President Saied’s bold critique of international relations
Tunisia’s President, Kais Saied, strongly criticized European Union monitors who tried to meet with Tunisian prisoners’ families according to African news . He made this clear during a passionate speech in Tunis on 19th September.
In a video message from the Tunisian presidency, Saied firmly said, “People coming from other countries to watch over us are not welcome here.”
Saied was also unhappy with the name given to a recent storm in the Mediterranean that hit Libya. He didn’t like that it was called “Daniel” because he thought it sounded like a Hebrew prophet’s name.
He even suggested that the “Zionist movement” had somehow influenced this choice and expressed concerns about how it affected intellectual discussions. He said, “Our thinking has been affected.”
He connected the storm’s name to international politics, mentioning the Abraham Accords, which are agreements that Israel made with some Arab nations. He stated, “I don’t support what they call ‘normalization’ because it betrays the rights of the Palestinian people.”
Saied acknowledged that Israel had made diplomatic deals with some Arab countries under the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians saw as a betrayal.
He explained that this conflict goes back to the 1967 Middle East conflict when Israel acquired certain territories, which the Palestinians also wanted for their future state.
He pointed out that there hadn’t been meaningful peace talks for over a decade and that Israel currently had a very nationalist and religious government, making it difficult to achieve Palestinian statehood.
This has made the idea of a Palestinian state seem very challenging, many analysts argue.
