Beirut Archives - CrossFireArarbia

A Middle East Whirlpool! View From Amman

Saleem Ayoub Quna
August 17, 2026

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

Unlike the grey terrain of the Middle East, known for its harsh aridity and barren landscapes, the region’s still-unsettled, multi-front conflicts that erupted after the 7 October, 2023 surprise Palestinian assault on Israeli settlements around Gaza Strip, almost literally, become associated in the public imagination with the colour blue: The sea, its waves, its vessels and its strategic waterways.

The Palestinians called that watershed event Al-Aqsa Flood. Israel described 7 October as a second Holocaust. If the Palestinians deliberately chose the word flood for its religious and symbolic connotations, the Israeli way of describing it, indicated how serious and tough their losses and injuries were.

What followed was a succession of milestones and unprecedented developments across the Middle East. They continue to unfold dramatically, resembling the abrupt and unpredictable movements of hurricanes and tempests on the high seas.

Yet the side-conflicts and mini-wars that followed 7 October have neither followed a single pattern nor obeyed the same rules. Instead, events have moved in different, sometimes opposing directions — unlike the orderly circular motion of an actual whirlpool. It is almost as though every confrontation has chosen a course of its own: The predictable alongside the unpredictable, the rational alongside the seemingly illogical.

It therefore takes more than intelligent guesswork or clever political analysis to determine which direction these events will ultimately take, and which may prove more dangerous — not only to the region and its inhabitants, but also to the many international powers with interests at stake.

If we were to capture the current Middle Eastern scene in a single frame, we might portray it as an extraordinary, almost unbelievable collision of man-made tides, currents and sub-currents, all moving simultaneously through one increasingly turbulent sea.

Because the first shots fired on 7^th October around Gaza strip, from a Palestinian point of view, came as a last desperate call and reminder of the injustice they are suffering, they soon found their echoes in the four corners surrounding it: In south Lebanon, Yemen to the south and Iraq and Iran to the east. Even to the west, there were international sailors who belonged to the Peace Flotilla, trying to bring medicine and food to the starving children of Gaza!

One of the most significant currents emerged on Israel’s northern front.

What initially appeared to be a relatively “controlled” confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah steadily intensified until September 2024, when Israel killed the party’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. Only a few months later came another geopolitical earthquake: The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus in December 2024.

Each development sent another powerful current through the already boiling waters of the wider Middle Eastern whirlpool.

Then came an even larger artificial wave.

In June 2025, the United States launched Operation Midnight Hammer, striking Iran’s three principal nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan while diplomatic efforts surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme were still underway.

Washington described the operation as an attempt to inflict decisive damage on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Tehran responded with retaliatory action against American military interests in the Gulf.

But that was not the end of the storm.

On 28 February, 2026, the world witnessed another major escalation when the United States and Israel launched coordinated, large-scale attacks against Iran. The two allies acted jointly but gave their military campaigns different names: Washington called its operation Epic Fury, while Israel called its campaign Roaring Lion.

The strikes hit Iranian military infrastructure and senior leadership and inflicted substantial damage. Yet they failed to produce one of the most far-reaching political outcomes sought by US-Israeli advocates of the military campaign: The toppling of the Iranian regime.

And so the whirlpool continued.

Iran responded not simply through missiles and military retaliation, but by shifting the struggle towards one of the most strategically sensitive waterways on earth: The Strait of Hormuz.

Through restrictions on shipping, attacks on vessels and increasingly assertive claims over the waterway, Tehran transformed Hormuz into another major front in the confrontation. The strait — through which a substantial share of the world’s energy supplies traditionally passes — became yet another current dragging regional powers and the wider international community deeper into the turbulence.

Here, the metaphor of the whirlpool becomes more than literary.

Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are no longer easily separable theatres. Each produces currents that flow into the others. A military strike in one location generates political pressure somewhere else; an assassination changes the balance of power hundreds of kilometres away; a blocked shipping lane reverberates through global markets thousands of kilometres beyond the Middle East.

And all the while, new currents are being created faster than old ones can disappear.

What begins on the shores of Gaza does not remain in Gaza. What happens in Beirut, Damascus, Tehran or the Strait of Hormuz does not remain there either.

The Middle Eastern whirlpool has become too wide, too violent and too interconnected to contain its turbulence within the region itself.

And as it keeps spinning, its waves will continue to splash far beyond the shores of the Middle East — reaching, sooner or later, virtually every corner of the globe.

Conclusion: As long as the waters surrounding the Middle East remain crowded with warships, missiles, blockades, retaliatory strikes and the debris of foreign intervention, the region’s old whirlpool will continue to spin.

Culture News

In Art: Trapped Under The Rubble

marwan
August 5, 2026

Said Alatab writes:

My painting depicts a Palestinian mother and her children trapped beneath the rubble after bombing Gaza City. This work reflects the immense suffering, loss, and tragedy endured by innocent families caught in war. Through this painting, I hope to honor the victims and remind the world of the human cost of violence. Please share it. Please share and support my art

Alatab is a professional artist currently living in the United States having immigrated there in 1979. He was born in the Sabra and Shatila Camp in Beirut in 1959. After studying art in New York he became a professional artist with alluring paintings that display fascinating features which he says are inspired by his personal journey, struggles, and observations of the world.

“I often explore suffering, hope, and the human condition,” he points out. Currently, as his displayed works show, he is focusing on the war in Gaza and the suffering of its civilians. “For me, art is more than a career. It is my life’s purpose, a way to preserve memory and inspire reflection. I continue to paint to express truth, emotion, and hope.”

One of the artists who has influenced Alatab most is the great artist Vincent Van Gogh. “I feel a deep connection to his emotion, honesty, and intensity. His dedication to painting despite hardship inspires me to continue creating art that reflects my life, my struggles, and my vision of humanity,” he comments.

Culture

Margot Saba Abdo: A Photo Pioneer in Jerusalem

marwan
July 12, 2026

Margot Saba Abdo (1901 – 1974) was an exceptional female Palestinian photographer who worked in Jerusalem in the 1930s. Historian, sociologist Salim Tamari says she displayed a skill and mastery of the lens that surpassed Karimeh Abbud, another woman photographer from Nazareth at the time. Margot was born in Jerusalem to a Greek mother whose brother was the Meltiadis Savvides (Saba), a well-known photographer working there in his Savvides Studios. This is where Margot learned to take pictures in her youthful years.

However, after her education at the Greek Orthodox school where she learned Arabic, Greek, English and Russian she joined her brother’s studio, Daoud Abdo. When he went to work as the chief photographer at the Palestinian Museum, Margot managed the studio. This was from 1930 to 1948 where she worked at family portraits. After the 1948 Nakba, she moved first to Cairo and then to Beirut, again working with her brother in his studio.

Opinion

Netanyahu Has Lost Against Iran and He Knows it!

CrossFireArabia
July 5, 2026

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Benjamin Netanyahu must have been the most ardent observer, from a position of frustration, defeat, and helplessness—indeed, a sense of utter defeat—of the largest, longest, and most organized funeral procession for the martyred Imam Ali Khamenei. The assassination he had boasted about completely backfired.

Most notably, the Iranian regime emerged from the Israeli-American war of aggression stronger and more resilient, retaining its missiles, its nuclear program, and its stockpile. Even more importantly, more than one 100 international delegations participated in the funeral procession, in addition to tens of millions of Iranian citizens. Israel, along with the deceived and misled United States, had gambled on these millions joining a massive popular uprising in most Iranian cities to overthrow the ruling regime and install one subservient and loyal to the American-Israeli camp.

The fact that leading Iranian figures were at the forefront of the mourners on the first day, in an open space, with no aircraft in the sky and no tanks, armored vehicles, or missile launchers on the ground, confirms the falsehood claim of US President Donald Trump that he pledged to protect this funeral procession and prevent the Israeli occupation state from carrying out any assassination attempts against these figures, especially the two key negotiators, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Foreign Minister Dr. Abbas Araqchi.

The appearance of General Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, at the forefront of the mourning procession for the first time, perhaps confirms that the decision was purely Iranian. The Iranian leadership has repeatedly affirmed, through numerous high-ranking officials, its complete distrust of its American adversary, and it is justified in this assessment. It possesses a long list of practical and on-the-ground evidence to support this, because the consequences of any attack on the funeral procession by Israel and the United States would be extremely costly—politically, militarily, and economically—and would drag the world and its security into a third world war, the course and end of which no one can predict.

Based on this logic, I am inclined to believe the denial issued by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding a report published by The New York Times. The report stated that President Trump feared Israel might assassinate the Iranian negotiators Qalibaf and Araqchi, and therefore warned against such an action due to its repercussions on relations between the two countries.

The Israeli terrorist government, which specializes in assassinating Arab and Islamic political and military leaders—from the martyred Imam Ali Khamenei, through the martyred Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, to the third Sayyed, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, and dozens of Iranian, Lebanese, and Palestinian military leaders—cannot be transformed overnight into a docile lamb.

The undeniable truth is that Israel today is not the Israel of yesterday. Today’s Israel is terrified and defeated. All its plans have failed against the rock of Iranian steadfastness and resistance. Most, if not all, of its strategies have been exposed, its falsehoods revealed, the latest being its bet on dragging America, the superpower, into a war against Iran to completely destroy it and its missile and future nuclear capabilities.

Israel, for whom the incursion into Lebanese territory and the direct aggression against Iran with hundreds of aircraft and seen as a walk in the park, cannot these days bomb the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut with a single missile, because it knows full well that the direct response with hundreds of precision missiles and highly advanced drones to destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Dimona would be immediate.

This process of change, currently taking shape in the region, reveals and confirms a radical shift in the balance of power in the “West Asia” region—not the Middle East, the odious colonial term—and it is thanks to two key leaders and a group of brilliant minds surrounding them:

First: The martyred Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader of Iran, who assumed leadership of the Iranian Revolution after the death of its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini. He combined the two best qualities: Political, military, and executive leadership, serving as president for many years, and spiritual leadership as the Supreme Leader and Ayatollah of the Islamic “Imamate.” He developed Iran’s nuclear capabilities, transforming it into a nuclear threshold power with a stockpile of 460 kg of highly enriched uranium.

He also established a missile power with hundreds of highly advanced missiles and drones. He was one of the most ardent supporters of the Palestinian cause, providing it and its resistance fighters with all the necessary weapons and equipment, and fostering unity among the various fronts. He firmly believed that America and Israel are the primary source of danger to the Islamic nation and must be confronted and defeated.

Second: The martyr Yahya Sinwar and his comrades, those geniuses who planned, engineered, and executed the 7 October, 2023, attack, or the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” which shattered the sanctity of Israeli cities and settlements. They breached the heavily fortified borders, equipped with cameras and electrified fences, in the largest military intelligence penetration operation in the region’s history, rivaled only by the Egyptian army’s storming of the Bar-Lev Line in Ramadan of October 1973.

***

Of course, I am not comparing the two men, nor of equating them. Rather, they are the sons of a single, integrated path, deeply-rooted in the faith and history of Islamic resistance and honor. This path leads to dignity and victory, and the second, deeper, and greater phase of resistance against colonialism. With it has begun the process of radical change that will redraw the maps of West Asia and Africa according to the Islamic and Arab vision.

As for Netanyahu, who was merely a figurehead when he threatened to undertake this task and vowed to establish Greater Israel just a few months ago, will be the first victim of this change and so will his entity, and he is currently searching for an “honorable” withdrawal without appearing defeated, but his fate is inevitably prison, if he survives… And time will tell.

Abdel Bari Atwan is the Chief Editor of the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm Arabic website. He is a prolific writer and commentator on the Middle East political scene and has several books to his name including The Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (2015).

Culture News

Mona Saudi: A Sculptor Once Accused of Seeking to Kill David Ben-Gurion

CrossFireArabia
July 5, 2026

In 1969, the visual artist Mona Saudi was arrested in Copenhagen, Denmark, on charges of involvement in the attempted assassination of Israeli ex-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. The attempt occurred while Ben-Gurion was already out of office and on a European tour to seek support for Israel.

This accusation stopped the 24-year-old artist from holding her exhibition at the Copenhagen Public Library. However, it was eventually held at another location in the city, according to the Amman Evening newspaper, which also reported that the accusation halted Saudi’s planned tour to the Netherlands and Sweden.

However, the life story of this pioneering visual artist, who confronted the challenges with a feminine chisel of silk, patience, and tenacity, reveals an early genius. Despite this incident and not yet thirty years old, she went on to hold artistic exhibitions in most European countries.

Between the Nakba and Naksa!

Mona Saudi was born in Amman in 1945. She received her early education at Zein Al-Sharaf School in Amman, then obtained her secondary school certificate from Cairo in the early 1960s, before heading to Paris to enroll at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, specializing in stone sculpture. She presented her first sculpture in 1965, its theme being motherhood. She held her first exhibitions in Amman in 1963, and in 1964, in Beirut, which was then a beacon of Arab culture. She held her first exhibition at the Capitol Hotel in Beirut.

Mona Al-Saudi’s connection to the Palestinian cause didn’t end with what happened to her in 1969. Her awareness of the Palestinian Nakba was awakened when her aunt and her family arrived in Amman as refugees from Majdal Gaza. After the June 1967 defeat, Mona Al-Saudi became active in Europe, collecting donations for Palestinian refugees who had joined their brethren displaced in 1948.

She also held an exhibition, selling all her paintings and donating the proceeds to the displaced people of her homeland after sending the funds through the International Red Cross. She then returned to Jordan and went to the camps to teach children to draw. Later, she held an exhibition in the Baqa’a camp that included her drawings alongside those of the camp’s children.

Skills, Talents

Mona Al-Saudi’s talents were not limited to painting and sculpture, she also forged her path to poetry. Living in Beirut at the time, she became acquainted with a select group of poets who shaped the modernist cultural climate of that era. She published poems in the “Shi’r” (Poetry) magazine that was founded by Yusuf Al-Khal, whose aim, it was said, was to liberate Arabic poetry from its meters, rhymes, and rigidity, and to embrace the prose style. In a poem published in 1968, titled “Peace Be Upon You, Traveling Birds,” she wrote:

Intoxicated by the air, the night, and the trees

Intoxicated, I traverse the seas of oblivion

I see the shores, then turn away from them with my sail

Towards the endless waters

I count the waves, one by one

I cry out to the sea: More distance… more distance on the weary shores!

Mona Saudi’s diverse talents formed a bridge between the arts. Her poetry and painting drew inspiration from the poems of Mahmoud Darwish, Unsi al-Hajj, Saint-Jean Perrès, and Adonis. She published two collections: “First Vision” in 1970 and “Ocean of the Dream” in 1993.

Her sculptures traveled the world.

Mona Saudi’s sculptures adorned several public squares in the Jordanian capital, Amman, since the 1960s, most notably the granite sculpture “Growth,” which has stood at the Sixth Circle in Amman since 1983. Other sculptures are located in several Arab and Gulf capitals. Her famous sculpture “The Architecture of the Soul” graces the courtyard of the Arab World Institute in Paris.

Throughout her career, spanning more than half a century in the visual arts, she held numerous exhibitions of her sculptures and paintings in the Arab world, Europe, the United States, and Asia. Her works are held in the collections of the British Museum, the National Gallery of Fine Arts in Jordan, the Guggenheim Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Art Institute of Detroit in Michigan.

Mona Saudi was once asked about the difference between painting and sculpture. With the eloquence of a seasoned artist and a sensitive poet, she replied: “There is speed in painting and a lightness of expression on paper, while sculpture is born from stone through a different process.

One might say that in painting, the artist chatters, while in sculpture one must follow the stone and its capacity to bear detail. This is why sculpture is reductionist to the extreme.” Indeed, Mona Saudi embodied this ultimate reduction in her sculptures, representing a woman who struggled for decades to make stones speak.

Mona Saudi (1945–2022) was a sculptor, writer, and poet. Born in Amman, she lived in Beirut until her death from cancer on February 16, 2022. She is considered one of the greatest sculptors in the Arab world.

Taken from Palestine Heritage