Iran: Saudi policy of inflaming tension no longer tenable

Tweeting on Thursday, Saeed Khatibzadeh reminded that “for decades, Wahabism—nurtured by colonial powers—has been the source of bigotry, hatred & terrorism in our region — and beyond.”

1/ For decades, Wahabism—nurtured by colonial powers—has been *the* source of bigotry, hatred & terrorism in our region — and beyond.

Fact: Every terrorist group in our region has graduated from Saudi-funded Madrassas.

No amount of Saudi obfuscation can hide this ugly reality.— Saeed Khatibzadeh (@SKhatibzadeh) December 3, 2020

He was referring to the official Saudi ideology that is marked by antipathy towards the people subscribing to other schools of thought, moderate mindsets, and established Abrahamic religious practices.

The ideology has been informing Takfiri terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Daesh that consider people, who are unlike themselves, to be worthy of death at their hands. The groups have slain thousands throughout the region, especially in Iraq and Syria, and elsewhere over the past decades.

Khatibzadeh cited the “fact” that “every terrorist group in our region has graduated from Saudi-funded madrassas.”

Saudi Arabia has been funding thousands of the so-called educational centers across the region. Pakistan hosts the majority of the facilities that have earned notoriety as “nurseries of radicalism/terrorism.”

Earlier in the year, the Afghan Embassy in Riyadh announced that the kingdom was about to build 600 such institutes in Afghanistan that is already grappling with Taliban insurgency.

“No amount of Saudi obfuscation can hide this ugly reality,” the Iranian official noted.

Khatibzadeh also said “their (the Saudis) atrocities in #Yemen, & the infamous [Jamal] Khashoggi case are just some of their other stunts.”

The objects of his reference were respectively the 2015-present hugely deadly Saudi-led war on Yemen and the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul that is widely blamed on the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

2/ Their atrocities in #Yemen, & the infamous Khashoggi case are just some of their other stunts.

The latest: standing alongside the leading state-sponsor of terrorism against Palestinians.

Saudis must change course. The policy of inflaming tension is no longer tenable.— Saeed Khatibzadeh (@SKhatibzadeh) December 3, 2020

Khatibzadeh also cited “the latest” move in the litany of Saudi violations as being their “standing alongside the leading state-sponsor of terrorism (Israel) against Palestinians.”

Saudi Arabia has welcomed a recent US-brokered trend of regional normalizations with Israel. Riyadh is believed to be next in line to enter a détente with Tel Aviv, given a recent unprecedented visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the kingdom.

All Palestinian factions have blasted the rapprochement spree as a “stab in the back” of Palestinians and their cause of liberation from Israeli occupation and aggression.

“Saudis must change course. The policy of inflaming tension is no longer tenable,” the spokesman concluded.

His remarks came in response to former Saudi foreign minister and current Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir’s insulting comments targeting Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif had earlier blamed the kingdom, the US, and Israel for cooperating with one another to enable the Friday assassination near Tehran of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist.

He had cited Netanyahu’s visit to Riyadh, trilateral meetings involving him, Saudi officials, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — who was visiting the Saudi capital during a frenzied tour of the region — and concurrent Iranophobic remarks by the Israeli premier.

The surprisingly coincidental developments, Zarif had regretted, “unfortunately crystalized in the form of the cowardly terrorist act and [consequent] martyrdom of one of the country’s senior directors (Fakhrizadeh).”

The foreign minister had also shown how the assassination had been followed by a misinformation campaign on Twitter featuring countless fake accounts and tweets attacking Iran, something for which he still blamed the trio.

Jubeir reacted by deflecting the blame for the assassination, claiming that targeted killings did not form a constituent of the Saudi policy, and tauntingly accused Zarif of “desperation.”