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Meet the Online Arab Zionists
(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Jonathan Sacerdoti - The growth of social media has allowed the world to see a different Middle East. A Syrian blogger began a video begging the Israeli government to "occupy" Syria to save more lives, noting that "The Golan Heights is the only area in Syria that hasn't been destroyed and had its people killed." The signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020 allowed many Arabs to speak out openly about Israel without fear of a backlash. Now, pioneering Arab Zionists and pro-Israel influencers are promoting Israel to their followers. Loay Al-Shareef, 39, is an Abu Dhabi-based social-media influencer and a self-declared Zionist with 180,000 followers on Twitter and 80,000 on Instagram. He studied biblical history, archaeology and the history of the Near East and Mesopotamia, all of which led him to believe in the legitimacy of the State of Israel. "It's very righteous for the Jews to have their ancestral homeland in the Land of Israel," he said. "Jews are not colonialists or conquerors in the Land of Israel, because if we would believe that, then we would believe that David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah and the prophets were actually colonizers, and that would kill the Islamic faith." Loyalty to the Palestinian cause has changed since the Abraham Accords. "We've given them lots of money that could turn Gaza into a Silicon Valley. Enough money that would turn the West Bank into a new Singapore. Where is this money going?"