Saudi Wahhabis root of all evil - says Catherine Shakdam

Press TV has interviewed Catherine Shakdam, director of Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern studies in London, and Jihad Mouracadeh, a political analyst from Beirut to get their takes on how Saudi policies are affecting the situation in the Middle East.

“Saudi Arabia is the root of all evil today,” Shakdam said in program of 'The Debate' on Monday night, adding that Saudi rulers have set people against each other for the sake of sectarianism, so that they can impose their own authority over not only the Middle East, but the entire Islamic world. "Saudi Arabia wants to impose Wahhabism onto nations across the world, because it wants to obliterate people’s right to religious freedom," she added.

The analyst believes that Saudi Arabia has committed inexcusable genocide against Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and many other nations, saying the Arab monarchy has repressed people and communities in the name of Wahhabism.

Shakdam says the Yemeni resistance movement [Houthi fighters] are today standing without shoes and weapons on the Yemeni ground which Saudi Arabia has claimed for itself.

According to Shakdam, democracy by definition means allowing people to elect their own leaders. She argued that staying long enough on the throne does not make a government legal or legitimate, by which standard the Al Khalifah regime is a dictatorship, despite having ruled Bahrain for hundreds of years.

When asked about the so-called strategic partnership between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Shakdam described it as the marriage of Zionism and Wahhabism. The alliance between “two monsters” is going to create “an evil,” which is never going to help Palestinians who are under occupation and have been denied the right to choose for themselves, she stated.

The other guest in the 'The Debate' was Mouracadeh. He believes that Saudi Arabia is doing a great job by working in tandem with the United Nations to secure peace and stability in the region.

Criticizing Yemen's Houthi fighters, he said that they were the ones to move against the government in Yemen. He justified the Saudi aggression on Yemen as being conducted in coordination with the United Nations.

Mouracadeh also expressed his full support for the alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia. "If Saudis' relationship with Israel can help the Palestinian question and find a solution to the issue, it will be extremely powerful and the best deal that could ever happen to Palestinians," he opined.