Saudi Arabia vs. Canada may sound less like a bitter international feud than an opening-round World Cup matchup, but a strange dispute between the countries, which only really got going on Friday, is escalating fast. How fast? On Monday, a Twitter account associated with Saudi Arabia appeared to threaten Canada with a 9/11–style attack.
A now-deleted verified account called infographic_ksa tweeted an image that was reminiscent of the September 11 attacks on the United States — which were carried out by 19 hijackers, 15 of them Saudi.
Saudi Arabia has canceled the scholarships of 16,000 of its students studying in Canada, also ordering them to leave the country and find academic programs elsewhere.
The move comes amid a growing diplomatic row between the kingdom and the North American country, following comments by Canada’s foreign ministry that criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and called on Riyadh to release detained activists. Responding to the criticism, Saudi Arabia also cut diplomatic ties with Canada, frozen all new trade and investment and canceled flights via its national carrier to Toronto.
It remains a bit of a mystery why Saudi Arabia is responding to a fairly routine piece of international criticism with measures that seem torn out of the playbook from its diplomatic war against Qatar.
But between this and President Trump’s beef with Justin Trudeau, it’s been a bad few months for Canadian reasonableness.
nymag.com