During the past few weeks, after the start of Saudi Arabia’s Operation Decisive Storm against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, a tense verbal battle broke out between the Iranian diplomats and generals and their Saudi counterparts. Each side accused the other of stirring unrest in the Middle East. This ongoing tension between Tehran and Riyadh has had undeniable effects on Iranian society, especially its middle class and more secular populace.

Now there are reports that two Iranian teenage boys on a pilgrimage tour to Saudi Arabia were assaulted by Saudi security guards. If previously only the very religious Iranians were hostile toward the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia, after this incident, the more secular and nationalist Iranians have also joined the anti-Saudi chorus in Iran, expressing their anger against the country.

This group of Iranians are expressing their anti-Saudi views over the social networks. In a rare event, a spontaneous and independent gathering — which was not organized in any form or shape by the government — formed in front of the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad and later the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Protesting Iranians also tried to use the anti-Saudi mood call on their more religious countrymen to boycott the pilgrimage to Mecca, in both its mandatory and its optional forms, and instead use the money saved for the pilgrimage to improve less developed regions of their own country. This group also started a campaign called: “Supporting the Iranian Passport.”

The fact that regular Iranians, not just those with nationalistic tendencies, were in the front row of the April 11 gathering in front of the embassy made the more religious youth and the members of the Basij feel they needed to act as well. As the result, they also organized another huge gathering in front of the Saudi Embassy on April 13.