Renowned journalist and political commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal has gained a wide audience on Twitter on Tuesday, after his criticism of the Saudi Arabian regime.
Heikal, a former adviser to late president Anwar al-Sadat, was speaking to Lebanese Assafir newspaper in a lengthy interview, tackling several regional issues. His remarks about Saudi Arabia backfired, with social network users waging an attack against the senior political analyst.
Heikal, commenting on the recent nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers, analyzed how it would affect the balance of power between other regional players. The deal, which stipulated the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran and a halt to its nuclear research for a decade, has raised Saudi concerns of possible growing influence by Iran.
“Saudi Arabia and Gulf states are behaving in a backward manner”, Heikal told the newspaper. “They are too weak to stir trouble around the nuclear deal, but they can instead complain to the Americans and reproach them”, Heikal stated, adding that he “highly doubts” that Saudi Arabia could get over the dilemma caused by the nuclear deal.
"Heikal neither represents Egypt nor its regime”, Ibrahim, one of the user responding to the hashtag, said.
“He has always attacked Saudi Arabia and hates it. He ran a show on (Qatari) al-Jazeera channel devoted to that”, wrote Ghada.
"Heikal alwas held a grudge towards the Gulf in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. He has promoted the Persian model in our region”, wrote Ali.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
