Kuwait Ministry of Information published a statement and accused Sara al-Dandarawi, the presenter of Al Arabiya channel, of insulting Kuwait. According to the statement, what al-Dandarawi said was a grave, unacceptable insult both to the country and people of Kuwait. In response to the insult, Kuwait Ministry of Information has contacted the Al Arabiya channel and asked them to correct this mistake.
Apparently, during a live show, al-Dandarawi talked about Bloomberg’s new report about the decreasing price of alcoholic drinks in Qatar. After that, she contemptuously added that “we await the comments from their friends in Kuwait to gain more information about Qatar’s new splurge.” This statement made Kuwait furious because it linked Kuwait to the declining price of alcoholic drinks in Qatar.
In response to the insult, Kuwait Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah said that “the remarks of Al Arabiya channel presenter was a huge mistake and she should apologize for it.” he added that Kuwait has always done its best to reduce divisions between the member states of Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and such media attacks will only damage the friendly relations of the Council’s member states.
Al Arabiya’s mission: causing tension between countries
This isn’t the first time that Al Arabiya has sought to cause tension between different countries. Before this, the channel had showed a documentary about the Western Desert that had generated some tension between Saudi Arabia and the Maghreb.
The channel which is majorly supported by Riyadh officials and specially Mohammad Bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is widely famous for spreading false news and unfounded rumors.
Recently, Al Arabiya also published a fake rumor about death of the Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and caused a big controversy in Tunisia. The channel later apologized for publishing false news, but top officials in Tunisia were gravely upset about the whole controversy.
Another mission of Al Arabiya is to undermine the achievements of Yemeni people and resistant groups in defending their country against Saudi Arabia’s invasion. Each time that Yemeni resistant groups launch a missile attack against Saudi Arabia’s critical headquarters, Al Arabiya rush to the help of Saudi officials and try to pretend that everything is under control.
In sham news, this Saudi-based, hardline news channel had claimed that Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has ordered Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the military commander of Popular Mobilisation Committee of Iraq to attack the embassy of Bahrain in Baghdad!
In another program of Al Arabiya, when a retired Royal Saudi Navy dismissed American claims that Iran had participated in the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the channel suddenly cut off the whole program.
Furthermore, Al Arabiya twitter once published a quotation from Emirati Foreign Minister that said: “Iran’s footprints are obvious in attacks on the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.” However, Al Arabiya removed the tweet after Emirati Foreign Minister announced that he had not accused any certain country for the attacks. Reuters also confirmed Al Arabiya’s mistake and reported that Al Arabiya removed its controversial tweet.
Now after the latest blunder of this channel, some Kuwaitis are so angry that have said that Al Arabiya office in Kuwait should be closed and its entire staff must be expelled from the country. It seems that many Kuwaitis feel the same anger and hatred of this channel as shortly after the insult of the Al Arabiya presenter, a Twitterstorm started against her and more than 11 thousand tweets were published in less 24 hours.
Al Arabiya has also made several accusations against Qatar and Doha officials.
The animosity of Al Arabiya with Iran and Tehran’s policy in the Middle East is also completely obvious from the several false reports that the channel has published against Iran.
Among all this, BBC has published a report called why “Kuwaitis should be upset with Al Arabiya?”
It seems that BBC has the same policy of Al Arabiya and has come to the help of Saudis and want to pretend that the insult to the Kuwaitis was a trivial thing.
It seems that Al Arabiya’s verbal attacks against Kuwait is because that Kuwait has recently made some efforts to solve the crisis in the Persian Gulf region and has attempted to mediate between Arab countries in the region, including Qatar.
Finally, it seems that the rising number of Al Arabiya’s political blunders and the channel’s unprofessional conduct have now led to the great discontent of many countries; this false news and unfounded rumors are now upsetting not only the countries who are opposed to Saudi Arabia but also the ones who have good relations with Riyadh.
By: Fatemeh Salehi
MNA/TT