Al-Jazirah, Saudi Arabia, October 8
The Qataris, along with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, tried to politicize the [Jamal] Khashoggi killing, but they failed. Money is valuable everywhere, except in this microscopic state ruled by an obsessed man, whose sole purpose is to harm Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Gulf while allowing his own people go to hell. Hamad bin Khalifa, the former emir of Qatar, came to rule his country through a coup against his own father. His concern was not with the development of his country, the wellbeing of its people or the cultivation of good relations with its neighbors. Instead, it was a strict quest for power. Bin Khalifa allied with everyone and everything that represented evil in the region and spent copious amount of money on crazy goals and objectives driven by his inferiority complex. He was a man who did not read history and certainly did not learn from past mistakes. The murder of Khashoggi is undoubtedly a heinous crime committed by individuals who are now on trial, but the [current] emir [Tamim bin Hamad], who lacks prudence, intelligence and sophistication, hoped that it would be solved not in criminal court, but through the toppling of the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia, however, is a regional power capable of defending itself and exercising its power both at home and abroad. This makes shaking its stability, let alone toppling its regime, a ridiculous ambition. One cannot help but find striking similarities between the emir and other corrupt leaders like Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who abandoned his own people in an attempt to build an empire and secure his throne. I am certain that the fate of Gaddafi, who ended up being killed by his own people, will not be far from the fate of the emir of Qatar, who embodies the very same narcissistic values. Any attempt to undermine the stability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is doomed to fail. – Muhammad Al-Sheikh (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)