Khashoggi Was No Critic of Saudi Regime
October 15, 2018
Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, who disappeared in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul last week is not quite the critic of the Saudi regime
that the Western media says he is, writes As'ad AbuKhalil.
By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News
The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul last week has generated huge international publicity,
but unsurprisingly, little in Saudi-controlled, Arab media. The Washington
Post, for whom Khashoggi wrote, and other Western media, have kept the story
alive, increasing the pressure on Riyadh to explain its role in the affair.
It's been odd to read about Khashoggi in Western media. David Hirst in The
Guardian claimed Khashoggi merely cared about absolutes such as "truth,
democracy, and freedom". Human Rights Watch's director described him as
representing "outspoken and critical journalism."
But did he pursue those absolutes while working for Saudi princes?
Khashoggi was a loyal member of the Saudi propaganda apparatus. There is no
journalism allowed in the kingdom: there have been courageous Saudi women
and men who attempted to crack the wall of rigid political conformity and
were persecuted and punished for their views. Khashoggi was not among them.
Some writers suffered while Khashoggi was their boss at Al-Watan newspaper.
Khashoggi-contrary to what is being written-was never punished by the
regime, except lightly two years ago, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman (MbS) banned him from tweeting and writing for Al-Hayat, the
London-based, pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan.
By historical contrast, Nasir As-Sa`id was a courageous secular Arab
Nationalist writer who fled the kingdom in 1956 and settled in Cairo, and
then Beirut. He authored a massive (though tabloid-like) volume about the
history of the House of Saud. He was unrelenting in his attacks against the
Saudi royal family.
For this, the Saudi regime paid a corrupt PLO leader in Beirut (Abu
Az-Za`im, tied to Jordanian intelligence) to get rid of As-Sa`id. He
kidnapped As-Sa`id from a crowded Beirut street in 1979 and delivered him to
the Saudi embassy there. He was presumably tortured and killed (some say his
body was tossed from a plane over the "empty quarter" desert in Saudi
Arabia). Such is the track record of the regime.
Finding the Right Prince
Khashoggi: Eager to please (April Brady/Project on Middle East Democracy)
Khashoggi was an ambitious young reporter who knew that to rise in Saudi
journalism you don't need professionalism, courage, or ethics. In Saudi
Arabia, you need to attach yourself to the right prince. Early on, Khashoggi
became close to two of them: Prince Turki Al-Faysal (who headed Saudi
intelligence) and his brother, Prince Khalid Al-Faysal, who owned Al-Watan
(The Motherland) where Khashoggi had his first (Arabic) editing job.
Khashoggi distinguished himself with an eagerness to please and an uncanny
ability to adjust his views to those of the prevailing government. In the
era of anti-Communism and the promotion of fanatical jihad in Afghanistan
and elsewhere, Khashoggi was a true believer. He fought with Osama bin Laden
and promoted the cause of the Mujahideen.
The Washington Post's David Ignatius and others want to embellish this by
implying that he was an "embedded" reporter-as if bin Laden's army would
invite independent journalists to report on their war efforts. The entire
project of covering the Afghan Mujahideen and promoting them in the Saudi
press was the work of the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki,
Khashoggi's principal patron-prince.
Western media coverage of Khashoggi's career (by people who don't know
Arabic) presents a picture far from reality. They portray a courageous
investigative journalist upsetting the Saudi regime. Nothing is further from
the truth: there is no journalism in Saudi Arabia; there is only crude and
naked propaganda.
Editors are trusted individuals who have demonstrated long-time loyalty.
Khashoggi admitted to an Arab reporter last year in an interview from
Istanbul that in Saudi Arabia he had been both editor and censor. Editors of
Saudi regime papers (mouthpieces of princes and kings) enforce government
rules and eliminate objectionable material.
Khashoggi never spoke out for Saudis in distress. He ran into trouble in two
stints as Al-Watan editor because of articles he published by other writers,
not by himself, that were mildly critical of the conservative religious
establishment-which he at times supported. He was relocated to another
government media job- to shield him from the religious authorities.
Khashoggi was the go-to man for Western journalists covering the kingdom,
appointed to do so by the regime. He may have been pleasant in conversation
with reporters but he never questioned the royal legitimacy. And that goes
for his brief one-year stint in Washington writing for the Post.
A Reactionary
Turki: Khashoggi's prince. (Wikipedia)
Khashoggi was a reactionary: he supported all monarchies and sultanates in
the region and contended they were "reformable." To him, only the secular
republics, in tense relations with the Saudis, such as Iraq, Syria and
Libya, defied reform and needed to be overthrown. He favored Islamization of
Arab politics along Muslim Brotherhood lines.
Khashoggi's vision was an "Arab uprising" led by the Saudi regime. In his
Arabic writings he backed MbS's "reforms" and even his "war on corruption,"
derided in the region and beyond. He thought that MbS's arrests of the
princes in the Ritz were legitimate (though he mildly criticized them in a
Post column) even as his last sponsoring prince, Al-Walid bin Talal, was
locked up in the luxury hotel. Khashoggi even wanted to be an advisor to
MbS, who did not trust him and turned him down.
Writing in the Post (with an Arabic version) Khashoggi came across as a
liberal Democrat favoring democracy and reform. But he didn't challenge
Saudi regime legitimacy or Western Mideast policy. Mainstream journalists
were enamored with him. They saw him as an agreeable Arab who didn't
criticize their coverage of the region, but praised it, considering the
mainstream U.S. press the epitome of professional journalism. Khashoggi was
essentially a token Arab writing for a paper with a regrettable record of
misrepresenting Arabs.
In Arabic, his Islamist sympathies with Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood
(Ikhwan) were unmistakable. Forgotten or little known in the West is that
during the Cold War the Saudis sponsored, funded, and nurtured the Muslim
Brotherhood as a weapon against the progressive, secular camp led by Egypt's
Gamal Abdel Nasser. Ikhwan controlled the Saudi educational system raising
Saudi students to admire the Brotherhood. But Sep. 11 changed the Saudi
calculus: the rulers wanted a scapegoat for their role in sponsoring
Islamist fanaticism and the Ikhwan was the perfect target. That made
Khashoggi suspect too.
Hints Against Him
Recent articles in the Saudi press hinted that the regime might move against
him.He had lost his patrons but the notion that Khashoggi was about to
launch an Arab opposition party was not credible. The real crime was that
Khashoggi was backed alone by Ikhwan supporters, namely the Qatari regime
and the Turkish government.
A writer in Okaz, a daily in Jeddah, accused him of meeting with the Emir of
Qatar at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York and of having ties to "regional
and international intelligence services." If true it may have sealed his
fate. Qatar is now the number one enemy of the Saudi regime-arguably worse
than Iran.
Khashoggi was treated as a defector and one isn't allowed to defect from the
Saudi Establishment. The last senior defections were back in 1962, when
Prince Talal and Prince Badr joined Nasser's Arab nationalist movement in
Egypt.
Khashoggi had to be punished in a way that would send shivers down the spine
of other would-be defectors.
As'ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at
California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical
Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America's New "War on
Terrorism" (2002), and
