Algeria Unleashes Venom Against UAE in Latest Diplomatic Meltdown
Doha – Algeria's state television launched a vicious assault on the United Arab Emirates Friday, hurling insults and threats that shattered diplomatic norms in an extraordinary display of hostility from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's regime.
The five-minute tirade, broadcast on national television, branded the UAE as an 'artificial statelet,' 'hybrid entity,' and repeatedly called Emirati leaders 'dwarves.' This verbal barrage marked the latest episode in Algeria's pattern of lashing out at neighboring countries.
The trigger was an interview on Sky News Arabia, where Algerian historian Mohamed Amine Belghith claimed Amazigh identity was merely a 'Zionist-French ideological fabrication' and that Berbers were actually 'ancient Arabs of Phoenician origin.'
The interview, conducted by an Algerian journalist with an Algerian academic, somehow became grounds for attacking the UAE – simply because the channel receives Emirati funding.
Algeria's state broadcaster declared the interview constituted 'dangerous media escalation from the artificial Emirati state that crossed all red lines regarding the unity and identity of the Algerian people.'
The statement, reportedly crafted by the presidency's communications directorate under Tebboune's influential advisor Kamal Sidi Said, accused the UAE of lacking 'roots and genuine sovereignty.'
The regime's mouthpiece warned that 'media incitement affecting Algerian identity will not pass without moral and popular accountability.' Algeria would 'return the insult a hundredfold,' it added, using language more suited to street brawls than international relations.
This outburst reflects a deepening crisis in Algeria's foreign relations. The regime has already severed ties with Morocco, expelled Spain's ambassador over the Western Sahara dispute, and seen relations with France plummet to unprecedented lows.
Read also: The Farce in Algiers: Tebboune's Desperate Embrace of Polisario Chief
The attack on the UAE follows months of deteriorating relations. In January 2024, Algeria's High Security Council condemned 'hostile acts by a brotherly Arab state' – a thinly veiled reference to the Emirates.
By April, Tebboune explicitly accused the UAE of 'igniting fires of sedition' in Mali, Libya, and Sudan, claiming 'wherever there's conflict, that state's money is present.'
The broadcaster's presenter delivered these denunciations with such vehemence that observers compared it to 'screaming in a public bath or a drunkards' gathering,' according to Moroccan press reports.
Sacrificing diplomatic decorum on the altar of imagined victories
The statement described the UAE nine times as an 'artificial statelet' and referred to its leaders twice as 'dwarves.'
The Algerian regime exploited public anger over Belghith's comments about Amazigh identity – recognized alongside Islam and Arabism in Algeria's constitution – to position itself as defender of national unity.
Yet this same regime previously banned Amazigh flags during the Hirak protests and imprisoned activists who displayed them.
Several Amazigh activists denounced the government's maneuver as an attempt to deflect internal tensions by blaming external enemies. 'It's not Sky News Arabia denying our history, it's the Algerian state giving voice to those who falsify our origins,' one Kabyle activist posted on X.
The unhinged nature of this latest attack raises serious questions about Tebboune's mental state. Between declaring Algeria the 'world's third superpower,' claiming the country desalinates 1.3 billion cubic meters of seawater daily, and now this diplomatic meltdown, the Algerian president's behavior grows increasingly erratic.
As one Moroccan commentator noted, 'This level of degraded insults is unworthy of a state and can only come from the Algerian president, known for his hysterical reactions and violent outbursts.' With each passing crisis, concerns mount that Tebboune's instability could ignite broader regional tensions.
The incident reveals a regime desperately seeking external enemies to mask internal failures, willing to torch diplomatic relations and abandon basic decorum in pursuit of imaginary victories.
For Algeria's neighbors, Tebboune's government represents not just a diplomatic challenge, but a genuine threat to regional stability. Tags: AlgeriaAlgerian MediaUnited Arab Emirates
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