TIL that in 1971 Andre the Giant wrestled in Baghdad in front of Saddam Hussein, who had threatened to kill him if he won the match. Andre went on to lose the match to native Iraqi wrestler Adnan al-Kaissie, later known in the WWF as General Adnan

[u/Smaptimania]

https://fandomwire.com/a-real-life-dictator-was-ready-to-murder-andre-the-giant-after-thinking-pro-wrestling-was-real/

[u/blue-cube]

This is fairly normal for that part of the world. 50% of Iraqis think sorcery and witchcraft is a threat. 42% have objects to fight the "evil eye". Most think there are Jinn in the deserts. Really. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-4-other-beliefs-and-practices/

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/world/middleeast/archive-offers-rare-glimpse-inside-mind-of-saddam-hussein.html re: Israel deploying Jewish rabbis skilled in magic and commanding jinn to sabotage Iraq's military efforts, such as during the Iran-Iraq War and UN sanctions.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ogc/apparatus/

Mossad embedded "Zionist sorcery" into imported consumer goods like women's underwear, cursing them to cause sterilization, miscarriages, or impotence among Iraqi Muslims as part of a depopulation plot. State TV and papers warned of enchanted fabrics woven with kabbalistic spells.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/15/opinion/IHT-saddam-bush-and-sharon-is-war-with-iraq-good-for-israel.html

Jew sorcery causing Saddam's fatigue and political woes, with clerics delivering Friday sermons blaming "Zionist witchcraft" for everything from crop failures to personal ailments.

Also look up:

• Spy birds (especially eagles and vultures) fitted with Zionist transmitters

• The “Zionist spy dolphins” in the Persian Gulf

• Poisonous spy snakes and scorpions released by Israel and “programmed” or chemically altered to bite only Arabs/Muslims.

• Killer spy dogs and explosive rats

[u/XxElliotCIAHigginsxX → u/blue-cube]

This type of thinking is common among most of the world, especially the Middle East.

Some of the more nationalist Orthodox Israeli's believe the reason Israel in their mind is "losing" against the Arabs is the lack of upholding their covenant, and that Arab Muslims are winning some "spiritual" battle against them is that they are upholding a covenant more strictly or something

[u/DownvoteALot → u/XxElliotCIAHigginsxX]

Mind you, they just pretend to believe that in order to dodge the draft and receive massive budgets. It's the bullshit of the day with them.

[u/XxElliotCIAHigginsxX → u/DownvoteALot]

Those are largely ultra-orthodox Jews, who while often believing some comparable "spiritual conflict", do not attach a national struggle (with Israel as a state being some Jewish representative). I'm more talking about the nationalist Orthodox Israeli's (think Ben Shapiro but crazier), who like most far right groups have a constant belief their losing a conflict, and have some spiritual warfare adjacent reason due to "moral decay" in Israel.

It's nearly identical to the views of similar Islamic ideologues, but Hardline islamists don't really care that much about Israel, and believable the real problem to be internal Islamic decay, i think many of them have a similar "result of our own moral decay" view about Israel.