James Chaarani

Reluctantly back on X.
Producer with CBC Radio (The Current, Sunday Magazine, As It Happens)

🇱🇧🇨🇦

Bylines — Slate, Vice, Condé Nast

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

This is great analysis and agree. We need Hezbollah out on all fronts but it's no easy feat without sparking a new civil war. And it's difficult not to question whether Israel is acting in good faith when they've said out loud that they want to systematically destroy all homes in the south.

[Hanin Ghaddar @haningdr]

I joined @i24NEWS_EN to discuss the pilot zones, and what needs to be done in order to seriously dismantle Hezbollah across Lebanon.

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

Those are great words, but two weeks ago when Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz was touring southern Lebanon he said that they have no intentions of leaving the south and he wants to see all homes destroyed in the buffer zone. That seems like an open-ended mission. There are two narratives happening at the exact same time.

[Hiba Nasr @HibaNasr]

‼️ As the Security Council starts discussing the post-UNIFIL mission in Lebanon in a closed session tomorrow, this is the latest and final position of the U.S. administration on UNIFIL, as per a State Department spokesperson:

•The United States does not support an extension of UNIFIL’s mandate beyond its final term ending December 31, 2026. We consider UNIFIL to have failed. Seven rounds of conflict took place on its watch, and Hezbollah built a massive military infrastructure in the immediate vicinity of its positions, at times using the proximity of UN peacekeepers to protect their infrastructure or operations.

•We are now in a different place with the Trilateral Framework, which creates a conditions-based path to lasting security and peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. As UNIFIL is phased out, we expect the Framework to be implemented.

•Successful implementation will also create the foundation for stable, peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. This is meant to make open-ended peacekeeping arrangements unnecessary.

•Any new international presence must be tightly linked to the concrete goals of the framework as opposed to the indefinite mediation of an unresolved status quo.

•We are prepared to discuss arrangements that genuinely support the disarmament of Hizballah, strengthen the capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and reinforce Lebanese sovereignty. We are not interested in replacing one ineffective open-ended mission with another.

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

I’m torn on Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, but after talking to small businesses this week, I'm having doubts. Were they smart?

I get the anger. Nobody wants to be bullied, but should we have kept trying?

We unpacked some of this on The Current w/ Jason Kenney, Sarnia’s Mayor & Randall Bartlett with @DesjardinsGroup

https://t.co/qFtHqIWYk2

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

We see a lot of condemnation, which is not action until it is action. I'm curious to see what that comprehensive measures might be

[Ed Miliband @Ed_Miliband]

The Israeli Government’s launch of tenders for the E1 settlement project is unacceptable and destructive. Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two state solution. My statement:

[asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل @asadabukhalil]

Three children were the infrastructure in this case:

The Israeli military said in a statement that its attacks in the Ansar area had targeted infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah”

Israeli Strikes in Lebanon Kill 11, Health Officials Say https://t.co/iU5jNG3TdU via @NYTimes

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

Israel’s Good-Faith Scorched Earth Strategy in Southern Lebanon:

"In the realm of Middle East diplomacy, we are trained to celebrate the illusion of motion. But then reality breaks through." https://t.co/lkiX3YVHsW

[FRANCE 24 @FRANCE24]

Israeli settlers seize Palestinian water source in occupied West Bank to create recreational pool
➡️ https://t.co/TSPfTrGG3C

[Reuters @Reuters]

Israeli and foreign activists attempted to deliver food and supplies to Palestinian families besieged by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra, but were stopped by the Israeli military https://t.co/txTIEAotOW

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

SHOCKING! Armed civilians surround a family's home for days, cut water/power, block food/medical aid while soldiers pray with them.
If Palestinians did this to Israelis, they'd already be bombed to smithereens.
But it is Qusra: perpetrators are Israelis. So impunity is inherited.

[Jessica G. Obeid  @Jessica_Obeid]

🇱🇧 New day, new taxes in Lebanon:

There's a new environmental tax of 1-3% on a range of goods, which will send final prices up..

-> pressure on consumers & purchasing power
-> higher inflation

⚠️Reminder that the cabinet has not yet implemented any actual, real reform!

[LBCI Lebanon News @LBCI_NEWS]

وزير الدفاع الإسرائيلي: نهدم البنى التحتية لحزب الله وكل المنازل بالمنطقة الأمنية ولن نسمح بتهديد مواطنينا

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

https://t.co/7AhN1bWMJW

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

Pulling U.S. booze off provincial shelves felt like a great "elbows up" moment for Canadians in light of Trump's tariffs last year. But with the new 50% tariffs coming Aug. 19, does holding back Kentucky bourbon actually give Ottawa any real bargaining power or is it just symbolic?

It's an easy concession where we don't lose anything (other than our collective egos) by doing it ... but the Trump admin will want more when it comes to dairy and autos tariffs. They can bully us so they are. That's no surprise. I'd be far more surprised if the booze factor made the 50% tariff go away. The other concessions we made didn't do much. Let's wait and see.

I co-produced a segment on CBC's "The Current" this week speaking to Carlo Dade, the Director of International Policy and the New North America Initiative at UofC's School of Public Policy, and James Villeneuve (@jvilleneuve62) from Faskin. It was a fascinating conversation about all this. The link is in the comments

[Financial Times @FT]

Analysis of satellite imagery, open-source data and verified footage shows that Israeli forces have systematically destroyed homes, roads, farmland and forests despite a ceasefire with Hizbollah. https://t.co/NFukdFjbjw

[Al Jazeera Breaking News @AJENews]

BREAKING: Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until the US changes its behaviour and accepts Tehran’s conditions, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said, according to state media.

🔴 More on https://t.co/5H0QqpggO4

[sarah @sahouraxo]

Israel is burning South Lebanon — village by village.

Homes. Farms. Olive trees. Fields.

Everything that makes a place a home is being turned to ash.

They want southern Lebanon uninhabitable.

This is ethnic cleansing.

[courtneybonneauimages @cbonneauimages]

Israeli forces are continuing to carry out daily large-scale demolitions across southern Lebanon, including the detonation pictured below in Zowtar al-Sharqia today.

The other footage shows the devastating aftermath of these types of demolitions. I filmed these scenes in towns and villages across southern Lebanon last year and again as recently as July 2026. It includes Douweir, Adaisseh, Kfarkela, Maroun al-Ras, Yaroun and Nabatieh al-Fawqa, alongside photographs taken in July 2026 documenting the destruction of Khiam and Kfarkela.

The scale of the devastation is staggering. Entire towns and villages have been systematically demolished, with homes, streets and communities reduced to rubble. What remains is not simply destroyed buildings, but the physical destruction of entire communities and the landscapes in which people lived their lives.

More than 65 Lebanese towns and villages are still illegally occupied by Israeli forces.

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

While Lebanese/Israeli diplomats in Rome negotiated terms for "pilot security zones" and how to verify disarmament, Israeli continues to demolish homes in southern Lebanese villages.

Diplomats are speaking one language while the war on the ground speaks another.

[TRT World @trtworld]

Israeli troops moved through Zawtar al-Sharkiyeh in southern Lebanon as excavators demolished houses near Zawtar al-Gharbiya, one of two designated pilot zones where the Lebanese army was expected to take over under a US-sponsored framework agreement

[TRT World @trtworld]

Israeli troops moved through Zawtar al-Sharkiyeh in southern Lebanon as excavators demolished houses near Zawtar al-Gharbiya, one of two designated pilot zones where the Lebanese army was expected to take over under a US-sponsored framework agreement

[James Chaarani @digitalfrontai]

No peace in Gaza until political objectives are met in the upcoming Israeli elections seems to be the message from the @netanyahu admin. Is it power over peace?

[BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking]

Israel rejects US President Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza https://t.co/jz6B8mShfT