Articles

In the aftermath of the disastrous June 1967 war—the so-called Six-Day War—the Arab countries were forced to confront a bitter reality: Egypt had lost the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula; the Hashemite Kingdom had been stripped of Jerusalem and the West Bank; while Syria had ignominiously withdrawn from the Golan Heights. Yet the Baath regime in Damascus, refusing to assume responsibility for a historic defeat, suggested that Israel had not truly won as long as it had failed to overthrow the Syrian regime. As long as the regime remained standing, Tel Aviv could not claim victory. This attitude of denial would set a precedent whenever the Arabs suffered a Waterloo. And so, true to form, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, raising his voice despite the retreat, proclaimed on the eve of Ashura commemorations the victory of the Party of God “against the conspiracy woven by the alliance of the United States and Israel, under the cover provided by the Lebanese state.”

Major crises reveal a simple truth: no country can endure when loyalties that transcend it remain stronger than the sense of belonging to it. Nations that overcome adversity are those that make national identity the common ground uniting all their citizens, regardless of their political, religious, or cultural affiliations. The nation does not erase diversity. It provides the framework that protects it. That lesson has become particularly clear in Iran’s recent evolution, where national and patriotic discourse has gained renewed momentum by embracing groups that, until recently, had been regarded as lying outside the circle of political loyalty. The authorities have come to understand that existential challenges require widening the circle of belonging, for a state’s strength is measured not only by the cohesion of its governing institutions, but also by its ability to embrace society in all its diversity.

After nearly two months of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, a 'framework agreement' between the two countries was signed on Saturday evening (Beirut time), on the fourth day of the fifth round of talks held at the State Department in Washington, under the supervision of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The ceremony took place in the presence of Mr. Rubio and negotiators from both countries, including, on the Lebanese side, former Lebanese Ambassador to Washington Simon Karam and U.S. Ambassador to Beirut Michel Issa. The document was signed by Lebanon's Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadé Moawad, and Israel's Ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, both of whom delivered brief remarks, thanking the Trump Administration for its efforts and highlighting the significance of the occasion.

Lebanon has no alternative but to pursue negotiations with Israel in order to achieve the desired objective: obtaining an Israeli withdrawal and enabling the displaced to return to their villages and towns. That is what genuine patriotism means, far removed from the temptation to cling to a past dominated by glittering slogans such as “praying in Jerusalem,” slogans that have led only to the return of occupation. Ultimately, Lebanon faces a reality from which it cannot escape forever. That reality lies not only in the price the country must now pay for the wars waged by Iran, through Hezbollah, against Israel. It also lies in the emergence of new parameters that now shape the region, parameters to which Lebanon would do well to adapt instead of remaining captive to Iranian tutelage. Lebanon must determine the price it is prepared to pay in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal, if it wishes to avoid falling into the Iranian trap. At the heart of that trap lies the Islamic Republic’s determination to turn Lebanon and its people into bargaining chips, regardless of the devastation and destruction inflicted upon the South and other parts of the country.

This essay explores the figures of crisis and catastrophe, tracing them from ancient cosmologies to the lived experience of a world shaken to its foundations. Bringing Greek, Biblical and Indian traditions into dialogue with the philosophy of Jan Patočka, it examines how civilizations have conceived disorder, collapse, irreversibility, and even the possibility of action when meaning itself begins to falter. Published here as a series of seven essays, this study follows a demanding yet essential line of inquiry: Is catastrophe a sudden rupture, a slow disintegration of the world, or the deepest truth of our historical condition? What follows is the introductory chapter.

The 60-day American-Iranian roadmap must be understood in the context of the ultimatum cycles that define President Donald Trump's Middle East strategy — a method built on alternating between threats of total destruction and purely transactional diplomacy. In April 2025, a first unilateral 60-day ultimatum demanding that Tehran dismantle its nuclear program was met with a categorical refusal from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, triggering massive U.S. B-2 bomber strikes in June 2025 against Iranian nuclear sites. A year later, in April 2026, faced with a strangling blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the White House doubled down, threatening to devastate vital Iranian infrastructure "within four hours" — a credible threat that forced Tehran to accept, at the last moment, the principle of a ceasefire, paving the way for the protocol signed at Versailles by President Trump.