The demise of ‘Iraq’s Sesame Street’ and a sea change in US soft power 

Analysis Ahlan Simsim Iraq was an educational project based on the Arabic version of Sesame Street, watched by millions of children in the Middle East. (Sesame Workshop)
Ahlan Simsim Iraq was an educational project based on the Arabic version of Sesame Street, watched by millions of children in the Middle East. (Sesame Workshop)
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Updated 13 March 2025
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The demise of ‘Iraq’s Sesame Street’ and a sea change in US soft power 

 The demise of ‘Iraq’s Sesame Street’ and a sea change in US soft power 
  • The Ahlan Simsim Iraq education project was terminated along with thousands of others as part of America’s retreat from decades of foreign spending.
  • As America’s soft-power diminishes in the Middle East, will China fill the vacuum?

LONDON: Among the recent victims of the slashing of US foreign spending was an education project in Iraq developed by the people behind the famed American children’s TV show, “Sesame Street.”

The Trump administration used the $20 million grant awarded for the scheme as a prime example of what it claimed was the wastefulness and liberal agenda at the US Agency for International Development.

Yet the demise of the project poignantly illustrates the widespread damage being done to America’s formidable soft power machine, both in the Middle East and around the world.

It also raises questions over whether China will move to fill the soft-power vacuum left behind and increase spending in the region.

Soon after his inauguration, President Donald Trump made it clear he was going to upend one of the core pillars of US foreign policy by dramatically shrinking foreign aid spending.

The full extent was revealed late last month when the administration announced aid funding cuts of $60 billion, including the cancellation of 90 percent of contracts by USAID.

The agency, which was the world’s largest provider of foreign assistance, including lifesaving humanitarian relief for millions, was also considered America’s most important soft-power weapon.

Speaking about the cuts on Feb. 5, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the grant for a “new ‘Sesame Street’ show in Iraq” was part of a “long list of crap” in wasteful federal spending.

What she was referring to was not a new TV show but a USAID-funded education project known as Ahlan Simsim Iraq, which was run by Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind “Sesame Street.”

The project used the characters and stories from the existing “Ahlan Simsim” show, an Arabic version of “Sesame Street” watched by millions of children across the Middle East and North Africa.

“Ahlan Simsim,” meaning “welcome sesame,” premiered in 2020 funded by a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

Ahlan Simsim Iraq was a spin-off project in 2021 in partnership with Save the Children and Mercy Corps “to support communities in Iraq impacted by conflict and violence,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson told Arab News.

The project created content and materials “to reach children at scale,” the spokesperson said. It also provided learning materials such as storybooks, activity books, training and guides for teachers for early childhood development and training to teachers.

USAID documents show that the grant of $20 million was to be awarded over six years. Almost $11 million had been paid out to Ahlan Simsim Iraq before the project was terminated last month, according to US government data.

The project is one of thousands funded by USAID that helped the US maintain its position as the world’s leader in soft power but have been stopped in recent weeks.

“Supporting Sesame Street projects is a good investment in soft power, the ability to attract,” Joseph Nye, professor emeritus at Harvard University, who coined the term “soft power,” told Arab News.

“The change in government policy damages US soft power,” he added.

Nye describes soft power as the ability to obtain preferred outcomes by attraction rather than coercion or payment.

USAID was set up at the height of the Cold War by President John F. Kennedy to make the US more attractive than the Soviet Union by helping poorer countries with development.

The agency evolved through the decades into a vast provider of foreign assistance to more than 100 countries, bolstering the image of the US around the world.

While it may be difficult to quantify the damage done to US soft power by the recent foreign assistance cuts, recent interviews with humanitarians and grant recipients in the Middle East suggest there could be a significant dent.

One USAID worker focused on Iraq described the retreat from providing aid to large numbers of displaced people as “unconscionable,” particularly given the 2003 US-led invasion of the country and its aftermath.

An NGO coordinator for Syria said the dropping of aid programs, just after the fall of Bashar Al Assad, was a “betrayal of Syrian people.”

Rana Sweis, owner of a media company in Jordan, which had a USAID grant terminated, said a debate was now taking place about why her country, one of America’s main allies in the region, had relied so heavily on the agency and what values does the US now stand for.

“USAID was supporting the values they (the US) talk about like women’s rights and human rights and freedom of speech,” Sweis said. “I don't want to say it was a lie, but how can you suddenly stop this and say ‘we no longer believe in this, it's no longer part of our values.’”

A big question now is whether China will step in to the soft-power vacuum in the Middle East and elsewhere.

For more than a decade China has tried to boost its soft-power influence, particularly in the Global South with projects under the Belt and Road Initiative.

But its foreign aid was a fraction of what the US was spending between 2013 and 2018 at just $7 billion a year compared with Washington’s $48 billion, according to commentary published this week by the Brookings Institution.

The article’s author, Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, told Arab News that Chinese aid is unable to compare with US aid in terms of size and purpose, “but soft power is a different issue.”

“US withdrawals leave space that China’s soft-power influence will naturally extend and expand into,” she said.

Nye said there is a further reason why China may not replace the US as the main soft-power influence in the region.

“Soft power emanates from a country’s civil society as well as government policy, and China is less well placed because if its tight Communist Party control over its civil society,” he said.

For now, NGOs, governments and businesses throughout the region are recalibrating to account for the loss of a major source of external funding. Time will tell how much the US will miss the soft-power returns on its investments.

 


Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’

Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’
Updated 30 sec ago
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Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’

Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’
BERLIN: Germany said on Monday it was extremely worried by the surge in civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip since Israel renewed its full-scale military offensive on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel restarted intense air strikes across the densely populated Strip on Tuesday followed by ground operations, shattering the relative calm of a six-week ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which governs Gaza.
Negotiations have stalled over an extension of the ceasefire.
Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the ceasefire deal, a move rejected by Hamas as a violation of the agreement all parties signed.
“It is now very clear that we must quickly return to negotiations and to the ceasefire that was in place,” German foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said in Berlin.
Israel’s renewed military operations would not lead to the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza being released and meant that “the humanitarian situation is once again catastrophic,” he said.
Berlin, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, also condemned “unacceptable statements” by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who last week threatened to annex parts of Gaza unless Hamas releases the remaining Israeli hostages.
Katz has also said that measures targeting Hamas could include implementing US President Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to redevelop Gaza as a Mediterranean resort after the removal of its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries.
The Israeli government has announced plans for a special agency for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.
“If the aim is to set up an authority that has the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as its goal, then that is unacceptable and must be condemned,” Wagner said.
He also condemned an Israeli decision to recognize more than a dozen new settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying the “expansive settlement policy” undermines efforts toward a two-state solution.
“The German government rejects Israel’s entire settlement policy as legally unacceptable. It is clear that this policy must end,” he said.
On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people and the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed at least 50,021 people in the territory, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
The United Nations considers the ministry’s figures to be reliable.

Egypt makes new proposal to restore Gaza ceasefire deal, sources say

Egypt makes new proposal to restore Gaza ceasefire deal, sources say
Updated 24 March 2025
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Egypt makes new proposal to restore Gaza ceasefire deal, sources say

Egypt makes new proposal to restore Gaza ceasefire deal, sources say
  • The Egyptian plan suggests Hamas release five Israeli hostages each week, with Israel implementing the second phase of the ceasefire after the first week

CAIRO: Egypt made a new proposal last week aimed at restoring the Gaza ceasefire deal, security sources told Reuters on Monday.
The proposal follows an escalation in violence after Israel resumed air and ground operations against Hamas last Tuesday, effectively ending a two-month period of relative calm.
The Egyptian plan suggests Hamas release five Israeli hostages each week, with Israel implementing the second phase of the ceasefire after the first week, the sources said.
Both the US and Hamas agreed to the proposal, the security sources said, but Israel had not yet responded.
The sources said Egypt’s proposal also includes a timeline for the release of all hostages in exchange for a timeline for Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza, backed by US guarantees.
Hamas has accused Israel of breaking the terms of the January ceasefire agreement but has said it is still willing to negotiate a ceasefire and was studying proposals from US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.


Lebanese defense minister to visit Syria: official

Lebanese defense minister to visit Syria: official
Updated 24 March 2025
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Lebanese defense minister to visit Syria: official

Lebanese defense minister to visit Syria: official
  • The aim of the visit was to “discuss ways to manage the situation at the border”

BEIRUT: Lebanese Defense Minister Michel Menassa will visit Syria on Wednesday to discuss recent tensions along the border between the two countries, a Lebanese official said.
“The defense minister will head a security delegation to Damascus to meet with his counterpart, Marhaf Abu Qasra,” the official told AFP on Monday on condition of anonymity.
The aim of the visit was to “discuss ways to manage the situation at the border, strengthen bilateral coordination and prevent cross-border aggression,” the source said.
Ten people were killed in clashes that broke out along the fronter in mid-March.
Damascus accused Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group once allied with deposed president Bashar Assad, of abducting and killing three Syrian soldiers, which the Iran-backed movement strongly denied.
Subsequently, seven Lebanese were killed in air strikes from Syria, according to Lebanese authorities.
A Lebanese security source told AFP that Syrian forces shelled the border area after three Syrian soldiers were killed by armed Lebanese smugglers.
Both countries later announced they had reached a ceasefire agreement.
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation.
In February, Syrian authorities announced the launch of a security campaign in the border province of Homs aimed at shutting down routes used for arms and goods smuggling.
Hezbollah, which fought alongside Assad’s forces during the Syrian war, has long exerted influence over large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The group was massively weakened in its war with Israel late last year.


Israeli strike kills Hamas official Ismail Barhoum in Gaza hospital

Israeli strike kills Hamas official Ismail Barhoum in Gaza hospital
Updated 24 March 2025
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Israeli strike kills Hamas official Ismail Barhoum in Gaza hospital

Israeli strike kills Hamas official Ismail Barhoum in Gaza hospital
  • Member of Hamas’s political bureau was getting treatment at Nasser Hospital
  • Barhoum is the fourth member of Hamas’s political bureau killed since last Tuesday

GAZA CITY: An Israeli air strike on Sunday killed a member of Hamas’s political bureau as he underwent treatment in hospital, a source in the Islamist movement said, after Israel confirmed it targeted “a key terrorist.”
“The Israeli army assassinated Hamas political bureau member Ismail Barhoum,” the Hamas source said, requesting anonymity to speak more freely.
“Warplanes bombed the operating room at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where Barhoum was receiving treatment after sustaining critical injuries in an air strike targeting his home in Khan Yunis at dawn last Tuesday.”
AFP photos showed the building of about four-storys largely undamaged except for fire blazing in one section off a stairwell.
Barhoum is the fourth member of Hamas’s political bureau killed since last Tuesday when Israel resumed air strikes in the territory after an impasse over continuing a ceasefire.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed in a statement that Barhoum had been targeted in the strike.
The Israeli military said it hit the hospital with “precise munitions” following extensive intelligence-gathering.
It said the target was a key member of “the Hamas terrorist organization who was operating inside the Nasser Hospital compound.”
The Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli forces “have just targeted the surgery building inside the Nasser Medical Complex, which houses many patients and wounded individuals, and a large fire has erupted at the site.”
The ministry later confirmed that one person had been killed and said many others were injured, including some medical staff. The entire department was evacuated, the ministry said in a statement.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency said the hospital’s emergency department had been targeted.
Earlier Sunday, Hamas said an Israeli air strike the previous day near Khan Yunis killed Salah Al-Bardawil, a senior member of its political bureau.
Bardawil, 65, was killed along with his wife in a camp in Al-Mawasi, the group said.
The Israeli military confirmed that it had targeted Bardawil, saying that “as part of his role, (he) directed the strategic and military planning” of Hamas in Gaza.
His “elimination further degrades Hamas’ military and government capabilities,” it added.


EU top diplomat: Israel strikes on Syria, Lebanon ‘risk further escalation’

EU top diplomat: Israel strikes on Syria, Lebanon ‘risk further escalation’
Updated 20 min 31 sec ago
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EU top diplomat: Israel strikes on Syria, Lebanon ‘risk further escalation’

EU top diplomat: Israel strikes on Syria, Lebanon ‘risk further escalation’
  • Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon
  • In Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites since Islamist-led rebels overthrew strongman Bashar Assad

JERUSALEM: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned on Monday during a visit to Jerusalem that Israeli strikes on Syria and Lebanon threatened to worsen the situation.
The most intense escalation since a November ceasefire, which ended the war between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, occurred on Saturday.
Lebanon’s health ministry said seven people were killed, with Israel saying it attacked in response to rocket fire, which Hezbollah denied responsibility for.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of violating the truce.
“Military actions must be proportionate, and Israeli strikes into Syria and Lebanon risk further escalation,” Kallas said at a joint news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
In Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites since Islamist-led rebels overthrew strongman Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it wants to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities it considers jihadists.
“We feel that these things are unnecessary because Syria is right now not attacking Israel and that feeds more radicalization that is also against Israel, which we don’t want to see,” Kallas told journalists.
The Israeli military has also deployed to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights, separating the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan from that still controlled by Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the demilitarization of southern Syria and said his country will not tolerate the presence of forces from the new authorities south of Damascus.
Syria’s foreign ministry has accused Israel of waging a campaign against “the stability of the country.”
Kallas will hold talks with Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa in the occupied West Bank later on Monday.