Articles

With the proclamation of the independence of the Hebrew State on 15 May 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out. Israelis refer to it as the War of Independence, while Arabs remember it as the Nakba (“the Catastrophe”). The newly established Israeli army confronted the forces of Egypt, the Emirate of Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. During the first phase of the fighting, the military balance remained fragile and inconclusive. The Arab armies fielded roughly 28,000 troops, supported by a limited number of aircraft and armored vehicles. Israel, meanwhile, relied on a force of nearly 40,000 fighters, whose core consisted of the Haganah and the Palmach.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's official visit to Washington — and more specifically, his scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump this Tuesday, July 21 — could, or rather should, give a major boost to the clearly sovereigntist direction the Lebanese leadership has taken. This direction — echoing the March 14 movement's slogan of "Lebanon First" — has been most openly and unequivocally expressed since March 2, when Hezbollah unilaterally dragged the country (despite warnings from the government) into yet another futile war, solely to support the Iranian regime and ostensibly "avenge" the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the early hours of the American-Israeli strike on Iran on February 28.

From an early age, Elias Howayek was keenly aware of the hardships faced by the rural communities where he had grown up. After becoming a bishop, he realized he had a responsibility to address the unequal access to education for girls from modest families in his native region. His letters and writings show that he viewed the education of young women as the cornerstone of family life, convinced that providing women with a solid education meant safeguarding the moral, civic, and social future of Lebanese society. On August 15, 1895, Elias Howayek founded the Congregation of the Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family in Jbeil with Mother Rosalie Nasr and Sister Stéphanie Kardouche, whom he had, on the advice and with the approval of their superiors, released from their convent in Nazareth in the Holy Land.

In the exhibition catalogue, Hady Sy presents his project as a search for “a path toward coexistence” between organic intelligence and technological intelligence, between memory and computation, between the hand and the algorithm. These worlds are not placed in opposition but brought into the possibility of an ethical encounter, one in which technology serves humanity while safeguarding its dignity. Yet the works themselves, as they unfold throughout the exhibition space, appear far less confident about the stability of this balance. They do not deny the possibility of coexistence, but they simultaneously reveal just how fragile it is.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun arrived in Washington on Saturday, ahead of a scheduled meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. On the regional front, the United States intensified its strikes throughout the past week against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) positions and infrastructure, prompting retaliatory attacks by the latter against Gulf countries (!), while the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen once again entered the fray. As the week drew to a close, attention in Lebanon was firmly fixed on the long-awaited visit of President Joseph Aoun to Washington. The head of state, who arrived in the U.S. capital on Saturday accompanied by his wife and advisors, held a meeting on Sunday afternoon (Beirut time) at the State Department with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He is set to meet with several other U.S. officials before his appointment on Tuesday with President Donald Trump at the White House.

The war in Ukraine continues to be at the center of a wide-ranging debate, fueled in part by near-daily bombardments targeting key nerve centers on both sides—most notably the Russian and Ukrainian capitals. To better understand the various dimensions of this long-standing conflict, it is necessary to revisit the background and origins of what has led to this (fratricidal?) war, by examining the motivations and aspirations of the different parties involved—particularly the West (the United States and Europe, extended to all NATO member states with the exception of Turkey)—and by recalling the early stages of the Russian offensive and the failed attempts to achieve peace, or at least negotiations, bearing in mind that responsibility in this context is shared by many.