The Criminal Court in Kuwait has sentenced media Personality Fajr Al Saeed to three years in prison with hard labor in a state security case according to the Arab Times.
The Public Prosecution had earlier ordered the detention and referral to the Central Prison after she was accused of advocating for normalization with Israel and endangering national interests, the daily stated.
On 9 January, 2025 Al Saeed, who has been calling for normalization with Israel since at least 2019, was arrested and jailed for 21 days for repeating her call to establish relations with the Israeli occupation.
Her views and arrest are currently trending, both in Arabic and English on the social media.
In 2021 the Kuwaiti Assembly passed a bill prohibiting normalization with Israel.
Arab nations and organizations continued to express their firm rejection of US President Donald Trump’s plan to seize Gaza and displace Palestinians.
Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Libya and the Palestinian group Hamas released statements Thursday.
It followed earlier rejections from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Oman, along with several regional and international organizations including the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
On Thursday, Trump claimed that Palestinians would have “better lives” under his plan, suggesting they would settle in “safer and more beautiful communities with modern homes.” He said the US would collaborate with development teams to build “one of the greatest projects of its kind.”
Earlier in the day, he claimed that Palestinians would have “a chance to be happy, safe, and free” due to the relocation scheme he proposed.
He added that they “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”
On Tuesday, Trump told a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will “take over” Gaza and resettle Palestinians elsewhere under an extraordinary redevelopment plan that he said could turn the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Commenting on Trump’s plan, Egypt said it rejects any proposal “that aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause by uprooting the Palestinian people or displacing them from their historical land and seizing it, whether temporarily or permanently.”
King Abdullah II of Jordan reiterated in a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Jordan opposes any attempts to annex land or displace Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed its steadfast support for Palestine’s right to establish an independent state, condemning Israeli settlement policies and the displacement of Palestinians.
Algeria condemned any plan to expel Gaza’s residents, warning that such schemes “undermine the core of the Palestinian national project.”
Both Iraq and Libya expressed their strong opposition to any proposals or attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians, calling on the international community to take a firm stand against these actions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Trump’s plan a violation of international law, asserting that Gaza is an integral part of Palestine and rejecting foreign decisions about the future of Palestinians.
Hamas also denounced Trump’s statements, with spokesperson Hazem Qassem calling for an urgent Arab summit to oppose the displacement project, warning that the US is essentially seeking to occupy Gaza.
Saudi Arabia reiterated its unwavering support for Palestinian statehood, while the United Arab Emirates also condemned the displacement efforts, calling for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council both reaffirmed their commitment to the Palestinian cause, rejecting any plans for the forced relocation of Palestinians.
The Houthi movement in Yemen also condemned Trump’s statements as a blatant attack on Palestinian rights and an insult to the Arab and Muslim world.
A ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza on Jan. 19, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed nearly 47,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and left the enclave in ruins, according to Anadolu.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Nicknamed “the Prince of Shadows” Abdullah Barghouti is the Palestinian political prisoner with the most number of life sentences ever given to a single detainee.
A former leader of the Hamas’ al-Qassam brigade’s armed wing, in the West Bank, he now appears to be on the verge of release in the Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange.
Born in Kuwait in 1972, Abdullah Barghouti grew up outside of occupied Palestine, despite his family having originated from the village of Beit Rima, located near Ramallah. Barghouti attended school, up until high school in Kuwait.
Upon the eruption of the first Intifada in the occupied Palestinian territories, in 1987, Barghouti recounted in his memoir that the uprising had inspired him to seek revenge against the occupiers, especially after Israeli forces murdered one of his cousins and youngest uncle. “Simply put, they threw stones at the Zionist occupation forces that were wreaking havoc, so they were shot and martyred” he stated.
During the first Gulf War (1990-1991), Abdullah Barghouti was reportedly arrested for around a month after being accused of participating in the fight against US forces, later being released after the war. Prior to this, Barghouti had decided to pursue the combat sport of Judo and was trained by a man named Munir Samik who was also Palestinian.
Samik once asked Barghouti: “Aren’t you Palestinian? Don’t you want to liberate your country? If you use it against all those who occupied your homeland, there in Palestine, use what you learned here.” Inspired to make himself physically strong and capable of fighting Israel, he then began training in the use of firearms and explosives in the Kuwaiti desert. During the war, Barghouti’s family was forced to flee to Jordan.
When he traveled to live in Amman, Jordan, he would finish high school there but due to his family being too poor to afford University, so he would borrow money from a relative in order to open up a mechanic shop, continuing to practice Judo as a hobby. However, he wasn’t able to earn enough money to keep his business afloat and pay back his relatives and decided to move abroad in order to pursue higher education instead.
A friend of Barghouti had recommended he apply for a visa program to travel to South Korea, which ended up leading him there in pursuit of an education. When he arrived, he had no money and little but the clothes on his back.
Barghouti walked from the airport to a location that was supposed to help him secure an education; his journey would take three days during which he went without eating. He recalled that he drank water from public parks until reaching the address he had been given, finding out that it was a wood-cutting factory.
So, without any money or prospects, he ended up working at the factory for 45 days without having money to buy food, eating only from what the factory would supply him.
In 1991, after a few months in the wood-cutting factory, he moved to work in a mechanical factory and studied in parallel with his work at an engineering institute, specializing in electromechanics. This was also the time during which he would meet his wife, who was of Korean origin.
However, his passion for seeking the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle would not perish while he lived in South Korea, as he would routinely go deep into the forest and practice making improvised explosive devices and refining his craft. In 1998 he would then return to Amman with his wife, before deciding to divorce her due to his desire to have children.
Around this time he started becoming more religious, moved to Jerusalem and then the West Bank, married a Palestinian wife, and settled down in his family’s village of Beit Rima. He later had two daughters, Safaa and Tala, and a son called Osama.
It just so happened that in 2001, Beit Rima would be the first area in the West Bank that would experience a full-scale military invasion during the Second Intifada. Israeli forces deployed tanks, attack helicopters, and a huge military force to the village.
Abdullah Barghouti joined the Qassam Brigades in 2001, seeking out his cousin Bilal Barghouti in order to share his expertise in bomb-making.
After his cousin, who is currently serving 16 life sentences in Israeli military prison, witnessed how skilled he was at engineering explosives, he told his superiors in the Hamas military wing and Abdullah Barghouti would begin military training in the Nablus area, going on to become a commander of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank.
This entire time, almost nobody close to him knew of his secret ambition to seek revenge against Israel and his bomb-making skills. He would later go on to participate in the manufacturing of explosives that killed 66 Israelis and injured over 500.
When he was eventually tracked down in 2003 and arrested by the Israeli occupation forces, he was interrogated and tortured for over five months, before being handed 67 life sentences, amounting to 5,200 years in prison. In later interviews recorded with Barghouti from inside an Israeli prison, he would confidently state that one day interviewers would come to meet him while he sits inside a hot tub in Ramallah.
If he is to be released during the upcoming Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange, it is likely that Israel will request his deportation outside of occupied Palestine. It is speculated that Barghouti could be useful to Hamas in developing its influence in the armed struggle inside the West Bank, which is currently dominated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Fatah-aligned fighters.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Kuwaiti observer and political analyst Walid Al-Ahmad called on Arab countries that have diplomatic and economic relations with Tel Aviv to “take decisive and effective steps to pressure the Israeli occupation to stop the war on Gaza.”
Al-Ahmad stressed on the “Manchet Press” program, on Kuwait’s official state television, Sunday, the “necessity of considering options such as withdrawing ambassadors with Israel and threaten to stop trade and economic dealings with the Jewish entity.”
“These measures, if implemented effectively, would leave a painful impact on the Israeli economy, which may push it to reevaluate its policies and meet Arab demands,” he explained.
“Pressure should not be limited to Israel only, but also directed towards the United States of America, which is considered the main supporter of Israel,” he added.
“Strengthening economic and diplomatic relations with global powers such as Russia and China can be a powerful tool to send a clear message to Washington about the need to review its policies supporting Israel,” he pointed out.
Kuwait and “despite its small size, is a large country in its giving and positions,” adding it “was the first among the Gulf and Arab countries to strengthen its relations with China, which highlights its pioneering role in changing the balance of economic power,” the political analyst said.
“In light of the current situation, where the United States dominates most global agreements, tenders and treaties, Kuwait’s move towards China is a smart strategic move, and through this step, Kuwait has opened the way for other Gulf countries to consider cooperation with China, which enhances the diversity of strategic economic options in the region,” he explained.
The Israeli occupation army has been continuing its aggression on the Gaza Strip for 345 days, with American and European support. Its aircraft are bombing the vicinity of hospitals, buildings, towers, and homes of Palestinian civilians, destroying them over the heads of their residents, and preventing the entry of water, food, medicine, and fuel.
The ongoing genocide on Gaza over the past 11 months have failed to move the Arab Street even one iota. This is an Israeli genocide but the Arab world continues to look on helplessly and hopelessly unable to fathom of what to do to stop it.
Despite the intensity of Israel’s war on the whole of the Gaza Strip since 7 October, 2023, and the consequent daily massacres perpetrated by the Zionist army, literally committed nonstop, the popular streets across the Arab world has largely been dormant, lethargic and ineffective, spectators to a deadly bloody match with vastly unequal partners.
Gone are the days…
People have been glued to their television sets, especially on Al Jazeera, stunned at the annihilation of Gaza by Israeli bombardment and missiles. But they have not been able to do anything except wonder in amazement at the scale of destruction of the Palestinian territory with men, women, children, toddlers, babies and infants standing alone to face the Israeli enemy only to be blown up to pieces.
Gone are the days when popular protest gripped the Arab world to-the-teeth and were a sense of nationalism, dignity, values and pride once held sway. This of course was not always this way.
The pan-Arab street have always been ripe with anger and frustrations and political awareness of right and wrong expressed in almost daily demonstrations right from at least 1956 when Israeli, Britain and France carried their tripartite attack on Egypt at the nationalization of the Suez Canal.
Then countries like Kuwait, Jordan and others took part in the protests against the three-country attack crying foul of neocolonialism and subjugation. But then was the period of the pan-Arab nationalist movement that grew up in Beirut and spread to other Arab cities in the wake of the fall of Palestine in 1948 and the creation of the state of Israel.
No new dawn!
Despite statist policies and autocratic governments popular protests continued across the Arab world sporadically, whether in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s with the central question being Palestine.
This culminated in the Arab Spring of 2011 when there was a new popular push forward and the promise of a new dawn across the region. With the economic squeeze increasing against the Arab masses Palestine was joined by calls for regime change and economic modernization to increase employment and lower the stinging rates of poverty.
Despite the fact that governments were brought down, here and there, starting with Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, the Arab Spring – the great popular deluge of protests that was unprecedented in many ways – succumbed to the strong and powerful Arab state, together with its institutions, leaderships, bureaucracy and security apparatuses and military forces.
Whilst Arab governments were at first taken by surprise, they quickly recuperated, gained their power back and dominated the will of the majority and stomped the popular uprisings movement in their tracks; halting regime change there and then.
The popular Arab street may have erupted again in 2019 in particular in Lebanon, Sudan and Algeria but it once again failed in its demands to change the political status quo and reflected the dichotomies of awkward change. There was regime change in Sudan for instance, but the country degenerated into a civil war up till now with its power elites fighting each other over the seats of government.
Cool reaction
The present Gaza situation, and the Israeli onslaught on its people and resistance, must be understood within this context. The ebbs and flows of the popular street and its failure to change states, regimes and governments – starting from the radicals to the most conservatives – may explain why the present pan-Arab street is reacting in coolly to the present attacks on Gaza and which very quickly turned into a criminal genocide, in deed and practice.
People feel even if they continue to rally, and protests are continuing against the mass bombing of Gaza by countries like Morocco which has established a normalization deal with Israel, they will not be able to stop Israel from its daily war crimes in Gaza mainly because popular movements have limits. And that it is finally it is up to these states to make decision and pressure the United States and Israel to stop the genocide on Gaza.
It’s a strange situation with emotions dampened and cushioned despite the horrific images of babies cut to pieces, children dying in hospitals, women and men crying at loved ones and which have jam-locked the the social media. Growing daily statistics of the dead, buildings bombed, homes ripped apart have become just numbers regurgitated daily by televisions anchors or skimped through in newspapers and websites.
In this onslaught on Gaza, the apathy of the Arab street has reached a very low point – to the nadir because people are in a whirlpool of helplessness. They tried before and they failed and now these people have long become divided between poor and rich states in the Middle East region where consumerism and the high life has taken the better of them and where ideologies and nationalism are reduced to second place and where religion is interpreted differently.
This time around, the “popular world” erupted for Gaza, in Europe, across America, including in US university campuses and elsewhere like Japan, demonstrating time and again, against the genocide, but sadly this has not been the case in the Arab world.
Later on sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists would need to explain what happened this time around – almost total Arab silence against the Gaza genocide, why!
CrossFireArabia
