Uae President Quotes

Only a month before Americans were due to go to the polls, the UAE—and later joined by a coalition of Islamic countries—gave Kushner the greatest gift of his four years as advisor to the president by agreeing to normalize relations with Israel. Behind the scenes, the leaders of the UAE and Israel had developed strong intelligence and security ties over more than a decade, but this was a public coming-out ceremony that put Abu Dhabi in the hot seat as far as much of the Arab world was concerned.

When Libya fought against the Italian occupation, all the Arabs supported the Libyan mujahideen. We Arabs never occupied any country. Well, we occupied Andalusia unjustly, and they drove us out, but since then, we Arabs have not occupied any country. It is our countries that are occupied. Palestine is occupied, Iraq is occupied, and as for the UAE islands... It is not in the best interest of the Arabs for hostility to develop between them and Iran, Turkey, or any of these nations. By no means is it in our interest to turn Iran against us. If there really is a problem, we should decide here to refer this issue to the international court of Justice. This is the proper venue for the resolution of such problems. We should decide to refer the issue of the disputed UAE islands to the International Court of Justice, and we should accept whatever it rules. One time you say this is occupied Arab land, and then you say... This is not clear, and it causes confusion. 80% of the people of the Gulf are Iranians. The ruling families are Arab, but the rest are Iranian. The entire people is Iranian. This is a mess. Iran cannot be avoided. Iran is a Muslim neighbour, and it is not in our interes to become enemies. What is the reason for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, and for killing of one million Iraqis? Let our American friends answer this question: Why Iraq? What is the reason? Is Bin Laden an Iraqi? No he is not. Were those who attacked New York Iraqis? No, they were not. were those who attacked the Pentagon Iraqis? No, they were not. Were there WMDs in Iraq? No, there were not. Even if iraq did have WMDs - Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, and so do China, Russia, Britain, France and America. Should all these countries be destroyed? Fine, let's destroy all the countries that have WMDs. Along comes a foreign power, occupies an Arab country, and hangs its president, and we all sit on the sidelines, laughing. Why didn't they investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein? How can a POW be hanged - a president of an Arab country and a member of the Arab League no less! I'm not talking about the policies of Saddam Hussein, or the disagreements we had with him. We all had poitlical disagreements with him and we have such disagreements among ourselves here. We share nothing, beyond this hall. Why won't there be an investigation into the killing of Saddam Hussein? An entire Arab leadership was executed by hanging, yet we sit on the sidelines. Why? Any one of you might be next. Yes. America fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini. He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary at the time Iraq was destroyed, was a close friend of Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, they sold him out and hanged him. You are friends of America - let's say that ''we'' are, not ''you'' - but one of these days, America may hang us. Brother 'Amr Musa has an idea which he is enthusiastic. He mentioned it in his report. He says that the Arabs have the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and that there should be an Arab nuclear program. The Arabs have this right. They even have the right to have the right to have a nuclear program for other... But Allah prevails... But who are those Arabs whom you say should have united nuclear program? We are the enemies of one another, I'm sad to say. We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another. Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy. We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab's enemy is another Arab's friend.

US Vice President Joe Biden gave the US government’s real view of its regional and Syrian allies with undiplomatic frankness when speaking at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics on October 2. He told his audience that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.

Midway through my treatments, I was at the White House to do an interview with President Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow. He had recently revealed he was facing cancer for a second time. While there I was told that the First Lady, Laura Bush, wanted to see me in the private residence for tea. Mrs. Bush has a family history of breast cancer. She personally invited me to accompany her on a portion of an international breast cancer initiative with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. My doctors cleared me to travel—although getting my mom’s blessing was far more difficult. Remember, I was in the middle of chemo treatments. I spent time with Mrs. Bush in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in the UAE and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I met some incredible women on the trip.

Once in power, Zayed was an energized man. One of his first acts in office was to throw open the palace strongbox, giving away all the money that his brother had stockpiled. Zayed made an incredible announcement: Anyone in the seven Trucial States who needed cash for any reason should come see him. People streamed in from every corner of every sheikhdom, traveling to Abu Dhabi by camel, by car, by dhow, and on foot. They lined up outside the leader’s palace, waiting for their turn to ask, and receive. Zayed kept up the handouts until he emptied the coffers. 13 The big giveaway sounds like a crazy idea, especially coming as it did before the UAE emerged as an in de pen dent nation, so that most of the recipients were, essentially, foreigners. But Zayed’s gifts weren’t mislaid. Local Arabs considered such over-the-top generosity as the behavior of their kind of leader. The upstarts in Dubai couldn’t match the gesture, nor could the has-beens in Sharjah. Zayed’s giveaway went a long way toward welding disparate sheikhdoms into a nation—and toward positioning Zayed as the paternal über-sheikh who should rule. Sheikh Zayed didn’t disappoint. Each year for the rest of his reign, he made a splashy tour around the emirates, visiting even the dust bowl towns of Ajman and Umm Al-Quwain. People yelled, “The president is coming! The president is coming!” and lined up to greet the great sheikh. He would ask what they needed. “Anything you want, tell me,” Zayed would say. His subjects asked for houses, overseas medical treatment, or the release of a jailed brother. Some handed requests scribbled onto sheets of paper, lest the great sheikh forget. Zayed’s handlers from the diwan, his royal court, compiled names, phone numbers, and requests. Over the next few weeks, the diwan would send officials knocking at each door with cash, whether 10,000 dirhams or 100,000 dirhams. 14 It was a fantastic nation-building tool. Not just the handouts of cash, but the in-person availability of the national ruler, who would respond like a kind father to personal needs. How could anyone speak against the union if it put cash in your hand? “We used to think he was too generous, that