reinforce strategic depth.

For the Israeli entity, water has long been integrated into ‘national security doctrine’, not merely as a resource to be protected, but as a factor to be actively managed, even through direct occupation, within the regional environment. This perspective helps explain the continued hostile interest in Lebanese water resources, even in an era where technological advancements, particularly desalination, have significantly reduced immediate scarcity pressures for the occupation. Water, in this sense, remains a strategic variable, linked to broader considerations of stability, borders, and regional influence.

For Lebanon, the geopolitical challenge is more complex. On the one hand, the country possesses valuable water resources that could support economic development, particularly in agriculture and energy. On the other hand, its ability to fully exploit these resources is constrained by both internal and external factors. Internally, issues such as governance, weak infrastructure deficits, and environmental degradation limit effective utilisation. Externally, the proximity of these resources to a highly securitised border controlled by a colonial entity introduces risks that shape policy decisions.

Looking forward, the future of the water conflict in this context will likely be influenced by several interrelated trends. First, climate change is expected to have a profound impact on water availability across the Middle East. Rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increased frequency of droughts are projected to reduce renewable water resources in many parts of the region. In Lebanon, this may manifest as greater seasonal variability and reduced river flows, particularly during dry periods.

Such changes are likely to intensify competition over existing resources, both within and between states. In transboundary systems like the Jordan River Basin, even small reductions in flow can have disproportionate political consequences. As a result, rivers such as the Wazzani may become even more sensitive points of contention, where technical issues of water allocation intersect with broader political tensions, as we have been following since Zionist Israel’s ongoing aggression against Lebanon both in the 2024 war and the current 2026 war.

Second, technological developments will continue to reshape the strategic landscape. The Israeli entity’s path in desalination and water recycling has already altered the traditional equation of scarcity. However, these technologies are not without limitations. They are energy-intensive, costly, and dependent on stable infrastructure. Moreover, they do not fully replace the strategic value of naturally occurring freshwater resources, particularly for agriculture, which increases the possibility for constant Zionist attempts to illegally raid Lebanese freshwater resources.

For Lebanon, technological solutions could also play a role in mitigating internal challenges. Investments in water storage, distribution network and treatment facilities could significantly improve efficiency and reduce losses. Such improvements would not only enhance domestic water security, but also strengthen Lebanon’s position in any future negotiations over shared resources.

Third, the legal and institutional frameworks governing water resources may evolve. While international law currently provides a set of general principles, there is growing recognition of the need for more specific, enforceable agreements in transboundary basins. In the absence of formal Lebanese-Israeli entity agreements, due to the broader political context resulting from repeated Israeli entity aggression on Lebanon, such developments remain unlikely in the near term.

Finally, the role of non-state actors and broader security considerations cannot be ignored. In highly contested regions, water infrastructure itself can become a target or a tool within conflict dynamics. Protecting such infrastructure, therefore, becomes part of a wider national sovereignty strategy, which, in the case of Lebanon, can only be secured through intertwined efforts between the authorities and the resistance forces.

In conclusion, the conflict over Lebanese water resources reflects a complex interplay between law, geopolitics, and environmental change. While legal principles provide a normative framework, their application is shaped by power dynamics and strategic interests. The Litani and Wazzani rivers, as examined throughout this article, embody these tensions, serving simultaneously as sources of life, instruments of influence, and potential triggers for conflict.

For Lebanon, the path forward lies in a combination of internal reform and strategic awareness. Strengthening water governance, investing in infrastructure, and engaging with international legal frameworks can enhance resilience. At the same time, recognising the geopolitical dimensions of water is essential for navigating a region where resources are rarely neutral, and where even a river can become a focal point of the conflict.

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1: It is all about the oil - Trump and the US is determined to secure control over the global oil resources and economic land and maritime corridors.

2: The war against Iran is actually a stage in the war against Russia and China

3: ‘The World is a stage’ - the Islamic Revolution was stage managed by the CIA and Iran is part of the Global Mafia

4: Iran is genuinely a thorn in the side of the Global Mafia genocidaires and maintains a strategic independence in order to provide a meaningful alternative to the inhumane core ideology of the transnational ruling elites.

5: Wars are what sustain the Global Mafia economies and so perpetual war is the key to their success and supremacy.

As Prof. David Miller said on X today:

The bravery, compassion and sense of justice that drives the people of the Islamic Revolution is incomprehensible in many cultures today — especially those which have been humiliated by decades of Zionist penetration and subversion; the hegemony of American mass culture; and the rise of liberal individualism.

The IRGC is one of the only remaining — and most effective — poles of resistance against these forces, which is why it is demonised and why the Zionist regime in Britain seeks to proscribe it.

This was a reaction to seeing the following video - The untold stories of Iran’s IRGC missile unit soldier Hossein Mohammadi and his wife about his war injuries. [English subtitles]

You may disagree with our conclusions but I hope it has, at least, made it easier to understand the war from the perspective of the Iranian people fighting it.

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Donald Trump is vile, but he is simply a consequence. He is the profane explanation of what the United States has always been. Every policy he pursues was already in the imperial playbook: the invasions, the sanctions killing hundreds of thousands of children, the vetoes shielding genocide, the coup against elected presidents, and the assassinations amid negotiations.

[THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN BY MYRIAM CHARABATY - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO HER SUBSTACK]

He simply says the quiet part out loud and acts with enough arrogance that he does not feel the need to curate a narrative to neither to hide it nor to be perceived as consistent.

So when the Vatican opposes Trump’s war on Iran, one must ask: is it opposing the man, or the empire that produced him? And does that opposition entail acknowledging people’s ultimate right to self-defence by all means possible within the scope of upholding human dignity?

Because the same Vatican that now calls Trump’s war ‘unjust’ refused to recognise Iraq’s right to resist the same empire when it wore the face of George W. Bush.

The question at heart here is whether the Vatican’s stance is one of rebellion for Justice or, unfortunately, another foreign policy manoeuvre?

What Is a ‘Just War’?

Before analysing the Vatican’s position on Iran, one must define the moral lens upon which the Church founds its position, asserting the US war on Iran is ‘unjust’.

Classical Just War Theory (jus ad bellum) traditionally requires six conditions for a war to be morally legitimate:

1. Just Cause: defence against aggression or protection of innocents

2. Legitimate Authority: declared by a competent governing body

3. Right Intention: pursuing good and avoiding evil

4. Last Resort: all peaceful alternatives exhausted

5. Probability of Success: reasonable chance of achieving the just aim

6. Proportionality: the good achieved must outweigh the evil inflicted

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2309) further stipulates that “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated” (Proportionality) and that “all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective” (Last Resort).

If a war is unjust, and it fails under these conditions, then the question immediately follows: what right do the people under attack have to resist it? And since Just War Theory recognises that right, why does that standard never recognise resistance by the people of West Asia?

The Catholic tradition has historically affirmed the right of self-defence, including for nations and peoples. But when the aggressor is a superpower, and the victim is a country of the Global South, that affirmation has often been withheld.

This is the contradiction at the heart of the Vatican’s critique of Trump’s Administration, which is deeply concerning for Christians who understand that resistance has been the only power, after God Almighty, standing between them and ethnic cleansing.

This article will not discuss the US war’s legitimacy because, by all standards, it is a war of aggression with clear geostrategic aims. The aim is rather to ask, with honest intention: where does the Vatican truly stand, especially after openly delegitimising the US war of aggression on Iran, vis-à-vis the right of the people to resist until liberation?

The Historical Precedent (2003)

Let’s put the proposal into perspective, given that Pope Leo XIV has proclaimed, “God’s heart is torn apart by wars, violence, injustice, and lies. But our Father’s heart is not with the wicked, the arrogant, or the proud”. What remains missing is to identify those and understand their reality in a material sense. Who are the wicked, and what about the ‘humble’ people? How do they survive the violence of unjust wars?

Pope Leo XIV was not the first pontiff to speak against war. In 2003, Pope John Paul II warned that the US invasion of Iraq would be an unjust war and attempted through Vatican diplomacy to prevent it.

In a New Year address to Vatican diplomats, John Paul II declared: “War cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions”.

Yet, the Vatican’s position contained a contradiction. While opposing the invasion, it did not recognise Iraq’s right to resist it. Moreover, the Pope’s official written text for his January 2004 ‘state of the world’ address, after the invasion, acknowledged that Iraq had been “ridded of an oppressive regime”, but he skipped over that phrase when speaking aloud. One could wonder whether this was to avoid appearing to endorse the war’s outcome.

Spoken as if the people of Iraq could not have made the choice themselves, it needed to be imposed upon them with lies spewed blatantly by Powell at the UN, claiming “weapons of mass destruction”. Knowing Washington had geostrategic motives, which will be discussed later, it cannot be denied that the Vatican should have had the knowledge, or at least the concern, that US wars in the Arab world were never about the people, but about imposing puppet regimes they can control and coerce.

Later, when it came to the question of resistance operations against foreign troops, which by then officially occupied Iraq, the distinction was clear. After a truck bomb killed 19 Italian soldiers in Nassiriya, Iraq, in November 2003, Pope John Paul II wrote:

I received with deep sorrow the news of the vicious attack in Nassiriya, Iraq, in which Italian soldiers lost their lives while generously fulfilling their mission of peace … I express my firmest condemnation of this latest act of violence which, in addition to other savage acts which have taken place in that tormented country, does not aid the process of reconstruction and pacification.

The Pope, throughout the US-led NATO occupation of Iraq, did not distinguish between occupier and occupied. Instead, as America Magazine reported directly: “To those who view Iraqi attacks on US and allied soldiers as legitimate resistance to an illegal occupation, the Vatican has offered no support whatsoever”.

Yet, the Pope also affirmed that the invasion had not made the world safer, and that troops could not simply withdraw, surrendering to the state of things and trapping the people of Iraq between occupation and chaos, as if resistance and unity in battling US-backed forces were a ‘non-option’, stripping the people of their agency and right to resist, forcing them to become passive in their own destiny.

A Vatican official explained the reasoning: “If the military pulls out of Iraq now, the country would fall into chaos. The vase has been broken, and we have to try to find a way to mend it”.

In his June 2004 meeting with President Bush, the Pope stated: “In the absence of such a commitment, neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome”.

This was presented as neutrality. But for the Iraqi people, who had watched half a million of their children get killed at the hands of the US and NATO, that the then-US ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, infamously defended as “worth it”, what choice did this framework truly leave? Resistance was condemned as terrorism. Cooperation with the occupier was the only path offered. And the occupier had already calculated the worth of Iraqi blood.

The Strategic Context that the Vatican Pretended Did Not Exist (1996–2009)

Long before the invasion of Iraq, strategic proposals had already outlined ambitions for regional reordering that had nothing to do with Iraqi welfare. In 1996, a policy paper titled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’, prepared for the incoming Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, argued for removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq and weakening Syria as part of a broader strategy to confront forces seen as threatening Israeli and Western influence.

Richard Perle led the study group that authored the paper, which included Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. All three later held influential positions in the George W. Bush Administration: Perle as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Feith as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Wurmser as the Middle East advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Years later, the RAND Corporation’s 2009 report ‘Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran’, explored options for confronting Iran, including approaches that relied on regional pressure (sanctions and fabricated animosities through proxyism) and the reshaping of surrounding states (coups and destabilisations).

Taken together, these documents reflected a strategic view of Iraq, Syria, and Iran as interconnected pieces of a regional balance of power, not as countries with peoples whose lives mattered.

That being said, one could, without hesitation, conclude that the war on Iraq was never about liberating Iraqis. It was about geostrategic gain against liberation movements that had challenged Western and Israeli dominance in the region. The Iraqi people were the price. But the questions in the context of this piece are: what did the Vatican truly believe, and why did it not speak the truth for what it is?

Iran’s Proof of Upholding of ‘Just War’

In an interview on 60 Minutes, US cardinals explaining the Pope’s anti-war position reasserted the Vatican’s perception of the Islamic Republic of Iran: “It’s an abominable regime, and it should be removed”.

They simply argued that the war through which it is being done is wrong. This comes notably after the Iranian diaspora returned by the thousands to Iran to defend the homeland, and after more than 40 days of Iranians filling the streets in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, asserting unity in rallying behind the Islamic Republic.

Even more, due to the change of opinion in support of the Islamic Republic in Iran, the office of the Martyred Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei was forced to put out a statement asserting the following:

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We hereby inform the dear, honorable, proud, and valiant Iranian people of the following: Groups of citizens have contacted the Office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, expressing deep sorrow over having taken unjust positions, or perhaps having committed offenses against the exalted status of the Great Leader, the Martyr Imam (may Allah’s mercy be upon him), under the influence of the enemy’s false media outlets and disinformation networks. They express their regret for failing to seek his forgiveness, inquiring about their duty in this regard.

Based on His Eminence’s repeated responses to similar cases during his blessed lifetime, in which he would often say: ‘The entire Iranian people are my children, and I pray for them. I have pardoned these dear ones and absolved them of their debts, and I will always do so’.

Contrary to the narrative of a ‘terrorist regime’ seeking conflict, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been under continuous assault, diplomatic, economic, and military, for 47 years, and has chosen, repeatedly, the path of negotiation and self-defence rather than aggression.

From 2015 to 2025, Iran was under the strictest inspection regime in history via the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). According to a December 2015 report by then-IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, the Agency issued a “final assessment on the resolution” of outstanding issues regarding Possible Military Dimensions (PMDs), closing the file. For years, the IAEA verified that Iran was complying with the deal.

However, this agreement was shattered by external aggression, aside from Trump having unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA. On 13 June 2025, Israeli and US forces attacked Iran. In response, Iran invoked its inherent right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Ambassador Reza Najafi stated before the IAEA Board of Governors: “The deliberate targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities constitutes a grave and reckless violation of international law … The Islamic Republic of Iran ... reaffirms that it will not leave such aggression unanswered”.

And most recently, on 28 February 2026, amid negotiations as well, the US and Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran, assassinating the martyred leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, resulting in a regional confrontation, especially since the attack symbolised an attack on all liberation movements in the region, which find in Iran’s Islamic Republic an ally after the world abandoned the people of the region decades ago. It also marked the start of a strategy to attempt to eradicate, albeit not successfully, the legacy of this Revolution, which expanded far beyond Shiism and Islam to impact the people of the region and the world.

While the Pope underscored his dismay at the attack, he never voiced his support for Iran as a sovereign nation and an elected government whose Islamic foundations have long respected the Christian presence and faith in Iran and beyond.

Iran demonstrated its commitment to religious coexistence in numerous ways, but one which holds significance today, aside from the efforts to bring closer the Qom Seminary and the Vatican, is perhaps the Iranian Christians’ mourning of the passing of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali.

This once again comes as a testament to the behaviour of a nation that has chosen, repeatedly, the path of just peace, negotiations, and self-defence rather than aggression.

The Pope in Iraq: Failure To Speak Truth and Ultimately Defending War without Intending To Do So

On 13 April 2026, Pope Leo stated from Algeria that “The future belongs to men and women of peace. Justice will always triumph over injustice in the end, just as violence will never have the last word, despite all appearances”. He also commended Christian-Muslim ties, saying, “In a world where division and wars sow pain and death, living in unity and peace is a compelling sign”.

Very interestingly, this comes at a time when Islam is being demonised, and particularly the Islamic Republic in Iran, whose leadership has repeatedly highlighted its view of Christianity in a book titled Lady Mary and Prophet Jesus (PBUT) in the Words of Imam Khamenei unveiled in the Vatican, in which the imam wrote: “If Jesus (PBUH) were among us today, he wouldn’t have hesitated even a single moment to fight the leaders of global oppression”.

But the Vatican has a history of speaking words of wisdom without recognising them in a practical sense. Let us go back to the example of Pope Francis and his visit to Iraq in 2021. Fulfilling a dream of John Paul II that had been blocked by the US under Bill Clinton, who feared it would strengthen Saddam Hussein to the extent that Baghdad was ultimately forced to cancel the Pope’s trip at the time, the world watched to see if Pope Francis, more than a decade later and following the Islamic Resistance’s defence of Christians in the face of US-backed ISIS, would speak the truth.

The truth was this: the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the largely Shiite, though not exclusively, paramilitary umbrella group, were the ones who had liberated Iraq from ISIS. They were established in 2014 following a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called on Iraqis to take up arms against the terror group that was beheading Christians, Yazidis, and Muslims alike. They fought street by street in Mosul, Ramadi, and Fallujah. They secured the churches. Thousands of them were martyred. And once they liberated Mosul, for example, it was them who remade our crosses, raised them atop churches, and made the bells toll again. It is worth noting that even the Christian brigade, Kataib Babiliyoun, were dubbed by US-backed and NATO-led think tanks as “Iranian-backed militias”, and making up stories as one would expect them to do, proving that Iran’s position is not one of proxyism, but one of opposing US imperialism.

And when Pope Francis arrived, the PMF were tasked with protecting him, specifically in Mosul, where they would be “securing the churches”. These were the same fighters who Western media often demonised as “Iran-backed militias”, painting them as Islamic fanatic proxies without national identity, goal, or agency, but were guarding the then-successor of Saint Peter, Pope Francis.

Yet, Pope Francis did not honour their martyrs in a way that denies the imperial core’s rhetoric now one that allows the average Christian in the world to have enough questions and go look for their answers. And this was documented: “The pope’s visit in Iraq highlights Iranian-backed militias’ failure to successfully depict themselves as saviors of Iraqi Christians”.

The pontiff visited the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad, where 48 Christians, including two priests and a three-year-old child, were murdered by Al-Qaeda-linked militants in 2010, and spoke of those martyrs. He said: “The memory of the 48, whose sainthood cause is underway, and of the countless other Christians killed in the decade since, should inspire us to renew our own trust in the power of the cross and its saving message of forgiveness, reconciliation and rebirth”. He called the cathedral “hallowed by the blood of our brothers and sisters” murdered in a terrorist attack that shook the world.

But when he stood in Mosul’s Church Square, surrounded by the ruins of four churches destroyed by ISIS, he did not say: these churches were liberated by Muslim fighters who gave their lives for Christians they had never met. He also did not say: the United States, whose 2003 invasion created the conditions for ISIS to rise, bears responsibility for this destruction.

He said: “Fraternity is more durable than fratricide, that hope is more powerful than hatred, that peace more powerful than war”. He also said: “Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart. They are betrayals of religion”.

These are beautiful words. But they are not courageous words, and they hide the truth that ISIS is a US-funded fabrication that is as divorced from Islam as so-called ‘Christian Zionism’ is from Christianity. And it fits the narrative that Islam is a threat to Christianity, when it was Muslims who defended Christians and not the so-called coalition which caused the chaos in the first place.

The Pope did not mention the US-led invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the Government. He did not name the US as the architect of the chaos that followed. He did not acknowledge that the very forces protecting him, the PMF, had risen precisely because the Iraqi state collapsed after Washington’s ‘war of destruction’. And he certainly did not do what would have been an act of true moral leadership: accuse Washington of using proxies (ISIS, Israel, Al-Qaeda, etc.), which fundamentally undermines civil peace and results in the bloodshed of millions over decades.

In response to the silence of the Pope, Iranian officials noted that without the sacrifices of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, assassinated by a US drone strike in 2020, the Pope’s visit would have been impossible: “The Pope’s safe visit to Baghdad would never have happened had it not been for the significant self-sacrifices of Abu Mahdi Muhandis, Lieutenant General Soleimani and those who were martyred in the fight against terrorism and Daesh in Iraq”.

The Pope met with Grand Ayatollah Sistani and praised him for having “raised his voice in defence of the weakest and most persecuted”. He accepted the protection of the PMF. He clearly did not demonise Islam and showed openness. But what was missing was the statement of truth against a narrative that has led to millions of martyrs and the existential crisis that Arab Christians face today. In simpler words, he did not speak the truth that the world needed to hear: that the real defender of Iraq’s Christians was not the US, which invaded in 2003, or the coalition that bombed from the air, but the Iraqi fighters assisted by their ally Iran, which offered weapons and advisory roles at a time when the West abandoned Iraq to its fate, and bled and died on the ground.

Muslims who protected churches while Washington protected its strategic interests. That was a missed opportunity for justice to the martyrs. And for those who watched, those who knew who had really saved the churches, it was a disappointment and, on a geostrategic level, a green light saying the Vatican will not defend justice in the Arab world in the face of Western aggression.

If speaking theologically and pragmatically of a people’s right to a life of justice and dignity, would it not be the primary step to name aggressors and defenders instead of beating around the bush?

Have we not been taught to speak truth without fear? Why did the Vatican instead choose to believe the myth of an international world order built on justice, when all the evidence pointed to the fact that it was nothing more than an imperial myth?

As Ephesians 4:24-26 states, “So then, get rid of lies. Speak the truth to each other because we are all members of the same body”.

The Inexcusable Knowledge: Why the Vatican Cannot Claim Ignorance

For the average person watching television in New York, London, or Rome, the genocide in Gaza that began in 2023 may have been a shock. The images of children pulled from rubble, of hospitals turned into battlegrounds, and of entire families erased from civil registries may have shattered an illusion that the post-WWII international order, with its UN Charter and Geneva Conventions and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, had placed some limits on the cruelty of empires. That illusion, however, was always a privilege of distance.

For the colonised world, for the Congolese who watched Patrice Lumumba be murdered and then dissolved in acid, for the Salvadorans who buried Archbishop Oscar Romero after a US-trained soldier pulled the trigger, and for the Burkinabè who saw Thomas Sankara, who dared to feed his own people, overthrown and killed with documented foreign intelligence involvement, the system’s true nature was never hidden. It was experienced as a daily reality.

But the Vatican is not the average person. The Vatican is a permanent observer at the United Nations. It receives intelligence briefings, diplomatic cables, and pleas from its own bishops stationed in every conflict zone, including in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. It has seen the vetoes. It has read the cables. If the average person can be forgiven for having believed, until 2023, that the UN might eventually act, that the ‘international community’ might finally enforce its own laws, the Vatican cannot. And still, as in 2003, it did not recognise the right to resist.

The Israeli occupation’s genocide in Gaza, backed by Washington and NATO countries alongside Gulf monarchies, has merely confirmed what was always visible. After more than two years of denial, an Israeli occupation military official acknowledged in January 2026 that the IOF has killed over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza estimates at least 72,344 martyrs as of 15 April 2026, with thousands more missing and believed buried under rubble, and at least 440 confirmed dead from starvation. A study by Max Planck Institute found that “by October 6, 2025, the number of conflict-related deaths in Gaza had likely surpassed 100,000”.

Yet, the United States has vetoed at least six UN Security Council resolutions seeking to halt the war, continuing a pattern dating to 1970 of using its veto power at least 51 times to shield Israel from accountability. When the UN Security Council finally passed a ceasefire resolution in March 2024 with a US abstention, Washington immediately declared it “non-binding”, effectively telling Israel it could disregard the Council with impunity.

This is the same United Nations that could not protect Lumumba in 1961, a UN that some scholars now say was “not entirely blameless” in his assassination, has proven equally unable to protect Palestinians.

The same pattern of Western powers shielding their allies from accountability has continued, decade after decade, genocide after genocide. With, at best, some words of denunciation of particular incidents or actions, but never addressing the origin or cause.

The questions, then, are: is it possible the Vatican did not know? And why did the Vatican choose not to act on what it knew?

We are talking about generations living and dying in wars across the Arab world and across the entire Global South. Would one dare to speak of the Vatican as an entity with interests? It has a centuries-old investment in a particular vision of international order, one in which the Church is a respected partner, not a voice crying in the wilderness.

Is it possible that, for the Vatican, recognising the right of the occupied to resist would require it to fully, without hesitation or restraint, align with the colonised and the oppressed against the colonisers? And it is also possible that in doing so, it would ultimately be forced, by the power of that truth, to acknowledge that the UN is not a neutral arbiter but a tool of Western power — a recognition that would impact the Vatican’s own influence?

The shattering of the illusion of a life-valuing world order was not shattered in front of the Vatican’s eyes during Israel’s 2023 genocide against Palestine. That impact could only be accepted vis-à-vis the average person in the world.

This drives me to a conclusion I wholeheartedly wish I had not reached, but it appears that the Vatican had more times than not, simply chosen not to see, to turn a blind eye, and to allow oppression so long as the defendants do not have the capacity to alter reality and the existing balance of power.

Let me give a simple explanation. In 1948, the Vatican knew that Zionist militias had genocided Palestinians (multiple massacres killing thousands and the forced displacement of others). While the Vatican refused to recognise Israel for some time, albeit without putting any real effort to liberate Palestine either, rather simply chose to secure a status quo in Jerusalem under the guise that this would ‘protect Christians’, as standing for what is right required proof of faith beforehand and was measured based on sect.

By 1993, under John Paul II, the Vatican had recognised Israel. What changed? Did the reality of a history of occupation, forced displacement, and genocide change, or had it simply been normalised? Or is it that once the world recognised Israel and accepted its atrocities as a de facto reality, cloaking them in speeches and diplomacy, the truth itself was expected to change, and the oppressed were to lose their right to liberation, return, and dignity — even without beginning to discuss the foundations of Israel as a proxy state with expansionist ambitions and geostrategic objectives?

Moreover, it was only in 2015 that the Vatican recognised Palestinian statehood.

This leaves many questions unanswered in the face of an institution like the Vatican, which is bound to uphold standards of truth and dignity for Christians, and for humanity across the world without fear or hesitation. What happened? Whatever the explanation may be, it leads one to question whether the Vatican’s innocence indirectly allows blood to be spilled, or whether it has simply chosen not to take any pragmatic steps to halt that bloodshed under the pretences of ‘peace’ and ‘neutrality’.

What about Now?

If the Vatican could not see in 1993, and would not proclaim in 2021, it cannot claim ignorance in 2026. The evidence is no longer ambiguous. The genocide in Palestine, all televised, has stripped away every pretence, and Islam has proven itself ‘not the enemy of Christianity’.

Today, as the United States and Israel escalate threats against Iran, the Vatican’s attempt to stand above the conflict echoes the assumptions of 2003. Pope Leo XIV has publicly opposed the war on Iran. He even told reporters en route to Algeria: “I have no fear of the Trump Administration ... Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say: there’s a better way to do this”.

Yet, despite clear signs that the reason this conflict spilled regionally, it was intrinsically bound to do so, given the nature of the Arab and Islamic worlds. That nature mandates that the fate of the region is intertwined: either we all attain liberation or fall to subjugation. And, for some time now, the Vatican’s responses have been inconsistent.

Take Lebanon as an example. Israel seeks to occupy Lebanon and has historically mocked and humiliated Christian communities in various ways. Yet, Pope Leo has repeatedly called on Hezbollah to disarm. According to the National News Agency of Lebanon, the Pope stated: “The Church proposes to Hezbollah to lay down its arms and engage in dialogue”.

Hezbollah has defended Arab Christians in Syria and Lebanon without hesitation. It has liberated nuns and protected churches and people. In the face of Israel, the only protection has become the resistance. The entire world’s diplomacy has yielded nothing; it has only bought Israel time for more bloodshed of our people in a war of attrition against those who seek liberation.

How, then, is it morally explained that the demand to surrender weapons is addressed to the resistance, and not to the perpetrator of genocide? How is the demand to compromise addressed to those forcibly displaced and besieged, and not to the settlers on occupied land?

And if all fails, will the Vatican call on an army to defend Lebanon? Or will it consider resistance morally ‘just’? Or, as was the case with Iraq, will the people be abandoned to their fate, had Iran not stepped up to help them fight the war for liberation?

Pope Leo XIV, unfortunately, called on the resistance to surrender, and not to be ‘peaceful’ because how can the oppressed be blamed for the aggression of the occupier?

One could perhaps, with a heart filled with sorrow at the sense of abandonment but equally with pride in a people who have forged even stronger bonds through tragedy, argue that the Vatican has for decades, if not centuries, alienated believers from their right to resist oppression by separating faith and the lessons of the Bible, the letters of the disciples, from the daily life of Christians who would most need that support, and the call to organise, rally behind resistance, and defend their existence alongside their Muslim neighbours against an occupier.

Resistance, Your Holiness, if I were to explain it in a few words, is particularly protecting life. It is loving the sanctity of life so much that one would be willing to sacrifice themselves and their loved ones to protect it: the right for life to be lived with dignity as God intended for it to be.

Instead, the Vatican has continuously backed the delegitimisation of the resistance, since the era of the Crusades, and indirectly played into the narrative which legitimised the attacks on Lebanon, including the resistance and the community that upholds it, despite now claiming his heart is with the civilians and asserting the importance of keeping civilians away from harm’s way.

Here lies the same moral rupture: while calling the US war on Iran ‘unjust’, the Vatican refuses to define the region’s right to resist as ‘just’.

To make clear the intent, no one is calling for aggression against Washington or any other country. The demand is simply for the liberation of a region that has watched Washington assassinate a religious leader in broad daylight amid negotiations, without a single worthy act of defence or condemnation beyond vague slogans and ambiguous statements.

The demand is for the US to exit the region and allow the people to manage their own affairs without coercion. It seems like a reasonable demand. Would that not incline the Pope to reassess Iran’s right to self-defence and acknowledge its right to self-determination?

Dialogue, Justice, and the Blood of Christ

Image taken during a vigil held in Beirut on 28 March 2026 for veteran journalist Hajj Ali Choeib and journalist Fatima Ftouni, who were martyred in a deliberate Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. Photo: Myriam Charabaty

Christ called us to choose righteousness above all else. That means recognising that the right to resist oppression is not a political opinion; it is a moral imperative.

It is the same right that Catholic priests in Latin America recognised when they stood with liberation theology in defence of the poor.

It is the same right that Polish Catholics recognised when they resisted Nazi occupation.

It is the same right that the Vatican itself claims to respect until the resistance is Muslim-majority, and the oppressor is the imperial West. And more often than not, the defence for that is the defining of Israel as a ‘Jewish state’.

To that end, I must reassert that the Muslim world has already confronted Takfirism, not only by denouncing it theologically, but by materially resisting it, even through war when necessary. It recognised that an ideology claiming divine authority to justify violence had to be confronted directly.

Christianity faces a similar challenge today. It cannot claim to oppose Christian nationalism or Christian Zionism while refusing to confront Zionism itself. Zionism is not Judaism, just as Takfirism is not Islam and Christian Zionism is not Christianity. Judaism is a faith; Zionism is a political ideology that invokes religion to justify domination. So fundamentally, it would be a rejection of a political project and not of faith.

Christ called believers to stand with the oppressed and to support one another in the pursuit of justice. To refuse to name the ideology that sustains oppression is not dialogue. It is hesitation in the face of truth.

If the Church has the courage to denounce distortions of Islam, it must also find the courage to confront Zionism with the same moral clarity.

If the church has no courage to denounce Zionism, would it at least have the courage to end its demonisation of the resistance, the last stronghold defending Christian presence in the land of Christ and miracles, in the Levant?

There is really no neutrality in a burning house. There are only those who try to put out the fire, and those who stand outside saying the fire is a tragedy while doing nothing to stop it, or, worse, telling those trapped inside that they must accept the fire, and find a way to integrate into this new reality, preferably quietly even if it will, without a doubt, ultimately kill them.

For centuries, the Vatican has made its choice, and while today Pope Leo XIV stands up to Trump, that is not enough in the face of the challenges the world faces, and the existential threat that Arabs, and particularly Arab Christians, face at the hands of the imperialists.

So, the question is not whether the Vatican sees the fire, but rather, will it choose to stand with those trying to put it out?

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The above screenshot comes from this Catherine Austin Fitts interview with CapitalCosm on YouTube.

I am also republishing sections of an article by Ellen Brown that reinforces much of what I have been saying, on recent interviews, about the Iranian financial system and how the US is attempting to destroy yet another example of usury-free independent banking in the West Asia region.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

She is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

This article was published at Global Research and republished by Michel Chossudovsky at his Substack.

Excerpts below with some emphasis from me:

Full-Spectrum Financial Dominance

Other commentators point to the report of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (September 2000), which called for “full-spectrum” U.S. military forces to achieve global preeminence. It postulated the need for a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” to accelerate the military transformation the authors envisioned.

This was followed by a 2007 Democracy Now interview in which Gen. Wesley Clark revealed that weeks after 9/11, he had been shown a classified Pentagon memo outlining plans to “take out seven countries in five years”: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran. The first six have since been destabilized or regime-changed. Iran, considered the ultimate prize for Middle East dominance and oil control, remains the last one standing.

Why those seven, and why was Iran the ultimate prize? Greg Palast’s 2013 article titled “Larry Summers and the Secret ‘End-Game’ Memo” supplied the missing financial logic. In 1999, the world was opened to unregulated derivatives trading, so that sovereign bonds, oil flows, shipping routes, and war-risk policies could all be collateralized, rehypothecated (pledged multiple times over), and gambled upon. The lynchpin was the 1997 WTO Financial Services Agreement (the Fifth Protocol to GATS), which became operational in 1999.

None of the seven targeted countries joined the WTO, and they were also not members of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That left them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. Other countries that were later identified as “rogue states” were also not members of the BIS, including North Korea, Cuba, and Afghanistan.

As for Iran, it is not only the largest and strongest of the Islamic countries but operates the world’s only fully interest-free (riba-free) banking regime. This stands in direct contrast to the conventional Western model, which relies on interest as its primary revenue mechanism. “Money making money out of itself” underpins the global derivatives complex, which is built on rehypothecated, collateralized debt-at-interest.

The last piece in the financial control grid was detailed in David Rogers Webb’s 2024 book The Great Taking. The Everything Bubble, including what some commentators estimate to be more than a quadrillion dollars in derivative bets, is just waiting for a pin. When it bursts, it will trigger large institutional bankruptcies; and under the legal machinery Webb documents, the derivative players will take all.

[…]

Iran’s Interest-Free Islamic Banking: The Structural Obstacle

So what did it matter if Iran and a handful of other countries declined to join in this lucrative bankers’ game? The risk was that when depositors and shareholders realized that they did not actually own their funds, they would move their assets to those safe zones. The holdout countries were also safe from the sort of sanctions imposed by Western governments (and enforced by Western banks and clearing houses) on Russian central bank assets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Leading this band of holdouts was Iran, which since its 1983 Law for Usury-Free Banking Operations has run the world’s only fully interest-free (riba-free) banking regime. Its banks use Sharia-compliant contracts — profit-sharing (musharakah), cost-plus financing (murabaha), and leasing (ijara) — instead of charging or paying interest. This banking model stands in direct contrast to the conventional Western model, which relies on interest as its primary revenue stream and underpins the global derivatives complex with collateralized, rehypothecated debt.

Iran’s system was designed to eliminate usury and align finance with real economic activity and risk-sharing rather than speculative debt. It has long been viewed as structurally incompatible with the interest-based, collateral-heavy architecture of City of London and Wall Street finance — an architecture that requires perpetual debt servicing and easily rehypothecated assets to feed the derivatives machine.

By rejecting interest at the national level, Iran has thus insulated itself and its financial partners from the control grid that has made the global “Great Taking” possible.

You can read the full article here.

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A family home in Baalbek bombed by Israel without warning on the 18th March 2026. Photo: Vanessa Beeley

Baalbek is the largest city in eastern Lebanon. In November 2024, Israel issued a city-wide evacuation (80,000 population), leading to widespread panic as thousands of people tried to flee. Later in that month a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was agree upon, the next morning the Al Qaeda march against Damascus began. Since November 2024 Israel has violated that ceasefire thousands of times with daily drone assassinations, occupation of Lebanese territory, bombing of civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals and an endless pressure for Hezbollah to disarm - supported by Saudi Arabia, the new Al Qaeda regime in Damascus, Washington and Tel-Aviv.

This ancient Phoenician city is the cradle of some of the world’s best preserved Roman ruins including the Temple of Bacchus. Baalbek was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Seeped in history and the remnants of Roman civilisation, this city has been the target of Zionist violence and savagery on many occasions since the establishment of the barbaric Zionist genocidal project in the early 20th Century - incubated by the British in cooperation with the Rothschilds.

The Baalbek site is thought to have originally been Phoenician, with settlement dating back as far as the 3rd millennium BC. In the 1st millennium BC the site was chosen as the site for a temple dedicated to the God Baal, from which the city takes its name. In the year 334 BC Alexander the Great conquered the Near East and the city was renamed Heliopolis, a name which was retained by subsequent Roman conquerors – Helios, Greek for sun and Polis, Greek for City – ‘City of the Sun’. [Brief History of Baalbek]

Like so many other towns and cities relentlessly targeted by ‘Israel’, Baalbek has long history of resistance against occupation and colonialist projects through the ages. Added to this, Baalbek is situated alongside the abundant freshwater source of Ras Al Ain. Waters from the Ain-Juj spring, nine kilometres away, were drawn into Baalbek by canal. These two big sources feed into the Litani and Aassi Rivers that flow in opposite directions in the Bekaa. For Israel, a primary resource hunt in the region is for water sources - Golan territories, southern Syria, Jordan, the Litani River in Lebanon and perhaps the Euphrates in Iraq should the David’s Corridor comes to fruition linking southern Syria to Iraq via Syria’s eastern border.

Recent attacks on Baalbek civilians

On the 2nd April I went to Baalbek to see two sites recently bombed by Israel without any evacuation warning. Civilian homes reduced to roof crags and rubble landscapes dotted with personal belongings of the dead and injured.

A child’s toy truck among the remnants of the home they used to play in. Photo: Vanessa Beeley

The first house we visited had been the home of the Al Haj Hussein family. Mahdi Al Haj Hussein was murdered alongside his wife, Alia and their young son Ghadi. One child survived, Karim Al Haj Hussein was hospitalised after rescue from the rubble and intense heat that he described in his later interviews. The neighbouring house also lost a young child and her mother. According to our guide, the neighbours had called to see if it was safe to come back to their home. Upon arrival the little girl and her mother had rushed next door to see their friends. That was when Israel decided to strike at the heart of both families.

The image of the child victim of the Zionist airstrike in Baalbek. Photo: Vanessa Beeley

The following short report from Al Jazeera follows the recovery of young Karim and his adoption into his Uncle’s family after losing his entire family and friends:

As Lebanese journalist and mother of three, Marwa Osman, wrote at the time:

War crimes by Israel are not slowing down, they never do. They are escalating, becoming more brutal, more indiscriminate, more devastating with each passing day.

When we left this scene of murder for the next we passed under banners depicting the young family torn from life by the Zionist war jets.

The following photo was also published on the day of the attack depicting a young, happy family with no ties to any military units or activities. They were brutally exterminated just for their existence in this place of history and civilisation.

Mahdi Al-Haj Hussein was killed alongside his wife, Alia, and their son, Ghadi.

A four storey apartment block bombed by ‘Israel’ at dawn. Photo: Vanessa Beeley

The second strike happened one week earlier in another area of Baalbek, at 3.05 am, without any warning - just as people would be waking up for Suhoor the pre-dawn meal before the daily fast during Ramadan. Here, the Zionists targeted a four-storey apartment block comprising eight family apartments.

The building was in a complex of civilian housing, originally built for the Lebanese military, now occupied only by civilian tenants. In this attack thirty civilians were injured and nine killed. Among these victims were three families, a mother, a father and five children. One man had returned from another sector of the province because he was told it was safe. He was killed in the blast.

Ahmed lives in the house opposite the misshapen metal and concrete remains of the building. He came to speak with us. He said there was no evacuation warning, people were sleeping and unsuspecting. The compound is 100% civilian, not even a hunting rifle could be found among the inhabitants. He was a simple man who goes every day to Dahiyeh in the southern suburbs of Beirut, also a daily deathtrap under Zionist bombs and drone strikes, to gather bread which he then sells in Baalbek.

Cars buried under the rubble of the Zionist airstrike. Photo: Vanessa Beeley

Visibly shaken he told us that one memory will not leave his mind - he rushed to the bombed building immediately after the strike. He saw one little boy pinned under three floors of concrete, his hands outstretched pleading with Ahmed to pull him out, crying “I don’t want to die”. As Ahmed approached he could see the little boy’s older brother trying to pull the first boy back into the cavity so he could escape the dungeon of debris and dust.

Ahmed said the Civil Defence came immediately, to rescue the dead and injured - Zionist war jets were still in the skies above them, at low altitude but he said, this time no double tap to murder the paramedics and destroy ambulances. It took two full days to retrieve all the bodies, one child was found with his head missing.

At one point, Ahmed sent the young girl in the battered van alongside him to bring cakes and snacks for us from the local shop. We protested, he insisted, the kindness and generosity that sears the heart in this region - despite everything or perhaps because of everything they have experienced and witnessed, humanity takes precedence over anything else.

As Dr. Mohammad Aloush says “Moral superiority of humans over technology: A deep belief that “humans” are the source of power and the origin of victory, and that enemy technological superiority cannot settle a struggle of wills as long as humans decide not to break.”

A shoe discarded, a child’s swing twisted and bent, a cooking stove flung atop the warped metal frames and concrete blocks, buried and burned-black cars - all that remains of these lives. People, civilians now displaced, homeless rejected by many in case they are targeted again. Where do they go? How do they start again? How do they grieve, heal, process the trauma while Israel still stalks the skies above them? Nobody can answer these questions but what is certain is that nothing will end this reign of terror except the Resistance and their allies in the region including Iran.

As Ahmed said “Israel is doing this to turn us against Hezbollah but we know our enemy”. Killing civilians, murdering or raping and abusing children is not a sign of strength, it is the ultimate sign of weakness and impotence. These are the death throes of a genocidal entity that knows it cannot defeat such a people however much blood it spills, however much cruelty it deploys to bring them to their knees.

Dr Mohammad Alloush:

The resilience of the resistance environment is neither “accidental” nor temporary; it is the result of profound sociological and psychological construction, making humans on this land inseparable from the terrain of confrontation. It transforms “material weakness” into “historical potency” and proves that attempts to break willpower are mere “plowing the sea.”

The stark reality remains that this environment does not practice resilience as an act but embodies it in its highest human manifestation, where the distance between self, land, and cause disappears, and the entire human bloc becomes “a sacrifice” to the inevitable certainty of victory and survival.”

(Illustration and words by Alaa Karaki-translated from Arabic)

If you cut off the roads of the South, we will plant a thousand new roads in the earth.

I am the son of Baalbek when the chants rise from stone,

the son of Dahiyeh when dawn rises from the ashes.

I am the son of the North when the winds grow fierce,

and the son of the South when steadfastness hardens.

We are the thread that holds the country when it begins to unravel,

the bridge when every other bridge has fallen.

We stretch our hands across the fire, and the distances grow closer than the pulse of the heart.

No night can stop us,

no waiting can exhaust us.

For whenever the darkness deepens,

we become the light and the road begins with our steps.

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The new bridge in Sohmor connecting with Mashgara, now bombed by ‘Israel’

I recently visited the resistance town of Sohmor in West Bekaa - Sohmor is a town in West Bekaa that has a history of horrific colonial persecution, yet has survived, and continues to resist the Zionist ethnic cleansing agenda in Lebanon. You can read my previous report here.

Since I was in Sohmor the town has, again, been targeted by the Zionist airforce. The bridge in the photo has been destroyed. Bridges are a vital connection between towns in the regions under attack by the Zionists - this bridge had been build by the Mayor of Sohmor - Hajj Haidar Shahla, also assassinated by the Zionist war jets in the 2024 war.

Lebanese journalist Sondoss Al Assad who gave me so much historical insight for my first article told me:

The first bridge is so old, around 75 years old. Our grandfathers used to gather beneath it and the village youth would compete to jump over it. The second is modern, built by Hajj Haidar Shahla because the old bridge could no longer support heavy loads

Images of the old bridge to Sohmor

The Zionist terrorists bombed the new bridge uniting Sohmor with Mashgara on the road we were warned not to take when we came to Sohmor from Mashgara.

Yesterday the Zionist genocidaires bombed the Ahl Al-Bayt Mosque in Sohmor. Worshippers were leaving after prayer when the drone struck, murdering two and injuring at least 11 people. On the Christian Good Friday and during worship for this Shi’ite community, Israel ensured more bloodshed across Lebanon. Video below is of the mosque after the drone strike:

On the same day the bells of a small church in the village of Bahboush in Koura, northern Lebanon tolled for the martyrdom of a son of the town, Hezbollah martyr Jaafar Ibrahim Salim whose body was brought home. As journalist Marwa Osman described:

The bells of Our Lady of the [Bowed] Head Church tolled solemnly at the moment the town’s son, Hez~bol~lah martyr Jaafar Ibrahim Salim, returned home; an echo of grief, honor, and farewell carried through every corner of the village of Bahboush in Koura, north Lebanon.

A Muslim-Shia northerner rose to Allah sw, while defending our south from Zionist filth and occupation, being honored by his Christian brothers and sisters who all come from the same village, on the eve of Good Friday. Nothing tops this.

Nothing.

The war rolls on inexorably but the Resistance will prevail.

****

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This was an open minded debate from people who are on the same page but who disagree on some aspects of the world war that is now playing out. Thank you to Bett Beat for hosting.

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