Grassroots Forces for Peace and Integration Across the Region Need Our Help

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If there is one thing Iran and its Arab militias fear more than the Israeli Air Force, it is the yearning for change shared by millions who suffer under their brutal rule. In Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Gaza, and Iran itself, civilians know first-hand that Tehran’s brand of Islamist domination brings only war, state failure, and poverty. They want a different future, and they want the world to help them forge it.

Iran’s axis of terror wields lethal force against local activists who stand up to its authority — and sadly, Western governments do little to assist these brave people. So the Center for Peace Communications does everything it can to lend them a hand.

In November 2019, we convened leading civic actors from 15 Arab countries to publicly repudiate the boycott of Israel — and those who enforce it — as an obstacle to Arab development, and call for regional integration and partnership. This unprecedented action sparked a sustained, region-wide debate, serving to grow pan-Arab public support for the collective peace treaty which became known, ten months later, as the Abraham Accords.

One year after the Accords were signed, we went to Iraq — and bussed 312 Sunni and Shi’ite activists from Baghdad, Babel, Mosul, Anbar, Diyala, and Salahuddin to a public space in the ancient city of Erbil. In live-streamed speeches viewed across Iran’s axis of repression, these Iraqis defied their warlords to demand that their country join Israel, the UAE, and the other Abraham Accords signatories as partners in peace and development.

While The Washington Institute’s Robert Satloff described the Erbil conference as “perhaps the most significant citizen-inspired, people-to-people act of peacemaking in history,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saw a threat to his authority. In a televised declaration of war against our effort, Nasrallah told Iraqi militias and their quislings in the Baghdad government to attack and jail the participants — “lest the Erbil conference be followed by more conferences like it.”

In response, we did what was needed to keep everyone safe and free — then seized the moment to advance Western legislation, which we had already proposed in both the U.S. and Europe, to defend Arab civil peacemakers everywhere. In March 2022, President Biden signed the first of our proposed bills into law.

These unusual cycles of cause and effect taught us to persist, and to stay nimble in probing the region’s problems and innovating remedies.

Consider the perverse reality that while powerful Iranian and Qatari propaganda outlets platform Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups to speak on behalf of Arab peoples, their many opponents are not only silenced by local thugs; they’re also erased by Western media. We reasoned that if a creative way could be found to elevate local voices of dissent and do so continually, it could both enrich the global conversation and break the terror media monopoly inside Iran’s “axis.”

That is what led us in January 2023 to create Whispered in Gaza, a 25-part animated docuseries in which Gazans shared heartrending testimony about life under Hamas rule. Released in seven languages and viewed over 20 million times, these short films gave Arabs, Iranians, Americans, and others around the world their first clear window into the reality of Gaza which Hamas and its allies concealed.

Three months after the series’ release, a convocation of Sunni and Shi’ite clerics in Iraq and Pakistan issued a fatwa declaring Hamas illegitimate according to Islamic law, citing the testimony in Whispered in Gaza as proof of how Hamas persecutes a Muslim population. Then, on July 30, 2023, Gazan activists used the series and fatwa as tools of mobilization in waging one of the largest anti-Hamas street demonstrations in Gaza since the terror group seized power.

In pivotal periods of the Cold War, similar campaigns of nonviolent yet hard-nosed civil engagement were an important facet of America’s struggle against Soviet domination. It suffices to recall that one beneficiary of U.S. support was Polish labor activist Lech Walesa, co-founder of the Solidarity trade union, who eventually helped liberate the country. Today, the U.S. Government does not apply such approaches in the Middle East or elsewhere. CPC, an outlier among peace NGOs, believes that it should, together with nongovernment actors in every field.

Imagine if many groups like ours had been working for years, together with like-minded Gazans, to undermine Hamas within the coastal strip. Imagine if the U.S. and other governments backed these efforts. Imagine a world in which the atrocities of October 7, 2023 had never happened.

While imagining this better world, we persevere in the one we live in – most recently, with the production of Hezbollah’s Hostages, the eight-part weekly animated sequel to Whispered in Gaza.

The series provides an immersive experience of life under Hezbollah domination through the actual voices of its brave opponents. It debuted on September 16, one day before pagers exploded in the hands of Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and Syria. It concluded, eight weeks later, with Hezbollah gravely weakened by Israeli air and ground power and Hasan Nasrallah dead. At a time when much legacy media coverage of Hezbollah-Israel conflict reinforced the group’s self-image as a “resistance” movement, Hezbollah’s Hostages exposed what it actually is: a tyrant in Lebanon, an occupier in Syria, a mafia cartel that traffics in drugs and sex slaves, and the command headquarters of Iran’s imperial project in Arab lands.

Now, a most urgent question facing Lebanese and the world is how to translate Hezbollah’s weakened state into systemic political change.

That is the context in which Hezbollah’s Hostages has been screened publicly in Beirut and Syria, seven times and counting. For the brave activists who organized these events, the series provides an unusually honest portrayal of the pathology that has wrecked their country, as well as an asset to reinforce their case for a different future.

In Lebanon as elsewhere, the Center for Peace Communications will continue to do its utmost to support hope and possibility in the Middle East. We invite those who share this aspiration to support us.

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Hezbollah’s Hostages

The Terror Group Thinks It Owns Lebanon’s Southern Forests. One Hiker Thought Otherwise.

Civil resistance against Hezbollah will be pivotal in the struggle to reclaim Lebanese sovereignty from Iran.

Hezbollah’s Hostages, the weekly animated video series spotlighting the terror group’s courageous opponents in Arab lands, is now in its sixth week. Our first episodes brought you harrowing accounts of how Hezbollah brainwashes vulnerable young people and forces them into sex slavery and the drug trade. We took you inside the group’s monstrous shadow capital, and gave voice to an Arab man who risked assassination for demanding peace with Israel.

Episode Six, “A Walk in the Woods,” tells the story of Ali, a young Lebanese Shi’ite who committed a radical act with four friends: They took a walk in the woods to enjoy the beauty and peace of their own country.

Click here to watch Ali’s story in Hezbollah’s Hostages, Episode 6: “A Walk in the Woods.”

Sitting in a grove listening to birds, the quiet outing of the three young men and two young women was soon interrupted by the force that really controls Lebanon: Hezbollah, the terror organization that does Iran’s bidding. 

Hezbollah fighters began throwing rocks at the group, then set upon Ali with clubs, delivering a bone-shattering beating. Miraculously, the five youths managed to escape.

Later, as he recovered in his hospital bed, Ali resolved that no one should be above the law. Though loved ones warned him it was too dangerous to challenge the power of Hezbollah, he risked everything to sue his attackers.

Today, personal acts of resistance like Ali’s carry geopolitical significance. For too long, the millions of people victimized by Hezbollah have been ignored and forgotten. Now the world is watching as Israel—which is hit daily by Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles—fights back against the terror group.

But a military victory alone will not be enough to destroy its influence. Hezbollah will not go quietly. Determined civilians like Ali, who rise up against the group, also need sustained international support—using all powers the world can bring to bear—to affect true political change. Change that will allow Ali to live in a Lebanon where he can take a simple walk in the woods. 

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Hezbollah’s Hostages

Iran’s Billions Spent on Brainwashing Failed to Sway This Young Advocate for Peace

Making friends with young Israelis inspired Hussein to challenge Hezbollah’s propaganda. Then the terror group tried to kill him.

Hezbollah’s Hostages, CPC’s eight-part animated documentary featuring brave Arab opponents of the terror group speaking out, centered its first three episodes around Hezbollah’s brutal occupation of Syria — by airing testimony from one of its former fighters and Syrian victims of its trades in sex slaves and drugs.

Episode 4, debuting this week at The Free Press, brings the focus to Lebanon’s troubled relationship with the Jewish state. We hear the voice of Hussein, a young Shi’ite in Beirut whose education was dominated by Hezbollah’s propaganda machinery. He was taught to hate Israel and see its people as “zombies. . . spreading and growing, who aim to conquer the entire Arab region from the Nile to the Euphrates.”

Then, as a college student, Hussein participated in a series of exchange programs in the U.S. and Europe, where he met Israeli peers. The deep friendships they formed changed his understanding of the world. When he returned to Lebanon, he began advocating — at great risk — among his fellow Shi’ites for peace with Israel.

Click here to watch Hussein’s story in Hezbollah’s Hostages, Episode 4: “The Peace Activist.”

Hussein is not alone in his convictions. Lebanese of all sects fault Hezbollah for dragging the country into ruinous wars, and yearn to reclaim Lebanon’s storied role as “Switzerland of the Middle East” — a cosmopolitan capital, open to all its neighbors. 

But when an activist like Hussein, striving to advance these views, actually starts to gain traction, Hezbollah does not hesitate to strike. 

After the events described in today’s episode, Hussein and a friend were talking outside the latter’s Beirut home when a Hezbollah operative threw an explosive device at the two men. Though both escaped unharmed, Hussein knew that if he didn’t flee the country, there would be another attempt — and likely soon.

Hussein is now a political refugee in Canada, which gives him the freedom to emerge from the animated landscape of this series. His full name is Hussein El Hajj Hassan — and in the video below, he shares his views about the present war and prospects for Israeli-Lebanese peace.

An important aspect of Hussein’s story bears stressing: his friendships with Israeli youth, which first inspired him to become a peace activist in Lebanon, did not arise spontaneously; rather, they were nurtured through exchange programs designed to facilitate human encounters.

On this week’s anniversary of the bloody Hamas invasion of Israel’s south — a war that now engulfs seven Middle Eastern countries — efforts to foster people-to-people engagement between Arabs and Israelis may come across to some as naive or unimportant. Such work, after all, does not stop the machinery of hate which Iran and its proxies use to foment war.

But the deadliest naïveté lies with those who assume victory can be achieved through fighting alone. While Israeli forces degrade the capacity of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their allies to dominate their societies, the question of what emerges in their place will not be settled on the battlefield. People like Hussein Al Hajj Hassan will be needed to chart a different course — and the kind of proactive effort which helped expand his horizons will be essential to foster a similar evolution in others.

Near the end of episode 4, Hussein remarks, “I truly hope to find a way that, unlike how it took me a decade or two to go through this transformation, it will take other young people only a year, or six months.” This aspiration should be read as a call to action. 

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Hezbollah’s Hostages

When He Tried to Flee Hezbollah’s Clutches, They Abducted Six of His Relatives

To feed his family amid the hardships of civil war, a young Syrian man takes a job with Hezbollah as a courier. He soon discovers that the packages he is transporting contain the drug Captagon — and his associates have been slipping crushed tablets into his tea.

Debuting today, episode 3 of Hezbollah’s Hostages, a Center for Peace Communications production distributed by The Free Press, features the testimony of Hamza, the first drug mule in Hezbollah’s massive narcotics trade ever to speak out.

Click here to watch Hamza’s testimony in “The Drug Mule.”

Sometimes called “the jihadist drug,” Captagon is an addictive psychostimulant that dulls pain, induces euphoria, and—as the subject of today’s film explains—numbs the human conscience. It was widely used by ISIS fighters and found in the bodies of several perpetrators of Hamas’s October 7 massacre. It also serves as a major source of funding for jihadism.

According to the U.S. State Department, the Captagon trade spans 17 countries, from Italy to Malaysia. Hezbollah — together with the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — produces the vast majority of supply, and the terror group is responsible for smuggling and selling it across the globe. Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” — including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, all of whom act as proxies for Tehran — owes much of its war chest to these profits. Stemming the manufacture and supply of Captagon is nearly as consequential as sanctioning Iran itself.

Hamza, the young man in today’s video, was unwittingly drawn into the Captagon trade out of desperation to help feed his younger brothers. His harrowing account is one of both perpetrator and victim.

The drug’s victims also include broken families throughout the Middle East — a tragedy which has led several Arab governments to take aggressive measures against the trade. Jordan in particular has launched air strikes on its border with Syria, in towns in southeastern Syria, and on its border with Saudi Arabia over the past two years to interdict drug smugglers. Police and counter-narcotics units in the Gulf routinely seize large shipments of the drug. 

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Halting the Captagon trade was also one of the top conditions of Arab states for normalization of ties with Bashar al-Assad — though more than a year after the Arab League reinstated the regime as a member, Syria’s robust production and exportation of the pill has not slowed.

The devastating social impact of Captagon in the region begs greater government and non-government measures to combat it, as well as new efforts to bring countries together to address the problem. Now, with Hezbollah weakened after Israel’s weeks of momentous assault, a generational opportunity has emerged to galvanize Iran’s many opponents across the region in the service of such an effort — for the sake of defeating Hezbollah as well as protecting Arab families from the scourge of drugs. To realize the full potential of this opportunity, American leadership is urgently needed. 

Reality Check

Arab Support for Hezbollah's Defeat Calls Western Coverage Into Question

Arab majorities view Hezbollah as a tyrant in Lebanon, an occupier in Syria, and the nerve center of Iran’s empire of oppression.

While Israeli warplanes moved to eliminate Hezbollah’s senior command last week, some Western media portrayed the Lebanese people and Arabs generally as rallying around the terror group. The region stands with Hezbollah in “indignation and outrage,” declared Le Monde, while “any criticism of Hezbollah has been temporarily muted.” According to the New York Times, “The Middle East is overtaken by outrage at weeks of destructive Israeli strikes against Hezbollah and its leaders.”

Yet Arabs in Lebanon and elsewhere declined to play the role these outlets assigned to them – and rather than “mute” their opposition to Iran’s top proxy, they proclaimed it repeatedly on air.

“No one supports this war and no one is in solidarity with Hezbollah,” Lebanese TV personality Mariam Lahham told CPC in one of many recent interviews. “We will condemn those who caused these missiles to be firing over our heads.”

Lahham’s view reflects widespread anger at Hezbollah which has been growing in Lebanon for two decades. In 2005, Hezbollah assassinated Prime Minister Rafic Harriri, sparking a massive popular uprising – known as the March 14th movement – against itself and allied Syrian forces which then occupied the country. Hezbollah carried out a wave of killings to silence its opponents. When protests again erupted countrywide in 2019 over years of government corruption and economic mismanagement — with some chanting, “Hezbollah are terrorists” —  the militia’s fighters brutally assaulted demonstrators of all ages.

Meanwhile, in the broader Arab region, Hezbollah’s image never recovered from the spectacle of its violent intervention in Syria to protect dictator Bashar Al-Assad from his own people.  

For years, pan-Arab television aired heartrending scenes of Hezbollah systematically starving one rebel-held city after another, while the terror group gloated that its fighters in Syria were eating well. The Hezbollah presence in Syria also spawned a burgeoning mafia of human trafficking and drug smuggling. More than 85% of Egyptians and 81% of Jordanians told pollsters at the time that they hold a negative view of the organization.

So it should come as no surprise that, far from closing ranks with Hezbollah, most Lebanese and Syrians are cheering Israel’s elimination of Hezbollah leadership. “They kicked people out of their homes and villages, working hand in glove with the criminal regime of Bashar al-Asad,” a Syrian refugee in Idlib told CPC. “They deserved what happened to them.”

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Defending Women and Girls

Makram Rabah: Feminist and LGBT Activists Who Raise Hamas and Hezbollah Banners Must Listen to Alya’s Story

Episode 2 of Hezbollah’s Hostages, a Center for Peace Communications production released today by The Free Press, features the testimony of Alya, a happily married 20-year-old living in the Syrian city of Raqqa who caught the eye of a Hezbollah operative. In telling her story of abduction and enslavement, Alya is the first victim of Hezbollah’s massive human trafficking operations ever to come forth.

Click here to watch Alya’s testimony in “The Sex Slave.”

We asked Makram Rabah, a history professor at the American University of Beirut, to share his reflections on Alya’s testimony:

Growing up during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and later dedicating my career to studying its harrowing episodes of violence, I've encountered numerous accounts of human suffering. As a young boy, I spent days at a time hiding in bomb shelters; my parents would wake us up in the middle of the night to flee for safety. Yet the stories that shock me the most are crimes of sexual violence, whether committed during war or at other times.  In conservative Mediterranean societies, victims often remain silent to avoid bringing shame upon their clans and communities.

In June 2022, 32 years after the civil war ended, the human rights organization Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) released a comprehensive report documenting systematic violence against Lebanese and Palestinian women and girls by various factions during the 15 years of conflict. The use of rape as a weapon against communities remains an almost genocidal crime – a weapon which all Lebanese militias, across the Muslim-Christian divide, used against each other to shame and humiliate the other. These women were violated not only physically but also psychologically, as they were denied justice and silenced.

The same feelings of horror engulfed me when I watched the second episode of Hezbollah’s Hostages, an animated video featuring the actual recorded voice of Alya, a 20-year-old woman from Raqqa, Syria. Alya was abducted and forced into prostitution by Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese militia. Recently married and living in Damascus, her life was shattered when her husband went missing. Desperate to find him, she sought help from Yousef, a Hezbollah member in her neighborhood. Despite knowing his bad intentions, she was driven by hope and desperation.

Alya’s ordeal began when Yousef took her to a farm under the pretense of finding her husband. Instead, she was raped and forced to endure six months of sex slavery, along with other girls, some as young as 16. Her brother eventually rescued her, paying $10,000 to free her from this nightmare. 

Hezbollah – and the so-called “Axis of Resistance” supporting it – claim to uphold moral and ethical values in their fight against oppression. But their actions, as in Alya’s case, reveal a stark contradiction. Mounting evidence over the past decade implicates Hezbollah and Iran in institutionalized narcotics and human trafficking activities. These operations have generated billions in revenue and established extensive money laundering networks.

In February 2019, Lebanese authorities uncovered a prostitution ring in the Bekaa Valley, revealing the involvement of senior Hezbollah members. This was one of many crimes for which Hezbollah has never been held accountable, including a vast network of criminal activities and outfits along the Lebanese and Syrian borders. The latter generates billions of dollars from smuggling merchandize as well as trafficking in refugees, who pay large sums of money to access Lebanon from the same routes that Hezbollah uses to gain entry into Syria.

The residents of many Syrian villages on the eastern border with Lebanon have meanwhile been displaced by Hezbollah – driven from their homes, perhaps never to return again. It is these refugees whom Hezbollah and its members have been preying on, driving young men and women into a life of crime and ruin.

Behind Hezbollah’s façade of piety lies a terror group that doubles as a transnational crime syndicate – and uses a wide array of religious fatwas (legal rulings) to justify murder and even the sexual enslavement of young women like Alya.  

Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Bashar al-Assad opened new avenues for their criminal enterprises, ranging from human and narcotics trafficking to the weapons trade. Leading Iran’s expansionist project across the Middle East, Hezbollah has also constructed a sinister yet impressive shadow economy which conceals its elaborate network of organized crime. While Hezbollah’s leader invades our living rooms and screens with his condescending, pompous, and self-righteous sermons and threats of regional Armageddon, his men who are supposed to be holy warriors and freedom fighters are indulging in debauchery, as Alya’s story reflects.   

Iran and its proxies have also sought to evade accountability by presenting themselves as a bulwark against Sunni jihadists like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Yet the political DNA of these groups is strikingly similar. Western apologists for the Iranian axis, together with people who are simply uninformed, must face up to the fact that Hezbollah's and ISIS's crimes, including sexual enslavement and human trafficking, are fundamentally the same. Furthermore, the abysmal human rights record of Hezbollah’s parent regime in Tehran, exemplified by the killing of Mahsa Amini and other Iranian opposition activists, underscores that this commonality of vice runs all the way to the top of the terror hierarchy. 

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The ideology of the Tehran regime, contrary to what it tries to promote or project, features a bedrock commitment to subjugating women and minorities, and is itself criminal.  

Ironically, Hezbollah claimed early on in its involvement in the Syrian civil war that it was fighting to protect Shi’ite religious shrines from desecration and ruin – but Youssef, Alya’s Hezbollah captor, was no holy warrior; he was a slave trader and a pimp.

The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent events saw feminists and LGBT activists shamefully displaying Hamas and Hezbollah banners, viewing these groups as anti-imperialist forces. They seem to have overlooked the systemic abuse and suppression of human and women's rights as practiced by both these terror groups as well as the Tehran regime that backs them. Over the past 11 months, many honest and rational people, swept up in populist rhetoric, forgot that supporting the rights of Palestinians must not come at the expense of other oppressed nations — let alone whitewash Hezbollah pimps like Yousef.

Alya’s struggle for justice is a poignant reminder that the world must not forget the Syrian people's suffering and the true perpetrators of their ongoing plight.

Makram Rabah is an Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. His book Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory (Edinburgh University Press) covers collective identities and the Lebanese Civil War.

Empowering Silenced Voices

Animated for Their Protection, Hezbollah’s Arab Opponents Send the World a Message

An eight-part weekly series of harrowing testimony from Lebanon and Syria will be aired by The Free Press in English and by leading pan-Arab TV network Al-Arabiya in Arabic.

Hezbollah’s war on Israel obscures its larger campaign to subjugate much of the region — as a tyrant in Lebanon, an occupier in Syria, a mafia of sex and drug trafficking, and the nerve center of Iran’s Arab empire. Millions of Arabs whose lives the militia has shattered want a different future. Hezbollah does not want the world to hear their voices.

Hezbollah’s Hostages, a series of eight documentary shorts produced by the Center for Peace Communications, features the recorded testimony of Lebanese and Syrian civilians in Hezbollah’s grip. It stems from over a year’s investigation which yielded rare interviews with Hezbollah fighters, their Arab victims, and brave dissidents struggling against overwhelming odds. To protect interviewees from retribution and grippingly portray their testimony, each interview recording is accompanied by creative images and animation.

The English-subtitled version is being distributed exclusively by The Free Press on all its platforms. The Arabic edition of each episode is airing weekly on the leading pan-Arab TV network Alarabiya — via its news channel Al-Hadath — alongside a panel discussion of its content.

Click here to watch episode one, “The Combatant” — the story of a Lebanese Shi’ite boy transfixed by American action movies who is lured into combat by Hezbollah as it enters the Syrian civil war. The fables he was told about a sacred mission meet bitter reality on the battlefield. He undergoes a profound change of heart and mind that leads him to an improbable new life.

In weekly episodes ahead, we breach Hezbollah’s criminal underworld through unprecedented testimony from a mule in its drug trade and a woman abducted, raped, and enslaved by its fighters. We also probe the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh, just outside Beirut, with help from Shi’ite civilians who live there. 

Dahiyeh is the shadow capital of Lebanon — home of Hezbollah’s intelligence apparatus, politburo, and prisons — as well as the central node to all Iran’s proxies in the region, from the Houthis of Yemen to Iraq’s militias to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Yet the same landscape is also home to some of Hezbollah’s many opponents – and in later episodes, we meet them too: Shi’ite veterans of the countrywide 2019 street protests, who dared to demand a different future; civic activists striving to end the war on Israel, liberate young minds, and restore the rule of law in Lebanon.

Whispered in Gaza, our last animated series, predated the October 7 tragedy by nine months, offering a wakeup call to confront Hamas by confronting the lies it tells about itself. In engaging the more powerful Hezbollah, we believe the best defense from its assault entails unmasking its pretensions of “resistance,” exposing its oppression of Arab peoples, and rallying its victims across the region. By lending an ear to Hezbollah’s many hostages, we show that they are not alone.

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CPC Investigates

They Raise the Volume on Gaza to Drown Out Kurdish Cries for Help

Turkey and Qatar enlist Palestinian and Kuwaiti Islamists to replace the Kurds of northwest Syria with Arab settlers.

A month-long investigation by Jusoor, a new Arabic media outlet supported by the Center for Peace Communications, documents a massive campaign — steered by Turkish President Erdogan, funded by Qatar’s Emir, and administered by Kuwaiti and Palestinian Islamists — to evict Kurdish residents from their ancestral homes in northwest Syria and replace them with Syrian Arab settlers. Efforts by local and global rights groups to raise alarms have not deterred the assault.

“We escaped under fire — women and children,” recalled Naima Khalil, a refugee from the historically Kurdish town of Ifrin, in Syria’s northwest. “For 15 days we slept outdoors, under Turkish shelling. By night, we fled from town to town.” An area rights group reports that Turkey’s assault on Ifrin, which began in 2018, has reduced the Kurdish population of the city by 60 percent.

The ongoing military campaign, targeting Ifrin and other northwest Syrian towns, is accompanied by a demographic engineering project, announced by Turkish President Erdogan in 2023, to move one million Arab Syrian refugees into Kurdish areas. As part of the initiative, Qatar’s ruler agreed to finance the construction of 240,000 homes across nine Syrian provinces. In June, Qatar’s Red Crescent Society tweeted that 13 such villages had been completed, sufficient to house 22,000 Syrian Arabs. Kurdish activists denounce the project as “ethnic cleansing.”

At least one of the settlement blocs in Ifrin was built by a Palestinian NGO: the Gaza-based, Hamas-affiliated Ajnadeen “charity” group. Last year the organization acknowledged financing the construction of 200 residential units. Abdulrahman Apo, a Kurdish politician from Ifrin, charges that 10,000 Palestinians are themselves among the settlers.

Alongside Turkish, Qatari, and Palestinian participation, Syrian investigative journalist Sardar Malla Darwish has uncovered Kuwaiti funding and operational assistance. Our own reporter in Ifrin found Kuwaiti flags and the logos of Kuwaiti Islamist NGOs identifying themselves as benefactors.  

The same operation also features a campaign against Kurdish language and culture. “They banned the Kurdish language and imposed Turkish in schools,” observed Nawaf Khalil, head of Ifrin’s Kurdish Studies Institute. Turkish-backed militias also massacred a family engaged in Nowruz celebrations, an ancient Kurdish tradition, marking “the last time Kurds could celebrate Nowruz in what was once a Kurdish-majority city,” Khalil said.

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To Kurdish observers, Erdogan’s continual portrayal of the war in Gaza as Israeli “ethnic cleansing” is a smokescreen for Turkish war crimes in Syria. “The Kurds are trying in different ways to tell the world that Erdogan is a liar and hypocrite and he’s trying to hide his crimes against the Kurds by exaggerating and lying about what’s happening in Gaza,” Darwish, the investigative journalist, said. “Erdogan thinks that if all the talk and criticism is focused on Israel’s military operation in Gaza, he can continue to oppress the Kurds as much as he wants.”

While the world turns a blind eye, despair only grows for Kurdish refugees like Naima Khalil and her family: “We don’t know what our fate will be or where we should go.”

CPC in the News

In Five Western Parliaments, Gazans Call for Enclaves of Post-Hamas Administration

Gazans want protected “islands” to pilot de-radicalization and good governance — and propose that Western aid pledged to UNRWA be reallocated to fund them.

Over the past 11 weeks, Gazan activists aspiring to forge non-Hamas self-rule have spoken with members of parliament in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Canada, in addition to Members of the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers responded by proposing financial support for Gazan anti-Hamas “free zones,” a goal which has gained currency among Israeli government divisions and Gazan dissidents alike.

The speakers, including organizers of Gaza’s 2019 anti-Hamas street demonstrations, are seeking international support to establish a governing body within the coastal enclave that would be free of Hamas interference, protected by Israeli or other troops, and internally patrolled and administered by Palestinians. They propose to establish this body in the near future, regardless of when and how the present war ends.

Unable to participate in person due to travel restrictions, the Palestinian participants communicated via video conference facilitated by the Center for Peace Communications. Speakers’ names were shared with lawmakers on condition of non-public disclosure, affording them a measure of safety in an environment still dominated by Hamas enforcers. 

The Western participants crossed party lines, ranging from Germany’s governing Green party on the left to the Spanish opposition People’s Party on the right. Their discussions garnered national coverage in German, Spanish, Italian, and Canadian media.

Franck Muller-Rosentritt, a Christian Democratic Union MP in Berlin who held talks with the group in May, publicly relayed some of the information that the activists shared with him on the call. “I learned from the calls that Hamas uses Al-Jazeera, Al-Aqsa TV, and a propaganda effort enforced by fear to fool outsiders into thinking all Gazans support them,” he said. “In fact, I understand how the vast majority of Gazans are disgusted by Hamas, blame it for a generation of suffering, and fear an outcome to the present war that leaves Hamas in power.”

“They’re asking for something very practical,” Muller-Rosentritt observed. “Cordon off an area where they can forge a decent, rules-based system, then let the population judge where it would rather live.”

One of the Gazan speakers, representing the coastal strip’s dwindling Christian minority population, described a toxic environment for remaining Christians in Gaza. “Even before the war, we couldn’t have coffee on the beach unmolested, let alone ring church bells,” he told Italian and Spanish MPs, arguing that a new experiment at civil rule in Gaza could foster a culture of tolerance and inclusivity.

Several lawmakers suggested that a portion of their governments’ foreign aid now pledged to UNRWA be reallocated to support alternative aid distribution channels and civil development projects by Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas. As UNRWA refuses to hire or partner with Gazan opponents of the Hamas regime, MPs agreed it would be wrong to perpetuate a system that precludes their future role in public life.

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Italian Senator Giulio Terzi, former foreign minister of Italy, said, “It has become overwhelmingly clear that money being sent to Gaza is being used to prop up Hamas's destructive rule. There are Gazans who, given the opportunity, would see their homes rebuilt and seek to live in peace next to Israel. These are efforts well worth funding.”

Mideast envoy Dennis Ross, Counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Chair of CPC’s Board, commended the sessions: “In their testimony to European and North American officials, Gazan civilians opposing Hamas braved risk to deliver a defiant message. This action reflects Palestinians' broader aspiration to turn the page on a generation of Hamas rule in Gaza — as well as their fear that continued Hamas dominance will mean no hope for the future, no rebuilding of Gaza, and more death and destruction for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

Field Report

In Lebanon, Seething Resentment at Iran’s Top Proxy

As war looms between Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanese want Hezbollah disarmed — but without international support, they’re powerless. 

The Lebanese toll of Hezbollah’s ongoing military escalation with Israel includes hundreds dead, more than 95,000 inhabitants of southern Lebanon displaced, and a new, massive blow to the country's already failing economy: the near collapse of its tourism sector. (Watch CPC’s interviews with the affected parties in the video report from Lebanon above.)

“Nearly all bookings in Lebanon — by individuals, tour groups, and expos — have been canceled, so no one is showing up,” explained Pierre Ashqar, Vice President of the Lebanese Tourism Federation. Tourism revenues, vital to Lebanon’s battered economy, are down 95 percent this year. 

“It’s all because of Hezbollah,” added Charles Jabbur, spokesman for the Lebanese Forces, a predominantly Christian opposition party. “They decided to go to war at the behest of Iran. They’re implementing an Iranian agenda with no connection to the Lebanese.”

Jabbur expressed frustration, pervasive among Lebanese, that the heavily armed militia functions as a state within a state, making unilateral decisions to the country’s detriment, while the government lacks the power to restrain it. “What right does Hezbollah have to go to war without consulting the government, the state, or other groups within Lebanon?” he asked.

This view extends to all the country’s sects — even Lebanese Shi’a, whom Hezbollah claims as its constituency. A recent poll by the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar found that over two thirds of the population, including half of all Shi’a, oppose Hezbollah’s military escalation with Israel. As we previously reported, some independently minded Shi’a have founded a civic organization, Taharror, to protest the war. 

In Washington and elsewhere, advocates of accommodation with Tehran have long argued against supporting local opponents of Iran-backed militias in Arab lands, claiming there is no meaningful opposition to support. In Gaza, this view led to the abandonment of brave dissidents who sought to unseat Hamas through street demonstrations and activism. As local anger at Hezbollah approaches a boiling point, it behooves great powers — on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Arab region — to avoid making the same mistake in Lebanon.

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at ahed@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Invisible War

No Eyes on Sudan

As civil war lays the third largest country in Africa to waste, Sudanese ask why the world is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza but not Sudan. 

A conflict with no end in sight has claimed thousands of civilian lives. NGOs warn of famine. The UN reports millions displaced and hundreds raped. If you’re thinking of Gaza, think again — it’s Sudan.

Of course the two conflicts differ in many ways. Whereas the UN recently halved its prior death toll of Gazan women and children, Sudan’s present body count of 15,000 is widely considered a severe underestimate. Identity and ideology fuel the Gaza war, while Sudanese fight primarily over control of resources. Perhaps the starkest contrast lies in degrees of international attention: whereas Gaza occupies the limelight, war in Sudan largely rages in the dark. 

When CPC interviewed Sudanese civilians across the country last week, most took the opportunity to highlight what in their view constitutes a galling double standard. “The little attention we attract fades away immediately,” observed Abu Muhammad, a Khartoum merchant. “It’s the opposite of what is happening in Gaza: all the media channels are about Gaza, Gaza, and Gaza, and I don’t know why.”

Part of the reason may be that whereas Israelis and Palestinians have countless sympathizers in the West, Sudan’s feuding factions do not inspire much sympathy. The Rapid Support Forces grew out of Janjaweed militias which waged a genocidal campaign in Darfur in the mid-2000s. The Sudanese Armed Forces, fighting mainly to keep control of their economic empire, represent the last bastion of Sudan’s pre-2019 authoritarian regime.

Whatever the cause, media disinterest in Sudan helps ensure a lack of diplomatic pressure to effect a ceasefire. As USIP Africa Center advisor Alex Rondos told The Washington Institute, “Washington’s apparent disengagement from this crisis has had a profound effect … There is no catalyst to bring everyone to the table.”

This drift brings consequences beyond the humanitarian realm. Sudan, a country of more than 50 million people, had recently begun to emerge from decades of Iranian influence and Islamist rule and formally committed to join the Abraham Accords. Today, Iran and its Russian ally are vying again for dominance amid the chaos — and counting on their Western adversaries to turn a blind eye.

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at ahed@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Market Report

Hamas Tells the World Gazans Are Starving — While Inside Gaza, It Brags of Abundance

For 17 years, Hamas used brutality and spin to dominate Gaza while narrating victimhood to outsiders.

Last week, even as UN officials warned that Gaza faces “full-blown famine,” Hamas activists posted video of Gazan markets stocked with cheap produce. “Cucumbers for five shekels!” one buyer exclaimed. “God willing, with these prices we’ll win the war!” 

It’s clear that by alleging famine to outsiders, Hamas and its proxies seek to grow international pressure on Israel. But why do Hamas activists meanwhile tell Gazans that the Strip is filled with food at affordable prices?

The answer lies in the deepening animosity Gazans harbor toward Hamas over its theft of international aid. Locals charge that most food entering Gaza is diverted by Hamas to its members and supporters. As one resident of Rafah recently told us, “Food aid, and things like flour and so on, we don’t get any help with. All of this goes to Hamas, who give it to their relatives and the security forces … They have nothing to pay them with so they buy them with aid.” 

Food shipments into the Strip since January total 3,268 calories per person per day, which would suffice to feed the population – free of charge – assuming fair distribution. But Hamas’s paramilitaries commandeer most aid as soon as it enters the Strip, either hoarding it or reselling it to merchants at inflated prices. Gazans have shown their anger through repeated anti-Hamas street protests and armed clashes with Hamas gunmen looting aid.

Hamas strives to manage this unrest in the same way it has governed Gaza for the past 17 years: a combination of brutality and spin. Blaming merchants for the high prices Hamas itself has imposed as their supplier, it deploys masked, baton-wielding “popular defense committees” into marketplaces to threaten vendors and publicly execute civilians accused of stealing aid. As food supply into the Strip continues to increase, Hamas films performative market visits, such as the one above, which praise the “Ministry of Economy and Agriculture” for lowering prices. 

All the while, the militia’s foreign messaging claims “worsening famine” and deflects blame onto Israel for purportedly employing “starvation tactics.”

Such is the double narrative which Hamas has employed since its 2006 coup: to foreigners and non-Palestinian Arabs, a tale of victimization; to Gazans, a projection of power and authority. In deploying the same approach so brazenly now, Hamas signals not only its confidence that the world will fall for it, but also its expectation to win the war and resume business as usual.

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at ahed@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

What We’re Reading

• In “What I’ve Heard from Gaza” (The Atlantic), Ahmed Fouad al-Khatib warns Hamas may “attempt to drag a million and a half civilians in Rafah down with it, in the final chapter of its suicidal adventure.”

• Half a world away, Haiti is beset by gangland militias that terrorize their own population. In “A Warlord Turns to Death, Rape, and Rap Videos to Expand Control in Haiti” (Wall Street Journal), Kejal Vyas reports that Haitian gangs, like jihadists, use social media to grow their numbers and intimidate opposition.

• Such parallels call for cross-disciplinary thinking. In Transnational Actors in War and Peace (Georgetown University Press), David Malet and Miriam Anderson say terror specialists and criminologists should stop “stovepiping” their work into separate subfields and learn from one another.

Field Report

In Egypt, Economic Fears Eclipse Support for Radicalism

Though Yemen’s Houthi militia says its attacks on Red Sea shipping target Israel, the real victims are Egyptian civilians.

Conventional wisdom holds the Gaza war is “radicalizing the Arab world.” The closer one looks, however, the less this view stands up to scrutiny. Recent CPC dispatches from Syria and Yemen found civilians preoccupied not with distant Gaza but with predatory forces at home: they see Iran’s local proxies using the Gaza crisis as a pretext to intensify their own brutality and corruption.

A similar view finds prominent expression in the largest Arab country, Egypt. Last week, CPC staff interviewed Egyptians from all walks of life about the effects of the Houthi militia’s campaign against Red Sea shipping. (Watch excerpts in the video above.) We found less sympathy for the Houthis in Cairo than on some American college campuses.

“We hoped this year would bring economic recovery,” economist Hani al-Gamal told us, “[but] the turmoil the Houthis have wrought in the Red Sea is like a bullet fired in the wrong direction.”

Houthi missile strikes on Red Sea shipping have cut merchant traffic through the Suez Canal by 50%, reports the IMF, shrinking a critical source of foreign currency for Egypt’s import-dependent economy. There is a further problem: “We’ve been waiting two months for shipments that normally take ten days,” Cairo shopkeeper Yahya Sakr said. These delays “cause shortages which jack up prices,” explained electronics merchant Muhammad al-Dali. “Egypt is getting hit from all sides.”

Though anti-Israel sentiment in the country remains widespread, the Houthi claim that its Red Sea campaign “exclusively targets the Israeli enemy and supports the oppressed Palestinian people” rings hollow for many Egyptians. In truth, former Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammad Hegazy told us, the strikes pose “a strategic threat to Egypt.”

For nearly four years, supporters of the Abraham Accords have argued that Arabs must choose between the strife and state failure of Syria and Yemen and the vision of peace and development espoused by Israel and the UAE. After October 7, this case has grown stronger: Arab publics understand that the “Axis of Resistance” is both doubling down on repression within its orbit and intensifying hardship in the broader region. These actions heighten yearning for a different future.

Comment

To Roll Back Terrorist Dominance, Apply Strategies that Worked Against the Mob

Organized crime and jihadists operate in similar ways — and share some of the same vulnerabilities.

Islamist militias behave somewhat like a mafia. Hamas runs extortion rackets, ISIS financed its rise through black market oil sales, and Hezbollah is deeply involved in the drug trade.

The similarities run in the other direction, too. Much like terror groups, today’s crime syndicates use social media as a recruitment tool, carve out “no-go zones” where police fear to tread, and cultivate counter-establishment ideologies tinged with chauvinism.

These and other parallels suggest that the struggle against terror can draw inspiration from successful efforts to counter organized crime.

CPC President Joseph Braude notes that in gang-plagued cities, “civic actors have augmented law enforcement with community outreach, education, and special police training.” In campaigns against the Sicilian and Neapolitan Mafia, Asian gangster triads, and South American drug cartels, they advocated a “culture of lawfulness” as an antidote to mob dominance. The video above features experts on these efforts who believe they bear relevance to the Middle East.

John Jay College professor Heath Grant, a CPC Director, says the crux of the challenge is to weaken the mob by building “opportunities for youth to lead a life of hope and resilience.” Local buy-in for the process is essential, he says, and cookie cutter approaches don’t work — but some Arab officials want to import this expertise and tailor it to local conditions.

When on rare occasions a military coalition defeats a jihadist rump state, the question becomes how to build a decent system in its wake. The coalition that ended the ISIS “caliphate” did not seize the opportunity to do so. Architects of the present struggle against Hamas and other Iranian proxies cannot afford to make the same mistake.

Eye on Spin

Russian Disinformation Versus Arab Civil Society

Moscow’s propaganda empire undermines hope in Arab lands.

If you doubt civil society can sprout in Arab countries, consider Syria’s all-volunteer White Helmets. Over five years of civil war beginning in 2013, they saved more than 100,000 lives, including rebels and government soldiers alike. Armed only with cameras, they drew global attention to Assad regime atrocities. They won the UAE’s Arab Hope Makers Award and two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Had Arabic-language media worked concertedly to spread their message of hope, the White Helmets could have inspired equivalent action by civilians in other civil war-ravaged countries. Instead, the group faced relentless demonization. The culprits included Assad propagandists and Iran — but the heavy lifting was done by Moscow.

Russian broadcasts RT Arabic and Sputnik portrayed the White Helmets as ISIS jihadists paid by MI6, and claimed the group staged chemical attacks against civilians. Russian social media spread the same lies in numerous languages, swarming elite policy discussions as far west as Washington. They found an echo in American far-right media, which parroted the same disinformation. Arab public support for the White Helmets shrank, and even the State Department temporarily suspended funding pending an investigation.

Where were the group’s defenders? White Helmet sympathizers include the U.S. and its Arab and European allies, each with media capacities of its own. But none matches Moscow’s information operations. Russian broadcasts far outspend their rivals — in the case of the U.S. TV channel Al-Hurra, by a factor of six to one. Their Arab audiences far exceed those of Western-backed channels, and in some countries even overtake Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. As to social media, one study found that Russia’s war on the White Helmets alone included 12.6 million tweets by 2.65 million accounts.

Disinformation has served Russian governments for over a century to insulate their weak institutions and economy by destabilizing foreign rivals. In such efforts, multiple Russian state divisions use non-state assets to magnify their work. The vastness of their output is captured by this 3D diagram of the White Helmets smear campaign worldwide. Western countermeasures, by contrast, are disunited, slowed by bureaucracy, and constrained by antiquated laws.

The White Helmets episode provides a case in point as to how Moscow hurts prospects for civil society in the Middle East – and beckons the U.S. and its allies to streamline, expand, and coordinate their information operations. 

Quoted

“If you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future.”
— Ali bin Abi Talib (cousin and son-in-law to the prophet Muhammad and the fourth Caliph in Islam)

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at ahed@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

What We’re Reading

• In "Five Years After the Caliphate" (TWI Policy Watch), Devorah Margolin and Camille Jablonski explain how sustained international effort reduced the Islamic State in Syria to a shadow of its former self – but warn of a resurgence.

• For all Syria's troubles, Afghanistan shows how leaving a terror militia to rule yields worse, as Ruchi Kumar reports in "Taliban edict to resume stoning women to death met with horror" (The Guardian): “They tested their draconian policies one by one, and have reached this point because there is no one to hold them accountable.”

• From Sudan, Muhammad Amin shares a cautionary tale of how armed groups exploit emerging war economies, in "Army and RSF both profiting from smuggling of vital goods" (Middle East Eye): "If you complain, they take all your money.”

Comment

Palestinian Poll Shows Hamas Gaining Ground — Or Does it?

What’s growing isn’t Gazan support for Hamas but Gazan fears Hamas will win the war.

The video above from Rafah highlights Gazan determination to outlive Hamas and forge a better day. A new survey by Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, however, suggests a countervailing trend: 52% of Gazans say Hamas should rule after the war, up from 38% three months ago. Peace supporters pronounced the data “depressing,” while Hamas politbureau member Husam Badran boasted to Alarabiya, “Hamas popularity is rising by leaps and bounds in Gaza.”

Shikaki, a seasoned Palestinian pollster, professed surprise at his own finding: “Given the magnitude of suffering in the Gaza Strip,” he said, the spike in Hamas support seemed “the most counterintuitive of the entire poll.”

A closer look shows that levels of Palestinian support for Hamas rule correlated with the answer to a separate question: who do you expect will win the war? 

For clues as to why, consider that while Hamas has been battered in much of Gaza, in Rafah, where most Gazans now live, Hamas enforcers patrol the streets in baton-wielding gangs and arrest suspected opponents en masse. The IDF has meanwhile reduced its Gazan footprint by over two thirds. In other words, political life in Gaza has partly reverted to the pre-war norm. Unsurprisingly, 56% of Gazans in Shikaki’s poll anticipate a Hamas victory, up from 50% three months ago.

Data from the West Bank, where support for Hamas is consistently greater than in Gaza, shows the same correlation between expectations Hamas will win and support for Hamas to rule: Shikaki reports an 11% decline in West Bank support for Hamas rule — alongside a 14% drop in West Bankers’ expectation of Hamas victory. 

The courage of Gazan youth in the above video may be rare, but their sentiments are widespread. What’s rising is not the desire for Hamas rule but Gazans’ fear that they will still be at the group’s mercy when the dust settles.

Insider’s Glimpse

The Myth of Pan-Arab Fixation on Gaza

Locals in Syria and Yemen say Western outlooks on the Gaza war lack perspective.

Al-Jazeera paints Arabs region-wide as singularly focused on the war in Gaza. The October 7 attacks, one pundit writes, “reaffirmed the centrality of Jerusalem to the Arab and Islamic worlds,” where everyone yearns to “defeat the Zionist project.” A similar gloss prevails in much Western commentary: experts blame the Gaza conflict for “radicalizing moderate Arab states” and lament damage to “America’s image” for allying with Israel.

This reading of Arab sentiment may be common, but it does not hold up to scrutiny. The last Peacecomms Newsletter highlighted Yemenis under Houthi control who dismissed the militia’s claim of championing the Palestinians as “an act” to perpetuate its local reign of terror. Their preoccupation was not Gaza but how to end Houthi rule in Yemen. For this edition, we visited the northwest Syrian city of Idlib, and heard a similar perspective: civilians there aren’t galvanized by the Gaza war; they’re distressed at how the global focus on it harms them personally.

Activist Muhammad Salqan told us that while “media has stopped paying attention to us in Idlib,” the Assad regime exploits the world’s distraction to wage “constant airstrikes, shelling, and atrocities.” (After October 7, Damascus launched the most intense military escalation against Idlib in four years.)

Ghaith Sarraj, a local engineer, explained why hunger is growing in Idlib: “Aid to northern Syria has been seriously affected as international organizations partially withdraw their interest and focus from northern Syria in favor of Gaza.”

The World Food Programme, in fact, recently ended food aid to 3.2 million Syrians, most suffering from hunger, only to announce its readiness to feed “all 2.2 million people across Gaza.” In such a turn lies the irony of the Western assumption that Gaza inflames pan-Arab rage: from a Syrian vantage point, it is Westerners, not Arabs, whose outlook on the war is driven by emotion more than reason.

Faces of Courage

Curbing Hezbollah’s Machinery of Repression

A U.S. Senator tries to end the court-martialing of peace activists in Lebanon.

Makram Rabah, an outspoken opponent of Hezbollah in Lebanon, has a tweet by U.S. Senator Roger Wicker to thank for his freedom. Rabah recently accused Hezbollah of seeking to drag Lebanon into another ruinous war with Israel. In response, Lebanon’s military court ordered him detained and questioned. Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, denounced the Lebanese Armed Forces, which subsists on U.S. aid, for “doing Hezbollah’s bidding by targeting Makram Rabah,” and pledged to “scrutinize LAF assistance” going forward. 

This exchange fits a years-long pattern stemming from Hezbollah’s continual use of the military court to persecute its critics. The same court tried and convicted Lebanese journalist (and present Washington Institute Senior Fellow) Hanin Ghaddar on trumped-up charges, as well as social media activist Kinda Al-Khatib for the “crime” of texting with an Israeli journalist. In each case, Americans sympathetic to the Lebanese victim leveraged U.S. assistance to the LAF to push back on the military court. The court modified its behavior toward the specific victims, but went on to target other opponents of Hezbollah.

Wicker’s statement helpfully shifts the emphasis from victim to perpetrator. Military courts are supposed to try soldiers, not torture civilians, and U.S. taxpayers should not fund the court-martial of Lebanese peace activists on Hezbollah’s behalf. Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed should join Wicker in saying so. Removing the military court from Hezbollah’s toolkit of repression won’t stop the group from quashing opposition, but it will take away the veneer of legitimacy and help reclaim a piece of the Lebanese state for its people. Such progress emboldens Makram Rabah and other brave Lebanese opponents of Hezbollah to press further.

Quoted

“Every sinner will find one to pardon him, except the unjust, in whose fall all rejoice with one accord.  As much as injustice gives you, so much does it take from you.”
— Ibn Zafar Al-Siqilli (12th century Arab-Sicilian philosopher), from Consolation for the Ruler Amid the Hostility of His Subjects

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at ahed@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

What We’re Reading

• In “It’s not too late to give Gaza a better future — one that does not include Hamas” (The Atlantic), Ahmed Fouad al-Khatib says Gazans are ready to show leadership in a post-Hamas future, and letting them down would mean countless civilians died in vain.

• Arab leaders essentially agree, writes Washington Institute chief Rob Satloff in “From War to Peace in the Middle East? Observations from a Regional Tour” (The Washington Institute): “Israel is fighting for us in Gaza,” one senior Arab official told him privately, “and if it wins, it will succeed in defeating an Iranian proxy for the first time in forty years.” 

• Will Iranian proxy-in-chief Hezbollah meanwhile escalate attacks on Israel’s north? In “The Gaza war is testing Hezbollah’s strategic capability” (Chatham House), Lina Khatib says probably not; the group and its patron have too much to lose, and threatening speeches by the Hezbollah leader feel like bluster.

• But watch out when trying to read a leader’s mind through speeches — and check out Politics and Trickery Among the Arabs (Al-Siyasa wa ‘l-Hila ‘ind al-Arab) (Dar al-Saqi), a manual for deception in Arab statecraft predating Machiavelli’s The Prince by a century. 

Faces of Courage

Biden has a plan to bring food to Gaza’s shores — but the challenge is reaching Gazan mouths. The solution is local leadership.

President Biden says the U.S. will build a pier off the Gazan coast to “enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.” But what happens to the aid after it leaves the dock? Hungry Gazans and Israeli officials agree that Hamas will do its best to steal it. The terror group hijacks food deliveries, hoards supplies, and feeds its stalwarts, then sells tons more food to area merchants at a premium — at that, in bags marked “not for sale” by donor nations. Jacked-up prices prevent most Gazans from buying as much as they need, while the proceeds fund Hamas’s war machine.

Months before the theft of Gazan aid became a focus of international policy, some Gazan activists waged self-styled attempts to skirt Hamas’s chokehold. The NGO Palestinian Youth for Development, founded by veterans of Gaza’s 2019 anti-Hamas street demonstrations, raised small sums to buy and give away food. This humble effort sent a message of self-help and hope: the organizers knew Hamas would threaten them, but judged it vital to show Gazans that even amid war, civil society is possible. In doing so, they earned Palestinian and international solidarity and a rightful place in the future administration of the Strip.

This precedent also bears a message for American, Israeli, and other planners as they strive to channel food to the Gazans who need it: aid distribution today provides a staging ground for civil leadership tomorrow. Is the administration thinking along these lines? White House plans to move food off the pier reportedly center around Fogbow, a private American contractor composed of ex-U.S. military, CIA, USAID, and other officials. Outsourcing the work to a Western firm risks distancing courageous locals from the opportunity to prove their mettle. Much will depend on how the effort is structured, and whether those who implement it prioritize the vision of a civil Gaza.

Comment

Yemen, Yemen, make us proud

While Western protesters cheer Yemen’s Houthis, Yemeni civilians want to oust them. 

If you like Hamas as a governing actor, you’ll love Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia: they starve civilians to fund their war machine and send 12-year-olds to battle while slaughtering their parents. CPC is documenting the tragedy through our new, ongoing series of face-to-face interviews with Yemeni civilians in the Houthi-dominated city of Taiz. Watch a clip from one of the interviews above. 

As the clip also shows, far from Yemen, Western demonstrators cheer the Houthis for bombing trade ships in the Red Sea — the militia’s response, it says, to war between Israel and Hamas. Western governments, troubled by the attacks, have waged retaliatory missile strikes, but so far failed to end the assault. 

We share this video testimony not only to show Western protesters what kind of warlords they’ve been celebrating, but also to remind policymakers that there is a better way to challenge Houthi rule: help the millions who suffer under it struggle for a different future. Ten months before October 7, we platformed the many Palestinians who blame Hamas for their suffering and tried to confront the terror group inside Gaza. Over 17 years of Hamas rule, the world snubbed these Gazans’ courage. 

We’ll never know how the situation would be different today had outsiders responded to Gazans’ plea for help in challenging Hamas. But further misfortune lies ahead if we don’t draw a lesson that bears relevance to every country where terror militias rule: from Lebanon and Syria to Yemen and Iraq, Iran’s subject peoples want international assistance in driving change. Hopes for a more peaceful region hinge on providing it.

Comment

China’s Media War in Arabic

Arabic platforms Beijing controls outdo their American rivals.

While Israel wages its campaign in Gaza, Hamas and its allies are fighting a global information war — and winning. Across the region, they’ve radicalized public opinion and demonized the Arab peace camp. Around the world, they’ve turned a large swath of young people against bedrock principles of peace and security that used to be consensus policy goals.

A leader in this effort is China. Western publics know about its flagship tool of disinformation — the social media juggernaut TikTok — which pumps pro-Hamas content into tens of millions of American smartphones, twisting youth opinion en masse. In the Middle East, TikTok is just the tip of the iceberg. Our team has tracked the steady growth of Beijing’s TV, radio, and social media assets in Arabic, as well as its strategy of partnership with media-savvy autocrats and their platforms. The video above highlights the subtlety and prowess of this campaign: watch Chinese children, journalists, and game show hosts exhibiting their fluent Arabic — an impressive demonstration of China’s commitment to the region — and a Uighur Muslim forced to pretend his people aren’t being slaughtered by Beijing. Read Joseph Braude’s study of the strategy that underlies this content here.

Once upon a time, U.S.-backed broadcasts Voice of America and Radio Liberty beamed honesty and reason into Soviet-occupied countries and, in so doing, helped win the Cold War. After September 11, the U.S. tried to bring the same spirit to Arab societies through new Arabic outlets, Al-Hurra TV and Radio Sawa. Evaluations of these channels today, alas, find little evidence of a coherent message — and a tendency by multiple broadcasters to assail American foreign policy rather than explain it.

We can and must do better. Watch these pages in coming weeks for details of a new initiative to push back on disinformation campaigns in Arabic — and find out how you can help.

Quoted

“You only know the universe to the extent you know its shadows.” — Ibn Arabi (Sufi poet and philosopher)

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at polina@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Lebanese anti-Hezbollah activist, newly released from prison, speaks out again. Mariam al-Lahham rails against the terror group for stymying all criticism and making the country a military outpost of Iran. A Gazan describes life on top of an active Hamas tunnel construction site. “We don’t want to live above a stockpile of weapons,” he told the diggers, before being forced to leave. Arabic Twitter is awash in heated responses to a Gazan’s tweet: “What has Hamas given the Palestinians?” Many Palestinians replied that Hamas’ actions are unforgivable, and demanded that the organization be held accountable.

Comment

Virtual education and the future of Gaza

Gazan youth have told us time and time again that they seek a way out of Hamas’s system of thought control — and an alternative to schooling that promotes “martyrdom” and hate. One potentially transformative option to consider is virtual education.

We asked Michael Strong, a pioneer in virtual learning, to lay out a vision for applying his teaching model to Gaza. His brainchild, The Socratic Experience, is an accredited school that gathers students from around the world via their laptops to discover diverse intellectual traditions and learn to think independently. 

In his paper for CPC, Strong recounted a poignant experience as headmaster with bearing, he felt, on the plight of Gazan children. Last year, a mother of five from a war-torn Arab state asked Strong to teach her children. While hiding from a terror group’s death threats, the children couldn’t safely learn in any school. Strong's virtual academy welcomed them into a community of far-flung students, each facing challenges of their own, where together they defied their tormentors by developing into strong readers, writers, and critical thinkers.

Virtual learning like Strong’s can help begin to address the challenge of education reform in Gaza. It requires little local infrastructure, and circumvents the toxic teaching climate of UNRWA and Hamas-run schools. While at best only part of the answer, it can foster social progress by fortifying young minds, and even provide a path to earning a living online, bypassing local corruption.

Read Strong’s paper, “Educating for Civility and Prosperity,” in CPC’s monograph on Gaza, A Platform for Silenced Voices. 

Face of Courage

Meet Talal al-Hariri.

In 2021, Talal al-Hariri, a co-organizer of anti-Iranian street demonstrations in Baghdad, formed the “October 25 Movement,” a political party espousing a secular Iraq, free of sectarianism and corruption.

The party’s charter called for disarming Iran-backed militias and normalizing relations with Israel. Hariri also called for reconnecting Iraq with its displaced religious minorities – including its ancient Jewish community, which emigrated en masse, mostly to Israel, in the mid-twentieth century – and restoring the spirit of tolerance that once characterized Iraq’s diverse society.

Iraq’s Shia Islamists responded with a media campaign of incitement to violence against Hariri. Rather than recant, Hariri continued to provoke the militias and their supporters by appearing as a commentator on Israeli television.

Escalating militia threats made Hariri’s position in Iraq untenable, forcing him to flee the country. But from his new home in Turkey, he’s keeping up the fight: on his new weekly broadcast for the nascent pan-Arab media outlet Jusoor, he spotlights brave voices across the region who share his vision but have never been granted a platform before. 

Follow Hariri on X (Twitter) here.

Insider’s Glimpse

Addressing Gazan fears of a Hamas victory — CPC talks to The Times of Israel.

In a recent interview with Times of Israel reporter Gianluca Pacchiani, CPC President Joseph Braude explained how Hamas exploits its control of aid distribution:

“The vast majority of the Gazan population are on the third degree of the rung of beneficiaries,” Braude explained. “The first level – the narrowest – includes the Hamas leadership and elite fighters. The second comprises about 30% of the population, Hamas’s true base – the stalwarts, the families, the nepotistic patronage network. Then below that is 70% of the population that really is not a part of that system, and they are the last people to receive aid.”

He said that most Gazans expect a post-war reality similar to the pre-October 7 past:

“Gazans are not convinced that Hamas’s rule can be ended, and believe that the war will conclude with a return to the status quo… How can you blame them? Four rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas have taken place since the terror group wrested control of Gaza in 2007, and each one ended with Hamas remaining in power… Many Gazans fear that it’s premature to prepare for a post-Hamas future because they don’t necessarily see Hamas being unseated.” 

But he also saw potential for a rapid shift in public perception, given new departures in a portion of Gaza:

“According to some media reports, protected areas may emerge within Gaza amid shifting wartime conditions, where reconstruction could begin and civilian life could resume. If Gazans in those areas show leadership, they can model a future without Hamas. Many Gazans, including ones we have spoken with, would much prefer a civil administration supported by a combination of Gazans and allied countries, including Israel, than return to the rule of Hamas.”

Read the whole piece here — and reply to our Tweet on the article with your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

Quoted

“History does not need explanatory principles, but only words to tell how things were.” ―Elie Kedourie, British-Iraqi historian of the Middle East

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at polina@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Videos have emerged of Hamas arresting Gazan civilians for independently distributing aid — and forcing them to chant “we’re criminal dogs.” Hamas seeks total control over humanitarian aid, and routinely punishes Gazans who threaten their monopoly. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Sudani is sending very mixed messages on whether US should withdraw or not. Iraq analyst Abbas Kadhim explains how Iranian proxies’ attacks on American forces are driven less by the Gaza conflict and more by Tehran’s desire to drive American troops out of Iraq. Gazan civilians fight back against Hamas in Rafah. Even in Hamas’s last stronghold, some highly motivated locals are challenging its control.

Face of Courage

Meet Saudi actor and satirist Nasser Al-Qasabi.

In 2015, while the Saudi government was hitting back at ISIS for bombing local mosques, Qasabi took aim at the jihadist group in a full season of his hit TV show 'Selfie':

Al-Qasabi faced death threats from ISIS after this aired — but rather than recant, he vowed to take anyone who slanders him to court.

How does a region roll back extremist indoctrination? Part of the answer lies with brave figures like Qasabi who use the power of media to turn the public against jihadists by exposing the destruction they wreak. A cooperative system — like a reform-minded Saudi leadership – is essential, but so are civilians willing to take a stand. In Iran-dominated Lebanon and Gaza, finding and supporting people like Qasabi to speak out against ideological extremism is even more important.

History

The guerillas of yesteryear: Nazi Germany’s “werewolves” and the Israel-Hamas war.

At the end of World War II, the Allies were surprised to confront a small German guerilla force, reminiscent in certain respects of the irregulars Israel faces in Gaza today: the so-called “werewolves.” From hideouts in Germany’s forests, these Nazi loyalists tried to stop Germany's rehabilitation by targeting local German leaders who worked with the Allies. They assassinated several mayors and staged sniper and hit-and-run attacks on Allied occupation forces — tactics resembling those now employed by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades. 

The werewolves were born out of media incitement. In 1944-’45, Himmler and Goebbels, facing imminent defeat and desperate to keep Nazi ideology alive, used radio to popularize its civilian partisans with the moniker “werewolves,” urging more Germans to join in fighting the Allies and “enemy collaborators.” The werewolves managed to kill several thousand, but failed to turn the tide of war. When it became clear that the Allies’ commitment to German de-Nazification and reconstruction was unrelenting – and that the war-weary German public welcomed the emerging system – the werewolves lost all support.

Comment

Hamas trickles back into Gaza City. Will they fall like Berlin or rise like Mosul?

In June 2014, ISIS achieved in Iraq what Nazi dead-enders couldn’t in post-WWII Germany. Rebounding from their near-total defeat in 2008-’11, these Sunni jihadists waged a long, grinding campaign of assassination, intimidation, and guerilla warfare. This process reached its apex in Mosul, where, over several months, ISIS systematically hollowed out the Iraqi government, military, and police presence. The central government in Baghdad, beset by internal division and complacency, failed to hit back. By the time ISIS finally stormed the city, routing a garrison twenty times its size, the Iraqi government’s hold on Mosul had already been reduced to a shadow.

Hamas is now attempting to reclaim power in Gaza City. Though diminished, it still commands thousands of operatives throughout the Strip’s urban sprawls, above and below ground. The prospect of Israel neutralizing all these Hamas elements seems uncertain, particularly as calls for a ceasefire gain traction. But hopes for a new, moderate leadership to take the helm in Gaza hinge on reducing Hamas beyond the point where it can intimidate peace-minded civilians into silence. 

Mosul and post-WWII Germany illustrate two possible paths for Gaza’s future. Nazi dead-enders, however determined, were overpowered by the Allies’ determination, shared by most Germans, to reshape Germany. Conversely, ISIS’s capture of Mosul shows that material superiority alone doesn’t defeat a relentless enemy.

Gaza has reached a crossroads between these two precedents. But a sustained partnership between Israel and its allies on the one hand and anti-Hamas Gazans on the other offers the potential for a better, more peaceful future — and can reduce Hamas, like the werewolves, to a footnote of history.

Quoted

“Thus was my turning from the King [Shah] to the cleric [Faqih]: fleeing the ant, I entered the mouth of the dragon.” — Naser-e Khosraw (d. 1088)

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at polina@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Hamas is attempting to reconstitute its civilian police force in Gaza City. Intermittent reports for over a month suggest this has been happening even amid IDF operations. Yemen’s Saudi-backed government praises U.S. for re-designating the Houthis a terror group. They called on other countries to follow suit. A new poll by the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar shows nearly 70 percent of Lebanese oppose entering the war with Israel. Even among Hezbollah’s Shi’ite constituency, half reject war.  

Faces of Courage

Lebanese Shi’ites take a stand against Hezbollah.

Lebanese street demonstrations before a Hezbollah crackdown, 2019.

Nine days after October 7th, Lebanese Shi’ites launched a new organization to counter Hezbollah. “Taharror”—Arabic for liberation—opposes war with Israel on grounds it “serves Iran’s strategy and agenda in the Arab world at the cost of destroying Lebanon,” and advocates “modernity and a liberal system” instead of Hezbollah domination.

At the group’s founding event in Beirut’s Smallville Hotel, speakers called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon to end Hezbollah-Israel fighting. While clashes escalated along the border, Taharror waged grassroots events in Shi’ite areas and made its case on Lebanese TV and social media.

Who’s behind this gutsy venture? Shi’ite veterans of the nationwide 2019 street demonstrations, which met a brutal Hezbollah-led crackdown. Taharror co-founder Ali Khalife is a professor at Lebanese University and one-time candidate for parliament. Another co-founder, physician Hadi Mourad, spearheaded the “White Coats Organization,” which blasts Hezbollah elites for presiding over a failed healthcare system.

Taking on the world’s leading terror organization is a tall order. But these scrappy activists enter the ring with an advantage: the support of most Lebanese citizens. According to Hanin Ghaddar, senior Lebanon analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “Taharror has gained considerable visibility and support from Shi’ites and Lebanese generally for the simple reason that they are saying publicly what every Shi’ite says in private: no one wants war, and the Lebanese cannot afford another confrontation with Israel.”

Comment

Lebanon was once the Switzerland of the Middle East. Can its people reclaim that legacy?

Lebanese Shi’ites who take a stand against Hezbollah are hardly in it for wealth or fame. They stand for a tradition dating back to Lebanon’s founding: neutrality.

Before Hezbollah, generations of Lebanese leaders maintained a neutral posture in regional affairs, making the country a capital of commerce and communication and earning Lebanon the moniker, “Switzerland of the Middle East.” Today, Lebanon is the opposite of neutral; it’s a central front in Iran’s war on Israel. But neutrality endures as a rallying cry for the many Lebanese who do not want to be a party to that conflict. 

In April 2022, Lebanese of every sect convened to demand their country restore its posture of neutrality. Addressing a live TV audience, they called on Hezbollah to disarm — and let the Lebanese government alone decide on war and peace while the population reopens to all its neighbors, including Israelis.

The people who made this case lack wealthy patrons, a military arsenal, and a propaganda machine — but most Lebanese agree with them. Hezbollah depends on money and weapons for the simple reason that its own ideology is bankrupt. In a fair competition with Lebanon’s peace camp, it would lose. The question is, what can be done to level the playing field?

Insider’s Glimpse

The Gazan imam kidnapped by Hamas was freed. A turning point, or an exception to prove the rule?

On January 4th, we revealed in the Free Press that Hamas had abducted Mohammed Mushtaha, a Gaza City imam who refused to give a sermon praising Hamas. 

Last week, we confirmed that Mushtaha was released from captivity two days after the Free Press article ran. The story went viral, with many Palestinians demanding his release. According to Palestinian affairs expert Ghaith al-Omari, “Hamas appears to have decided that the political cost of holding him captive was too great.”

More brave figures like Mushtaha will be essential to defeating Hamas ideologically – but will they step up while Hamas is still in a position to harm them? 

Recent developments raise the concern that no arrangement to protect such people will be forthcoming. On his latest visit to Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken eschewed any reference to dismantling Hamas as a U.S.-backed war aim, defining the goal Washington supports more narrowly as “ensuring that October 7 can never happen again.” Hamas, meanwhile, is reportedly attempting to reconstitute its repressive security apparatus in parts of Gaza City.

If Hamas retains the power to govern in Gaza, it will teach a new generation to idealize October 7th, strive to perpetrate worse, and oppress the Gazan population indefinitely. Though we feel gratified to have helped secure Mohammed Mushtaha’s release, we fear that no system is emerging to put the extraordinary courage he and others have shown to good use. 

Quoted

The day will come for the despot to pay.  — Lebanese proverb

If you have tips, stories, thoughts, or questions, email us at polina@peacecomms.org. We’re all ears.

Not in the Headlines

More and more Gazan civilians are speaking out against Hamas. A viral video shows a young Gazan demanding the terror group be held accountable. Anti-Hamas Palestinian youth launch a charity that distributes aid to Gazans in need. Founder Moumen Al-Natour was jailed and tortured 20 times by Hamas for co-organizing anti-Hamas street protests. Videos have emerged of state-sponsored bombing in Idlib, Syria — but indiscriminate attacks on the mostly Sunni population of this northwest Syrian province are drawing neither solidarity nor attention in Western capitals.   

Face of Courage

Meet Dalia Ziada.

Slammed with criminal lawsuits, accusations of espionage, and death threats, Dalia Ziada—Chair of the Liberal Democracy Institute and executive director of MEEM Center for Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean Studies—fled Egypt in the nick of time. She now lives in exile for speaking out against Hamas after the deadly October attacks in Israel.

A veteran of the Arab Spring protests, Ziada has a long history of campaigning for liberal democracy in Egypt, and her criticism of Hamas once aligned with official Egyptian policy. But regional views have flipped – with stunning  hypocrisy, she explains:  “For Egypt and other Arab countries, Hamas is only a terrorist group when it attacks Arabs and Egyptians,” Ziada told i24News. “But when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people, [Hamas] is no longer considered as such, but as a hero."

Ziada doesn’t know when she’ll go home again. On a nationally televised current affairs program, MP Mustafa Bakri said she could face "up to life imprisonment" upon returning to Egypt. Yet she continues to speak out.

Watch her profile in courage.

Comment

Gaza’s “Day After” — and rolling back Hamas indoctrination.

The extreme barbarism and depravity on display in Hamas’s October 7th attacks did not emerge spontaneously. They stem from years of indoctrination to hate in Hamas-run media, mosques, and schools. The need to undo this legacy poses a daunting challenge for any post-Hamas administration in Gaza, and concrete strategies have yet to emerge. 

But the challenge isn’t unprecedented. Among efforts at counter-radicalization by Arab governments, the UAE waged a decade-long campaign to erode local Muslim Brotherhood influence. It began with a quiet purge of Brotherhood-affiliated preachers, teachers, and media workers. In 2003, 170 Brotherhood members were reassigned from the education ministry, marking the start of a reshuffling that saw Islamist ideologues replaced at the helm by a cadre of more liberally-minded educators. As in any society, most of the workforce went along with the new top-down effort, which extended beyond schools — it also included purging and restructuring the country’s media and mosques.

The UAE and Gaza of course differ in countless ways, but one aspect of the Emirati experience bears adopting in any de-radicalization effort: Quite simply, the government had mapped each institution for its Brotherhood stalwarts and their opponents, and developed a long-term plan to strengthen the latter.

CPC’s daily engagement with civilians across Gaza points to a critical mass of educators, intellectuals, and activists who oppose Hamas and support systemic change and development. Over the past two years, we’ve mapped their affiliations and gauged their aspirations. The possibility of a brighter future for Gaza hinges on a smart plan to empower these and other Gazans who share the will to reach for it. 

Insider’s Glimpse

A Gazan cleric was kidnapped by Hamas. We’re drawing international attention to his plight.

Until late December, Palestinian cleric Mohammed Mushtaha served as imam at Dhu ‘l-Nurayn mosque in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shuja’iya. But when the terror group demanded he praise “the resistance” in an address to thousands of displaced persons at a nearby school, Mushtaha refused. On December 30, Qassam fighters stormed his residence and violently abducted him in front of his wife and children. 

Ala Mohammed Mushtaha, one of the cleric’s sons, asked CPC to help draw international attention to his father’s kidnapping. As part of Voices from Gaza, our ongoing partnership with the Free Press, we released Ala’s account of his father’s abduction. “My hope in telling this story … is to somehow offer my father a measure of protection,” he wrote. “Hamas may wish to release him and show the world they would never harm an admired mosque preacher. God alone knows the future, but what I know is that, under no circumstances would my father want to become a propaganda tool.”

Mushtaha’s case highlights a side of Gazan religious leadership distant from the bloodcurdling sermons of Hamas stalwarts which have captured international attention. Since 2007, Hamas has asserted dominance over all Islamic institutions and used clerics to help brainwash civilians. Mushtaha provides one example of a Muslim leader who refused to go along. How many other Gazan imams share his critical view of Hamas is difficult to establish – but among civilians, Mushtaha enjoys considerable solidarity and esteem. Earlier this week, Gazan rights activist Moumen Al-Natour demanded “that the government of Gaza free him right away and without any conditions.” Other Gazans with whom we discussed the case voiced outrage at his abduction and a desire to free him. 

We’ll post further developments in this ongoing story as we learn them.

Quoted

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” — Rumi