OPINION: SISI AND BASHAR AL-ASSAD AND TRANSITIONING FROM ONE EMBRACE TO ANOTHER

Tue 23 May 2023:

Embraces are fleeting, and a person may move from one embrace to another for whatever reason. This is not a phrase to promote a brothel and wasn’t said by a prostitute as she went from the embrace of one to another. It was actually said in the speech by the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar Al-Assad, who celebrated his return to the embrace of the Arab League with these disgusting words.

The man moved from the embrace of Russia to the embrace of Iran, then, from the embrace of Iran to the embrace of Saudi Arabia, and from the embrace of Saudi Arabia to the embrace of the Arab League. Embraces are fleeting and moving from the embrace of one to another is done for good reason in the eyes of the war criminal Bashar Al-Assad.

Bring together and please. This is a phrase we hear often in Egypt to wish a happy engagement and a good marriage, but when it comes to the picture of Al-Sisi greeting Bashar Al-Assad and exchanging laughter and friendly words with him, we couldn’t find anything to better express this meeting of criminals, murderers and dictators.

Al-Assad participated in the 32nd Arab Summit hosted in the city of Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the first time in years. The same man who killed more than half a million Syrians, displaced millions, was the biggest cause of what was known as the global refugee crisis years ago, imprisoned tens of thousands of Syrians, and became one of the major drug dealers in the world, specifically the drug, Captagon. He also brought in countries, militias, militants and thugs into Syria making it a new symbol of military fascism.

Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who killed nearly 1,000 Egyptians in one day, participated in committing the largest and most heinous massacre in modern Egyptian history, on 14 August 2013, in the Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Al-Nahda Squares.

Al-Sisi, who continued his crimes with medical negligence and extrajudicial killing, displaced thousands of his people in the largest alienation of Egyptians process, and arrested nearly 100,000 citizens in his various prisons, is meeting with Al-Assad in a scene that frustrated millions of Arabs watching the scene unfold in various Arab countries. Some even said that it was the day to declare the death of the Arab Spring.

What a surprise! These men are being welcomed by Mr Bone Saw himself, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, a man who has been famous since October 2018 for his expert skill in killing, imprisoning and chasing his opponents wherever they are, whether in Saudi Arabia or in his country’s consulates abroad. We have not forgotten about the murder of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country’s consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

Bashar Al-Assad is warning us that the Arab region is facing “the danger of Ottoman expansionist thought which is flavoured with deviant Muslim Brotherhood ideology”, in reference to Turkiye and its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This is his attempt to flirt with the heads and kings of the Arab summit in Saudi Arabia, most of whom are not on great terms with Turkiye or the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, Al-Sisi believes that Syria’s return to the Arab League is an affirmation of the Arab role and its defence of the concept of the national state. I do not know whether the concept of the national state means a military general assumes power in a violent coup, or if it is based on the number of opponents arrested? Is the national state a state that prevents political action, controls the media, suppresses freedom of expression and blocks opposition websites?

The scene of Al-Sisi and Al-Assad shaking hands is a crime against the Arab nation, a scene that represents the failure of Western countries and governments to support the causes of the oppressed Arab peoples and their refusal to deal with Arab dictatorships that do not respect human rights and do not abide by international covenants.

On social media, the Saudi and Egyptian electronic committees were celebrating Al-Sisi and Al-Assad’s hand shake, listed the advantages of Al-Assad’s participation in this summit, and said how the new Saudi Arabia was able to return Syria to the Arab embrace. However, on the other hand, the majority of the Arab people cursed them both, morning and night, and wished nothing but their departure, as soon as possible. They hoped for Arab countries to return to the embrace of their people, far from their rulers moving from the embrace of one to another.

May this happen soon.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Independent Press.