Mohammad Al-Ubaydli’s blog

Here is what worries Israel about the use of Facebook:

CNN has reported that Israeli officials are claiming Facebook to be a national security threat. A new list of rules that were announced on Thursday (that have yet to be officially published) allow soldiers to create pages on networking sites. The catch? Well, just as long as they don’t identify themselves a soldiers or reveal information about what they do. The officials have claimed that some soldiers have unintentionally uploaded pictures of themselves with classified equipment that reveals sensitive information.

And here is what worries Saudi Arabia about Facebook:

An unidentified woman was beaten and shot after being caught chatting on Facebook with a man, and now a Saudi Islamic preacher is demanding the social-networking site be blocked from his country, reports Arab & Society.

The preacher, Sheikh Ali al-Maliki, considers Facebook “a door to lust,” and warned “the accession of women to it.” Many Saudi women are joining the popular social-networking site, and al-Maliki goes on to report that “Young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and Internet than they are on food.”

I can only hope that the lady rests in peace. There is no need to follow the link to the UN Human Development Report to figure out which of these two countries ranks higher (hint: it is not Saudi Arabia).

But against such a depressing new story it is my pleasure to announce the new Facebook group we created at the Bahraini Embassy in Washington DC for Bahraini students in North America. If someone you love is a Bahraini student in a university in North America then show them how much you care by sending them a link to the page.