Why do the Arabs fleeing Idlib take refuge in Turkey rather than in Saudi Arabia?

Turkey's presence in Libya has no aspect whatsoever of an intent to wage war against the Libyan people. On the contrary, it is going to Libya at the request of the legitimate government, which represents the Libyan people themselves, in order to stop the systematic attacks and the attempted occupation being carried out against the Libyan people.

There are foreign powers in Libya at this moment, all of them operating to overthrow Libya's legitimate government. All of them are circling like vultures over the legitimate Libyan government, which has been deprived of any ability to defend itself. Haftar has no social support or legitimacy among the Libyan people whatsoever. On the contrary, because of the war crimes and crimes against humanity he has committed, he is a criminal in the eyes of the international community, and someone who will sooner or later be tried.

The foreign powers that support him in these crimes and take their share of the resources he will seize are obvious. At the head of them comes the United Arab Communities. That wherever there is strife in the Islamic world, this state is behind it is by now a fact engraved in everyone's mind and sight. And when we say this state, we of course exempt its people and even many of its rulers.

Muhammad bin Zayed's fear and hatred of democracy is to a great extent the product of a personal obsession. Even if Libya had no natural resources at all, the mere existence of the Tripoli government as an administration representing its people would have been reason enough for MBZ to light the fire of strife. What he hates is democracy, yet he tries to market his war against democracy under the heading of fighting terrorism.

There is no credibility whatsoever in the source and chief culprit of terrorism in the Islamic world presenting himself as the hero of the fight against terrorism. The greatest terrorist in Libya is Haftar himself, whom he supports and whom he has armed in an attempt to have him occupy the whole of Libya.

Haftar's greatest supporters in Libya are also the elements that act with the most distorted Salafi understanding and that are likewise supported by the UAE itself. If you speak of literalism in the name of Islam, if you speak of bigotry, of intolerance toward others, of radicalism, it is those who call themselves "Salafi" who lead the way, yet who obviously have nothing whatsoever to do with the understanding of the Salaf al-Salihin, and these are fed in the Libyan arena by Saudi Arabia and the UAE themselves. In recent days they handed Sirte over to the coup-making, occupying forces of Haftar without any resistance, thereby betraying their own people as well.

Mercenaries brought in from Sudan and from many African countries are also fighting in Haftar's ranks, and the coup regime is being kept standing on their shoulders.

In short, the UAE's intervention in Libya is quite obvious, at the level of a coup and an occupation, and to this end it brings the Libyan people nothing but instability, death, asylum-seeking and poverty. Those who today have been forced to leave their homes and homeland and migrate to other countries because of this instability caused by Haftar in Libya are Libyans.

Of course, it is not only the UAE that supports Haftar in Libya. From Egypt and France to Russia, and even, up to a point, the US, have supported him. This support continues even though the UN recognizes only the Tripoli administration as representing Libya and has declared the coup-maker Haftar a war criminal.

This being the case, it was announced that the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry had condemned the "motion authorizing the sending of troops to Libya" passed last week by the TBMM. The most striking and scandalous expressions of the statement were as follows: "this move by Turkey constitutes a threat to the security and stability of Libya, and also to the security of the Arab countries and the region, for this decision, which clearly violates international agreements and principles, means interfering in the internal affairs of an Arab country."

We have said before, on various occasions, that the Arab League in general, and this time Saudi Arabia exclusively, generally remembers its Arabness only vis-à-vis Turkey. Why, one wonders?

While all of Iran, Russia, the US, France, Israel, none of them Arab, were turning Syria upside down, taking the lives of nearly a million Arab civilians, driving 12 million of them from their homes and homeland, and razing Arab-Islamic historical cultural assets to the ground, Saudi Arabia did not remember its Arabness; yet when Turkey intervened so that more Syrian Arabs would not die, more would not be deported, and Syria would not be destroyed further, it suddenly remembered that Syria was an Arab country.

The same is true in Libya. In Libya, everyone is running amok in spite of the Arab-Libyan people. Turkey is the only one the Libyan people themselves have willingly invited, yet it is Saudi Arabia that objects to this in the name of Arabness. This contradiction is, as a disgrace, more than enough.

But since we are at it, let us now recall a duty that, as Arabs, they could perform for their own but are neglecting: There are Arab brothers of ours who, having been forced to leave Idlib because of the Russian-Iranian and Assad bombardment, are in misery in these winter conditions. Would they kindly also issue a condemnation of Russia, which bombs them, and of Assad, for killing Arabs and driving them from their homes.

Never mind a condemnation: the Arab civilians fleeing this bombardment are heading not toward Saudi Arabia but toward Turkey.

Why, one wonders?

Is the reason not the same as that for which the bombed Libyan civilians likewise ask for help not from Saudi Arabia but from Turkey?

If even this is not enough as a lesson and a warning, what more can we say?