8 April 2026 – Genocide and war crimes upon war crimes have been underway in our region for long, far too long. Today Lebanon is paying a heavy price inflicted by a state that acts with impunity. What is the difference between a terrorist state and a terrorist organization except that the first can indeed inflict far more harm and then call it collateral damage and a right to a preemptive self-defense.
31 March 2026 – I bought Hafiz’s Diwan in Shiraz many years ago, beautifully ornamented in shades of blue with poems in English and Farsi. I listened to one of his ghazels (poems) today where he describes a world in turmoil (the word in Farsi and Arabic is فتنة).
These lines give us hope that a Turmoil/Fitnah come to an end one day:
“Once again, the world has fallen into turmoil.
Where is the one who used to remember us?
I see no one who is happy, nor anyone with a remedy;
The hearts are bleeding, and the times are troubled.
The cup of the age is filled with the blood of the heart,
And the fragrance of loyalty has left the garden of the world.”
31 March 2026 – General Jack Keane (ret.) who was the 2nd highest ranking officer in the US military just told the BBC that Trump can order the military to destroy Iranian civilian water plants or any infrastructure targets for that matter.
He said that the military will obey because the president commands are “legal and policy”. He was not critical, he was just stating a fact and otherwise infatuated with target option and how to occupy islands and it was all about how to obey the commander in chief (Trump) in order to defeat Iran.
This general did not study the Geneva conventions nor the laws of war. The catastrophe is that he might be telling the truth about how the US military operates since he has served it for nearly 40 years from the Vietnam war to the Iraq war, during all of which the US committed many war crimes without any accountability.
Trump seems to be a crude and vulgar manifestation of a long-established way for the US to enact war, but this general was probably accurate and factual of describing it and how it happens. This should come to an end for the sake of the whole world including America.
29 March 2026 – For the first time in centuries the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem will not have mass on Palm Sunday as Christian bishops were prevented by the Israeli policy from walking alone (not in a procession) to one of the holiest sites in Christianity.
I know what the Israeli gov would most likely say in justification, I know what Christian Zionists would probably say in defense, and I also know that verbal reprimands and statements like the one here below will make no difference.
Israel has been acting with a clear sense of impunity for many years but more so since the October 7 attack, after which and in retaliation for the murder of nearly 1200 Israelis it has killed at least 72,000 Palestinians and committed a genocide in Gaza, and over the past 4 weeks killed over 3000 people in Iran and Lebanon and displaced a million people in south Lebanon and flattened residential areas ……………. About 20 Israelis have been killed since their country started showering missiles and bombs on Iran and Lebanon a month ago.
One day everybody will say they have been always against this.
27 March 2026 – The BBC had a report on how many Iranian civilians were killed by Israel’s army bombing. Then they invited the former head of the Israeli military intelligence to tell them that his country is using precision weapons and that they should interview Iranians who are hitting Israel. And then he told them they are fighting to liberate the Iranian people. Indeed, liberate them of their lives!
15 March 2026 – I very much enjoyed watching “It Was Just an Accident”, a film by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi today, partly in solidarity with Iranian art and culture and partly because Panahi is a great film maker who is also a political activist that I admire very much. He was detained by US police and imprisoned by Iranian regime, he makes movies about women, children and survivors, he is a wonderful artist. He is an ardent critic of the Iranian regime but insists on living in Iran. he joins a long list of such great Iranian filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry), Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), and Majid Majidi (Children of Heaven).
