Khaled Muhammad Batrafi, a Saudi columnist for the London daily Al-Hayat, recently published an article headlined "Why do we hate the People of the Book?" (namely – Christians and Jews) in which he tells of a religious argument he had with a friend regarding the annihilation of C...
Two Saudi columnists recently challenged Arab conspiracy theories. Both aimed their comments primarily atwell-known Islamist Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huweidi who wrote a series of articles in the Saudi press accusing"extremist American militias" or, alternatively, the "Israeli M...
When New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani rejected Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talal's $10 million donation to New York City following the latter's comments on what he referred to as the root causes of the September 11 attacks, newspaper columnists in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the Pale...
In a recent column, the Saudi ambassador in London and occasional columnist for the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat,Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, advised Arab regimes not to rule out the possibility of waging war against Israel. On August 9,2001 he published a scathing attack on US President Ge...
Since the outbreak of the second Intifada, at the end of September, 2000, the Egyptians and Saudis have been at theforefront of the moderate camp in the Arab world, against the cries for war coming from Iraq, Yemen, Sudan andoccasionally from Syria. Lately, however, statements by...
On June 21, 2001 the US announced its decision to indict fourteen suspects of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in Daharan,Saudi-Arabia, in which 19 American soldiers were killed and approximately 400 people injured. The announcement was followed byanger against the US in Iran and ...
The UN, international organizations and local human rights NGO's constantly pressure the regimes in Arab states to improve the state of human rights in general and women's rights in particular. According to UN data, the proportion of women's representation in Arab parliaments is ...
In his May 21, 2017 column in the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily, Saudi journalist Mish'al Al-Sudairy criticized the Palestinian leaders and stated that for many years they had missed numerous diplomatic opportunities to resolve the conflict with Israel, and that they had a...
On the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, two Saudi writers – the editor of the Saudi Al-Jazirah daily, and a columnist for the Saudi Al-Watan daily – published articles addressed to the American president. The articles congratulated Trump on making Saudi...
In a February 4, 2017 article in the official Saudi daily Al-Watan, Hala Al-Qahtani wrote that the Jews are eternally plotting to bankrupt the world and weaken its societies in order to facilitate their takeover of it and realize, at any cost, their dream of establishing a Jewish...
On May 1, 2017 in Doha, a week before he stepped down as Hamas political bureau head, Khaled Mash'al announced the release of Hamas's new policy document.[1] This document has been very harshly criticized by the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, which rejected it and expressed sus...
In his column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat, senior political analyst Khalid Al-Dakhil presented his impressions from and comments on an interview he had conducted with Hamas political bureau head Khaled Mash'al several days before the latter's retirement and ahead of ...
On the occasion of Syria's Independence Day, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad received messages of congratulation from several world leaders, most notably UN Secretary-General António Guterres.[1]According to Syria's official news agency SANA, Guterres's cable did not mention the...
In recent months Saudi media, and Saudis on social media, have been in an uproar over Saudi cleric Saeed bin Farwah, his controversial sermons, and the Saudi authorities' responses to them. In the first of these sermons, delivered June 19, 2015, bin Farwah had attacked Nasser Al-...
Official Russia reacted to the decision by the Trump administration to attack the Syrian regime's Shayrat airbase, from where the chemical weapons attack on the Syrian village of Khan Sheikhoun was launched. Russia predictably condemned the attack as a violation of internatio...
Following the April 3, 2017 metro bombing in St. Petersburg, Russia, in which 14 people were killed, leading Saudi journalist Sa'id Al-Surayhi, who writes for the Saudi daily 'Okaz, penned an op-ed for the paper calling on the Arabs to condemn the attack regardless of Russia's in...
In an article titled "A Critical Look at the Past Is an Absolute Must," posted on Alarabiya's English-language website, Saudi columnist Mohammed Al-Shaikh wrote that the current rise of the radical right in the West is a reaction to violent Islamic extremism that espouses the val...
The beginning of the presidency of Donald Trump in the U.S. generated optimism in Saudi Arabia about the new American administration. This was especially the case in light of the previous presidency, that of Barack Obama, during which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia grew apart, and the...
In a recent article titled "Talk to Me in Arabic" in the English-language daily Saudi Gazette, columnist Ibrahim Badawood lamented the fact that many Saudis who have studied abroad or who work for multinational companies, as well as children who attend international schools in th...
In February 2017, prominent Saudi journalist 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the former editor of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and former director of Alarabiya TV, published two articles calling to take a firm position vis-à-vis Iran and even form an "Arab NATO" to confront the alliance Iran has ...
In a January 25, 2017 article in the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, prominent Saudi journalist 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the daily's former editor and the former director of Al-Arabiya TV, discussed the issue of the U.S. moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusa...
In his January 2, 2017 column in the official Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, titled "The Palestinians Have No [Choice] But Peace," journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh criticized Palestinian factions that advocate armed resistance, such as Hamas and radical left-wing factions, on the groun...
In his December 27, 2016, column in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, titled "Muslim Minorities in the West – Have They Done Their Duty?" 'Imad Al-'Abad called on Muslims living in the West to inculcate in their children loyalty to the countries in which they had chosen to make their ho...
Following the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, Saudi columnists commented on the smooth transfer of power that took place in the U.S. despite the sharp differences of opinion between the two presidents, in accordance with the American constitution and democratic tradi...
In an article titled "Who We Are" in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi businessman and media personality Hossein Shobokshi wrote that, while in Western countries people have a sense of collective national identity, in Arab societies tribal and sectarian loyalt...
Every so often, the issue of Iran's Ahwaz region, home to an oppressed Arab minority that seeks independence, comes up in the Arab press. On December 3, 2016, an international conference on Ahwaz was held in Tunisia by the Euro Arab Center for Studies, in conjunction with the Ara...
As the years-long public debate over the Saudi ban on women driving continues, many in the kingdom, including Saudi officials and columnists in Saudi daily newspapers, are calling for it to be rescinded. This report will review some of these calls:
Shura Council Memb...
In a June 25, 2016 interview with the liberal Arab website Elaph, Dr. Najat Al-Sa'eed, a Saudi communications lecturer at Zayed University in Dubai, said that Islam is the only monotheistic religion that has not adapted to the modern age, and that this was not the fault of I...
While many writers in the Saudi and Gulf media reacted to the election of Donald Trump for U.S. president with mixed emotions, expressing hopes for cooperation with him but also concern because of his hostile statements regarding Muslims,[1] Turki Al-Dakhil, the general manager ...
Following the election of Michel 'Aoun as Lebanon's new president and the appointment of Sa'd Al-Hariri to form a new government, Saudi journalist Khalaf Al-Harbi wrote in his daily column in the Saudi government daily 'Okaz that Saudi Arabia must not support the Al-Hariri govern...
Dr. 'Ali Sa'd Al-Moussa, a columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Watan, wrote on August 22, 2016 that the blood-soaked conflicts and struggles raging across the Arab world have nothing to do with Israel, and that blaming Israel for them is shallow. Al-Moussa wrote with nostalgia ...
On
September 28, 2016, the U.S. Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of
Terrorism Act (JASTA), which enables U.S. citizens affected by terrorism to
file lawsuits against countries found to be involved in those actions. Thus,
U.S. citizens affected by 9/11 will be able...
In an article in the daily 'Okaz, Saudi journalist and writer Khalaf Al-Harbi called on the Saudi government to lift the ban on women driving. He stated that it is not a sin for women to drive but rather a natural and normal right, and that the ban keeps Saudi Arabia from advanci...
On September 28, 2016, the U.S. Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), after it was vetoed by President Obama. The Act states, inter alia, that "a U.S. national may file a civil action against a foreign state for physical injury, death, or damage a...
On September 25, 2016, the Saudi English-language daily Saudi Gazette published an unusual editorial, urging the Palestinian Authority (PA) not to dismiss out of hand the invitation extended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas to a...
On September 13, 2016, The New York Times published an op-ed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif titled "Let Us Rid the World of Wahhabism."[1] In it, Zarif harshly attacked Wahhabism, the branch of Sunni Islam espoused by the Saudi regime, calling it a "...
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei's September 5, 2016 message for the annual Hajj pilgrimage was
particularly anti-Saudi in tone; in it, he called on the countries in the
region, and on all Muslim countries, to recognize the true nature of the Saudi
rulers, and described th...
On
August 2, 2016, in his column in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, Sattam
Al-Muqrin criticized clerics who fear to speak out against suicide attacks,
which he states are prohibited by Islamic law. According to Al-Muqrin,
terrorist organizations use Islamic texts to brainwash young...
Violence against women is common in Saudi
Arabia, [1] and
is another expression of the severe oppression they suffer, which also includes
the ban on women driving, the requirement for the approval and escort of a male
guardian for nearly every move they make, the high rate of...
Over the past month, the Saudi press has featured a number of highly unusual articles harshly critical of the antisemitic discourse in Arab and Muslim society, and calling to avoid its generalizations regarding the Jews. The articles argued that Koranic passages against the Jews ...
In an article published August 11, 2016 in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the daily's former editor 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote that the atrocities committed by ISIS and others in the name of Islam are the product of extremist ideas that are spread in mosques,...
On the evening of July 4, 2016, one day before Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, a suicide bomber carried out an attack outside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia. The attack shocked the Muslim world because the Prophet's Mosque...
On June 2, 2016, Muhammad Al-Sa'id, a columnist for the official Saudi daily 'Okaz, published an article titled "Ayatollah Obama - A Tehran Love Story," in which he attacked President Obama for supporting revolutionary Iran and striving to focus U.S. foreign policy on the f...
Introduction
In December 2011, the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states approved the of initiative Saudi King Abdallah bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz to set up a Gulf Union, and progress from the stage of cooperation to the stage of full-fledged union as a single entity. Th...
Introduction U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's November 3, 2013 visit to Saudi Arabia will take place amidst considerable tension between the two countries. The Arab Spring has given rise to more than a few disagreements between the two countries over the policy of the admini...
The prohibition against women driving has been a matter of public debate in Saudi Arabia for years.[1] The ban is based on a fatwa issued in October 1990 by the Senior Cleric's Council – the kingdom's top religious body – which stated that women were not allowed to drive and that...
The Arab Spring revolutions, which brought the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to power in Egypt and Tunisia, forced the Saudi authorities to contend with the growing power of the MB and its supporters within Saudi Arabia and outside it. The Saudi press responded to the challenge with an...
Introduction
Violence towards women is a common and expanding phenomenon in Saudi Arabia and an issue that greatly preoccupies Saudi society. According to the executive manager of the National Family Protection Program, three out of 10 Saudi women are subjected to domestic vi...
Introduction
On January 11, 2013, for the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia – where women have no right to drive and are still required by law to obtain the escort and approval of a male guardian for almost every step that they take[1] – King 'Abdallah bin 'Abd Al-'Azi...
Introduction On March 23, 2013, as the Sunni-Shi'ite struggle in Lebanon reached a peak, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced his resignation and brought down the Hizbullah-dominated government that had been formed in June 2011 under the sponsorship of this organizatio...
Introduction
The topic of gender and women's status in Saudi Arabia is complex and fascinating, and poses a difficult task for researchers. Saudi society, being a traditional, conservative and closed society, does not enable easy access to those seeking to reveal its secrets. ...
Introduction Dr. Turki Al-Hamad, a liberal Saudi journalist and writer known for his criticism of extremist Islam, was arrested recently for some statements he made via Twitter on December 22, 2012. Dr. Al-Hamad wrote: "A new Nazism has arrived in the Arab world, named Islamism. ...
Introduction The use of social networking sites has become very common in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Studies conducted in this country have revealed that 38% of the population use social networks, more than in any other Arab country, and that Saudis lead the li...
Introduction On July 8, 2012, Saudi security forces the Shi'ite city of 'Awamiya (in Al-Qatif governorate in the country's Eastern Province) arrested senior Shi'ite cleric Nimr Bakr Al-Nimr. As on several occasions in the past, he was arrested for sedition after directing hars...
Introduction In a September 25, 2011 speech at the Saudi Shura Council, King 'Abdullah bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz surprised his audience by announcing that, from 2013, women would be allowed to serve as members of this council, and that they would also be allowed to vote and to run in th...
Introduction Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia have increased in recent months over the events in Syria, with the two countries taking opposite sides in the conflict. Saudi Arabia, alongside Qatar, has led the camp calling to oust the Assad regime and arm the Syrian oppos...
Introduction Recently, the Saudi government press, as well as Arab media and social networks, reported on student demonstrations in several Saudi universities in protest of poor learning conditions. Initially, the Saudi press reported on a demonstration held by female students at...
Introduction In light of the popular uprisings in the Arab world, especially in the Gulf, the past year has seen a considerable escalation of the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have been in conflict for many years. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are following with con...
Introduction Among other manifestations, tensions between the Gulf states and Iran were reflected through cartoons. The Gulf, and especially Saudi, press, including its London-based newspapers, published numerous cartoons condemning Iran and depicting it as interfering in Middle...
Introduction
For over a month, Shi'ites in Bahrain have been staging demonstrations to demand the ouster of the regime and the implementation of reforms in the country. On March 14, 2011, a senior Saudi official reported that under the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) joint defe...
Introduction The wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world has now reached Saudi Arabia. For several weeks, various elements in the kingdom have been preparing for a day of demonstrations against the regime, set for March 11, 2011, which they are calling the "Hunain Revolution."...
Introduction Sheikh 'Abd Al-Muhsin Al-'Obikan, an advisor at the Saudi Justice Ministry, recently issued a fatwa allowing the breastfeeding of adults. The fatwa is aimed at enabling an unrelated man and woman to be secluded in the same room, a situation which Islam considers fo...
Saudi Arabia greeted the U.N. Security Council's most recent round of sanctions against Tehran with a certain degree of satisfaction. Saudi analysts opined that the sanctions were a sign of the failure of Iranian diplomacy; some went so far as to suggest that the sanctions marke...
Introduction Islamic affairs researcher Sheikh Ahmad bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz ibn Baz, who is a columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Watan and son of the former Saudi mufti, conservative Wahhabi Sheikh 'Abd Al-'Aziz ibn Baz (1912-1999), recently gave some interviews to the Saudi media in ...
In early November 2009, following several years of fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive against Houthis rebels in northern Yemen in retaliation for their infiltration of its territory. In the course of this offensive,...
Introduction During the January 2010 London Conference on Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed to Saudi King 'Abdallah, asking him to participate in mediation efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban. His appeal focused media attention on Saudi Arabia'...
Saudi Arabia has recently seen a revival in the field of cinema after years of inactivity in this domain. For the first time in 30 years, the authorities have permitted to screen a Saudi film in the country; several film festivals have been held; and demands have been heard to b...
Saudi Arabia has recently seen a rising tide of criticism over child bride marriages, especially following the marriage of a 12-year-old girl to her father's 80-year-old cousin who already had three wives.[1] The phenomenon of underage marriage, extensively covered in the Saudi...
Introduction In a MEMRI dispatch issued shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we wrote the following: Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing country among the members of the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) and, as such, it is the dominant force in the orga...
Introduction A few days before the Hajj (November 25-30, 2009), Iranian officials deliberately intensified statements calling on Shi'ites, and all Hajj pilgrims to Mecca, to conduct baraa - a kind of political protest against the infidels and apostates instituted by the founde...
Introduction On June 7, 2009, the March 14 Forces won the Lebanese parliamentary elections. Five months later, on November 9, 2009, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman endorsed a government that represents a victory for the opposition, which is celebrating its achievement of man...
The current clashes between the Saudi security forces and the Houthi rebels who have infiltrated Saudi Arabia from Yemen have intensified the steadily escalating conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is part of the cold war in the Middle East between the pro-Saudi camp a...
Introduction Recently, Saudi women activists, led by Saudi Princess Jawaher bint Jalawi, launched a campaign called "My Guardian Knows What's Best For Me," calling for redefining the term "guardian" and for opposing calls by those with liberal views to improve the status of wom...
Introduction Beginning in mid-2009, the Iranian and Saudi media have been regularly exchanging accusations on a number of points of conflict: the escalation between the Yemen army and the Houthi rebels, [1] the intensified attacks in Iraq, Iran's involvement in Lebanon and the...
Introduction Reactions in the Arab media to the awarding of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama were split into support and opposition. The supporters of the move stated that Obama deserved the prize for the spirit of reconciliation and moderate messages t...
On August 13, 2009, the Iraqi daily Al-Zaman cited a statement by Yousef Al-Matlabi, political advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, accusing Saudi Arabia of inciting violence in Iraq. As evidence, he noted the arrest in Iraq of several Saudi nationals who had recentl...
Currently, Iraqi-Saudi relations are at a nadir. While Iraq has time and again officially reiterated its desire to strengthen relations and resolve disagreements with Saudi Arabia, the Saudi response has been less than enthusiastic. The Saudis have repeatedly rejected Iraq's pr...
Introduction Since he took the throne on August 1, 2005, Saudi King 'Abdallah bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz has instituted far-reaching reforms that have changed the face of the Kingdom. The reforms included: Establishing a body to elect the king and crown prince from among the sons and g...
Introduction In advance of the Doha summit in late March, 2009, Egypt and Saudi Arabia made their participation conditional on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's not being invited. Saudi Arabia and Syria held several high-level meetings in an attempt to alleviate the tension...
On December 18, 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] released a new video produced by its media company, Al-Malahim, featuring a lecture by its leader Qassem Al-Rimi.
Following are excerpts:
Qassem Al-Rimi: Allah said: "Fight the leaders of disbelief – for surely thei...
In a Saudi TV interview, anthropologist Saad Al-Sowayan called to "accept change, rather than fight it," or else "become extinct." Stating that "our necks are sore from constantly looking back to the past," Al-Sowayan added, "If we encounter a problem, we must not look for the so...
During an Islamic-theme reality show on the Saudi Bedaya TV channel, Abdullah Al-Suwailem said that women should not go out to work. "Why does a woman need money?" he asked. "A woman's real life is to live under the wing of her husband and her son." Al-Suwailem went on to say: "I...
In a recent TV interview, Saudi Shura Council member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi said: "We produce this kind of people [who carried out the Paris attacks and 9/11], this kind of hostility." "We are immersed in this violence, because we are immersed in the hatred of the other," he said in ...
In a TV interview, Saudi author Turki Al-Hamad said that there was a need for "a real revolution in our education" and for the "humanization of religion," because "our religion has been hijacked by many and has been made savage." He further said that "ISIS is an organization that...
Saudi TV host Abdulellah Al-Dosari recently praised Allah for the death of some 300 Iranians in the recent Hajj stampede in Mecca. "Praise be to Allah, who relieved Islam and the Muslims from their evil," he said. "We pray that Allah will usher them into Hell for all eternities."...
In a TV interview, Saudi cleric Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan said that Saudi Arabia had weapons "which can erase Tehran in a matter of seconds if it dares to [attack] us." Al-Fawzan was responding to Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei's threats of a "harsh" response following the stamped...
Saudi-born singer Shams Bandar, also known as "Shams the Kuwaiti," recently declared that she was renouncing her Saudi and Kuwaiti nationalities for the sake of European citizenship. In a September 22 interview with the Egyptian Dream TV channel, she defended her decision, saying...
In a lesson posted on the Internet on September 1, 2015, Saudi Sheik Yahya Al-Jana' talks about the joys of Paradise, saying that men will have the strength of a hundred men in Paradise and will be busy "tearing hymens," while the virgins of Paradise, whose breasts are "like pome...
In a 2005 address, Saudi writer Zuhair Kutbi said that the Saudi education system and media preached hatred toward others - toward Jews, Christians, and Shiites. Kutbi said: "We must stop fooling ourselves, and we must stop saying: Thus said Allah, and thus said the Prophet." Hat...
In a lecture delivered on June 5, 2014, Saudi Cleric Sheikh Sa'd bin Ateeq Al-Ateeq discussed the Islamic principle of respectful behavior towards one's parents. Sheikh Al-Ateeq said that children should be like shoes on their parents' feet, before moving on to recount a story ab...
In a recent TV interview, Yemeni MP Muhammad Muqbil Al-Himyari broke down in tears when describing the situation in Taiz, Yemen. "I am not speaking metaphorically when I say that the city is being annihilated," said Al-Himyari, appealing to the Saudi king to "come to our rescue."...
In a report posted on the Internet on August 20, makeshift classrooms in a remote village in Burkina Faso are shown in which the textbooks used bear the logo of the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One of the textbooks is titled ""Monotheism and Jurisprudence...
Saudi Sheikh Salah Al-Budair, Imam of the Grand Mosque in Medina and former Imam of the Haram Mosque in Mecca, posted on his twitter account a video in which he is shown firing a cannon while visiting Saudi troops on the front lines....
In a July 13 interview with the Dubai-based Saudi TV network Al-Arabiya TV, Saudi author Turki Al-Hamad said that "most of our sheikhs and preachers" are incapable of producing a moderate discourse because they draw upon the same ideological sources as ISIS. He further stated tha...
In a recent TV interview, Saudi author Turki Al-Hamad talked about the extremist discourse prevalent in Saudi Arabia, leading many of its youth to join ISIS, and said: "In order to stop ISIS, you must first dry up this ideology at the source."
Following are excerpts from the inte...
In an Egyptian TV interview, cleric Muhammad Abdallah Nasr, who is known as "Sheik Mizo," said that sex between single people "should be considered an abomination," but was not fornication. He was speaking on Al-Kahera Wal-Nas TV on July 1, 2015.
Following are excerpts:
Intervi...
In a June 29 interview on Rotana Khalijiya TV, Saudi cleric and political activist Mohsen Al-Awaji criticized the reign of the late King Abdullah. "You, the king, the crown prince, the deputy crown prince, and all the Saudi citizens know that we had suffered under the previous ki...
In a TV interview, Saudi author Zuhair Kutbi criticized the Saudi regime’s efforts at national dialogue with the public, saying: "It was nothing but hot air, a waste of public funds." Recounting that he had been imprisoned and committed to an asylum for his reformist beliefs, Kut...
In a Saudi TV program, Professor Khalid Al-Mosleh said that a Muslim should not greet a Christian in a way that implied acceptance of infidel holidays, like saying "Merry Christmas." Drawing a distinction between religious and other holidays, he said: "it is better to avoid initi...
With his recent Ramadhan TV show "Selfie," Saudi comedian Nasser Al-Qasabi incurred the wrath of cleric Saeed bin Farwah, who pronounced him an infidel and prayed "that Allah leave no bone unbroken in the body of that piece of filth." The show, which aired on the Saudi MBC TV cha...
In a recent Saudi TV interview, Abdul Rahman Al-Otaiby, a dean at the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, said that Saudi Arabia had to develop nuclear weapons in order to create a balance of power with Iran. Al-Otaiby, speaking on the Saudi 2 TV channel on May 19, advoca...
In a May 15 address aired on Al-Manar TV, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah criticized Saudi Arabia for its recent airstrikes in Yemen. Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of bombing tombs and pilgrimage sites and attributed this to the Saudis' "Bedouin" mentality. He added...
In an Iranian TV interview, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Masoud Jazayeri threatened the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, saying: "There is a limit to Iran's self-restraint." Sending humanitarian aid to the region would "spark a strong fire, which they will not be able to exting...
On May 10, former Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh denounced the Saudi bombardment of his home, saying: "An attack on me is an attack on our country and on all its citizens." Saleh pledged that the Al-Saleh Foundation would donate a million dollars to help Yemeni refugees retu...
In an Iraqi TV interview, former MP Mithal Alusi slammed Saudi Arabia, claiming that it was interfering in Iraqi affairs and saying that when Saudi Arabia becomes a democracy, it could pass judgment on Iraq. Alusi called on the Iraqi government not to prevent ISIS cells from stri...
In an address posted on the Internet on May 3, Saudi Islamist preacher Abdulla Ba Neema (sometimes spelled Baneameh) said that the Jews "put poison into things that the Muslims like." According to him, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook are tools used by the Jews to poison and heart...
In a TV interview on April 20, former Yemeni finance minister Dr. Seif Al-Asli criticized Houthi leader Abdel Malik Al-Houthi, saying that the Yemenis had not granted him "legitimacy to speak on their behalf." Speaking on Yemen Today TV, a channel affiliated with former president...
In a recent TV interview, Brigadier-General Ahmad Reza Pourdestan, Commander of the Iranian Ground Forces, said: "If Saudi cities were targeted by bombings and missiles, it would be difficult for the officials there to withstand this." He further said that in order to prevent a S...
In a TV interview, Yemeni politician and tribal leader Mujahed Haidar refused, time and again, to criticize Egypt's role in Operation Decisive Storm, denying that it was part of the campaign. "Anyone who comes as an invader will meet his death," he said in the interview, which ai...
During a recent interview with the Hizbullah-owned Al-Manar TV channel, leading Lebanese journalist Ibrahim Al-Amin called Saudi Arabia the "kingdom of evil" and said that "getting rid of the rule of the Saud clan was no less important than wiping Israel out of existence." Al-Ami...
On March 25, during an interview on Hiwar TV, broadcasting from London, Syrian writer Muhydin Lazikani said that "all the childhood memories of the man who rules the White House are Shiite memories" and that "that is why he is so anxious for Iran to emerge victorious." On April 1...
Syrian Islamic scholar in exile Muhammad Surour Zein Al-Abideen welcomed the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. Addressing the Iranians, whom he called "neo-caesars" whose barbarity "is unparalleled in history," Zein Al-Abideen said: "We have run out of patience. Know your true size. Y...
Against the backdrop of the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, Lebanese TV anchor Hanadi Zaidan harshly criticized Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, saying: "Hizbullah and its secretary-general are the only ones who swim against the Arab and Lebanese current, declaring thei...
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