The Saudi intelligence agency is waging an incitement and smear campaign against well-known preachers in the Kingdom and other Arab and Islamic nations in collaboration with the Islamic Etidal Centre, which was established by King Salman with the intention of combating terrorist ideology and promoting moderate Islam.
The smear campaign came after an extensive arrest and intimidation campaign on mosques and preaching centres in Saudi Arabia in 2017 which coincided with the unfair siege imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt.
The silence of preachers in the Kingdom regarding the current events in Palestine and the massacres committed in Gaza since the resistance’s victory in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, is the most significant piece of evidence exposing the plot of Saudi intelligence and the Etidal Center to mislead preachers and silence them. Only pro-MBS preachers were allowed to speak and incite against Palestinian resistance, amid a complete ban on donation campaigns for the people of Gaza.
As part of its war on preachers, Saudi authorities halted education programs for young people in the Kingdom and took control of these educational centres that taught children their religion in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom and the laws of associations and religious, Islamic, and development centres.
Saudi opponents said that a coordinated campaign was being run by the Israeli occupying state’s agencies and Saudi Arabia’s, fearing the massive propaganda role that the kingdom’s preachers play and their powerful influence over the youth and masses of the country. Fake social media accounts and pages were recently made in the names of Gazanians to denigrate Palestine and the resistance, attempting to hold them responsible for Israel’s bombing, destruction, killing, and massacres.
After hundreds of accounts purporting to be from Palestinians were uncovered by an investigation, it was discovered that the accounts were actually Saudi ones operated by people close to the Saudi Crown Prince.
According to the “ICAD” platform, narratives from Saudi accounts that attacked the Palestinian resistance coincided with the start of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. These narratives were exactly the same as those from the Israeli occupation, and some of them claimed that the occupation and Hamas were in agreement on a play, which Iran was leading in order to thwart the agreement to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Despite all of this orchestrated deception, as documented by press reports and human rights groups, the Saudi people did not abandon support for the Palestinian cause and rejected the despicable official positions
