We will not remain silent and we will defend our country, Kuwait
A useful summary
Eighty years ago, Kuwaiti Palestinians were helped by Kuwaitis, who smuggled weapons to them via Al-Zubair, which was then part of Najd, and provided them with in-kind and financial aid starting in 1948.
When we were young, about 65 years ago, we paid a tax for the Algerian struggle when we entered cinemas. When Algeria gained independence, we started paying it for the Palestinians, and the Palestinian resistance movement launched from Kuwait in 1965.
Furthermore, Sheikh Saad, may God have mercy on him, saved Yasser Arafat from being killed during the Black September incidents in Jordan, about 55 years ago. He dressed him in clothes for disguise and flew him from Jordan to Egypt on a plane, hiding him inside Sheikh Saad Abdullah’s cloak, who was the Minister of Defense at the time. We showered the Palestinians with vast amounts of money and defended them in international forums, and we still do.
But come, and reflect on their stance toward us during the brutal Iraqi occupation. They turned 180 degrees against us. The Palestinians, along with the late Arafat, rejoiced at this occupation, stood with Saddam, and insulted Kuwaitis. Some betrayed their benefactors, guiding the occupying forces to the locations of Kuwaiti resistance. In Brazil, they insulted us, and nearly attacked me, the ambassador, and a colleague in a mosque during Friday prayers. I call God to witness what I say.
They gathered around the embassy car, and nearly stoned it with stones from the mosque courtyard while we were inside. They denied Kuwait’s favor over more than 80 years, despite all that Kuwait had done for them. Meanwhile, Kuwaitis were refugees seeking refuge in this or that country, their hearts breaking over the loss of their homeland and the treachery of these people. Yet, despite this, Kuwaitis, both in media and through material solidarity, continue to stand with them despite what they did to us.
You might say to me: "Forget it..." I say: Never. These people inflicted a deep, unhealing wound upon us.
When news broke of the appointment of an American ambassador to the country at some point, some of them appeared, including MPs demanding the rejection of her credentials, i.e., her expulsion from the country. The best response to these people was what the esteemed colleague Hassan Ali Karam wrote in an article published in "Al-Siyasa" at the time, saying: "Whoever demands the expulsion of the American ambassador and the rejection of her credentials should remember that, without America, he would now be a beggar in the Shorja market in Baghdad."
Similarly, colleague Khaled Al-Tarrah published an article mentioning that a Palestinian journalist at a Kuwaiti newspaper altered the Crown Prince’s noble word during the Cairo Summit in October 2023 by deleting the phrase "occupation authorities" from his statement and replacing it with "Zionism." Yesterday, a Palestinian writer published an article in one of our newspapers asking: "Why don’t Arab countries receive us and work to settle the Palestinians? That’s what’s missing. They stirred up events in Jordan and nearly caused damage, and entered Lebanon, where a civil war erupted and lasted for 15 years. The Palestinians also occupied the Japanese Embassy in Kuwait’s old Ministry of Foreign Affairs building on Al-Sour Street, between 1973 and 1974, when I joined the job there. Then they engaged in hijacking planes and bombing some of them. They harmed Jordan and Lebanon, and stabbed Kuwait in the back with the dagger of betrayal. Kuwait will be torn apart if they enter its land."
