Al-Jazirah, Saudi Arabia, February 1
I have previously written about the dirty media war waged against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has been unfolding for several years now. This is an orchestrated campaign launched by the American Left together with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and the countries that support it. It comes not out of hatred for Riyadh but out contempt for [US] President [Donald] Trump, who restored the historical alliance between the two nations after his predecessor, Barack Obama, nearly destroyed it. I often wonder if the Saudis have responded to this war appropriately. The painful answer is no. Most of the time, the Saudi government turns a blind eye. It devotes most of its energy to combatting this campaign through its own advertising and public relations efforts in Washington. But the reality is that we cannot defeat our opponents unless we deploy the very same tools they use. The first problem is our backward thinking. The media offices in our embassies around the world are still operating in a traditional and bureaucratic manner. This cannot provide us with the agility we need to respond to false accusations against our nation. The second problem is a lack of competency. Above anything else, what we are most desperate for are qualified and competent individuals who can monitor the worldwide media and devise long-term strategies to confront it. Without these two things, we will continue to find ourselves subjected to a global smear campaign against our country. The time has come for us to stop preaching to the choir and start focusing our efforts on the circles of power from which Saudi Arabia can most effectively benefit. – Ahmed Al-Farraj (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)