🌳 Diplomacy or demagoguery?

TOP STORIES

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Is Waging Someone Else's War From the Wrong Office

• Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi, affiliated with the Lebanese Forces party, has sparked a sharp debate over whether Lebanon's top diplomat is serving the national interest or scoring domestic political points against Hezbollah from inside the state apparatus.
• Raggi recently warned publicly that Lebanon had received alerts indicating any Hezbollah intervention could prompt Israeli strikes on infrastructure—a claim Israeli officials quickly denied, raising questions about whether the statement was strategic deterrence or an appeal for external pressure.
• Critics from Daraj note that weeks earlier Raggi had effectively granted moral legitimacy to continued Israeli bombardment so long as Hezbollah retained its weapons—a position that directly contradicts the government's own stated stances and UN reports on ceasefire violations.
• The analogy being drawn is a damning one: just as pro-Hezbollah ministers once hijacked the Foreign Ministry to serve the resistance axis, Raggi now appears to be doing the mirror image—weaponizing diplomacy against Hezbollah rather than protecting Lebanon from all external threats.

The backstory: Lebanon's Foreign Ministry has long been a battleground between competing political factions—pro-Hezbollah ministers historically used it to advance the "axis of resistance," while sovereignty-focused politicians now hold key posts. The tension between state-level diplomacy and factional interest is structural, not new.

Why it matters: When a foreign minister's statements contradict government policy, undermine UN findings, and arguably invite foreign military action, Lebanon's diplomatic credibility—already fragile—takes another hit it can't afford.

Crumbling Walls: Lebanon Declares a Housing Emergency

• Parliament's Public Works Committee convened Wednesday under MP Sagee Attieh and declared it will issue an official state of emergency over Lebanon's deteriorating building stock, citing decades of neglect, war damage, informal construction, and administrative corruption.
• The numbers are staggering: 2,400 buildings in Beirut require urgent rehabilitation, while Tripoli alone has roughly 400 structures deemed on the verge of collapse—with Tripoli singled out as the most acute case due to higher rates of structural damage.
• A technical subcommittee was formed, pulling in the Engineers' Syndicate, relevant municipalities, and relief organizations, with a mandate to conduct field surveys, technical assessments, and push for legislative solutions—though the majority of ministers invited to the session were absent.

The bigger picture: Lebanon's crumbling housing stock isn't just an infrastructure story—it's a socioeconomic time bomb concentrated in poor, densely packed urban neighborhoods where rent laws and poverty have trapped residents inside buildings that should have been condemned years ago.

Will Lebanon's Elections Happen—Or Will "The Outside" Decide Again?

• A senior political figure with ties to the Quintet Committee ambassadors told Al-Joumhouria that most influential foreign capitals view adherence to constitutional deadlines as irrelevant—their only real priority is protecting their own interests, constitutional timelines be damned.
• The Quintet Committee—comprising Saudi Arabia, the US, France, Egypt, and Qatar—is reportedly increasing pressure to postpone the parliamentary elections scheduled for May, reversing its longstanding insistence that Lebanon honor democratic timelines as a condition for international support.
• The article draws a sharp parallel to Lebanon's recent presidential election, which only happened after foreign actors intervened decisively to provide the political cover—raising the uncomfortable question of whether Lebanon can hold any major vote on its own terms.

What to watch: Whether Lebanon's political class—which has historically deferred to external signals—finds the spine to push back on postponement pressure, or quietly acquiesces and hands the May election date to the same powers that dictated the last one.

QUICK HITS

• Airport threat, denied: Presidential sources called Foreign Minister Raggi's warnings about Israel targeting Beirut's airport "fearmongering," saying he never notified the president or parliament before going public—the PSP called the "stark contrast" between his claims and Israel's denial surprising.
• Your wallet, 5–7% lighter: A researcher at Duwali lil-Ma'lumat estimates Lebanon's new fuel surcharge and VAT hike will raise consumer prices by 5–7%, eroding purchasing power accordingly—with a new $46 per-container port scanner fee kicking in starting February 26.
• €100M for the army: The EU plans to contribute $100 million toward the March 5 Paris conference supporting the Lebanese Army, primarily for logistical equipment—with Saudi Arabia's participation in Cairo's preparatory meeting read by Western diplomats as a strongly positive signal.
• Pay up, ministers: Lebanon's Court of Audit has moved to enforce collection orders against four former telecom ministers totaling roughly $35.6 million in damages—Finance Minister Jaber confirmed that refusal to pay could trigger asset seizures under the Public Accounting Law.
• ICC or bust: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and three other organizations urged Lebanon's government to accept ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on Lebanese territory since October 2023, noting that Israeli attacks have killed over 380 people—including at least 127 civilians—since the ceasefire took effect.

INTERNATIONAL

The Epstein Files Reveal a Secret Qatar-Israel Back Channel

• Newly released US Justice Department documents—part of over 3 million pages from Jeffrey Epstein's files—reveal that Epstein helped arrange a secret December 2018 meeting in London between former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem, at a time when Qatar was diplomatically isolated by Gulf neighbors.
• Barak's name appears over 9,000 times in the released documents, while Qatari royal family member Jabr bin Yousef Al Thani's name appears 4,695 times—the files show Epstein describing bin Jassem as his "Arab uncle" and "the only sane person in Qatar."
• Post-meeting emails show Barak sent a presentation for his security company "Karbyne" expressing interest in participating in security efforts for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with Barak suggesting any deal be routed through a European company to avoid Israel's name appearing publicly.
• Barak's office confirmed the communications were an "initial idea" to explore Karbyne's involvement in the World Cup, stating "the idea was never developed"—it remains unclear whether any deal was ultimately concluded.

The bigger picture: The files offer a rare documented glimpse into the informal back-channel networks that have long underpinned Gulf-Israel commercial and intelligence relationships, well before any formal normalization agreements.

Ukraine War Enters Year Five With No Peace in Sight

• Four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the war has cost both sides nearly 2 million casualties—1.2 million on the Russian side including 325,000 killed, and 600,000 on Ukraine's side including 140,000 killed, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
• Geneva talks on February 17–18, attended by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, collapsed without result—Russia insists on keeping all territories seized since 2022, representing 20% of Ukraine's land, while Zelensky has signaled willingness to cede occupied territory in exchange for ceasefire guarantees and European troops on the border.
• Russia's economy, which grew at 4% in 2023–2024 driven by war spending, slowed sharply to 0.6% growth last year—with 40% of Russia's budget now directed toward war costs, and further decline expected in 2026 as energy export revenues shrink.

What to watch: Whether Trump's envoy Witkoff can lay the groundwork for a possible Zelensky-Putin summit within three weeks, as Washington claims—given that both sides remain fundamentally at odds over territorial terms.

Albania's AI Minister Was a Real Person. She's Now Suing.

• Albanian actor Anila Bisha has filed suit against Prime Minister Edi Rama's government after her face and voice were used—without her knowledge—for "Diella," presented in September 2025 as the world's first virtual AI government minister, after she had only consented to her likeness being used for a chatbot on a public services portal.
• Bisha is seeking €1 million in moral damages, naming the Council of Ministers, the National Agency for Information Society, the private production company, and Rama himself as defendants—a court hearing on a temporary suspension of her image's use was scheduled for February 23.
• The case took a deeper turn when Albania's Special Anti-Corruption Court ordered precautionary measures, including house arrest, against senior officials at the very agency managing "Diella," over suspected irregularities in public procurement contracts for digital infrastructure in December 2025.

Zooming out: As governments worldwide race to deploy AI in public administration, Albania's courtroom drama illustrates how the legal and ethical frameworks governing consent, identity, and data protection are nowhere near ready for the technology being layered on top of them.

GHER HEK

• Venice, twice over: Lebanese-born Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi—whose appointment to represent Australia was controversially cancelled then reinstated—will make history as the first Australian artist to appear in both the Australia Pavilion and the Venice Biennale's main exhibition, running May 9 to November 22, with works rooted in Sufi philosophy.
• Rita's muse, forever: The woman who inspired Mahmoud Darwish's iconic poem "Rita and the Rifle"—later set to music by Marcel Khalife in 1976 and sung across the Arab world—has passed at 79. Tamar Ben Ami, dancer and choreographer, shared a secret love with Darwish for nearly five years before the 1967 war ended everything between them.
• Gorilla masks, 40 years on: The Getty Center in Los Angeles is hosting "How to Be a Guerrilla Girl" through April 12—a landmark exhibition drawn from 96 boxes of archival material, celebrating four decades of the anonymous feminist art collective that took on misogyny with wit, posters, and fake fur.
• Art from the ashes: A year after Los Angeles's devastating wildfires, artist Kelly Akashi—who lost both her home and studio—will exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York next month, presenting a glass and mortar re-creation of her chimney, turning destruction into something quietly extraordinary.

Go make it a good one—see you tomorrow.