Former Saudi ambassador to US condemns Trump’s ‘mad ethnic cleansing plan’ for Gaza
Prince Turki Al-Faisal says proposed resettlement of Palestinians would lead to more bloodshed
Warns US leader will receive ’an earful’ from Saudi leadership if he visits Kingdom
Updated 06 February 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Donald Trump’s plan for the US to take control of Gaza and force Palestinians to leave the enclave would be “ethnic cleansing” that would spark conflict and bloodshed, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador in Washington, said on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNN, Prince Turki, who is also a former head of the Kingdom’s intelligence services, angrily rejected the US president’s comments, which included a threat to send US troops to help turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Prince Turki said he expected Arab and Muslim countries, along with other nations and Europe, to take up the issue at the UN to show that the world opposed “this mad ethnic cleansing plan.”
“It is a fantasy to think that ethnic cleansing in the 21st century can be condoned by a world community that stays on its behind, and does not respond to that,” Prince Turki told presenter Christiane Amanpour. “The problem in Palestine is not the Palestinians. It is the Israeli occupation. And this has been clear and understood by everybody.”
Prince Turki said Trump’s comments upended previous US policy that favored a two-state solution based on land for peace.
He said Trump’s plan was based on the position of Israeli extremist politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, “the ultimate ethnic cleanser,” who recently resigned as national security minister over the Gaza ceasefire.
Trump’s words were a “total acceptance of the Israeli position by the American government,” Prince Turki said, adding that this approach had been gaining support in US political circles over the past two years.
Prince Turki said that if Trump visited Saudi Arabia, he is likely to receive “an earful” from the Saudi leadership about “not just the wisdom of what he is proposing, but the downright unfairness and injustice.”
Trump has had close relations with Saudi Arabia and made the Kingdom his first foreign visit during his first term. Prince Turki said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had pledged last month to invest $600 billion in the US.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry strongly condemned threats to displace Palestinians from their land and reiterated the Kingdom’s position that there would be no normalization of relations with Israel until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“This has been the position of Saudi Arabia from the beginning,” Prince Turki said.
He said that Trump’s Gaza plan on top of the “destruction and the devastation” of the territory during Israel’s campaign would only lead to more support for militant groups such as Hamas.
“Everybody has been telling the Israelis that if you repress these people, that if you punish them, if you inflict death and destruction and mayhem and genocide on them, all you are going to do is create more opposition,” Prince Turki said.
“That’s why they want to use ethnic cleansing to get the people out of the territory.
“So, their policy is clear cut and, unfortunately, we hear this reflected now in what Mr. Trump has said.”
RIYADH: A historical gem nestled at the foot of Mount Uhud, north of Madinah, Al-Fas’h Mosque stands as a reminder of the Battle of Uhud, a pivotal moment in Islamic history.
This has a special place in the history of Islam because it is also where Prophet Muhammad is believed to have prayed, and attracts visitors from around the world, the Saudi Press Agency reported recently.
Historian Dr. Fouad Al-Maghamsi highlighted Al-Fas’h Mosque’s significance within the wider historical landscape of Uhud, which includes Jabal Al-Rumah and Wadi Qanat.
Masjid Al-Fas'h: a key Islamic landmark in Madinah. (Photo courtesy: welcomesaudi.com)
Known as Uhud Mosque or Sha’b Al-Jerar Mosque, Al-Fas’h has been meticulously preserved and restored.
“The remnants of Al-Fas’h Mosque, enclosed by a roughly 1-meter-high stone wall on three sides, measure 6 meters in length and 4 meters in width,” said Al-Maghamsi.
He added that this landmark, constructed with resilient black stones, has endured through centuries and undergone numerous restorations, most recently under the reign of King Salman, as part of a broader initiative to revitalize historical sites.
The mosque’s simple yet distinctive architecture features a rectangular prayer space and a mihrab crafted from red bricks.
Masjid Al-Fas'h: a key Islamic landmark in Madinah. (Photo courtesy: welcomesaudi.com)
Recent restoration efforts, overseen by the Saudi Heritage Commission, have introduced a wooden roof, a floor of artistically arranged yellow natural stones, paved surrounding areas, seating, and informative signage.
The mosque’s location, approximately 4.5 km north of Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi or the Prophet’s Mosque, places it in the heart of an area rich with Islamic heritage.
Its proximity to the Uhud battlefield, roughly 800 meters away, makes it an integral part of the sacred landscape of Madinah.
Ithra comes to life as families celebrate Gargee’an
The center is offering numerous indoor and outdoor activities for children of all ages, including performances of traditional folk songs and other live shows
Gargee’an is a traditional festival marking the middle of Ramadan
Updated 29 min 51 sec ago
Jasmine Bager
DHAHRAN: King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, Ithra, is this week full of fun and celebration for the Gargee’an festivities.
Ithra’s festivities will last until March 15 from 8:30 p.m. until 1:00 a.m.
The center is offering numerous indoor and outdoor activities for children of all ages, including performances of traditional folk songs and other live shows.
The main plaza at Ithra will have plenty of activities and Instagram-worthy moments. The Children’s Museum, Children’s Oasis, the Library and Energy Exhibit will each have dedicated activities.
The outdoor spaces are also decorated with colorful confetti, often blasted in plumes, to delight giddy children and amused adults.
Gargee’an is a traditional festival marking the middle of Ramadan, primarily celebrated in Gulf countries, specifically Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, the UAE, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where Dhahran is located.
Children wear traditional attire and often go knocking door-to-door in their neighborhoods while chanting traditional folk verses.
They receive handfuls of sweet treats and trinkets that are collected in their little traditional baskets.
At Ithra, the children need merely stand in line to receive goodies, without needing to go anywhere.
Arab News spoke to Dammam resident Fatimah Alqahtani at the Children’s Museum arts and crafts section. She was coloring a small wooden door with her 5-year-old daughter Munerah and her daughter’s 7-year-old cousin, Rania.
“I have the Ithra app and I often check for events — there are always things happening,” she said. “This is our first time attending the Ithra Gargee’an event — I heard that last year’s celebration was really nice so we decided to check it out. And since the weather is lovely, we are going to go outside after this,” Alqahtani said.
The wooden door they colored is theirs to keep.
When Arab News asked what part of the celebration they liked most, the girls chirped: “Everything! Everything!”
During Gargee’an, only the Children’s Museum requires an entry ticket, which can be bought on the premises. All other spaces are free.
How Saudi creatives are adopting AI to shift the boundaries of contemporary art
Saudi artist Daniah Al-Saleh fuses AI with cultural memory, transforming spoken Arabic phonemes into an abstract soundscape
Curators like Auronda Scalera and Alfredo Cramerotti bridge the gap between technology and art, showcasing AI’s creative potential
Updated 18 min 37 sec ago
Nada Alturki
RIYADH: Artificial intelligence is reshaping creative industries in Saudi Arabia where artists are blending tradition and technology, integrating personal archives and cultural memories into a dynamic, human-machine collaboration.
One standout example is Daniah Al-Saleh, whose work was featured at Noor Riyadh 2022, the world’s largest annual light art festival.
Known for merging AI with cultural memory, Al-Saleh exemplifies the fusion of innovation and heritage. Her artistic journey began with geometric watercolors, but pursuing a master’s degree in computational art deepened her engagement with programming.
This evolution culminated in her 2019 installation, “Sawtam,” which won the Ithra Art Prize and marked a pivotal moment in her career.
“I broke down the spoken word into the tiniest form of communication, which was the phoneme,” Al-Saleh told Arab News.
“I brought in my knowledge of coding and programming, inspired by (Manfred) Mohr, this computer artist… and recorded my voice saying these abstract sounds.”
The result was a soundscape where Arabic phonemes merged into a wall of noise that, when deconstructed, revealed the fundamental elements of the region’s spoken language.
“It was a big turning point in my art career,” she said.
While studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, Al-Saleh was introduced to machine learning and used pattern recognition program StyleGAN to create several notable works.
One such piece, “Love Stories,” features multiple figures lip-syncing to 26 well-known Arabic love songs. The work examines cultural resistance to public displays of love and affection in conservative societies.
Saudi artist Daniah AlSaleh's “Love Stories,” composed of multiple figures that lip sync to 26 well-known Arabic love songs that examines the traditional resistance to public displays of love and affection in conservative societies. (Supplied)
Another, “Evanesce,” blurs the line between memory and reality, evoking nostalgia for Egyptian cinema’s golden era through AI-generated videos.
Meanwhile, “Rewind Play Glitch” presents a curated mosaic of seemingly personal imagery, exploring themes of familial bonds, love and the passage of time.
Despite her use of machine learning, Al-Saleh does not rely solely on AI. She blends digital techniques with traditional media to create a distinctive style.
This fusion is evident in her 2022 piece, “Hinat,” which combines photographic transfer, painting, video and algorithmic generation to honor a female Nabatean historical figure.
Saudi artist Daniah AlSaleh's “Hinat” utilizes photographic transfer, painting, video, and algorithmic generation to immortalize a female Nabataean historical figure. (Supplied)
The installation, currently featured in the “Art of the Kingdom” exhibition at the Saudi Arabian Museum of Contemporary Art, highlights her ability to bridge ancient narratives with modern technology.
To create the piece, Al-Saleh hired several women and filmed across various locations in Saudi Arabia’s historic AlUla region, home to some of the Kingdom’s most striking Nabatean ruins.
Like any technology, AI tools inevitably become outdated. Al-Saleh initially used StyleGAN for some of her work, but the program is no longer available.
“As an artist, I need to adapt and see within what context can I use that, is it a good fit, or should I use something else? Or maybe not use AI at all?” she said.
DID YOU KNOW?
• AI is not limited to visual art — it is also used to compose music, write poetry and even design sculptures.
• AI art generators such as DALL-E 2 and MidJourney use advanced algorithms to create unique visual masterpieces.
• AI integration with virtual reality offers immersive, interactive experiences in AI-generated environments.
Artists incorporating AI into their creative practices benefit from the support of curators who bridge the gap between art and technology.
Qatar-based curatorial duo Auronda Scalera and Alfredo Cramerotti have worked with numerous artists to integrate emerging technologies into contemporary art.
Most recently, they curated the 2024 Noor Riyadh Festival which highlighted innovative light-based artworks.
Scalera explained that some artists she and Cramerotti work with “create their own AI with their archive — for example, they don’t use ChatGPT.”
“When you create your tool, it’s like you create your brush,” she told Arab News.
Al-Saleh is one such artist who prefers to use her own archive. “I don’t use ready-made data sets — I collect what I can from open-source content,” she said.
London-based Saudi Arabian artist Daniah Alsaleh winner of the second edition of the Ithra Art Prize. (Supplied)
“For example, for my work Evanesce, there are a lot of available movies online in black and white, which I watched — tens and tens of these movies — and collected the data I wanted and then worked with that.”
She added: “Regarding ‘Love Stories,’ that was a bit challenging because I had to collect data sets of males and females with Gulf and Arab features that were public. I can’t go into private profiles and take those photos.
“(It depends on) the type of AI you’re using, on how much control you want to get involved with, or do you want to give agency to the machine learning or AI program, or how much agency you want to take.”
In addition to their work at Noor Riyadh, Scalera and Cramerotti were curators and jury members for the 13th anniversary of the Lumen Prize X Sotheby’s in 2024, which featured cutting-edge digital artworks from leading artists.
Curatorial duo Auronda Scalera and Dr. Alfredo Cramerotti, who specialize in bridging between art and new technologies. (Supplied)
They also curated Art Dubai Digital 2024, a section dedicated to exploring the intersection of digital art and technology.
The duo leads Multiplicity-Art in Digital, an online platform promoting art with a focus on diversity and inclusion, and spearheads Web to Verse, a project dedicated to researching the evolution of digital art from the 1950s to today.
Cramerotti said artists tend to approach technology differently from designers, focusing not on function but on critically unpacking, subverting and reimagining its use in creative contexts.
“Unlike designers, let’s say, that use the technology for a certain purpose, artists don’t have a purpose in terms of a function,” he told Arab News.
“They’re really good at unpacking the technology, critically analyzing the technology, subverting the use of technology, using that technology for another purpose.”
Each moment in history brings new technologies to explore, as with photography in the 19th century and computer art in recent decades. The art lies in the ideas and techniques behind using these tools, not the tools themselves.
“It’s not just about using ChatGPT to come up with a text or using Sora to come up with an image,” Cramerotti said.
“It’s about asking, ‘Okay, what are the critical elements that I input to create that text or the image? How do I link and contextualize my approach as an artist beside my work as an artist in using this technology?’”
As AI evolves daily, it challenges the world — and artists — to harness its advancing tools in new ways.
“Even (for) us as curators, it’s a learning process,” Scalera said. “Curators today, we are like students.”
Curator Auronda Scalera's post on X on Oct. 1, 2024. (X: @AurondaScalera)
Expanding on this, Cramerotti added: “We are the interface between (art and) the public — and as art practice, art making, art displaying is changing, then our work is changing.
“You always have to frame a certain artistic practice in a new way and to present to a public using a new vocabulary.”
Another challenge lies in bridging contemporary and digital art spheres through curatorial innovation.
“With the 2021 digital art boom, you have a lot of digital curators who have no idea how a museum works, or how an institution works, or how to write an exhibition mediation plan or an exhibition installation plan,” Cramerotti said.
“And then, you have a lot of museum curators who have no idea how an NFT works, or how an immersive experience impacts the senses of a viewer.”
He emphasized that emerging technologies introduce scientific complexities beyond the traditional scope of art history, requiring curators to adapt and expand their expertise.
Scalera explained that this was why they decided to form a curatorial duo.
Krista Kim’s “Heart Space,” that transforms collected heartbeats into visual symphonies, at display during Noor Riyadh 2024. (Supplied)
“This curiosity about the unknown is something that is really important for curators, because otherwise you are going to be stuck in only one theory,” she said.
“In that way, you can be curious, and you can work closely with the artist and discover different landscapes in art and new technology.”
The latest Noor Riyadh edition, curated by Cramerotti and Effat Fadag with curatorial advisors including Scalera, explored the theme “Light Years Apart.”
The festival highlighted numerous AI-generative artworks, such as Krista Kim’s “Heart Space,” which transformed collected heartbeats into visual symphonies, and Random International’s “Alone Together,” which used a custom tracking system to spotlight selected passersby.
While AI-generated images are now accessible to the masses, ethical concerns remain regarding the references fed into these systems.
Last month, more than 5,600 artists signed an open letter urging Christie’s New York to cancel its first AI-generated art auction, criticizing AI models for allegedly using copyrighted works without permission.
Scalera noted ongoing efforts to address these ethical challenges.
Deputy industry minister launches Investor Service Center in Jeddah
Updated 48 min 37 sec ago
SPA
RIYADH: Saudi Deputy Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources for Mining Affairs Khalid bin Saleh Al-Mudaifer inaugurated the Investor Service Center at the ministry’s branch in Jeddah.
Several key figures from the Kingdom’s mining sector attended the ceremony.
The center will provide a range of support services to investors in the sector, including customer relationship management and ensuring information integration and knowledge sharing with related entities.
Saudi Arabia welcomes border deal between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
Deal was signed in Bishek on Thursday by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon
Kingdom congratulated the governments and peoples of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on the signing of the agreement
Updated 13 March 2025
Arab News
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia welcomed on Thursday a border agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that involves an exchange of territory.
The deal was signed in Bishek on Thursday by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon.
The Kingdom congratulated the governments and peoples of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on the signing of the agreement, and wished both countries stability and prosperity.
Kyrgyzstan will receive about 25 square kilometres from Tajikistan in exchange for about the same amount of land or for better access to shared water resources, Kyrgyz authorities said.
The accord stipulates that certain roads will be designated as neutral, and that neither side may hinder the use of agricultural or energy facilities in border regions.
The move follows three decades of conflict between the two former Soviet republics over water resources and land.
“From now and forever, the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will be the border of eternal friendship,” Japarov said.
Japarov’s office said the accord would contribute to “strengthening security, stability and sustainable development in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and in the whole of Central Asia.”
