country:saudi arabia

    • Exclusive: Khashoggi sons issue emotional appeal for the return of their father’s body
      By Nic Robertson, CNN
      https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/04/middleeast/salah-khashoggi-abdullah-khashoggi-intl/index.html

      Updated 0004 GMT (0804 HKT) November 5, 2018

      (...) Khashoggi was labeled as a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and a dangerous Islamist in phone calls the Saudi crown prince had with Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, and John Bolton, national security adviser, according to reports in both the Washington Post and New York Times. The Muslim Brotherhood, considered a terror group in many Arab nations, but not the US or Europe, has long been seen as an existential threat by the desert kingdom’s leaders.
      “It’s just labels and people not doing their homework properly, and reading his article and going in depth. It’s easier to stick a label on him,” Abdullah said, when asked about the Muslim Brotherhood claim.
      Asked how Khashoggi should be remembered, Salah replied, “as a moderate man who has common values with everyone... a man who loved his country, who believed so much in it and its potential.”
      "Jamal was never a dissident. He believed in the monarchy that it is the thing that is keeping the country together. And he believed in the transformation that it is going through."
      Reflecting on their father’s career as a journalist, they say Khashoggi was “like a rock and roll star” when they were out with him in Saudi Arabia.
      “He was a public figure that was liked by everyone else,” Salah said. “You don’t see that much in media, in print media.” (...)

      #Jamal_Khashoggi

  • UAE. The Other Murderous Gulf - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

    https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/30/other-murderous-gulf-pub-77606

    Since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad in early October, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and patron of Saudi Arabia’s own crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), has resembled the cat that swallowed the canary. The disastrous regional adventurism and ruthless despotism of his protégé has averted Washington’s gaze from the UAE’s own responsibility for the carnage that is roiling the region. But the UAE should not be given a get out jail free card. If the White House refuses to hold the Emirates accountable for undermining U.S. interests, Congress should use its constitutional power to step into the leadership void.

    Richard Sokolsky

    Richard Sokolsky is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. His work focuses on U.S. policy toward Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
    Throughout Yemen’s three-and-a-half-year civil war, the Emiratis have been as brutal and reckless as the Saudis. While Saudi aircraft slaughter innocent civilians at wedding halls, funerals, homes, markets, schools, and ports, UAE boots on the ground have also contributed to the humanitarian disaster. The UAE-led military offensive in and around the port city of Hodeidah has been a catastrophe: over 400,000 Yemenis have been displaced since June and the fighting has considerably worsened the country’s already alarming food crisis and famine. Human rights organizations have reported on secret UAE-administered detention facilities where torture, beatings, electric shocks, and killings have occurred. The UAE royal family has paid retired U.S. Special Forces soldiers to track down and assassinate Yemeni political figures that it believes are in league with the wider Muslim Brotherhood movement. In Aden, the UAE has organized, supplied, and paid militias to foment fractious proxy violence. Yemenis who once saw the Emirati intervention as an heroic act to defend their nation’s sovereignty from a ruthless Iran-supported militia are now depicting it as an occupation, if not colonization.

    The UAE is part of the coalition of “Saudi-led” Arab countries (along with Bahrain and Egypt) that imposed a blockade against Qatar in May 2017. These nations were attempting to, among other things, end Qatar’s “terrorism,” cut its ties to Iran, get it to stop meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, and force it to pursue a less independent foreign policy. The UAE has taken an even more hardline stance against the Qataris than the Saudis, in part because it is more fanatical than Riyadh about eradicating any trace of Muslim Brotherhood influence in Qatar and the region more broadly. The boycott, which has divided America’s partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, has been a disaster for both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, affording both Iran and Turkey opportunities to expand their influence in Doha. Nor has it worked out well for Washington, which hoped to forge a united Gulf front to contain Iranian influence. But for the UAE, the Saudis have been a useful surrogate for outsized regional ambitions; the Emiratis’ relationship with the Kingdom has allowed them to punch well above their weight. That’s not a good thing.

  • Khashoggi murder: Saudi prince ’said he was dangerous Islamist’ - BBC News
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46067959

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the US he considered murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi to be a dangerous Islamist, media reports say.

    Prince Mohammed’s reported phone call to the White House came before Saudi Arabia admitted he had been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    Saudi Arabia has denied the reports in the Washington Post and New York Times.

    A Saudi national and well-known critic of Saudi rulers, Khashoggi was killed and his body dismembered on 2 October.

    #arabie_saoudite #de_plus_en_plus_gore

  • Israa Al-Ghomgham, a Saudi woman facing the death penalty for peaceful protest · Global Voices
    https://globalvoices.org/2018/10/31/israa-al-ghomgham-a-saudi-woman-facing-the-death-penalty-for-peaceful-

    uman rights advocate Israa Al-Ghomgham is facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, for her non-violent human rights related activities.

    Al-Ghomgham was arrested in 2015 along with her husband, activist Mousa Al-Hashim, over their roles in anti-government protests in Al-Qatif back in 2011, when pro-democracy protests spread across the Middle East and North Africa.

    #arabie_saoudite #barbares #droits_humains

  • Saudi crown prince receives American Christian leaders
    http://www.arabnews.com/node/1397726/saudi-arabia

    JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received a delegation of US Christian leaders in Riyadh on Thursday.

    The group, who are on a tour of the region, affirmed the importance of exerting joint efforts in promoting co-existence, tolerance and combating extremism and terrorism.

    #états-unis #insignifiance_obscène

  • Report: Netanyahu asked Trump to stick with Saudi crown prince after Khashoggi murder - Middle East News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/netanyahu-asked-trump-to-stick-with-saudi-crown-prince-after-khashoggi-murd

    WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked senior officials in the Trump White House to continue supporting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

    Citing U.S. officials, the report stated that Netanyahu described the Crown Prince as a “strategic ally” in the Middle East.

    The report said that a similar message was conveyed to the White House by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

  • Saudi Arabia is a model country. So is Israel, naturally - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-saudi-arabia-is-a-model-country-so-is-israel-naturaly-1.6613356

    Why is Saudi Arabia singled out for harassment, a country that is itself fighting terror, is a partner to the battle against Iran and creates thousands of jobs in the West?

    Et 2 « #villas_dans_la_jungle » (et non ce n’est pas un article satirique)

    #sans_vergogne

  • The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War - The New York Times

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-war-yemen.html

    Chest heaving and eyes fluttering, the 3-year-old boy lay silently on a hospital bed in the highland town of Hajjah, a bag of bones fighting for breath.

    His father, Ali al-Hajaji, stood anxiously over him. Mr. Hajaji had already lost one son three weeks earlier to the epidemic of hunger sweeping across Yemen. Now he feared that a second was slipping away.

    It wasn’t for a lack of food in the area: The stores outside the hospital gate were filled with goods and the markets were bustling. But Mr. Hajaji couldn’t afford any of it because prices were rising too fast.

    “I can barely buy a piece of stale bread,” he said. “That’s why my children are dying before my eyes.”

    #arabie_saoudite #yémen #barbares

  • The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-war-yemen.html

    Chest heaving and eyes fluttering, the 3-year-old boy lay silently on a hospital bed in the highland town of Hajjah, a bag of bones fighting for breath.

    His father, Ali al-Hajaji, stood anxiously over him. Mr. Hajaji had already lost one son three weeks earlier to the epidemic of hunger sweeping across Yemen. Now he feared that a second was slipping away.

    It wasn’t for a lack of food in the area: The stores outside the hospital gate were filled with goods and the markets were bustling. But Mr. Hajaji couldn’t afford any of it because prices were rising too fast.

    “I can barely buy a piece of stale bread,” he said. “That’s why my children are dying before my eyes.”

    The devastating war in Yemen has gotten more attention recently as outrage over the killing of a Saudi dissident in Istanbul has turned a spotlight on Saudi actions elsewhere. The harshest criticism of the Saudi-led war has focused on the airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians at weddings, funerals and on school buses, aided by American-supplied bombs and intelligence.

    But aid experts and United Nations officials say a more insidious form of warfare is also being waged in #Yemen, an economic war that is exacting a far greater toll on civilians and now risks tipping the country into a #famine of catastrophic proportions.

    #guerre_économique #civils #victimes_civiles

  • Dozens of MPs flown to Riyadh in Saudi charm offensive – Channel 4 News
    https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/dozens-of-mps-flown-to-riyadh-in-saudi-charm-offensive

    Saudi Arabia has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds paying for British MPs to visit the country.

    FactCheck found that at least 33 MPs have been on Saudi-funded trips to the Kingdom, since its troops entered Yemen in 2015. On most occasions, all expenses were covered.

    In total, British MPs have accepted more than £208,000 worth of trips since 2015.

    Getting MPs to visit appears to be a growing priority for Saudi Arabia. Over the last five years, increasing numbers of MPs have gone – and the amount being spent on each person has gone up.

    #tourisme

  • How the Khashoggi Case Plays in Yemen
    http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/how-khashoggi-case-plays-yemen

    The humble little solar power system and small TV my elderly mother and her friends gather around every night in Wadi Bana, their village in Ibb in the midlands of North Yemen, provides them – for the single hour the power lasts – with a tiny daily window for entertainment and laughs amid the misery of the war. Now, when I call from Sana’a to check on my mom, she complains that she can no longer watch her favorite programs: All the channels have replaced her shows with special coverage of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder case. My mother has become an expert. When I ask her about her health, she responds instead with all the latest updates and breaking developments.

    It’s not just that the overwhelming number of Yemenis are left wondering why the whole world cares so much about this one man while thousands upon thousands of Yemenis have been killed and the whole country destroyed by the US-backed Saudi- and Emirati-led war. Long before Jamal Khashoggi began writing newspaper columns for The Washington Post – long before he fell out with the Saudi regime, to which he had once been a loyalist – Khashoggi had a complicated and in many ways negative history with respect to Yemen, rendering our reaction to his terrible murder a more nuanced one.

    For many years, Khashoggi was only known to top political elites in Yemen who followed his writings, interviews and tweets because they saw him as being close to top decisionmakers in Saudi Arabia – an intimate of Saudi intelligence – and as such, a good source for trying to predict whatever new Saudi tempest towards Yemen lay on the horizon. He was associated with Saudi interference in Yemen’s sociopolitical and socioeconomic affairs, part and parcel with Saudi propaganda, and reflecting official Saudi policies towards Yemen.

  • How a Canadian permanent resident and Saudi Arabian dissident was targeted with powerful spyware on Canadian soil
    https://citizenlab.ca/2018/10/how-a-canadian-permanent-resident-and-saudi-arabian-dissident-was-targete

    Following a Citizen Lab report that identified the presence of NSO’s Pegasus spyware technology in Quebec, researchers contacted Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi Arabian dissident and Canadian permanent resident who has long been critical of the regime in Riyadh. After an extensive investigation, they discovered that his phone had been targeted with this powerful spyware and the operators of the technology were linked to Saudi Arabia’s government and security (...)

    #NSO #smartphone #Pegasus #spyware #activisme #surveillance #écoutes

  • The Real Reasons Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Wanted Khashoggi ‘Dead or Alive’
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-reasons-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-wanted-khasho

    Christopher Dickey 10.21.18
    His death is key to understanding the political forces that helped turn the Middle East from a region of hope seven years ago to one of brutal repression and slaughter today.

    The mind plays strange tricks sometimes, especially after a tragedy. When I sat down to write this story about the Saudi regime’s homicidal obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood, the first person I thought I’d call was Jamal Khashoggi. For more than 20 years I phoned him or met with him, even smoked the occasional water pipe with him, as I looked for a better understanding of his country, its people, its leaders, and the Middle East. We often disagreed, but he almost always gave me fresh insights into the major figures of the region, starting with Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, and the political trends, especially the explosion of hope that was called the Arab Spring in 2011. He would be just the man to talk to about the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood, because he knew both sides of that bitter relationship so well.

    And then, of course, I realized that Jamal is dead, murdered precisely because he knew too much.

    Although the stories keep changing, there is now no doubt that 33-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the power in front of his decrepit father’s throne, had put out word to his minions that he wanted Khashoggi silenced, and the hit-team allegedly understood that as “wanted dead or alive.” But the [petro]buck stops with MBS, as bin Salman’s called. He’s responsible for a gruesome murder just as Henry II was responsible for the murder of Thomas Becket when he said, “Who will rid me of that meddlesome priest?” In this case, a meddlesome journalist.

    We now know that a few minor players will pay. Some of them might even be executed by Saudi headsmen (one already was reported killed in a car crash). But experience also tells us the spotlight of world attention will shift. Arms sales will go ahead. And the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi risks becoming just one more entry in the annals of intensifying, murderous repression of journalists who are branded the “enemy of the people” by Donald Trump and various two-bit tyrants around the world.

    There is more to Khashoggi’s murder than the question of press freedom, however. His death holds the key to understanding the political forces that have helped turn the Middle East from a region of hope seven years ago to one of brutal repression and ongoing slaughter today. Which brings us back to the question of the Saudis’ fear and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, the regional rivalries of those who support it and those who oppose it, and the game of thrones in the House of Saud itself. Khashoggi was not central to any of those conflicts, but his career implicated him, fatally, in all of them.

    The Muslim Brotherhood is not a benign political organization, but neither is it Terror Incorporated. It was created in the 1920s and developed in the 1930s and ‘40s as an Islamic alternative to the secular fascist and communist ideologies that dominated revolutionary anti-colonial movements at the time. From those other political organizations the Brotherhood learned the values of a tight structure, party discipline, and secrecy, with a public face devoted to conventional political activity—when possible—and a clandestine branch that resorted to violence if that appeared useful.

    In the novel Sugar Street, Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz sketched a vivid portrait of a Brotherhood activist spouting the group’s political credo in Egypt during World War II. “Islam is a creed, a way of worship, a nation and a nationality, a religion, a state, a form of spirituality, a Holy Book, and a sword,” says the Brotherhood preacher. “Let us prepare for a prolonged struggle. Our mission is not to Egypt alone but to all Muslims worldwide. It will not be successful until Egypt and all other Islamic nations have accepted these Quranic principles in common. We shall not put our weapons away until the Quran has become a constitution for all Believers.”

    For several decades after World War II, the Brotherhood’s movement was eclipsed by Arab nationalism, which became the dominant political current in the region, and secular dictators moved to crush the organization. But the movement found support among the increasingly embattled monarchies of the Gulf, including and especially Saudi Arabia, where the rule of the king is based on his custodianship of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam. At the height of the Cold War, monarchies saw the Brotherhood as a helpful antidote to the threat of communist-led or Soviet-allied movements and ideologies.

    By the 1980s, several of the region’s rulers were using the Brotherhood as a tool to weaken or destroy secular opposition. Egypt’s Anwar Sadat courted them, then moved against them, and paid with his life in 1981, murdered by members of a group originally tied to the Brotherhood. Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, then spent three decades in power manipulating the Brotherhood as an opposition force, outlawing the party as such, but allowing its known members to run for office in the toothless legislature, where they formed a significant bloc and did a lot of talking.

    Jordan’s King Hussein played a similar game, but went further, giving clandestine support to members of the Brotherhood waging a covert war against Syrian tyrant Hafez al-Assad—a rebellion largely destroyed in 1982 when Assad’s brother killed tens of thousands of people in the Brotherhood stronghold of Hama.

    Even Israel got in on the action, initially giving Hamas, the Brotherhood branch among the Palestinians, tacit support as opposition to the left-leaning Palestine Liberation Organization (although PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat once identified with the Brotherhood himself).

    The Saudi royals, too, thought the Brotherhood could be bought off and manipulated for their own ends. “Over the years the relationship between the Saudis and the Brotherhood ebbed and flowed,” says Lorenzo Vidino, an expert on extremism at George Washington University and one of the foremost scholars in the U.S. studying the Brotherhood’s history and activities.

    Over the decades factions of the Brotherhood, like communists and fascists before them, “adapted to individual environments,” says Vidino. In different countries it took on different characteristics. Thus Hamas, or its military wing, is easily labeled as terrorist by most definitions, while Ennahda in Tunisia, which used to be called terrorist by the ousted Ben Ali regime, has behaved as a responsible political party in a complex democratic environment. To the extent that Jamal Khashoggi identified with the Brotherhood, that was the current he espoused. But democracy, precisely, is what Mohammed bin Salman fears.

    Vidino traces the Saudis’ intense hostility toward the Brotherhood to the uprisings that swept through much of the Arab world in 2011. “The Saudis together with the Emiratis saw it as a threat to their own power,” says Vidino.

    Other regimes in the region thought they could use the Brotherhood to extend their influence. First among these was the powerful government in Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has such longstanding ties to the Islamist movement that some scholars refer to his elected government as “Brotherhood 2.0.” Also hoping to ride the Brotherhood wave was tiny, ultra-rich Qatar, whose leaders had used their vast natural gas wealth and their popular satellite television channel, Al Jazeera, to project themselves on the world stage and, they hoped, buy some protection from their aggressive Saudi neighbors. As one senior Qatari official told me back in 2013, “The future of Qatar is soft power.” After 2011, Jazeera’s Arabic channel frequently appeared to propagandize in the Brotherhood’s favor as much as, say, Fox News does in Trump’s.

    Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, and the birthplace of the Brotherhood, became a test case. Although Jamal Khashoggi often identified the organization with the idealistic hopes of the peaceful popular uprising that brought down the Mubarak dynasty, in fact the Egyptian Brotherhood had not taken part. Its leaders had a modus vivendi they understood with Mubarak, and it was unclear what the idealists in Tahrir Square, or the military tolerating them, might do.

    After the dictator fell and elections were called, however, the Brotherhood made its move, using its party organization and discipline, as well as its perennial slogan, “Islam is the solution,” to put its man Mohamed Morsi in the presidential palace and its people in complete control of the government. Or so it thought.

    In Syria, meanwhile, the Brotherhood believed it could and should lead the popular uprising against the Assad dynasty. That had been its role 30 years earlier, and it had paid mightily.

    For more than a year, it looked like the Brotherhood’s various branches might sweep to power across the unsettled Arab world, and the Obama administration, for want of serious alternatives, was inclined to go with the flow.

    But then the Saudis struck back.

    In the summer of 2013, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the commander of the Egyptian armed forces, led a military coup with substantial popular support against the conspicuously inept Brotherhood government, which had proved quickly that Islam was not really the “solution” for much of anything.

    Al-Sissi had once been the Egyptian military attaché in Riyadh, where he had many connections, and the Saudis quickly poured money into Egypt to shore up his new regime. At the same time, he declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and launched a campaign of ruthless repression. Within weeks of the coup, the Egyptian military attacked two camps of Brotherhood protesters and slaughtered hundreds.

    In Syria, the efforts to organize a credible political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad proved virtually impossible as the Qataris and Turks backed the Brotherhood while the Saudis continued their vehement opposition. But that does not mean that Riyadh supported moderate secular forces. Far from it. The Saudis still wanted to play a major role bringing down the Syrian regime allied to another arch enemy, the government of Iran. So the Saudis put their weight behind ultra-conservative Salafis, thinking they might be easier to control than the Muslim Brothers.

    Riyadh is “okay with quietist Salafism,” says Vidino. But the Salafis’ religious extremism quickly shaded over into the thinking of groups like the al Qaeda spinoff called the Nusra Front. Amid all the infighting, little progress was made against Assad, and there to exploit the chaos was the so-called Islamic State (which Assad partially supported in its early days).

    Then, in January 2015, at the height of all this regional turmoil, the aged and infirm Salman bin Abdelaziz ascended to the throne of Saudi Arabia. His son, Mohammed bin Salman, began taking into his own hands virtually all the reins of power, making bold decisions about reforming the Saudi economy, taking small measures to give the impression he might liberalize society—and moving to intimidate or otherwise neutralize anyone who might challenge his power.

    Saudi Arabia is a country named after one family, the al Saud, and while there is nothing remotely democratic about the government, within the family itself with its thousands of princes there traditionally has been an effort to find consensus. Every king up to now has been a son of the nation’s founder, Abdelaziz ibn Saud, and thus a brother or half brother of the other kings.

    When Salman took over, he finally named successors from the next generation. His nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, then 57 and well known for his role fighting terrorism, became crown prince. His son, Mohammed bin Salman, became deputy crown prince. But bin Nayef’s position between the king and his favorite son clearly was untenable. As one Saudi close to the royals put it: “Between the onion and the skin there is only the stink.”

    Bin Nayef was pushed out in 2017. The New York Times reported that during an end-of-Ramadan gathering at the palace he “was told he was going to meet the king and was led into another room, where royal court officials took away his phones and pressured him to give up his posts as crown prince and interior minister. … At first, he refused. But as the night wore on, the prince, a diabetic who suffers from the effects of a 2009 assassination attempt by a suicide bomber, grew tired.” Royal court officials meanwhile called around to other princes saying bin Nayef had a drug problem and was unfit to be king.

    Similar pressure was brought to bear on many of the richest and most powerful princes in the kingdom, locked up in the Ritz Carlton hotel in 2017, ostensibly as part of an extra-legal fight against corruption. They were forced to give allegiance to MBS at the same time they were giving up a lot of their money.

    That pattern of coerced allegiance is what the Saudis now admit they wanted from Jamal Khashoggi. He was no prince, but he had been closely associated in the past with the sons of the late King Faisal, particularly Turki al-Faisal, who was for many years the head of the Saudi intelligence apparatus and subsequently served as ambassador to the United Kingdom, then the United States.

    Although Turki always denied he had ambitions to be king, his name often was mentioned in the past as a contender. Thus far he seems to have weathered the rule of MBS, but given the record of the crown prince anyone close to the Al Faisal branch of the family, like Khashoggi, would be in a potentially perilous position.

    Barbara Bodine is a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, which has suffered mightily since MBS launched a brutal proxy war there against Iran. Both MBS and Trump have declared the regime in Tehran enemy number one in the region. But MBS botched the Yemen operation from the start. It was dubbed “Decisive Storm” when it began in 2015, and was supposed to last only a few weeks, but the war continues to this day. Starvation and disease have spread through Yemen, creating one of the world’s greatest humanitarian disasters. And for the moment, in one of those developments that makes the Middle East so rich in ironies, in Yemen the Saudis are allied with a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    “What drives MBS is a ruthless effort toward total control domestically and regionally; he is Putin of the Desert,” says Bodine. “He has basically broken the back of the princelings, the religious establishment and the business elite, brought all ministries and agencies of power under his sole control (’I alone can fix it’), and jailed, killed or put under house arrest activists and any and all potential as well as real opposition (including his mother).”

    In 2017, MBS and his backers in the Emirates accused Qatar of supporting “terrorism,” issuing a set of demands that included shutting down Al Jazeera. The Saudis closed off the border and looked for other ways, including military options, to put pressure on the poor little rich country that plays so many angles it has managed to be supportive of the Brotherhood and cozy with Iran while hosting an enormous U.S. military base.

    “It was Qatar’s independent streak—not just who they supported but that they had a foreign policy divorced from the dictates of Riyadh,” says Bodine. “The basic problem is that both the Brotherhood and Iran offer competing Islam-based governing structures that challenge the Saudi model.”

    “Jamal’s basic sin,” says Bodine,“was he was a credible insider, not a fire-breathing radical. He wrote and spoke in English for an American audience via credible mainstream media and was well regarded and highly visible within the Washington chattering classes. He was accessible, moderate and operated within the West. He challenged not the core structure of the Kingdom but the legitimacy of the current rulers, especially MBS.”

    “I do think the game plan was to make him disappear and I suspect the end game was always to make him dead,” said Bodine in a long and thoughtful email. “If he was simply jailed within Saudi there would have been a drumbeat of pressure for his release. Dead—there is certainly a short term cost, whether more than anticipated or longer than anticipated we don’t know yet, but the world will move on. Jamal will become a footnote, a talking point perhaps, but not a crusade. The dismembered body? No funeral. Taking out Jamal also sends a powerful signal to any dissident that there is no place safe.”

    #Arabie_Saoudite #Turquie #politique #terrorisme #putsch

  • Imran Khan leaves for Saudi conference saying #Pakistan ’desperate’ for loans | Reuters
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-khashoggi-pakistan/imran-khan-leaves-for-saudi-conference-saying-pakistan-desperate-for-loa

    Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan left for Saudi Arabia to attend an investment conference boycotted by other leaders over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    • Despite PR duress, Saudi $6bn to Pakistan comes with strings | Asia Times
      http://www.atimes.com/article/despite-pr-duress-saudi-6bn-to-pakistan-comes-with-strings

      Fermer les yeux sur le financement saoudien de groupes armés du Balochistan pakistanais chargés de mener des opérations contre l’Iran en Iran, et amener le Pakistan à s’impliquer plus au Yémen.

      Balochistan is of strategic interest to both Iran and Saudi Arabia, bordering the Islamic Republic and located north of the Arabian Sea.

      Saudi Arabia has faced allegations of backing anti-Shiite jihadist groups in Balochistan, namely Jundullah and Jaish al-Adl, and a heightened influence could be dangerous for Pakistan’s security.

      “If you increase investment, it is not just money that pours in. With the money comes influence,” analyst Siddiqa said.

      “It’s hard to imagine a $6 billion gift with no strings attached,” said Michael Kugelman, a scholar on Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

      “There’s a very good chance Saudi Arabia placed some type of conditions on this support. Riyadh may have made it quite clear that Pakistan will need to rein in its recent efforts to position itself as a neutral actor in the Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry,” Kugelman said.

      “Pakistan has an Iran problem and a Saudi problem. [The Pakistani military] is allowing the Saudis to build up their capacity in Balochistan, which is in effect a certain kind of encirclement around Iran,” said Siddiqa.

      Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have maintained a defense partnership since 1983, though it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact number of Pakistani personnel in the kingdom. According to Kamal Alam of the London-based think tank RUSI, there are at least 1,200 Pakistani trainers in various Saudi security and military sectors.

      A source close to the Pakistani military said the number is far higher, however. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told Asia Times there are upwards of 7,000 Pakistani military personnel in the kingdom.

      “One of the big questions coming out of this new deal is whether Riyadh has now asked Islamabad to operationalize that military presence and be willing to join Saudi military efforts in Yemen,” Kugelman said.

      “Islamabad has long resisted this ask from Saudi Arabia, but with this financial assistance Islamabad is now getting, Riyadh has more leverage,” he added.

      According to a political source briefed on the matter but who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject, the Pakistani armed forces have been under mounting pressure from the Saudis to join the conflict in Yemen.

  • Pourquoi Israël (et le lobby pro-Israël aux Etats-Unis) défend MBS

    Why we should go easy on the Saudi crown prince

    For 50 years we’ve prayed for a key Arab leader who agrees to sign a significant pact with Israel. Such a leader has finally arrived

    Tzvia Greenfield
    Oct 22, 2018 1:48 AM

    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-why-we-should-go-easy-on-the-saudi-crown-prince-1.6576593

    Turkey, a human rights champion under Erdogan, is accusing Saudi Arabia, another human rights champion, of the abhorrent murder of a Saudi journalist who entered the lion’s den in Istanbul and, as befits horror stories typical of places like Syria China, Iran, Russia and North Korea, disappeared from sight. Now we have recordings and videotapes, allegedly from the Saudi consulate, suggesting that his body was chopped into pieces.
    The underlying reason for this gruesome act, that evokes something conjured up by the Coen brothers, is not completely clear. One shouldn’t treat any death lightly, particularly not a murder committed by an evil government. However, because of the political ramifications involved, it’s worth contemplating this episode a bit more.
    To really understand Israel and the Middle East - subscribe to Haaretz
    It’s possible that just like Putin, the Saudi royal house cannot tolerate any criticism, which is why it decided to eliminate the rogue journalist in an acid bath (a no less likely possibility that has not yet been suggested by the authorities in Ankara). It’s possible that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is gnashing his teeth over Saudi Arabia’s bolstered global status, particularly vis-à-vis U.S. President Donald Trump, and over the central role played by Mohammed bin Salman in a regional coalition meant to block Iranian influence in the Middle East — which is why Erdogan is bent on deflating the Crown Prince’s image.
    Erdogan may want to humiliate the Saudis, but his main goal is foiling the plan apparently devised by Trump and Mohammed to forge a regional alliance under the aegis of the United States, an alliance that includes Israel, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt (and possibly Iraq). These countries will jointly try to block Iran, which endangers all of them. Turkey, which is struggling to find an as-yet-undetermined place within the Arab Muslim world, does not strive merely to lead the Sunni world. It also wants to depict Israel as a foreign colonialist implant in the Middle East. Any legitimization afforded Israel thanks to an alliance with Arab states has negative implications for Erdogan.
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    >> Why are some pro-Israel voices speaking out against Jamal Khashoggi? | Explained ■ Saudi Arabia, reeling from Khashoggi scandal, battles a new front: Arab media | Analysis
    But fate obviously has a sense of humor. It has embroiled the Turkish rivalry with Saudi Arabia in the U.S. midterm elections. Since Mohammed is currently Trump’s most important international ally, mainly for economic reasons, the campaign advocating a “liberal order,” espoused by international media assailing the Saudi leader, is buzzing with excitement. Its main objective is not the brushing aside of Saudi Arabia, but the delivery of a humiliating knockout blow to Trump and his economic plans.

    According to Time magazine, the level of public support for Trump remains stable at 43 percent, similar to that of Obama, Clinton and Reagan at comparative phases in their terms. It’s no wonder that after the failed attacks on Trump, who immerged unscathed from the intimidation of migrant children, the Stormy Daniels saga and the attempt to prevent the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the left is eager to pounce on the Saudi murder case as if it has found a treasure trove.
    However, this time it’s necessary to treat the suspect with kid gloves. Trump’s peace initiative, if it is ever put on the table, is apparently the direct result of pressure by Mohammed bin Salman, who wishes to legitimize Israel before embarking on open cooperation with it. For 50 years we’ve prayed for a key Arab leader who agrees to sign a significant pact with Israel. Such a leader has finally arrived, and calls to depose him, such as those by former U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro in an op-ed in Haaretz (October 21) are destructive and in keeping with the best Obama tradition. Anyone waiting for a world of the purely just will have to struggle all his life with the purely evil.

    Tzvia Greenfield

    • Israël est un état colonial par la décision qui l’a créé et par son racisme (dès l’origine les kibboutz, bien que laïques étaient « juifs only »). Les nationalistes sionistes étaient sans doute habités par l’idéologie raciste coloniale propre à la période.

      Cela n’aurait pas été un problème si Israël avait accepté plus tard de reconnaitre les souffrances infligées aux populations arabes autochtones et s’il avait cherché à les compenser.
      Au lieu de cela Israël n’a jamais envisagé de créer une société réellement multi-ethnique et n’a eu de cesse de s’étendre et de réprimer toujours plus massivement les arabes, crimes de guerre sur crimes de guerre ...

      Israël comme l’Arabie, bien que différents, sont deux créations de l’occident colonial, toutes deux structurées par le racisme.
      Leur rapprochement a une logique.

  • Discours de Hagai El-Ad au Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies, le 18 octobre 2018
    AURDIP | 20 octobre | B’Tselem |Hagai El-Ad
    https://www.aurdip.org/discours-de-hagai-el-ad-au-conseil.html

    Hagai El-Ad, Directeur exécutif de B’Tselem, a pris la parole devant le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies ce soir, à la session trimestrielle prévue par la résolution 2334.

    Merci, Monsieur le Président,

    Merci, membres du Conseil de Sécurité,

    Il est très difficile, voire impossible, de décrire l’indignité, l’outrage et la souffrance d’un peuple privé de droits pendant plus de cinquante ans. Ici, dans ces locaux, il est difficile de donner corps aux vies que les Palestiniennes endurent sous occupation. Mais bien plus grande que cette difficulté, est celle de faire face à une existence intolérable au quotidien, d’essayer de vivre, de fonder une famille, de développer une communauté dans ces conditions.

    Cela fait bientôt deux ans que j’ai eu l’honneur d’être convié à témoigner devant ce Conseil. Deux ans de plus d’occupation, deux ans durant lesquels la routine des 49 années d’occupation s’est prolongée. Depuis ma dernière présentation ici, 317 Palestiniens ont été tués par les forces de sécurité israéliennes, et treize Israéliens ont été tués par des Palestiniens. Israël a démoli 294 maisons palestiniennes, et a continué d’effectuer des arrestations quotidiennes, notamment de mineurs. Des colons israéliens ont vandalisé et déraciné des milliers d’oliviers et de vignes. Les forces de sécurité israéliennes ont continué, sur une base régulière, d’entrer dans des maisons palestiniennes, parfois au milieu de la nuit pour réveiller des enfants, noter leurs noms et les prendre en photo. Les Palestiniens ont perdu d’innombrables heures à attendre aux check-points, sans explications. Et ainsi se poursuit la routine de l’occupation. (...)

    • The Real Hero Is the B’Tselem Chief
      Gideon Levy Oct 20, 2018 9:22 PM
      https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-real-hero-is-the-b-tselem-chief-1.6574668

      On the day the world realizes that the UN ambassador is Israel and Hagai El-Ad represents a muzzled minority, maybe its forgiving attitude toward Israel will change

      Who contributes more to Israel’s status in the world, UN Ambassador Danny Danon or B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad? Who generates more respect, the diplomat or the human rights activist? Which of the two disgraced Israel with his words and who retained some of its humane image? Who told the truth and who lied? Whom does the world believe – excluding Nikki Haley, the only true collaborator in the hall – and whom can the no world no longer believe?

      They sat opposite each other at the Security Council – two Israelis of the same age, born here, army veterans, with totally different worldviews and conflicting moral standards. Their values are contradictory and their information on what’s happening under the occupation is divergent. One relies on the lies of Israel’s propaganda machine while the other’s views are based on the investigative efforts of an organization whose work couldn’t be more reliable and professional.

      El-Ad reminded the world of something the world still clings to, the belief that there is still a difference between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Danon tried to erase the difference with his pitiful response: “IDF soldiers protect you and you come here and slander them. You should be ashamed, collaborator.”

      Danon is a faithful representative of the majority in Israel. His appearances are important – he reminds the world that the illusion of the “only democracy in the Middle East” must be dispelled. On the day the world realizes that Danon is Israel and El-Ad represents not just a negligible minority but one muzzled by an aggressive majority, maybe its forgiving attitude toward Israel will change.

      The reactions in Israel only intensified the damage wrought by Danon. Not only the right pounced on El-Ad with viciousness – the center-left took part in the fascist revelry as well. There was Yair Lapid, as could only be expected. There were Zionist Union Knesset members such as Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin (“these are one-sided texts deserving every condemnation”) and Eitan Cabel (“hateful words and an abomination”). Their words attested to the urgency of dispensing with this party and its rotting ideas. None of their colleagues came to El-Ad’s defense – how shameful. There is no alternative to the rule of the right.

      El-Ad showed the truth – naked, ugly and disturbing. Anyone calling him a snitch actually admits to this truth and is ashamed of it. It’s not only El-Ad’s right to behave this way, it’s his obligation. The occupation is not and cannot be an internal Israeli matter. The abuse of people without rights under a military tyranny in occupied territory is an international crime.

      Anyone seeing these crimes must report them to the authorities. If you see a man striking a woman or abusing a child or some other helpless creature, you have an obligation to report it to the police. If you see a tyrannical government abusing another nation for decades, killing, destroying, causing hunger, imprisoning people and blocking medical aid, you are obliged to report this to the United Nations, to The Hague and to other international institutions.

      El-Ad fulfilled his civic and moral duty. The chorus of his detractors knows this, which is why it’s so vicious and strident. If Danon really believed his own hollow speeches at the United Nations, he wouldn’t be alarmed at one Israeli speaking out differently. But Danon and Cabel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Miri Regev know that not one word in the restrained and to-the-point speech by El-Ad wasn’t truthful. This is why their reaction was so aggressive.

      El-Ad was modest, as is his wont. He said he was no traitor or hero; the Palestinians are the true heroes. He’s right, of course. Every demonstrator along the Gaza border is far more courageous than any Israel sniper shooting him from a distance. Every shepherd at the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar exudes more justice than the entire chorus of those attacking B’Tselem.

      But El-Ad too is a hero; he’s the ambassador of Israel as it should be, a public relations officer of an alternative Israel, a beautiful and just one. Now we have to be concerned about his safety. He has been marked as a target and must wear a bulletproof vest. If he comes to harm we’ll remember those who are to blame: Not just people on the right, but also the sanctimonious hypocrites on the center-left – Lapid, Cabel and Nahmias-Verbin, the spokespeople of Israel’s shameful and imaginary opposition.

    • réaction à son intervention d’il y a deux ans :

      Le chef de B’Tselem est “un vrai patriote”, selon des sources de l’unité d’élite où il a servi
      Hagai El-Ad est décrit comme un excellent soldat qui a grandement contribué à la sécurité d’Israël par ceux qui ont servi avec lui dans l’unité 504, élite du renseignement
      Par Alexander Fulbright 31 octobre 2016,
      https://fr.timesofisrael.com/le-chef-de-btselem-est-un-vrai-patriote-selon-des-sources-de-lunit

      Hagai El-Ad, le directeur de B’Tselem, est un « vrai patriote », qui a apporté une contribution inestimable à la sécurité d’Israël quand il servait dans l’une des unités d’élites les plus secrètes de l’armée israélienne, ont déclaré dimanche des sources internes à l’unité, dans un contexte de tempête médiatique et politique après son discours devant le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies ce mois-ci.

      Il avait à ce moment demandé une intervention mondiale contre les implantations israéliennes en Cisjordanie.

      Pendant la session du 14 octobre, El-Ad avait dénoncé la “violence invisible et bureaucratique” qui domine la vie des Palestiniens “du berceau à la tombe”, faisant notamment allusion aux contrôles exercés lors de l’entrée et de la sortie des Territoires et les droits liés à l’agriculture.

      Hagai El-Ad, le directeur de B’Tselem, est un « vrai patriote », qui a apporté une contribution inestimable à la sécurité d’Israël quand il servait dans l’une des unités d’élites les plus secrètes de l’armée israélienne, ont déclaré dimanche des sources internes à l’unité, dans un contexte de tempête médiatique et politique après son discours devant le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies ce mois-ci.

      Il avait à ce moment demandé une intervention mondiale contre les implantations israéliennes en Cisjordanie.

      Pendant la session du 14 octobre, El-Ad avait dénoncé la “violence invisible et bureaucratique” qui domine la vie des Palestiniens “du berceau à la tombe”, faisant notamment allusion aux contrôles exercés lors de l’entrée et de la sortie des Territoires et les droits liés à l’agriculture.
      El-Ad a servi au sein de l’unité entre 1987 et 1991, aux côtés de l’actuel coordinateur des activités gouvernementales dans les territoires (COGAT), Yoav Mordechai, qui est responsable de la mise en place des politiques du gouvernement israélien en Cisjordanie, selon la chaîne.

      Pendant ces années, a annoncé la Dixième chaîne, l’unité travaillait principalement dans le sud du Liban pour mettre en place des réseaux d’informateurs.

      Pendant son discours, El-Ad avait déclaré qu’Israël a utilisé le processus de paix « pour acheter du temps » afin d’établir des faits sur le terrain pour les implantations.

      Le pays ne peut pas occuper un peuple pendant 50 ans et se dire démocratique, a-t-il déclaré, ajoutant que les droits des Palestiniens devaient être réalisés, et que l’occupation devait cesser.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE5x4IqxTq0

  • Saudi crown prince ’phoned Khashoggi at the consulate right before he’s being killed

    Comme le dirait @gonzo ; c’est de plus en plus en plus en plus gore...

    https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/10/21/saudi-crown-prince-phoned-khashoggi-just-before-murder-report

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly spoke on the phone with journalist Jamal Khashoggi moments before he was murdered in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

    Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak revealed new alleged details of the case in a report on Sunday, contradicting claims by Saudi authorities that Prince Mohammed played no part in Khashoggi’s murder.

    #Khashoggi was detained by the Saudi team inside the consulate building. Then Prince Mohammed contacted Khashoggi by phone and tried to convince him to return to Riyadh,” the report said.

    #arabie_saoudite

  • Amid skepticism, Saudi official provides another version of Khashoggi death | Article | Reuters
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-khashoggi-official/amid-scepticism-saudi-official-provides-another-version-of-khashoggi-death-

    Cette énième version vaut son pesant de #foutage_de_gueule

    According to the latest version of the death, the government wanted to convince Khashoggi, who moved to Washington a year ago fearing reprisals for his views, to return to the kingdom as part of a campaign to prevent Saudi dissidents from being recruited by the country’s enemies, the official said .

    To that end, the official said, the deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, Ahmed al-Asiri, put together a 15 -member team from the intelligence and security forces to go to Istanbul, meet Khashoggi at the consulate and try to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia.

    “There is a standing order to negotiate the return of dissidents peacefully ; which gives them the authority to act without going back to the leadership" the official said.

    [...]

    According to the plan, the team could hold Khashoggi in a safe house outside Istanbul for “a period of time” but then release him if he ultimately refused to return to Saudi Arabia, the official said.

    Things went wrong from the start as the team overstepped their orders and quickly employed violence, the official said.

    #arabie_saoudite

  • In Khashoggi Disappearance, Turkey’s Slow Drip of Leaks Puts Pressure on Saudis - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/world/europe/turkey-khashoggi-saudi-arabia.html

    Political analysts noted that Mr. Erdogan seemed to increase the pressure by releasing descriptions of audio recordings after it appeared that President Trump would offer cover to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, known as M.B.S., by promoting the Saudi line that the death had been the work of “rogue killers.”

    [...]

    "Initially, it seemed Turkey was seeking a bargain with or financial support from Saudi Arabia,” said Amanda Sloat, a former State Department official now at the Brookings Institution. “But it increasingly appears that Turkey is seeking to inflict maximum damage on M.B.S.”

    It is not clear what Mr. Erdogan is demanding, but the policy of official leaks has been clearly to prevent a complete whitewash of the disappearance. Pro-government columnists have called for the Saudi crown prince to go.

    #Turquie

  • As Khashoggi crisis grows, Saudi king asserts authority, checks son’s power : sources | Reuters

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-politics-king-insight/as-khashoggi-crisis-grows-saudi-king-asserts-authority-checks-sons-power-so

    DUBAI (Reuters) - So grave is the fallout from the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that King Salman has felt compelled to intervene, five sources with links to the Saudi royal family said.

    Last Thursday, Oct. 11, the king dispatched his most trusted aide, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, governor of Mecca, to Istanbul to try to defuse the crisis.

    World leaders were demanding an explanation and concern was growing in parts of the royal court that the king’s son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to whom he has delegated vast powers, was struggling to contain the fallout, the sources said.

    During Prince Khaled’s visit, Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed to form a joint working group to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance. The king subsequently ordered the Saudi public prosecutor to open an inquiry based on its findings.

    “The selection of Khaled, a senior royal with high status, is telling as he is the king’s personal adviser, his right hand man and has had very strong ties and a friendship with (Turkish President) Erdogan,” said a Saudi source with links to government circles.

    Since the meeting between Prince Khaled and Erdogan, King Salman has been “asserting himself” in managing the affair, according to a different source, a Saudi businessman who lives abroad but is close to royal circles.

  • Why the Khashoggi murder is a disaster for Israel -
    The grisly hit-job on Khashoggi has implications far beyond its exposure of the Saudi Crown Prince as brutal and reckless. In Jerusalem and D.C., they’re mourning their whole strategic concept for the Mideast - not least, for countering Iran

    Daniel B. Shapiro
    Oct 17, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-why-the-khashoggi-murder-is-a-disaster-for-israel-1.6569996

    For Israel, this sordid episode raises the prospects that the anchor of the new Middle East realities it has sought to promote - an Israeli-Sunni Arab coalition, under a U.S. umbrella, to check Iran and Sunni jihadists - cannot be counted upon.
    And Israel must be careful how it plays its hand. There will, without question, be a U.S. response to Khashoggi’s murder, even if it is resisted by the Trump administration. It will not lead to a total dismantlement of the U.S.-Saudi alliance, but Congressional and public revulsion will have its price. 

    President Hassan Rouhani giving a speech on Iranian TV in Tehran on May 8, 2018.HO/AFP
    The price could include significant restrictions on arms sales that had been contemplated. It is already leading key U.S. investors to distance themselves from the major development projects MBS has promoted. At a minimum, there will be no replay of the warm, PR-friendly visit by MBS to multiple U.S. cities last March, no more lionizing of him in the American press as a reformer who will reshape the Middle East.
    Israel, which has a clear interest in keeping Saudi Arabia in the fold of U.S. allies to maximize the strategic alignment on Iran, will need to avoid becoming MBS’s lobbyist in Washington. Israel’s coordination with its partners in the region is still necessary and desirable. Simple realpolitik requires it. But there is a new risk of reputational damage from a close association with Saudi Arabia. 
    It won’t be easy for Israel to navigate these waters, as the Washington foreign policy establishment has quickly splintered into anti-Iran and anti-Saudi camps. The idea that the United States should equally oppose Iranian and Saudi brutality toward their peoples, and not let MBS’s crimes lead to a lessening of pressure on Iran over its malign regional activities, is in danger of being lost.
    For Israelis, that may be the biggest blow in the fallout of Khashoggi’s murder. MBS, in his obsession with silencing his critics, has actually undermined the attempt to build an international consensus to pressure Iran.
    The damage is broad. Trump may be an outlier. But what Member of Congress, what European leader, would be willing to sit with MBS for a consultation on Iran now?
    That is the greatest evidence of MBS’s strategic blindness, and the damage will likely persist as long as he rules the kingdom.
    Daniel B. Shapiro is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama Administration. Twitter: @DanielBShapiro

  • Saudi Arabia Delivers $100 Million Pledged to U.S. as Pompeo Lands in Riyadh :: WRAL.com
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-money-syria.html

    This summer, Saudi Arabia promised the Trump administration $100 million for U.S. efforts to stabilize areas in Syria liberated from the Islamic State.

    That money landed in U.S. accounts Tuesday, the same day that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for discussions with the kingdom’s leaders about the fate of a missing Saudi dissident.

    A mon avis, il manque un zéro...

    #kashoggi

  • A relire

    Wikileaks: Egyptian media and journalists go to Saudi for financing | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2015/07/05/feature/politics/wikileaks-egyptian-media-and-journalists-go-to-saudi-for-financing

    Since the Wikileaks website began posting leaked documents from the Saudi Arabian government, the issue of the Kingdom financing Egyptian media channels, journalists and researchers has garnered major attention. 

    While the first group of documents released on the website on June 19 contained details regarding funding requests by pro-regime journalist Mostafa Bakry and religious preacher Amr Khalid, unpublished documents received by Mada Masr, upon an agreement with Wikileaks, has shed light on new names and details.

    Requests for funding from the Saudi government varied, and in some cases was in exchange for writing articles, the fees for which were collected from the embassy.

    One of the documents, titled “Bill of the representative of Dar al-Helal Institution,” is a memo raised by the head of the media affairs department at the Saudi Foreign Ministry to the deputy minister of culture and media in the Kingdom, requesting the disbursement of a check of US$68,000 to the state-owned Egyptian Dar al-Helal in February 2012 “for publishing a series of weekly articles throughout the pilgrimage season 1432 H on the achievements of Saudi Arabia in renovating and expanding the two holy mosques and other recent projects.”

    During the period referred to in the cables, writer Abdel Qader Shohaieb was head of the board of Al-Helal institution, while Hamdi Rizk, a staunch supporter of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, was editor-in-chief of Al-Mosawar, one of its publications. Al-Helal is considered one of the oldest media publishing houses in Egypt and the region.

    Other publications were not as successful in collecting funds in exchange for publishing articles favoring the Kingdom, especially when the request for funding came after publishing without prior coordination.

  • Trump Administration Urges Saudis To Stick To Killing Random Yemeni Civilians
    https://politics.theonion.com/trump-administration-urges-saudis-to-stick-to-killing-r-182971356

    Look, we don’t even mind if you dismember and murder people inside the Turkish consulate, as long as they’re unknown Yemenis whose deaths won’t cause an international scandal. For the sake of all parties, we demand that the Saudis only kill people who hardly anyone in America cares about.” At press time, several major U.S. newspapers had published editorials praising the Trump administration for its tough stance on Saudi Arabia.