At the end of several weeks of popular discontent, caused by a serious deterioration in the economic and health situation, which reached its peak on July 25 – the anniversary of the establishment of the Republic in Tunisia – with a day of protest calling for dismissal of the government and the dissolution of parliament, marked by the sacking of several headquarters of Ennahda, the Islamist party in power, especially in poor towns in the south of the country; President Kaïs Saïed has decided to deliver a radical “halt” to the political and social crisis shaking Tunisia.
Tunisia’s misfortune makes Qatar’s colonial happiness. Indeed, it is against the backdrop of a country decimated by the coronavirus – the death rate is the highest in Africa – that a bill has been passed allowing the “Qatar Fund For Development” to manage the financial interests between Tunisia and Qatar. A real treaty that will allow Doha to intervene directly in the Tunisian economy, with considerable advantages for the backers of Islamism.
Eight months after the Vienna attacks, the Austrian authorities have just toughened their anti-terrorism legislation. With the new anti-terrorism law adopted on July 8, Austria has taken the plunge, being the first European country to put the Muslim Brotherhood on its blacklist of terrorist organizations.
In an interview with Al Arabiya television channel, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mechaal, based in Doha, Qatar, questioned the decision taken by the Palestinian Islamist movement in 2017, which then amended its charter to remove any reference to its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.
You have to get used to it, Israel is not a country like the others. Normalcy, the ultimate goal of the Zionist project, is still out of reach, in the way the world looks at the Jewish state or in the way it looks at itself. Who would have imagined that Benyamin Netanyahu’s downfall would be brought about by the most disparate, original and unlikely coalition on the planet’s political scene?
Hamas leader Abdel Rahim Abou Fanah, chairman of the Zakat [Islamic legal alms, one of Hamas’ main channels for fundraising] committee within the Palestinian Islamist organization, ignited Arab social networks: In a video filmed on a mobile phone, by a young man speaking in the Palestinian Arabic dialect, this Hamas cadre appeared naked, in the company of a prostitute, in what appears to be an Israeli hotel, as indicate by signs in Hebrew on the furniture.
There’s no need to go to the Armani Hotel’s kosher restaurant unannounced. It’s better to book well in advance. As for the terrace, it is crowded, in order to be able to attend a unique show mixing water jets, sounds and lights. Draped in his white dishdasha, the traditional dress of the men of the Gulf, our interlocutor tells us that in the lounge of a large hotel in Dubai, he recently found himself the only Arab among dozens of Jews. “But if this continues, there will be more of them than us!” he says with a smile. When they signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020 normalising Emirati-Israeli relations, the Emiratis expected to welcome a wave of visitors from Tel Aviv. But it is a wave that has swept through the Gulf. As for the Western Jewish communities, they no longer say “next year in Jerusalem”, but “the next holiday in Dubai”!
The Americans are trying to sound out the French authorities discreetly to see if they would be prepared to deploy troops and/or air forces to Iraq. The aim is to fight against terrorism and to ward off attempts by ISIS to return in force. But also to fill the gap left by the American disengagement, in order to prevent the pro-Iranian militias from reversing the balance of power with the Baghdad government.
Pakistan has been witnessing a rapid breakdown of its internal administrative machinery, with its police and security forces unable to control the country-wide violence engineered by the supporters of the radical Islamist party, the Tehreek -e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that has been demanding the ouster of the French Ambassador and halting of trade relations with France. While the spotlight is on the grim domestic security situation with the government being held hostage by the TLP, the condition of its economy and its diplomatic standing is no better.
Bangladesh made headlines, last October, when thousands of protestors came out to the streets in Dhaka to protest against France. The protesters, around 50,000 in number, were demanding the closure of the French embassy in the country. A dummy of President Emmanuel Macron was also burnt during the protest with Junaid Babunagari, the Secretary-General of Hefazat-e-lslam (Hel) – one of the biggest Islamist groups in the country – stating that “Emmanuel Macron should beg for forgiveness.”. Apart from Dhaka, there were protests in smaller towns including one large protest in the port town of Chittagong, the headquarters of the Hel.
