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Sarcastic tweet sparks spat between Saudi scholars over ‘terrorist’ claims

June 28, 2017 at 12:44 pm

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir on 26 August 2016 [Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Wikipedia]

As the number of people and organisations being placed on the list of “terrorists” by the anti-Qatar Saudi-led alliance continues to grow, a Saudi scholar has tweeted sarcastically that, “Supplication [Du’a] for the people of Gaza may soon be classified as terrorism”. The sheikh used the hashtag #Gaza_under_attack on Twitter. His tweet has sparked a spat between Islamic scholars in the kingdom following the demand by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir that Qatar should stop its support for Hamas in Gaza.

Those opposing the message from Sheikh Adel Al-Kalbani accuse people who pray for Gaza of being pro-Muslim Brotherhood and of opposing the Saudi regime. Sheikh Hassan Al-Qarni, for example, commented: “Stand with your country and do not whisper or speak against it. Your Brotherhood tendencies might get you in trouble.” Al-Kalbani responded by saying, “You will need to prove my Brotherhood tendencies before the Supreme Judge, Allah.”

Other messages against the Saudi move to target the Palestinian resistance movement have been both sectarian and racist in nature, revealing the depth of feeling that the issue has caused and exposing the dangers of social media as a tool for hurling unacceptable abuse and insults.

Read: Gulf States ‘target Hamas’ through siege of Qatar

Writing from Gaza itself, however, one Twitter user said, “God bless these tweets and those writing them.” Another prayed, “May Allah help our brothers in Gaza and may Allah be with those who are afraid of praying for them.”

Yet another said, “Now whoever stands with his brothers against the Israelis, even through prayer, is a pro-Brotherhood political opponent. All that’s left now is to say that whoever says Shahada [the Islamic proclamation of faith] is not a Muslim. God help us.”

#QatarGate

The Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv has called the crisis in the Gulf States an “unprecedented opportunity” for Israel because it harms Hamas and weakens the resistance. According to the Jerusalem Post, “the crisis is harming Hamas” and “paves the way for close ties between Israel on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries and Egypt on the other.”

Palestinian sources, meanwhile, announced that Israeli warplanes launched two raids on the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday. The first raid targeted the training site of Badr, a group affiliated to the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, south-west of Gaza City. The second raid struck agricultural land in the central Gaza Strip. Both raids took place, said Israel, in “response” to rockets fired from the besieged enclave. No casualties were reported on either side of the border.