Should ‘This Is Beirut’ Be Investigated for Treason Over Alleged Contact With Israel? | Reel Talk Podcast
February 23, 2026
SHOULD THE LAW APPLY TO EVERYONE OR ONLY TO THE POWERLESS?
At the 2026 Munich Security Conference, This is Beirut co-hosted a panel with MIND Israel founded by former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin.
The topic?
“Regional Integration.”
“Hezbollah Disarmament.”
“Post-Gaza Landscape.”
All while Israel continues daily violations against Lebanon.
Just weeks earlier, Lebanon filed a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council documenting thousands of ceasefire violations.
UNIFIL has independently recorded over 10,000 violations.
Under Lebanon’s 1955 Boycott Law and Articles 273-275 of the Criminal Code, contact with the “enemy entity” is criminalized.
So the question is simple:
If ordinary Lebanese citizens have faced prosecution for far less
If journalists like Maria Maalouf were charged
If filmmakers like Ziad Doueiri were detained
Why is this different?
The primary funder of “This Is Beirut,” banker Antoun Sehnaoui, has publicly expressed pro-Israel positions and has faced legal scrutiny in Lebanon tied to the banking collapse. His outlet now appears on international stages alongside Israeli military intelligence figures.
When the country is still under bombardment, when sovereignty is still violated
Who gets investigated, and who gets immunity?
Minister of Justice Adel Nassar
The question is now in your court.
Does the law apply to everyone?
Or only to those without power?
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#Lebanon #RuleOfLaw #Sovereignty #MunichSecurityConference #fyp
English Script:
Daizy Gedeon: Welcome to another Reel Talk edition. This is a special, and this time we dig in into an issue of high treason. But before we dive into that, let me just say how excited and humbled I am that we’ve hit 80,000 subscribers. So if you’re one of them, thank you very much for joining us. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, hit the subscribe button now and join us on this great journey. And just a reminder thatِي we do this all without any financial support or backing to maintain our independence. So if you can afford to make a small donation of $5 a month to support my fantastic team who work tirelessly on these reports, that would be just greatly appreciated. Look down in the description below and hit the buy me a coffee button. Thank you.
So let’s get into this discussion. At the Munich Security Conference this month, something unusual happened. Lebanese media outlet This is Beirut co-hosted a panel with Mind Israel, which is a think tank founded by Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Aman. The panel was called Conversation on Regional Integration Perspectives in the Middle East. Now the reason I’m raising this is, I’m wondering, based on current Lebanese law, whether This is Beirut and its backers should be investigated for violating Lebanese law and possibly charged with treason. I know it’s a serious accusation, but it’s worth exploring, especially considering that Israel is still bombing Lebanon daily, occupying Lebanese territory, and is in violation of countless resolutions, treaties and the UN charter.
And another reason it’s important to highlight this is because the meeting came only a few weeks after the Lebanese government filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council, documenting 6256 Israeli violations of this November 24th ceasefire agreement, including 1542 land violations, 3911 air violations, and 803 sea violations. The UN Peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has independently documented over 10,000 Israeli ceasefire violations. These attacks have killed at least 331 people and injured 945 people, including 13 children.
So let’s look at what Lebanese law actually says. Lebanon’s 1955 Boycott Law prohibits any contact with Israeli individuals or organizations, and articles 273 to 275 of the Lebanese Criminal Code are even more explicit, calling for the death penalty for fighting with the enemy, lifetime hard labor for providing intelligence to the enemy, or maintaining any kind of contact with the enemy. While article 278 forbids interaction with enemy spies or soldiers. Remember, officially, Lebanon considers Israel an enemy entity and does not recognize it. And these Lebanese laws are still fully in force. With Israel violating Lebanese sovereignty daily, what incentive would Lebanon have to make peace?
Now let’s talk about the people or more the person and power behind This is Beirut. The primary founder of the media outlet is a gentleman by the name of Antoun Sehnaoui, a Lebanese banker who chairs the SGBL Group, which controls over $26 billion in assets. In August 2025, the Washington Jewish Week publication identified Sehnaoui as a staunch Zionist who grew up in a family that has always felt strongly about Israel and Zionism.
Here’s the interesting part. Sehnaoui hasn’t been back to Lebanon in 8 to 10 years, most likely because his public pro Zionist position violates Lebanese law. But there’s much more to this story. In 2019, Lebanon’s banking system collapsed, locking up between 86 to $93 billion in depositors funds, which was globally declared a Ponzi scheme by the UN Secretary General, French President Macron and the World Bank. The former Governor of the Lebanese Central Bank, Riad Salameh, was arrested on charges of embezzlement, money laundering and illicit enrichment. He served one year in jail, but was recently released on $14 million bail awaiting trial. He’s also wanted in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein on similar charges.
SGBL was only one of the banks accused of profiting from these financial engineering schemes that Salameh is alleged to have structured, and which burned through $60 billion in depositor funds, then passing the losses on to ordinary depositors.
The Lebanese lira lost over 90% of its value. Now, over 45% of Lebanese live below the poverty line. Depositors have been locked out of their own accounts for over six years. In February 2023, Lebanese judge Ghada Aoun prosecuted Sehnaoui and SGBL on charges of money laundering, requested arrest warrants and issued a travel ban against him. So now he refused to appear in court. Sehnaoui also waged coordinated media attacks through his media empire against independent outlets like Daraj Media that exposed SGBL’s role in the banking collapse, accusing them of a George Soros conspiracy while he himself was funding Israeli causes. So this is the man behind This is Beirut, a self-proclaimed Zionist who can’t return to Lebanon, accused of profiting from the collapse that destroyed ordinary Lebanese people’s savings.
What’s more disturbing is that Sehnaoui is also funding the US Israeli Opera Initiative. He met Trump personally in October 2024, and is believed to have donated millions of dollars to his reelection campaign and is in a relationship with Morgan Ortagus, who is Trump’s deputy special envoy for Middle East peace. And this is where it gets really interesting. After Trump won the election in November 2024, there started to be serious talk about Lebanon joining the Abraham Accords, which is a name for the normalization agreement signed between Israel and some Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. By July 2025, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Wyckoff, was publicly saying that Lebanon and Syria were targets for expanding the Abraham Accords.
So now you’ve got the context. Let’s go back to that controversial Munich panel. What exactly were they discussing? It appears the topics included the post Gaza landscape, Hezbollah disarmament and Lebanon – Israel indirect talks. And who was on this panel? Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence. Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee. Hagar Chemali, who was NSC director for Syria and Lebanon and who also happens to be Sehnaoui’s close advisor. And Hanin Ghaddar, who I interviewed in one of my Reel Talk podcasts on the topic of peace with Israel, and we agreed to disagree on the logic of that being even possible now, while Israel continues its bombardment of Lebanon. Hanin is a Friedman Senior fellow with the Washington Institute and advisor to This is Beirut. So there’s the connection.
Let’s be clear. This wasn’t journalism. This was diplomacy, negotiations, discussions, laying the groundwork for normalization, driven by Sehnaoui’s personal interest, possibly in pushing Lebanon into the Abraham Accords. So what’s going on here? These people aren’t diplomats or politicians, and they’re discussing the three most critical issues affecting the two nations and the region in plain sight. This was definitely not journalism or anything to do with media. And this is happening as Israel continues to violate Lebanese sovereignty thousands of times. I’m not buying it, and you shouldn’t either.
Now, here’s where the double standard becomes really obvious. Lebanese courts have prosecuted citizens for far less than this. Maria Maalouf, a Lebanese journalist, was charged with high treason, espionage and incitement in 2022 just for giving an interview to an Israeli army spokesman, Avichay Adraee. And an arrest warrant was issued for her. She’s now living in political exile in the United States. Ziad Doueiri, the acclaimed director of The Insult, was detained at Beirut airport in 2017 for filming part of his movie in Israel and using Israeli actors, even though he had actually requested and received permission from Lebanon’s Interior Ministry. But Antoun Sehnaoui, a self-proclaimed Zionist, with an outstanding arrest warrant for money laundering who is on the run from the courts in Lebanon is allowed to fund Lebanese media that openly collaborates with Israeli military operatives to advance normalization. This makes no sense.
So the law is pretty clear here. The real question is whether it will actually be enforced. Should Lebanon’s judiciary investigate This is Beirut and its funders for violating the 1955 Boycott Law and Criminal Code articles 273 to 275? Should a self-proclaimed Zionist who can’t even return to Lebanon be allowed to fund a Lebanese media that’s working with Israeli military intelligence it appears to push for normalization under the Abraham Accords. And should this be allowed while Israel is bombing Lebanon every day, occupying Lebanese territory and has violated the ceasefire agreement over 10,000 times?
The question we’re asking is, does the law only apply to regular people without powerful foreign connections and billions in assets? Or does it apply equally to all Lebanese citizens who break the law? My last question is posed to Lebanon’s Minister of Justice, His Excellency Adel Nassar, the ultimate enforcer of Lebanese law. Excellency, the ball is in your court, as is the law. Do you plan to uphold the law and your duty? Or will This is Beirut and those connected to it be given a free pass because they have connections? And finally, to those Lebanese who believe normalization is the answer and will no doubt attack me for raising this. I ask when in history was a just peace ever negotiated while under the conqueror’s boot? How do you negotiate a fair deal from a position of complete subjugation? And how do you strike an equitable deal when your opponent is actively bombing you, occupying your land, and continues to violate and ignore all past agreements? I leave you to ponder that. Thanks for tuning in for another edition of Reel Talk.
