Bored Wordsmith

Saudi. I like to elevate my own anxiety by pondering the problems of the Middle East. Radically anti-leftist. Pro-peace and economic development. Saudi First!

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

The aftermath of this quote is quite tragic, in retrospect, but I still find it funny

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

"نبي هدوء" -محمد العمادي

#LegendaryQuotes

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

If Oman doesn't loudly and publicly insist on pre-28-Feb Hormuz arrangements, we should perhaps abolish the GCC. Between them and psychotic little sparta, what's the use anymore?

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

This is... something else

[Elizabeth Hagedorn @ElizHagedorn]

Trump on Egypt's Sisi: "He was in a hotel and I met him. We fell in love, deeply in love ... We met. We didn't know each other before that. We had great chemistry, and I stayed twice as long as I was supposed to."

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Fantastic News

[Jacob Magid @JacobMagid]

🧵New: The US is in talks with the Palestinian Authority about boosting what has been a strained bilateral relationship, as Washington seeks Ramallah’s cooperation to advance policies in region, three gov officials familiar told @TimesofIsrael (1/36)
https://t.co/r1H2NpIMt8

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Again, you're looking at these issues in a very simplified all-or-nothing / partisan look, so I'll try explaining the Saudi perspective as much as I can:

A. Pre-2024, the optics for the Palestinian issue vis-a-vis normalization could have been managed without two states, but would still have needed sizable concessions to improve Palestinian quality of life.

B. Post-2024 Israel policy in the West Bank is significantly worse, in terms of settler violence, IDF action, land seizures and choking off the PA/Palestinians at a time when Saudi Arabia is trying to reform the PA. In addition, there is increasing casual rhetoric amongst mainstream Israelis post-2024 about removing the Palestinians from both the Gaza and the West Bank. From the Saudi perspective, this has significant national security implications for us related to Jordan and Egypt, as we have land and sea borders with these countries.

C. While elements of Israel's policy towards Syria could be defensible, it still is extremely hostile, particularly elements related to the "buffer zone for the buffer zone", verbal hostility including Israeli government ministers calling for Sharaa's assassination and resistance to US pressure to reach a security agreement. Saudi sees Syria as a place that, no matter how imperfect, has miraculously left the Iranian influence zone and is open to friendly relations with the region and the west, and Israeli hostility (despite Syria not attacking Israel) threatens that.

D. Saudi supported the Abraham Accords in 2020 and onwards with airspace openings and diplomatic acquiescence, and feels that it only got an increasingly regionally aggressive Israel in response. Hence, the change in threat perception and policy after 2024.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Gender wars are as ridiculous as Palestinians vs. Israel. Two sides calling out the awfulness of the other side but refusing to acknowledge their own problems because the other side is supposedly worse under some custom criteria tailored to show how bad the other side is.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Maybe consider the fact that the unbridled insane hostility shown towards Syrians by Israel after they recovered from an Iranian-sponsored genocide, as well as the creeping subjugation of West Bank Palestinians (we can call them stateless Arabs in Judea and Samaria if any of these words bother you) played a role in altering Saudi Arabia's threat perceptions.

But of course, pro-Israel people only see the region in partisan/sectarian terms, so they conclude that we were threatened by "HTS" and "Turkey" and decided to "get on the other team".

[Charles Malik stan @ptkrje]

Israeli peace proposals from 18-25 years ago are used to justify the conduct of an Israeli government that does not believe in the two state solution at all. It makes absolutely no sense. And as people who actually know the issues would attest, the offers were never “generous”.

[Elizabeth Tsurkov @LizHurra]

A must-read incisive piece by Nathan Brown on Israel's post-Oct 7th "Rubble Doctrine":
"A doctrine built on domination, degradation, and non-reconstitution has produced tactical successes. It has destroyed infrastructure, killed commanders and foot soldiers, depopulated zones, delayed attacks, imposed costs, and reassured frightened publics that something decisive is being done. However, permanent war as a governing condition is not only bad for the region, even on its own terms it offers Israel little in the long run. Tranquility produced by rubble is not peace. It is only an interval before more rubble is required. This is the central flaw in the doctrine." https://t.co/G9iMI0tTa4

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

@Mr_B9203 Unironically true

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Well, crap 😑

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

NEW: Stanford researchers found that overworked AI agents began embracing Marxist views.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

2020 was crazy 😅

[McDonald's @McDonalds]

“Black trans women have a very simple message: stop killing us” - @imarajones

https://t.co/KLsZbLzH7i

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

@jewndahalfmen Sorry to hear that, and welcome back!

[MENA Visuals @menavisualss]

🇸🇦 The receptionist of the Meridien hotel with a gas mask during a Scud alert in Dhahran. Saudi Arabia, January 1991.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

@Mr_B9203 But then you would need more buffer zones for the buffer zones.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

@Mr_B9203 Sectarian Cringe IMO

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

I would sympathize with the UAE if they had not been waging a childish and psychotic anti-Saudi media campaign since the fourth or fifth day of the war

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

Psychotic Losers

[Prof. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi @suwaidi_jamal]

Arab countries (that claim to be great) steal land from their Arab neighbors.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

It's Palestinianism, in a nutshell. The Israelis are becoming Palestinians.

[Bored Wordsmith @boredwordsmith]

@jewandahalfmen Interrogating suspected Marxists and Islamists is ok in my book and I'm not interested in any further details

[حوجن الطمحي Hwjn Al-tamhi @H901T]

I’ve seen plenty of idiots in my life, but idiots with their brains shoved completely up their asses in another dimension? Yeah this is a whole new level of stupidity first time witnessing this shit 🤷‍♂️