Monumental leadership in the age of manipulation
Two Arab women living in the diaspora, Hala Rharrit and Rima Hassan, demonstrate integrity, courage, and leadership.
The people in positions of power in 2025 are largely occidental men who are motivated by manipulation, violence and greed. As a result, we appear to be edging ever closer to World War III.
I learned a great deal about effective leadership from my family. My Syrian grandparents passed away when I was relatively young, and my father’s four older sisters essentially became the matriarchs of the family. What I remember most about them is how they made me feel and how they inspired me to be a better person. I knew that I was cherished, and that I was free to express my opinions. I also watched the way they overcame diversity, appealing to inner strength, dignity and determination. I see the same qualities in two Arab women living in the diaspora today.
Hala Rharrit was an award-winning US diplomat, serving primarily as State Department Spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa, using her fluency in both English and Arabic. Rharrit resigned from her position after serving in the State Department for 18 years. She stated, “I dedicated my entire adult life to diplomacy because I’m fundamentally a peacemaker, but, unfortunately, I saw …. that there is some institutionalized corruption within our government that profits from war at all costs, that profits from genocide.”
It is interesting to juxtapose Rharrit’s act of integrity with the actions of Matthew Miller, the Spokesperson for the State Department under former President Joe Biden. Once out of office, he admitted that the State of Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. When asked why he didn’t acknowledge that while he was still Spokesperson, Miller said, “When you’re at the podium, you’re not expressing your opinion, you’re expressing the conclusions of the United States government.”
Stated otherwise, Miller chose to lie for the sake of his career in the State Department, while Rharrit sacrificed her career for the sake of integrity. Need we ask which person exhibited true leadership?
Rharrit recently joined thousands of people from all over the world in Egypt to peacefully march to the Rafah crossing to demand an end the forced famine in Gaza, a famine enabled by her own government. Unfortunately, they were turned back by the Egyptian government.
Many participating in the Global March to Gaza were inspired by the unarmed crew of the Madleen, a small boat seized illegally by the Israeli military in international waters while trying to bring aid to the starving children of Gaza. The de facto francophone spokesperson for the crew is Rima Hassan, whose family was exiled from Palestine in 1948. She has gone on to become a French representative to the European Parliament.
At a recent rally at Place de la République in Paris, Hassan spoke to the crowd about her brutal detention in Israel, which was mild when compared to the inhumane treatment toward other Palestinians who do not hold positions of such influence. Hassan’s most defiant act while held captive was to find a twig of an olive tree growing in her family’s homeland and bring it with her as a symbol of hope.
The leader of her party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, could not withhold his admiration toward Hassan, as he said to the cheering crowd, “She has given us an extraordinary lesson in courage … that liberty, the respect of the person, and the lives of people in Gaza are universal messages that concern every human being.”
True leadership does not reside in Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or Matthew Miller. It lives in Hala Rharrit, Rima Hassan, and all the mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and daughters who inspire us to live with integrity, courage, and respect for every individual, thus achieving the greatness that resides in each of us and drawing us back from the precipice of a third world war.
Note: One of my reasons for starting a Substack is due to the way my work is edited on mainstream editorial sites. Here is a case in point:
Clearly we are in desperate need of more women in leadership.