The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is once again angered by comments made by a Lebanese information minister, in a spat strikingly similar to a 2021 incident.
Beirut – Lebanon’s caretaker information minister has enraged Saudis after comments he made during a talk show earlier this week about media freedom.
A presenter at Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, Mayssoun Noueihed, appeared as a guest on a show airing on Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television channel that touched on press freedom in the country and across the region, and alleged press freedom in Lebanon was in a state of decline. Her comments came after several journalists have recently been summoned for questioning or sued.
Noueihed, who is Lebanese, said the media in the Gulf was “modernizing and progressing” to keep up with the modernization of states in the region, giving the UAE and Saudi Vision 2030 as examples.
“Our problem in Lebanon is that we have no vision, we have no president,” she said, adding that she had more rights working as a journalist in the Gulf.
“Our ambition is that our [Lebanese] state protects us because at the end of the day, we will all return, I won’t stay abroad forever.”
But in a possible reference to Saudi Arabia and the country’s rulers, Lebanese minister Ziad Makary criticized Noueihed’s remarks.
“I’d just like to say something as Mrs. Mayssoun spoke about freedom . If she is or somebody else is working – and I do not want to name the country she is working in – but if there is a country, for example, in which there is a single ruler and this ruler is not criticized by anyone, then is there freedom?” he said.
He added that the current state of Lebanon’s media reflects the overall “dire” conditions the country has been facing for years, as it reels under a suffocating economic crisis and political deadlock.
Makary’s response was enough to ignite a spate of online attacks by Saudi social media users.
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Makary, like Kordahi before him, represents the Hezbollah-backed presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh in the caretaker cabinet of PM Najib Mikati .
An interview with former minister of information, TV celebrity George Kordahi sparked a crisis between the Gulf countries and the government in Beirut.
In the interview Kordahi asserted that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels were only engaged in self-defense against the Saudi-led coalition, which was truly responsible for the war.
Saudi Arabia took offense and cut all ties with Lebanon, including blocking Lebanese imports. Then the country’s Gulf allies joined in.
Mikati urged Kordahi to “put his patriotic sense above all else” to defuse the crisis.
Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi also reportedly advised Kordahi to step down as well, but Kordahi refused.
Pressure mounted on Kordahi whose insulting comments on the war in Yemen sparked a diplomatic row with Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese work in Sadia Arabia including his daughter Patricia . Only Hezbollah and its allies were encouraging him not to quit, which prompted many leaders to call for liberating Lebanon from Hezbollah and Iran.
In the end Kordahi resigned on Dec 2, 2021 to pave the way for a possible resolution of a diplomatic spat between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia .
Ziad Makari , another key member of Franjieh’s Marada Movemnet was appointed by a decree as the Minister of Information, succeeding Kordahi.
The irony here is that Makari was also famous for his stances against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, especially in the issue of “former Prime Minister Saad Hariri” who presented his resignation from Riyadh years ago, as well as in the case of the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom Makari considered “deserves the award for the dumbest crime in human history, undisputed, of course.”
Kordahi has since tweeted praise for Saudi Arabia, saying that he by no means had bad intentions. But can what’s done be undone? The Houthis had already unfurled a large banner in Sanaa with a portrait of Kordahi and wrote: “Yes George, the Yemen war is a complete mess.”
Sami haddad, a Lebnaese analyst told Ya Libnan , Makary’s negative remark is the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Franjieh’s chances of getting to Baabda are cocerned “.
He added : “As far as the Saudi position on Franjieh is concerned “Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me”.
News Agencies
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