Orientul Mijlociu

Hassan Akkad’s arrest and Syria’s new red lines

The arrest of prominent British-Syrian journalist Hassan Akkad sparked public outcry and a broader debate about the limits of free speech in Syria’s emerging political order. His subsequent release shows that public pressure still carries weight in today’s Syria. But the broader debate over the limits of free expression – that Western democracies, too, continue to wrestle with – has only just begun.

Part One: Napoleon’s Cannons and the Awakening of the Arab World

When Napoleon’s cannons began bombarding Alexandria in 1798, Europe the region geographically closest to the Arab world had already undergone profound transformations. The great voyages of discovery had redrawn the map of the world, steam power was beginning to replace the sails of ships, and remarkable advances had been made in artillery and firearms. At the same time, Europe had entered an intellectual renaissance that propelled it toward rationalism, scientific inquiry, and modern political thought.

The Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress (JAZIC) was held in Dublin from June 25 to 28, 2026.
JAZIC is a growing international initiative that seeks to connect anti-Zionist organizations, academics, civil society actors, and individuals from diverse backgrounds committed to analyzing, debating, organizing, and taking collective action in support of the Palestinian struggle, both in Palestine and across the world.

Lawrence Davidson sur l’application pratique de la notion nietzschéenne d’éternel retour dans les processus éducatifs pervertis nazis et sionistes.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) était un philosophe allemand brillant, quoique singulier, qui parvint à rester productif et relativement sain d’esprit jusqu’à la seconde moitié des années 1880. Son œuvre prônait généralement le rejet du conformisme religieux et social et promouvait un individualisme héroïque.

Following its deal with the United States, Iran may act against Iraq-based dissidents.

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a massive, coordinated military operation against Iran. During the subsequent war, Iran carried out hundreds of drone and missile strikes on exiled Iranian Kurdish militant groups in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing at least ten of their members. On June 17, Iran and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to end hostilities.

Téhéran prouve que la guerre a renforcé le leadership iranien. Les provocations de Katz & le risque d’une guerre civile confirment que la véritable menace d’effondrement concerne bien Israël.

Téhéran inflige un camouflet à Washington avec des funérailles rassemblant des millions de personnes… et les provocations de Katz précipitent la défaite de la “ligne jaune” au Liban. — Talal Nahle

Executive summary: Ukraine’s long- and intermediate-range strike campaigns against Russian energy and logistics infrastructure in Russia and occupied Ukraine are causing significant effects on the Russian economy and impacting Russia’s ability to sustain its frontline military efforts in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have recently intensified these coordinated strike campaigns, causing severe gasoline shortages across Russia and occupied Ukraine. Ukraine’s strike campaigns are causing Russia to lose petrochemical export revenue that could have gone toward its war effort and are starting to impact Russia’s frontline logistics. The Kremlin is implementing an array of temporary mitigations to try to ensure sufficient gasoline flows to the domestic market and to address problems facing consumers while downplaying the severity of the wide-scale gasoline shortages and projecting a facade of stability. The Kremlin will likely fail to address the direct cause of the gasoline shortages — Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy infrastructure —because the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and military are likely unable to rapidly strengthen Russia’s air defense umbrella to cover the frontline and its vast rear simultaneously. Ukrainian forces will likely be able to continue — if not escalate — their long-range strike campaign until Russia is able to find a solution to its air defense insufficiencies. Ukraine’s strike campaigns against Russian petrochemical infrastructure and logistics will likely continue to degrade Russia’s struggling wartime economy and have growing consequences on Russia’s frontline operations in the future. The Kremlin has repeatedly underestimated Ukraine and failed to prepare its defenses against attacks in past years, and such miscalculations are vulnerabilities that Ukraine has exploited and can continue to exploit.

Recent moves at the European and national levels bode ill for them.

The European Commission proposed to exclude new military-aged Ukrainian men from the bloc’s special refugee protection scheme per Ukraine’s request to help replenish its lost forces. For background, new Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov shockingly revealed in January that 200,000 men have already deserted thus far and ten times more (2 million) are actively dodging the draft. Moreover, adult men comprise 26% of the 4.3 million Ukrainians in the EU for another one million potential conscripts.

The consensus among analysts is that Hamas is down, but hardly out. The group may be badly battered, but it has been around since 1987, and in that time, it has been repeatedly attacked by Israel and has always grown back. The conditions that gave rise to the organization—occupation, dispossession, and humiliation at the hands of Israel—are as severe as ever. And in the Gaza Strip, there is no comprehensive alternative to Hamas’s governance. Even in its weakened state, the group has institutional memory, administrative infrastructure, and coercive capacity that its competitors cannot match.