04/10/2020
04/10/2020
“THE biography of the late Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad, we pray to Almighty Allah to bestow his mercy upon him, represents the reputation of a homeland and novel march for the entire nation at all levels,” columnist and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Director of Administrative Affairs of Al-Seyassah newspaper Sulaiman Al-Jarallah wrote for the daily.
“This march was based on the initiatives deemed the first of their kind the Arab World has never witnessed. This man transformed the State of Kuwait into knowledge ‘bank’ since the establishment of the ‘Al-Arabi’ magazine in 1958, motivated by his conviction it is the humanity that forms the basis for building homelands.
“He never differentiated between an Arab and non-Arab rather he sent a message across to Arabs which was food for every human being who looked forward for awareness.
“On the same level, his philosophy to deal with foreign policy for more than forty years, was based on transforming Kuwait into a state of tolerance, communication and building of relations based on reciprocal respect and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states and played the role of impartial mediator among all disputing parties.
“That being the case, Kuwait still harvests the fruits of this policy. A testimony of this is the whole world eulogizing HH the late Amir to reflect the greatness of Sabah Al-Ahmad in the minds and the hearts of entire humanity.
“This universal personality indeed deserved the title of ‘The Amir of Humanity’. This title did not come from a vacuum rather it is a natural outcome of charity work over the years which has reached every corner of the world. The world misses the man who is born may be once in a century.
“Sabah Al-Ahmad was not a normal leader if we talk about building a modern Kuwait. He was rather a founder of the modern State of Kuwait. The entire Gulf, Arab, and the Islamic world will miss the absence of this lofty personality in addition to Kuwait. What saddens us is the huge heritage he has left behind and we must work to protect this legacy by all means.
“Today Kuwait enters a new phase of overcoming all big challenges which His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, had talked about during his sublime speech following the constitutional oath-taking ceremony. He has placed all of us before our own responsibilities, saying the country’s Constitution and the valid laws shall be the decisive criterion to punish or reward people.
“His optimism covers every Kuwaiti while we appreciate the best successor of the best predecessor, because His Highness the Amir, has lived the crises which Kuwait and the entire region passed through -- internal and external.
“His Highness enjoys tremendous experiences. There is no doubt that he will pursue the march of renaissance followed by the past generations.
“His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad knows the footprints of the late Sabah Al-Ahmad that gave a life of luxury for the Kuwaitis – the luxury that can be realized only through persistent work and seriousness to achieve success through willpower and the next phase, will be consecrated for work as well to complete the renaissance and building hope through the rational voice – the Nawaf of goodness.
“All Kuwaitis are requested to support their Amir and this means they should rise to the level of national responsibility for the sake of serving of their homeland and for the sake of protecting it from the storms through which the region is passing.”
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“The progress and development of the United Arab Emirates is linked to the mentality of the citizens of the UAE (senior officials),” columnist and former Kuwaiti ambassador Ahmad Al-Dawas wrote for Al-Seyassah daily.
“The UAE has waived the debts of its citizens who were unable to pay. Likewise, the UAE endorsed a policy where every citizen (male and female) is entitled for housing welfare and this policy did away with the marriage contract which was one of the conditions to get this right.
“The UAE even appointed a minister with a ‘Happiness’ and another with ‘Tolerance’ portfolios and as a result this Arab state currently enjoys the respect of the international community, because at the moment it hosts people belonging to various nationalities.
“Apart from the above, the UAE has established an aviation link with Panama in Central America which is the longest route in the world – non-stop 17.5 hours flight linking it with New Zealand.
‘When one expatriate instigated the people to demonstrate in the Amirate of Dubai to destabilize the Amirate and the security of the country, the expatriate was deported to Thailand at his request.
“The UAE government has threatened to withdraw the nationality of any citizen who constitutes a danger to the country. As a matter of fact many citizens have lost their nationalities for this reason.
“We congratulate the UAE for its firm stand. In this context we recall following the eruption of the ‘Arab Spring’ the Muslim Brotherhood Group, immediately hastened to support any attempt to topple that Arab regime including other Gulf regimes with support from Turkey and Qatar, but the UAE stood firm.
“Iran continued to interfere in the internal affairs of the region and threatened its Arab neighbors but this Iranian intervention came amidst Turkish danger which attacked the Kurds in Syria and Iraq in addition to Ankara’s intervention in Libya.
“Furthermore, Turkey is currently involved in a coalition with Iran in the Arab region and is planning to intervene in the struggle which currently takes place in Yemen. Not only that, Turkey has a military base in Somalia and supports Azerbaijan in its conflict against Armenia in addition to fabricating a maritime dispute with Greece.
“The Arab region faces dangers and political storms from everywhere and this means that it will be better to change the rules of the political game by weaving of a new coalition with another party. In other words, the Gulf states currently have two options – either to choose Iran or Israel.
“Amid the above events, Israel has been planning to annex some parts of the Palestinian West Bank as of July 1, 2020, and we wonder what the Arabs will do to rescue the Palestinian cause.
“Such being the case, the UAE has taken the initiative to defend the Palestinian cause, as long as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is still in a state of weakness as some politicians describe it, hence, the UAE has rescued the Palestinian position from more deterioration by concluding a peace agreement with Israel in return for the latter refraining from annexing the Palestinian land in question.
“In this context, what is attributed to researcher at the International Institute for the Strategic Studies, the former US diplomat Mark Fitzpatrick who says, ‘the UAE has done the heroics in defending the rights of the Palestinians because it has scuttled the Israeli schemes of annexing some parts of the West Bank’.
“He added, the UAE was the sole State that succeeded in preventing the Israeli expansion and this UAE action is credible and gives impetus to the good reputation of the UAE diplomacy.
“For its part, Bahrain also, has concluded a peace accord with Israel post following in the footsteps of the UAE, and we shall talk later about Bahrain, God willing.
“During the Arab League’s meeting that had been held in Beirut in 2002, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, had submitted a peace plan in which it had called for ties normalization with Israel, provide that the later should withdraw from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and the recognition of a Palestinian independent state.
“But the then Palestinian delegation to the meeting that was supported by the then Émile Jamil Lahoud, had threatened to exit from the meeting unless some changes were made to the Saudi proposal.
“Such being the case, the Palestinians lost the opportunity, when Lebanon fell under the Iranian influence and its ally ‘Hezbollah’. This month, the Arab League discussed the UAE-Israel peace accord, but the Palestinian delegation requested to severe diplomatic relations with the UAE, but the Arab League in an unprecedented measure rejected the Palestinian request in question.
“In this connection, we say the PNA seems to be weak, corruption is rampant because even the salaries of the ministers were secretly hiked in June 2019, and the senior PNA officials roam in luxury enjoying luxury cars wearing expensive, while half of Palestine still lives in camps as refugees, while Hamas leaders bask in luxury, while the people in Gaza Strip live under poverty line.
“Given the above, we have observed that the Palestinians have lost the peace opportunities, and dubbed the Arabs as traitors and abandoned the approach of leaders such as those of the UAE.”
— Compiled by Zaki Taleb