Jasem Aljuraid | How political Islam infiltrated Kuwait; but why it's next up for Abraham Accords

Jasem Aljuraid is a Kuwaiti political refugee now living in Canada. A former senior columnist at Al-Qabas, Aljuraid was forced to flee after advocating for peace with Israel and running for parliament on an anti-radical Islam platform. His enemies accused him of being a Mossad agent. In this conversation with Libby Alon, Jasem dismantles the conventional narrative: Kuwait doesn't see Israel as an enemy, he explains - it sees Israel as an occupier. The real colonizers, he argues, are the Arabs - who spread across 54 countries spanning North Africa, the Levant, and beyond. "Who is the colonizer?" he asks.Jasem traces how Muslim Brotherhood ideology and Saudi Wahhabism infiltrated Kuwait's once-secular society starting in the late 1970s, riding the wave of Khomeini's expansionism. He describes how Kuwait has actually faced more Iranian attacks than Israel - over 200 more - and why Iran's assault during Ramadan, a month forbidden for fighting in Islamic law, exposes the theological bankruptcy of the IRGC's ideology.On the future of the region, Jasem is direct: Kuwait is the easiest candidate to join the Abraham Accords. He points to Kuwait's new constitution project as signs of a country quietly repositioning itself. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, raises harder questions - wavering between pragmatism and ideological preservation, backing the Brotherhood in Yemen and Al-Qaeda-aligned factions in Syria.The episode closes on a personal note: Jasem's mother raised him in a home with no hate for Israel. His recent DNA test revealed Yemenite Jewish ancestry. He still can't go home, but he's helping Kuwait change from a distance, and he believes his moment is coming.