In January 2020, news bulletins of the global media gave extensive coverage to a broad headline: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is behind the hacking of the phone of Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and Washington Post.

In their propaganda campaign, the media relied on an alleged analysis by FTI Consulting Company in which it claimed that the hack came after Bezos received a file from the Crown Prince’s WhatsApp account in May 2018.

This campaign continued unabated for a while to the extent that one of the American satellite channels called on leaders, heads of state, company owners and investors who have had contacts with Saudi officials to check their phones, alerting them they might have been hacked.

This campaign coincided with a barrage of other campaigns, and an immoral investment by Jeff Bezos and others in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

One and a half years after raising these allegations, it was unequivocally found that stories of love, betrayal and a porn selfie were behind the hack, and that the parties involved in it were Bezos, his wife, his mistress and her brother. Bezos wanted to send a picture to his mistress, and when it became evident to his wife, he did not hesitate to invest in a dead person, claiming his mobile phone was hacked by the Saudis to target him.

At that time, a Gulf state, along with some countries in the region, was seeking to launch campaigns to demonize the Saudi Crown Prince and the government. With each campaign, Saudi Arabia emerged gaining greater solidarity and cohesion. The faith of the Saudis in the Crown Prince and their support for him has been on a rising tide.

Last February, the image of Mohammed Bin Salman and hundreds of people behind him was circulated widely during the inauguration of Formula E. The timing of the release was a smart one as it coincided with the publication of the so-called intelligence report by the US administration of President Joe Biden, which pointed to the “likely” involvement of the Crown Prince in the Khashoggi murder. This report was not different from the fabricated story about the Bezos phone hack in an attempt to discredit the Crown Prince and shake confidence in him, but it did not work either.

Everyone waited for the report, and it was of no value, just like the 28 classified pages concealed by the administration of former US President George W. Bush, which everyone said referred to Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the events of September 11. When Barack Obama released the pages, it became clear that they were worthless and irrelevant as far as Riyadh is concerned.

Saudi Arabia’s enemies are many, and the Crown Prince’s enemies are more, and this is quite natural. Saudi Arabia is not a marginal country in the world and the Arab region, but rather an influential one, with allies and friends, as well as competitors and enemies, to the point of prompting some countries to form Islamic alliances alternative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but these attempts were a failure and came to an end before the beginning.

As for the Crown Prince, his courage was evident when he declared war on extremism and political Islam groups, a war that killed waves of unbeliever labeling, social squabbles and attempts to disrupt life for decades, but at the same time provoked the grudge of radical Islamic organizations and their international and leftist allies inside and outside the Arab region.

When Prince Mohammed Bin Salman took over as the Crown Prince in June 2017, campaigns led by the media associated with the Muslim Brotherhood focused on the claim that the appointment of the prince came after marketing him in Washington through a Gulf country. This was ridiculous, and it was evident that those who espoused such talks to create disturbance were forced to stop it after the statement of the new US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last March when he said: “Like it or not, we do not choose the rulers of Saudi Arabia.”

To be precisely saying, the one who chose Mohammed Bin Salman, with reposing much faith in him and seeing in him the hope and the future and the guarantee of Saudi rule for decades, is none other than the Saudi Monarch, Salman Bin Abdulaziz, and the Allegiance Council, which backed him by an overwhelming majority.

Why all that? Why is the prince a target of hostility?

Saudi Arabia had been inward-looking and dependent on oil since its discovery. It was trying to go along with the extremists’ ideology, as some officials were thinking that it must do so in order to avoid inciting the public to take to the streets. The routine in the Kingdom was fatal, and social life was completely separate from the reality of the aspirations and desires of the youth who represent more than 70 percent of its population. Indeed, local comedy serials have always portrayed Saudi citizens as those having typical contradictory behavior and these serials were shown after the plane takes off and leaves the country’s borders. All these were the outcome of the surrender to extremism, and the penetration of ideologies seeking to rule through religion in all regions of the Kingdom.

Things reached the extent that some extremists sneaked into the headquarters of the Saudi Ministry of Labor in large groups one decade ago in an attempt to stop the feminization of women’s clothing stores. There was also disruption of some of the activities that were planned to hold along with book fairs and cultural festivals as much as they could. They dared enough to gather in the vicinity of the Royal Court building to object to what they see as alienation of society. All such sick phenomena that were detrimental to life and development have come to an end.

To get out of the mantle of oil means taking risks, as well as investing, experimenting, and diversifying sources of income. To get rid of the shadow of going along with extremism means breaking the thorn in takfir (labeling as unbeliever), moving vigorously toward development, empowering women and opening tourism that reflects in the economy. The gradual elimination of dependence on oil, the fight against extremism, and the successive transformations that the country has undergone have opened a barrage of direct personal attacks on Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in particular.

The tendency to cast doubt on the Vision 2030 had begun even before its launching. The attack on the Saudi National Transformation Program after announcing it in a press conference was not made by all. The doses of hope that the Crown Prince injected in 2016 were met with organized campaigns of incitement, skepticism and frustration before the launch of the realization program of all the announced initiatives. This attack cannot be taken lightly, as it was consistent with one segment of people who have always been involved in sowing frustration among the Saudis.

Why do Saudis stand behind Mohammed Bin Salman?

The emphatic answer is that they pin great hope on him after his emergence as the great icon of reform and renewal. It was evident to them that the attacks targeting the Crown Prince over the past four years were based on rumors and fabrications.

This is vindicated when they stood behind the Crown Prince after realizing after three years that he had neither direct relation with the Istanbul Consulate incident, nor to many other accusations, the last of which was hacking of the phone of Jeff Bezos.

All of this does not mean Saudi Arabia is without mistakes. It is always important to remind the world that Saudi Arabia is a country like others, and its rulers and people are human beings, and hence they may commit errors and mistakes. They did not come down from heaven. They are not angels, but they are not demons either!