https://arab.news/vze8p
“We will not waste 30 years of our lives dealing with extremist ideas. We will destroy them today.”
This is what Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said publicly in 2017 at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, expressing with unmistakable clarity how Saudi Arabia views extremism. He did not frame it as a gradual debate or a distant ambition, but as an urgent national priority.
That statement alone undermines the orchestrated narrative portraying Saudi Arabia as drifting away from moderation and toward the Muslim Brotherhood. This claim is not only misleading but fundamentally naive. Saudi Arabia was the first country in the Gulf Cooperation Council to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, doing so in March 2014. Other states followed later. Riyadh has long regarded the Brotherhood as an existential threat, alongside all rigid and ideologically driven movements that undermine state authority and social cohesion.
This position was reaffirmed clearly in 2021 on the official Saudi TV channel, when the crown prince stated: “Anyone who adopts extremist thinking is a criminal and will be held accountable. We cannot advance with the presence of extremist thought in the Kingdom.”
