Once again, like they have routinely recently, the Houthi rebels tried to fire a rocket at the United Arab Emirates as part of their war against the Saudi-led coalition in the bloody civil war in Yemen. But this time, the rocket was fired at Sunni Abu Dhabi while President Isaac Herzog was visiting.
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The timing can shed some light on how Shiite Islam sees itself as it continues to lead repeated attacks on what it views as the embodiment of evil – Sunnis and Jews.
A brief history lesson: there is one foundational event that every Shiite baby learns about from the moment they are born. In 680, the Muslim world was shaken. Hussein, the son of the fourth Caliph Ali bin abi Talib (and the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad) waged a revolt against the Umayyad dynasty. He was attacked and killed in southern Iraq along with many of his supporters. He was beheaded and his head was displayed in Damascus in an event known as the massacre of Karbala. This is the historic moment in which Shiite Islam was born – a branch that changed the Muslim world and would eventually detach itself from Sunni Islam.
Every devout Shiite marks that slaughter every year in special ceremonies that include keening and self-flagellation – in memory of the Shiite tragedy and Hussein's heroism – and many writings and songs curse the Umayyad Dynasty as well as Sunnis in general.
In effect, starting at that moment, a Shiite perception of persecution and a view of themselves as a minority among a Sunni majority, came into being.
To illustrate the power of a symbol, the propaganda leading up the Islamic Revolution in Iran shook the dust off Karbala, to the point where the revolutionaries could be heard crying, "Another Karbala awaits us!"
But what can you do – as time went by, the Shiites amassed political and military strength, and Iran today is not a persecuted minority, but a regional power that cannot be ignored. Even if its octopus tentacles reach some places where Shiites are still a minority and persecuted, like the Houthi rebels in Yemen, it looks like they are more the slaughterers than the slaughtered and kill more than they are killed, and the historic narrative is losing its relevance.
Among Jews, too, the concepts of a persecuted minority and the wandering Jew are alive and kicking, even though for quite a few years – certainly in a sovereign Israel – we simply aren't (although there are some who try to imprint this view, even in our own country).
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The Shiite attack on the Sunni country while the president of the Jewish state was visiting is an attempt to kill two birds with one stone – continue the eternal battle against Sunni Islam and the modern Umayyad Dynasty, and also fight for the self-view of persecution and the legitimacy it gives to the use of violence.
Making struggles and revolts appealing to the international community is closely related to the question of force and justice, and that's a battle the Shiite Houthis want to win. Luckily, the Jewish feeling of persecution did not dictate the president's agenda, and he stayed, continuing his visit as originally planned.
The Shiites and their branches can try to play this game – but we've already won.
