Sunday, April 15, 2018

Saudi King and Palestine in the Arab summit

IT was quite striking how much the Saudi King played up Palestine as an issue today in the Arab summit. There must be a realization among the Saudi ruling circle that Muhammad bin Salman went too far in his English statements during his tour in the US.  But this is indicative of the salience of the subject in Saudi and Arab public opinion in general--Zionist wishful thinking notwithstanding.  You have to realize: that Gulf regime media have really been playing down Palestine (Aljazeera to a lesser extent) but the role of satellite TV channels, including Aljazeera and Al-Arabiyya, have substantially declined.  The people are now relying more on social media but social media are under strict constraints but people find ways to express themselves with indirect references. But Gaza protests have been really big in Arab social media, unlike say Saudi regime media which wanted to ignore it.