(JNS) David Isaac - In a Jan. 22 protest by the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza in support of the Houthis, after the Yemen-based group attacked the UAE in a drone strike, dozens of protesters shouted, "Death to the House of Saud." Although Hamas didn't participate, it was nevertheless blamed on social media in the Gulf States. "I have never heard this level of hatred echoed on social media," said Orit Perlov, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. "For two days, there was anti-Gazan, anti-Hamas anger on social media in Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia." Perlov described a typical message: "Last Ramadan, they asked us for food and then they yell 'Death to Saud' and 'Death to the UAE'." In Saudi Arabia, an informal Twitter poll by Saudi paper Al-Arabiya asking, "Do you still support the Palestinian cause?" found that 97% - 32,000 people - said "not anymore." Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, "A lot of these pragmatic Gulf states have had it with all of Iran's proxies. They've had it with the seemingly endless violence and the instability that these actors bring to the region."
2022-02-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive