The Gulf

On February 14, 2019, on the occasion of Valentine's Day, the Qatari government daily Al-Sharq published an article titled "Kill Valentine's Day," by journalist Ibtisam Aal Sa'd, in which she lamented the fact that some Qataris celebrate Christian holidays such as Valentine's Day...

By: MEMRI Staff Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry posted its Islamic Education school textbooks for grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. While encouraging jihad and the sacrifice of the soul,[1] prese...

By: MEMRI Staff Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry posted its Islamic Education school textbooks for Grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. The Grade 11 book devotes a chapter to the subject of orientali...

By: MEMRI Staff  Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry has posted the Islamic Education textbooks for grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. The books for Grades 7-11 devote considerable space to the at...

By: MEMRI Staff Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry has posted the Islamic Education textbooks for grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. One of the subjects addressed in the books is the meaning of the te...

By: MEMRI Staff Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry has posted the Islamic Education textbooks for grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. The Islamic Education textbook for grade 11 devotes an entire chapt...

By: MEMRI Staff Introduction The website of the Qatari Education Ministry has posted the Islamic Education textbooks for grades 1-12 in Qatari state schools, for the first half of the 2018/2019 school year. The Islamic Education textbooks for grade 6, 8, 9 and 12 deal exten...

On January 23, 2019, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida reported that Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), had, on January 18, visited a city in southern Syria near the Syria-Israel border. By doing so, he violated the Israel...

In an October 25, 2018 article in the English-language Kuwaiti daily Arab Times, liberal journalist Ahmad Al-Sarraf wrote that the humanity and civility of a country are measured by the status it accords to its women, among other criteria. He lamented the fact that the Kuwaiti au...

There have been inexplicable phenomena in the Middle East for some years now. Any attempt to explain them logically comes up against a dead end, and gives way to conspiracy theories. How can one logically explain both Israel's and the U.S.'s prostration to Qatar? Theories range f...

In the run-up to Christmas, and with the appearance of Christmas trees and Christmas decorations at places of business across Qatar as well as Christmas parties and events at hotels in the country,[1] Qataris began debating questions that come up in the Muslim world every year: S...

On September 15, 2018, the Saudi London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that, in May, Qatar had stopped funding a group of Gaza schools operated by Hamas's Dar Al-Arqam association. According to the report, the Qatari institution that had funded the schools gradually decre...

Ibrahim Karagül, confidant of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and editor-in-chief of the Yeni Safak daily, the mouthpiece of Turkey's leading AKP party, warned that a "new axis" is promoting a Turk-Arab war in the Middle East. According to Karagül, this new axis is fo...

Ibrahim Karagul, confidant of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and editor-in-chief of the Yeni Safak daily, the mouthpiece of Turkey's leading AKP party, wrote in a November 19, 2018 op-ed that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was only a symptom of the problem. The real issu...

On November 8, 2018, Muhammad Al-'Amadi, Qatar's envoy to Gaza, delivered three suitcases filled with $15 million in cash from Qatar to Hamas, as part of an arrangement with Israel brokered by Egypt and the UN. The money, which passed into Gaza with Israel's consent, is part of a...

In the recent weeks, UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and officials from the U.S., U.K. and other European countries have been trying to affect a ceasefire in Yemen and promote a political solution to the conflict there. In October Griffiths announced plans for a new ro...

During a segment on Abu Dhabi TV, Emirati cleric Waseem Youssef said that today's generation is growing up playing "Fortnite," which is about "killing, destruction, stealing, and slaughtering," and that "[it is] producing a generation of murderers." He bemoaned that "Fortnite" te...

Speaking at the 27th Annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference, held on October 31-November 1, 2018 in Washington DC, UAE businessman Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor urged the world to take firm action against Iran "by eliminating its global terrorist arm Hizbullah." He argued that the curr...

In a column titled "The Christian Here and the Muslim Over There" in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, liberal journalist Ahmad Al-Sarraf called for greater tolerance towards religious minorities in the Arab world. He recommended to learn from countries like Senegal and Ethiopia, in wh...

Three events in three Arab Gulf states in the past week have reflected these countries' process of normalization with Israel. On October 26, 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman, accompanied by the head of the Mossad; the visit was extensively covered by O...

On September 17, 2018, several days after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. 'Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, a columnist for the Qatari daily Al-Watan and the former dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University, wrote about the lessons to be learned from the events of 9/11. Al-Ansari,&...

In the recent months, tensions have increased between the Yemeni government and Hizbullah, who is accused of supporting and arming the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The tension between the two sides rose after a Houthi delegation openly visited Lebanon on August 18, 2018 an...

Hizbullah and the Lebanese authorities were quick to deny Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's  revelation in his speech at the September 27, 2018 UN General Assembly in New York that Hizbullah has built three missile facilities in Beirut amid the civilian popula...

The ongoing U.S.-Turkey tensions, the result of political and economic disputes, have recently escalated further following Turkey's refusal to free the detained American pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson is accused of being a spy who attempted to overthrow the government in the 2016...

The Yemenite website Al-'Asima Online reports that the Houthis are taking advantage of the summer vacation to recruit youths to fight in their militias. To this end, they have established summer camps in Sanaa and other areas under their control, as a substitute for the camps sup...