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Who can believe that the Shiite community—especially that of South Lebanon—will withstand this perfidious war of attrition? Day after day, Israeli strikes taunt it, challenge it to retaliate, and impose a hellish pace. If, at the outset, Hezbollah’s restraint was synonymous with self-control, that is no longer the case. And the Party of God can no longer claim to be exercising self-discipline after a year of provocation. Hence the question of whether it will finally choose the path of confrontation or yield to the demands of disarmament ? Will the perseverance of the israeli army ultimately overcome the legendary patience of civilians? For discontent is rising among an exasperated Twelver population. Worked up to a fever pitch, it sees no way out of this conflict, nor any benefit in it. And who could still deceive it when the evidence is so clear: the day after October 7, it was sacrificed on the altar of Palestine, and now, a year later, it is immolated on the altar of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Hezbollah will have to answer to its own supporters, who stood by it in difficult times. Sooner or later, it will have to give an account. After all, by accepting the terms of the ceasefire, it backpedaled. It can no longer claim the mantle of resistance, so much is it entrenched in retreat and contraction. “Per un pugno di dollari” This low-intensity war—long-term nonetheless—is exhausting, if only for the mental health of civilian populations. Disarray and anxiety in the face of the imbalance of forces engaged! It is practically a game of clay-pigeon shooting, where the aggressor risks nothing, while victims fall at a steady rate and the South’s communication routes are rendered impassable by the threat from the sky. Do you think there will long remain recruits willing to go to their deaths “per un pugno di dollari” at the end of the month? As a matter of fact, that is exactly what is happening. Israel can strike Lebanon without fearing reprisals against Nahariya, Metulla, or Kiryat Shmona. In this sense, it is the indeed the Party of God that guarantees Israel’s impunity while sending its fighters to almost certain death in perilous zones. And all this under the pretext of rebuilding its arsenal and its military capabilities! When will the great reckoning come? This situation cannot go on. Grumbling and dissent within Shiite circles are beginning to gain media attention. Ismail al-Najjar, a YouTuber known for his angry tirades, exclaimed very recently: what is Hezbollah waiting for to take up the gauntlet Israel has thrown in its face? If it backs away once again from confrontation, all that will remain is to “recite the Fatiha over it”. In other words, its popularity is finished. And in his bluster, this imprecator went on: it is too much humiliation! What does a general conflagration matter, or even a catastrophic end? So then, let us hasten the Twilight of the Gods and let the ravaging fire devastate the entire region! That said, it is quite possible that certain mindsets lend themselves to an apocalyptic vision of the end times—a vision that would hasten the birth of a regenerated world, a catharsis bearing the promise of collective redemption. Such thinking may make sense for adherents of millenarianism! But since we are compatriots, and since we share, to some extent, the same Lebanese destiny, allow us a brief interruption: we did not sign a Faustian pact with Mephistopheles—any more than with a Pasdaran or a Houthi. So please, do not drag us down with you in your fall!

No single force shaped the trajectory of financial markets in 2025 more decisively than artificial intelligence. AI became the dominant narrative through which investors justified elevated valuations, extreme concentration, and rising risk-taking. It offered a forward-looking story powerful enough to neutralise concerns about slowing growth, mounting debt, and geopolitical fragmentation. At its core, AI is a genuine technological revolution — a productivity leap comparable to electrification or the internet — and it is already reshaping entire industries. But financial markets do not price long-term societal benefits; they price microeconomic realities: corporate cash flows, capital intensity, and sustainability. It is at this level that a growing disconnect emerged. In 2025, the AI ecosystem was defined far more by capital expenditure than by profits. Training large-scale models, building data centres, securing advanced chips, and powering energy-intensive infrastructure required investment on a scale rarely seen outside heavy industry or national infrastructure programmes. The result was an unprecedented surge in capital spending across hyperscalers and AI platform providers. The explosive rise of NVIDIA — the undisputed hardware backbone of the AI boom — to a valuation approaching $5 trillion reflected not only technological leadership, but also a global investment race. Companies and governments rushed to secure computing capacity, often committing capital well ahead of proven end-user demand. For many, these investments were less about immediate returns than about strategic positioning: buying today to avoid being left behind tomorrow. As the year progressed, markets began to question the sustainability of this investment cycle — and, more importantly, the circular nature of its financing. What remained largely overlooked, however, was the issue of terminal profitability. Valuations increasingly discounted a future of sustained hyper-growth with little regard for return on invested capital or saturation risk. Early data now suggest that only a small fraction of AI ventures will ever reach meaningful profitability, raising the prospect that a significant portion of the roughly $1.5 trillion in planned investments may ultimately be written down. The financial profile of the sector underscored this imbalance. OpenAI, widely viewed as the technological vanguard of the AI revolution, is expected to generate roughly $19 billion in revenue while losing close to $13 billion — a stark illustration of how far monetisation lagged behind investment. In this sense, AI in 2025 functioned less as a conventional growth engine than as a belief system. It allowed investors to rationalise extreme valuations and historic concentration. By year-end, just ten highly overvalued stocks accounted for roughly 45% of the Nasdaq-100’s capitalisation and 34% of the S&P 500 — a precarious configuration should growth expectations fail to materialise.

The survival of the National Museum of Lebanon is a miracle. Located on the demarcation line that divided the capital between the warring parties, the building was the target of gunfire and shells. But the country's main archaeological museum, which houses exceptional collections ranging from prehistory to the Mamluk period, was able to be reborn just after the war. The museum’s construction The idea for the museum emerged in the early 20th century, when plans were made to bring together in one place the collection of Raymond Weill, a French officer stationed in Lebanon. The building was constructed between 1930 and 1937 during the French Mandate, thanks to the efforts of the Friends of the Museum Committee led by Bechara El Khoury, then Prime Minister and Minister of Education. It was officially inaugurated on May 27 1942, following the designs of architects Antoine Nahas and Pierre Leprince Ringuet, in a monumental ochre-stone style inspired by antiquity. The museum during the war The National Museum of Beirut stood on what was a frontline during the Lebanese War — an area ravaged by heavy fighting. Protecting the collections from both looting and bombardments became a matter of urgency. This task was undertaken by Emir Maurice Chehab, then the museum’s chief curator. First of all, he secured transportable artifacts inside reinforced vaults. As for the monumental pieces, he protected them with sandbags, walled off certain rooms, and encased huge sculptures in reinforced concrete. This evokes the story of Jacques Jaujard, who saved the treasures of the Louvre Museum during World War II — a reminder that sometimes one person’s goodwill and determination can alter the course of the inevitable. After the war, beginning in 1993, an extensive restoration campaign was launched, allowing the museum to reopen in 1997 thanks to devoted patrons such as Mona Hraoui, then First Lady and president of the National Heritage Foundation. Since then, the modernization of the museum’s displays and infrastructure has continued unabated. Collections and major pieces The museum houses around 100,000 artifacts, of which 1,300 are on display in chronological order — from the Paleolithic era to the Mamluk period. Among its most iconic pieces is the sarcophagus of Ahiram, King of Byblos — a masterpiece of both art and epigraphy, bearing one of the earliest known inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet. Another remarkable ensemble includes 31 anthropoid Phoenician sarcophagi from the “Ford Collection.” Aligned like an “army of the dead,” these stone coffins borrow from Egyptian and Greek models while preserving a distinctly Phoenician identity. At the entrance to the central hall stand magnificent Greco-Roman and Byzantine mosaics — some damaged during the war and still scarred today. They beautifully illustrate the flourishing mosaic art that once thrived in Lebanon during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Their themes range from Greek mythology and biblical scenes to folk beliefs and philosophy: such as the famous “ Seven Sages ” mosaic depicting philosophers including Socrates; that of “ the Good Shepherd ” or “ Europa Abducted by Zeus ”; or the one celebrating “ the birth of Alexander the Great”. Lebanon’s soil, in fact, abounds with mosaic masterpieces. Excavations in downtown Beirut revealed over 1,000 sqm of mosaics that may one day form a museum of their own. The museum recently renovated basement is devoted to funerary art and thematic exhibitions. For the Phoenicians, the tomb served both as an eternal dwelling and as a physical vessel for dynastic and family memory. The museum’s upper levels continue this narrative through smaller objects — statuettes, jewelry, coins, and ceramics — shedding light on daily life, economy, and religious practices across the ages. Many terracotta female figurines are displayed there, originating from temples dedicated mainly to Baalat Gebal and Astarté. These pieces reflect an ideal of beauty tied to fertility and social status — adorned with feminine attributes, jewelry, and elaborate hairstyles — showcasing the central role of women as embodiments of the divine. A bridge between past and future Though the National Museum of Beirut is a temple of the past, it also looks firmly to the future. A testament to this vision is the Nuhad Es-Said Cultural Center, a new annex to the museum — which we will explore in our next article.

Contrary to popular belief, the Palestinian question is not trapped in a stalemate by historical inevitability, nor by an irreconcilable, atavistic hatred. It is methodically neutralized by a convergence of interests between extremes who, while clashing in bloodshed, share a common obsession: preventing the emergence of a political solution based on mutual recognition and equal rights. On one side, an Israeli power captive to an absolute security logic, transformed over the years into a governing ideology. On the other, Islamist movements that thrive on the collapse of politics, the sacralization of violence, and the hijacking of the Palestinian cause for the benefit of regional agendas. Caught in the middle, a population held hostage, and a prospect of peace deliberately sabotaged. We must start from this point: radicalization is not the primary cause of the conflict; it is a symptom. As leading Palestinian and Arab intellectuals critical of closed nationalism and armed Islamism have long demonstrated, extremism thrives primarily on the absence of a credible political horizon. Where sovereignty is rendered impossible, violence becomes the substitute language. Similar work has been undertaken by enlightened minds in Israel. However, for more than two decades, the strategy of the Israeli hard right has consisted of emptying any solution based on the existence of two states of its substance. Not by rejecting it outright—which would have a diplomatic cost—but by rendering it materially unfeasible: continuous settlement activity, territorial fragmentation, and the methodical destruction of any Palestinian political continuity. This strategy has a corollary, namely, keeping Palestinians trapped in a deadly binary choice: submission without rights or resistance without a future. In both cases, the Palestinian state disappears as a genuine project. And with it, the possibility of moderate, responsible political leadership, capable of governing, negotiating, and responding to the aspirations of its people in ways other than the sanctification of sacrifice. It is here that the symmetry of extremes becomes evident, to borrow the frameworks developed by René Girard. Palestinian Islamist movements do not represent a break with this logic: they are its product and, paradoxically, one of its best alibis. By presenting themselves as the sole force of resistance, they hijack the Palestinian cause, delegitimize any political alternative, and offer the Israeli camp the ideal pretext for equating any Palestinian national claim with terrorism. The contemporary Palestinian tragedy lies in this: each extreme camp needs the other to survive politically. One justifies the perpetuation of occupation and domination, the other justifies the perpetuation of war in the name of a liberation without contours or deadline. Peace, for its part, becomes the common enemy. In this hall of mirrors, the figures of peace—those who attempted to conceive of mutual recognition as a historical necessity, not a moral concession—have been eliminated, marginalized, or discredited. The political and symbolic assassination of this generation has paved the way for governance by fear, resentment, and identity-based radicalism. But let it be clear: pursuing this logic leads to a complete strategic dead end. No people disappears under military pressure, no national identity dissolves by decree, and no lasting security can be founded on the planned erasure of the other. The Palestinian question is not a humanitarian problem to be managed, much less a security anomaly to be contained. It is an unresolved political problem. And as long as it is treated as such, subcontracted to the logic of force, it will inevitably produce only violence, cycles of radicalization, and regional explosions. The only credible alternative lies in a return to politics. This means recognizing that Israel's security cannot be sustainable without Palestinian sovereignty, and that Palestinian sovereignty can only emerge free from the logic of militias, regional tutelage, and armed messianism. This implies a clear choice: a two-state solution, not as a diplomatic slogan, but as a concrete political architecture. A viable, continuous, sovereign, internationally recognized Palestinian state, led by political forces capable of governing, being accountable, and breaking with the logic of perpetual war. This choice is not a concession to the Palestinians at Israel's expense. It is a condition of political survival for both peoples. The alternative is well known: either a regime of structural inequalities and permanent domination and chronic violence, which amounts to an imperfect, fragile, yet open mutual recognition, suggesting a possible future. International responsibility is central here. The incantatory repetition of international law, without binding mechanisms, has emptied this law of its credibility. Inaction is not neutrality: it is a form of passive complicity with the logic of extremism. Finally, we must break with the dangerous illusion that time is on the side of the status quo. Historical experience shows the opposite: the more a conflict is frozen in injustice, the more radicalized it becomes, the more it spills over, and the more it poisons its entire regional and global environment. Peace is not a naive ideal. It is a courageous political choice, always a minority one in the short term, but the only one capable of preventing general collapse in the long term. In Palestine, as elsewhere, it begins with a simple truth: no future can be built on the denial of the other. The two-state solution, reiterated by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, is the only non-toxic framework for the future, not only for the Middle East but for the entire world, given how deeply the consequences of the conflict inflame identity and religious passions within every society. The logic that considered the conflict to be geographically "elsewhere," and therefore treatable as a political, diplomatic, security, or humanitarian issue detached from the vital strategic choices of any given country, no longer holds true. The Israeli-Palestinian question now operates like a malignant tumor within national borders. There is a real danger of implosion, no longer confined, as in the 1970s and 80s, to terrorist attacks. The very survival and security of a world that is itself increasingly sliding towards extremism are at stake. As long as this truth remains unacknowledged by the leaders trapped in these extremes, the region will remain imprisoned in an endless war, and the entire world will be shaken by its consequences, as demonstrated by the recent massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Peace agreements forced upon the Israeli state will not resolve the underlying problem. Fire and bloodshed guarantee no lasting peace. On the contrary, they only fuel an endless prolongation of the conflict. It is time to break the cycle of violence and take foundational steps toward peace. A first step in the right direction, awaited for decades, was taken on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22, 2025. But it must be followed by concrete action, which means definitively cutting off Iran's influence in the region, but also—and this is the real crux of the matter—ceasing to consider Israel as a privileged state, above international law, enjoying total impunity in defiance of all conventions and general principles, possessing a fantastical claim to a "promised land," and wielding the power of life and death over the Palestinians. A historic and strategic choice must be made against hatred and the culture of exclusion and death. It is high time to make it, even if 77 years too late. Hundreds of thousands of lives in the region and across the globe have already paid the price of this conflict. This needless bloodshed must end before it engulfs everyone. Isn't it through genuine acts of peace, far removed from trophies and trinkets, that true global leadership is asserted?

It is said that one night, when the sands once crossed by the Magi seemed weary of having witnessed so many footsteps passing without ever meeting, a new star began to shine brighter than all the others. Those who were most attentive lifted their heads and sighed as they searched the sky, sensing that something new and mysterious, born of the Great Unknown, was making itself known. The star did not appear over an untouched land. It shone above a Middle East scarred by walls, checkpoints, ruins, conflicting prayers, and thousands of dead, widows, and orphans. At the same moment, in a narrow street of Bethlehem, a family was setting up a small nativity scene in front of their home. Nothing elaborate: burlap salvaged from a rice sack, a few battered plastic figurines, a baby Jesus wrapped in yellowed cloth, sheep without shepherds, and a Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph with faded colors. A boy asked his father: — Dad, why do we still make a nativity scene here? The father answered simply: — Because we are still here, my son. That night, the child saw the new star. It seemed to move slowly, as if waiting for someone to follow it. Far away, a shepherd from the Judean desert was bringing his flock home before nightfall. He had had bad encounters and had heard too many gunshots in recent days. He too looked up. And elsewhere— in Baghdad, Gaza, Amman, East Jerusalem — men and women felt the same unease mixed with a strange calling: not to remain still, to hope against all hope. So they all set out. There were shepherds who entrusted their flocks to others; a schoolteacher who wanted to understand why “the future had packed its bags”; a cobbler from Nazareth whose shop survived mostly on repairs, because no one bought anything new anymore; two brothers separated by a wall but speaking by phone; a shepherd who knew the roads without signs; a bishop; cobblers with hands still full of leather, glue, and dust, telling themselves that tired feet would soon need good sandals; anxious adults carrying questions heavier than their luggage. They met at roadblocks, on overcrowded buses, in waiting rooms. They did not always speak the same language, but they shared the same silence. Along the way, they encountered unexpected figures. They met three wise men who had seen it all. They did not share the same language, the same prayer, or the same clothing. But they were all staring at the same star. A few miles away, in air-conditioned buildings behind reinforced doors, they saw political leaders surrounded by guards and speeches. They were searching for a solution to a riddle dating back to the first Flood. — What are you looking for? the children asked. — The two-state solution, the leaders replied. Then an elderly man dressed in white, bearing a name from the thirteenth century, stepped forward. At his side walked a sage from Al-Azhar. They spoke to each other through understood silences. At last, they all arrived at a very simple place. Not a fortress. Not a citadel. A damaged church in southern Lebanon. A family was living there. They saw a newborn girl whom her parents had affectionately named Hope. The shepherds shared milk and honey. Someone offered olives. The generals and heads of state, for once, fell silent. Coffee was served. Words were exchanged in clusters. The travelers then understood that God is often found where no one thought to look. A journalist covered the event, and a filmmaker took an interest in the story. As for the star, it split into billions of small lights, one for each person setting a wrong right. And the world, slowly, learned to walk again, like a child taking its first steps.

As Santa prepares to make his annual descent down chimneys around the world and 2025 draws to a close, global financial markets present a picture that would have seemed implausible — if not outright impossible — at the beginning of the year. Most major equity indices are ending the year at, or near, all-time highs, marking a third consecutive year of exceptional performance. In the United States, the benchmark S&P 500 Index is up approximately 17% at the time of writing, following gains of 23% in 2024 and 24% in 2023. This represents a cumulative advance of roughly 77% over three years — and an extraordinary rise of more than 1,000% since the beginning of the secular bull market in March 2009. European markets, despite stagnating growth, political instability, and mounting geopolitical tensions, have followed the same trajectory. Germany’s DAX index is up 22% year-to-date in 2025. The UK’s FTSE 100 has gained nearly 30%, marking one of its strongest annual performances on record. Spain’s IBEX 35 is up an eye-catching 48% so far this year, defying both fiscal constraints and political uncertainty. Japan’s Nikkei 225 continues to levitate at all-time highs, having added 26% in 2025. Chinese equities have also surprised to the upside, with domestic markets up around 17% and Hong Kong-listed stocks up more than 23%. Even emerging markets — long considered the most vulnerable to higher interest rates and tightening global liquidity — have displayed an enthusiasm few anticipated. South Korea’s KOSPI, for instance, is up an astonishing 71% year-to-date. At the same time, assets traditionally perceived as hedges against instability have surged to historic extremes. Gold has decisively broken above levels once thought psychologically and structurally insurmountable, delivering a remarkable 71% gain this year. Silver has outpaced even gold, rising by roughly 149% year-to-date. A broad range of commodities — from energy to industrial metals — have also posted powerful advances, reflecting both speculative fervor and deeper structural tensions. Real estate tells a similar story. In the United States, Japan, and much of Europe, property prices stand at all-time highs, often well above their pre-2007 peaks. These valuations imply an environment of permanently low interest rates and abundant liquidity — an assumption increasingly at odds with reality. In many global cities, prices remain far above pre-pandemic levels, despite higher borrowing costs, declining affordability, and weakening household balance sheets. In short, 2025 has been a banner year for risk-takers, ending with nearly everything expensive — often extraordinarily so. And yet, by most conventional measures, the global economic backdrop has been anything but reassuring. The world has navigated one of the most tense geopolitical environments in decades. Growth has slowed across much of the developed world. Public and private debt levels have reached historic highs. Geopolitical risks have multiplied rather than receded — from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, and from strategic rivalry between major powers to renewed tensions in the Americas. Monetary policy, once the stabilising force of the post-2008 era, has become constrained by political realities and fiscal excess. This is the central paradox of 2025: a year in which financial markets thrived while the underlying economic, political, and social foundations appeared increasingly fragile. This was not a year defined by productivity breakthroughs, broad-based income growth, or a renewed expansion of global trade. Instead, it was a year shaped by liquidity, narratives, and concentration — a year in which capital flowed not toward safety or value, but toward whatever assets appeared most insulated from reality. Everything that should not have worked, worked The extraordinary trajectory of financial markets in 2025 was not an accident. It was the product of collective optimism, technological promise, and renewed hopes of economic renaissance. As economic signals weakened and geopolitical risks intensified, markets did not respond by repricing risk in the traditional sense. Instead, they projected themselves into narratives — the compelling stories of artificial intelligence, of humanoid robotics, and of transformative technologies still largely untested at scale. At the same time, investors anchored themselves to the belief that central banks would ultimately shield markets from meaningful downside, easing monetary conditions whenever stress emerged. This powerful combination of narrative conviction and policy reassurance allowed risk-taking to flourish even as underlying fundamentals deteriorated. Prudence gradually gave way to speculation, as markets became less focused on economic reality and more reliant on expectation and belief. Never in history has retail participation been that high, never in history has concentration in a few stocks been that high, never in history has leverage been that high, never in history have valuations been that high and never in history has the gap between the “Have”s and the “Have Not”s been that extreme. History suggests that such moments signal a transition — from expansion to fragility, from enthusiasm to vulnerability.