A little over two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1744 to be precise, an alliance was forged between Mohamed ibn-Saud and Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab, whereby the former agreed to rule according to the doctrine preached by the latter. A succinct statement made by Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab shortly after the deal was struck expresses the essence of his doctrine, which is known as Wahhabism: “Blood, blood, destruction, destruction.” These four simple words summarize what was and what continues to be the message of Wahhabism. The partnership between the two men led to the first incarnation of the Saudi-Wahhabi state. Anyone who, like me, has read the nineteen books written by Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab will realize that he belongs more to the realm of proselytism than to that of Islamic jurisprudence. The first Saudi state lasted from 1744 until 1819, when Ibrahim Pasha, Mohamed Ali’s eldest son, led a military expedition which destroyed the state, razed its capital, Al-Dir’iyah, to the ground and captured its prince, Abdullah ibn-Saud, sending him first to Cairo then on to the capital of the Ottoman state where he was executed.
The first Saudi state banned what it considered to be heretical practices, including the building of tombs, music, singing, dancing and any other manifestation of un-Islamic conduct. Members of other faiths were hated and despised as ‘unclean’. Such was the hatred of foreigners that European consultants brought in by King Abdul Aziz at the beginning of the twentieth century were spat upon by the Ikhwan, members of an ultra-orthodox offshoot of the original Wahhabi movement. The presence of non-Muslims on the sacred ground of the Arabian Peninsula was seen as a desecration, as was any hint of modernity even when it came to such trivial matters as the shape of beards and mustaches. To the theologians of the first Saudi-Wahhabi state the only rightful interpretation of Islam lay in the Hanbalite school of law [founded by Ahmed ibn-Hanbal and further elaborated by his two main disciples, ibn-Taymiyah and ibn-Qaiym al-Juzeya] even though it is by far the weakest of the four Sunni schools of law [the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafite and Hanbalite]. To this day, Saudi jurists remain committed to the version of Islam propounded by ibn-Hanbal, ibn-Taymiyah and ibn-Qaiym Al-Juzeya, even though they rank far lower in stature than such towering Islamic jurists as Abu Hanifa Al-No’man, Malik Ibn Anas, Jaafar Al-Sadiq and Ibn Rushd [the second teacher after the first, Aristotle].
Where jurists like Abu Hanifa and Ibn Rushd relied on the tools of rationality and deductive reasoning, compilation was the hallmark of the Hanbalite School, which allowed no scope for reason or independent thinking but insisted on a dogmatic interpretation of holy texts. Thus while Abu Hanifa relied on istihsan [using few traditions and extracting from the Qur’an by reasoning the rulings which fitted his ideas] and Ibn Rushd on ta’weel [deductive reasoning], Ibn Hanbal insisted on a literal interpretation of holy texts. This led him to accept over ten thousand of the Prophet’s Hadith as apostolic precept. It also bred a climate which favoured unquestioning adherence to tradition over the use of critical faculties, creating generations of followers and imitators and leading Islamic societies to the point at which they find themselves today: sidelined from History, science and the march of human progress. The Hanbalite School has turned the Muslim mentality into a passive recipient of answers instead of one that asks questions, let alone one that engages in critical thinking, the main engine of human progress.
Following Ibrahim Pasha’s defeat of the first Saudi-Wahhabi state, the Saudis, with their Wahhabi partners, entered into an alliance with the al-Rashid family, who ruled the eastern region of the Arabian Peninsula from their capital Ha’il. The alliance between the al-Rashids and what can be called the second Saudi state continued until the al-Rashids turned on the al-Saud family and sent them into exile in Kuwait in 1891.
In 1901, the young scion of the Saudi family, Abdul Aziz son of Abdul Rahman son of Faisal al-Saud, born in 1875 and endowed with the quality of leadership, seized Riyadh in a nighttime raid. From 1902 until 1925 he waged a campaign to assert his dominion over the Arabian Peninsula and, after seizing Mecca then Medina in 1925, proclaimed himself the ruler of Najd and other provinces now known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Actually, the name only came into use seven years after Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud became Sultan of Najd and King of Hijaz in 1925.
In the course of a historical journey that has no parallel in history, the actions, policies, words and deeds of Abdul Aziz between 1902 and 1925 not only confirmed his exceptional leadership qualities but bespoke a profound understanding of the nature of power, both in absolute terms and as exercised by the Great Powers, whether the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire or the empire that was to emerge later, the American Empire. Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud played his role with great skill, using all his acumen to achieve the goal he had set himself during the years of exile in Kuwait as the guest of the al-Sabbah family in general and of the ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Mubarak al-Sabbah, in particular.
Long before the Americans used the Islamists during the Cold War to help them defeat the Soviet Empire [notably after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979], Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud used Islamists to consolidate his power. In 1912, he incepted and financed a movement known as the Ikhwan, a forerunner of the Islamists/jihadists deployed by the Americans against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The symbiotic relationship between Abdul Aziz and the Ikhwan ended in 1930 with a ferocious battle between the erstwhile allies when the Saudis, led by King Abdul Aziz, crushed the Ikhwan, led by Faisal al-Dawish. The Ikhwan’s religious views were so extreme that they considered any sign of modernity or progress the work of the Devil. As their alliance with Ibn Saud coincided with a period of great scientific advances, they had plenty of abominations to contend with: the telegraph, cars, telephones then radios were all regarded as sinful and anyone who did not resist them as a heretic. Such was the fanaticism of this lunatic fringe that one of its members advanced on the Sultan [Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud] with a pair of scissors and proceeded to shorten Ibn Saud’s robes in full view of his entourage, thereby driving home the message that the principles of Wahhabism were stronger than the authority of the Saudis. Apparently short robes are a basic tent of Wahhabism and failure to observe this essential requirement of orthodoxy is heresy!
Abdul Aziz, first as prince, then sultan then king, used the Ikhwan when he needed them to further expand his suzerainty. For like all those who welcome death as a passport to paradise, they were fearless fighters. The problem was that they were equally fearless in standing up to Abdul Aziz whenever they considered him to have deviated from the true path. During the years of their increasingly uneasy alliance [from 1912 until he succeeded in asserting his dominion over most of the Arabian peninsula in 1925], fierce clashes often broke out between them. For example, they lashed out at him when he stopped riding camels and took to riding cars, publicly berating him when “he left Riyadh in 1925 on the back of a camel and returned in a Cadillac!” This was the last straw for the sultan, who could not countenance any challenge to his authority as the undisputed leader of most of the Arabian Peninsula. He barely had time to bask in the glow of his hard-won victory over the Hashemites and the expansion of his dominion over lands previously under their control before the Ikhwan forced his hand. The final showdown came in a battle between Abdul Aziz and the Ikhwan. They were routed and their leader, Faisal al-Dawish, was captured and imprisoned, dying in captivity a few years later.
But the question is whether the Saudi state, successful though it may have been when it came to defeating its enemies [from the Hashemite al-Rashids to Faisal al-Dawish], has been equally successful in ridding itself of the fanatical, not to say downright psychotic, ideas propounded by the Ikhwan of Najd, who militate against the use of cars, telegrams and radios and for the shortening of robes, the shaving of mustaches and the growing of beards. The truth is that the Saudi state, whether in its first, second or third incarnations, has never been free of the pernicious effects of the doctrine preached by the Ikhwan.
Today the Saudi state resists the education of women, frowns on television broadcasts, bans women drivers and considers music and singing sinful. The underlying logic behind these anomalies is not very different from that which informed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Islam, the takeover of the masjid al-haram [the sacred mosque which is home to the Ka’ba] at the beginning of the fifteenth century of the Hejira calendar. All attest to the continued influence of Ikhwani ideas in the Kingdom, as do the ban on teaching music and philosophy in Saudi schools and the refusal to appoint women to the Shura Council or in cabinet posts. There is also the spate of fatwas inspired by this madness, like the fatwa in which Ibn al-Baz concludes that the earth is not round and the one proscribing the sending of flowers to the sick! To stop the madness, the Saudi establishment must take a firm stand preferably accompanied by a psychological campaign.
Having said that, however, we must in all fairness distinguish between Wahhabism, its Ikhwan offshoot and the Saudi family. The truth is that not one of the nineteen books written by Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab calls for any of the excesses required by the Ikhwan. Also, even though the Saudi family entered into an alliance with the Wahhabis at a certain political stage and with the Ikhwan at another, it does not necessarily share their views.
As a student of Saudi history of the last three centuries, I believe the House of Saud has reached a watershed in its relationship with both the Wahhabi school and the remnants of the Ikhwan. I think that when it transpired that most of the criminals of 9/11 were Saudi nationals, the Saudi family realized it was time for a showdown with the Wahhabis and the Ikhwan [the Nejdi, not the Egyptian, variety]. There is, after all, a historical precedent on which to draw, namely, the stand taken by the father of their oldest prince, King Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud, who took on the Ikhwan in the nineteen thirties, despite the undeniable role they played in his triumphant career, defeating their army led by Faisal al-Dawish.
The House of Saud, which is not ideologically implicated in the ideas of Wahhabism and the Ikhwan, is today called upon to do the following:
1- Stand up to extremist elements in the country like their father did eight decades ago.
2- Remove Wahhabi and Ikhwan zealots from influential positions in the institution of education.
3- Remove Wahhabi and Ikhwan zealots from influential positions in the Ministry of Wakf, [religious endowments] Da’wa [the call to Islam] and Hajj.
4- Abolish the system of state-sponsored religious vigilantes like the motawa’een and the al-amr bel ma’rouf wal nahy ‘an al-monkar who patrol the streets and mete out instant punishment for any perceived violation of strict Islamic practices, in total contradiction with the concept of the modern state.
5- Reduce the huge budget allocated by the Kingdom to the religious establishment [nearly three billion US dollars] and reallocate it to the fields of education and health [after all, those sporting short robes, shaven mustaches and untrimmed beards can contribute nothing of value to a modern state – the only role they are qualified to play is a destructive one].
6- Encourage moderate professors of Islamic jurisprudence to set a timetable for introducing their students to Hanafi, Maliki and Shafite sources in place of the Hanbalite sources now exclusively in use so that in time the people of Saudi Arabia reach a stage of religious maturity in which they recognize that the doctrine of Wahhabism is not the only, or even the major, model of Islam. Indeed, as I have already pointed out, ibn-Hanbal, ibn-Taymiyah and ibn-Qaiym Al-Juzeya were minor figures in the pantheon of Islamic jurists.
7- Launch an offensive against the Ikhwani obduracy on such issues as the appointment of women ministers, the inclusion of women in the Shura Council, allowing women to drive, allowing male teachers to teach female students and female teachers to teach male students, in order to promote a climate favourable to enlightenment and progress in place of the current reactionary climate that has no equivalent on earth.
8- Given that hundreds of the Islamic centers established by Saudi Arabia throughout the world have become a breeding ground for fanaticism and extremism and crucibles for violence, blood lust and terrorism, an alternative plan must be laid down to transform them into community service centers rather than allow them to continue disseminating obscurantist ideas that spawn a mentality of violence which has distorted the image of Islam in the eyes of the world over the last few decades.
The opinions expressed in this article are motivated not by enmity for Saudi Arabia but by concern for its future. For I firmly believe that unless the descendants of the great King Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud follow the example he set with his stand against the Ikhwan of Najd and their leader, Faisal al-Dawish, eighty years ago, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is headed for a highly detrimental confrontation with advanced societies. I also believe that the collapse of the Saudi regime, whether in favour of the extremists or of the trend calling for the country’s partition and division would represent a great strategic danger to all the countries of the Gulf and the Middle East.
As reform in Egypt is a thousand times better than its takeover by any of a number of alternatives, so too is reform in Saudi Arabia a thousand times better than its takeover by alternatives that could plunge the entire region into unprecedented chaos. Maintaining the stability of Saudi Arabia and all its neighbours is imperative. But I believe guaranteeing stability is impossible absent a historical operation like the one undertaken by King Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud against the extremists between 1925 and 1930. The question is whether the sane elements in Saudi Arabia will follow a course similar to the one taken by their famous forbear eighty years ago or whether they will continue to coexist with the modern-day disciples of Faisal al-Dawish until the ship sinks with everyone on board.
While I'm basically supportive of your recommendation, I think you're in error on several points you raise about the Saudi state.
The Saudi government does not 'resist the education of women'. In fact, not only do women make up the majority of university students and graduates (from state schools), but they are given equal opportunity to study abroad in the government's foreign scholarship program. Cultural values, expressed by conservative parents, are more of a limitation on young women's going abroad for study. Those women who wish to study abroad can find ways to do it.
Nor does the state 'frown on television broadcasts'. In addition to the three state terrestrial channels, Saudi businessmen are responsible for over 250 satellite TV channels, including many operating out of Egypt and Lebanon, in addition to networks like MBC and Al-Arabiya.
Similarly, music is not outlawed, though many Saudis (including some in government) do consider it sinful. Public concerts are held, including recent ones featuring 'death metal' bands and hip-hop. These concerts are not being held in cities like Buraidah or in Qassim, hotbeds of fundamentalism, but are held in Jeddah and even Riyadh.
I think you err in assuming that the vast majority of Saudis are just 'aching to be free'. The majority are religiously and culturally conservative, as well as pious in their religious beliefs. That they have received inadequate educations, I think, is the largest factor in the often retrograde reform movements.
But changes, both toward a more liberal society and a more transparent government are happening. And the religious police, while not outlawed, have had their powers severely curtailed over the past six months. Further, the Shoura Council has denied them raises, denied them the ability to recruit in larger numbers, and has mandated serious training on tolerance. That's not a perfect solution by any means, but it's a marked improvement. That the religious police now find themselves standing trial for their abuse of power speaks volumes.
You can follow the reforms going on (as well as the slips backwards) at my blog Crossroads Arabia
Wow, John, I'm sooo impressed. Maybe someday they'll actually legalize the practice of Christianity and Judaism, and even stop telling their people that Jews use the blood of children in their religious rituals.
"The Saudi government does not 'resist the education of women'.
According to the CIA factbook, 30% of Saudi women are illiterate. Of course, 15% of the men are as well. It is a disgrace and a reflection on the corruption and degeneracy of the Wahhabi regime that their is more than scant illiteracy at all there given their enormous wealth and sparse populaton. But I guess they'd rather spend the money on limousines, concubines and terrorism.
In the course of a historical journey that has no parallel in history, the actions, policies, words and deeds of Abdul Aziz between 1902 and 1925 not only confirmed his exceptional leadership qualities but bespoke a profound understanding of the nature of power, both in absolute terms and as exercised by the Great Powers,
Interesting evaluation of that period in Saudi history.
Here are some alternate views. First, Winston Churchill:
In the vast deserts of Arabia, which stretch eastward and north-eastward from the neighbourhood of Mecca to the Persian Gulf and to the boundaries of Mesopotamia, there dwell the people of Nejd, powerful nomadic tribes, at the head of whom the remarkable chief Bin Saud maintains himself. This Arab chief has long been in a state of warfare, raid, and reprisal with King Hussein and with his neighbours generally. A large number of Bin Saud's followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relation to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of the religious wars. The Wahabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practise themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette, and as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the whole institution of the pilgrimage, in which our Indian fellow-subjects are so deeply concerned.
Most of the Muslim world despised the Sauds/Wahhabis because of their bloodthirsty, grave-desecrating ways. From the History of the Cemetery of of Jannat al Baqit:
The Ottoman Empire had added to the splendor of Madina and Makkah by building religious structures of great beauty and architectural value. Richard Burton, who visited the holy shrines in 1853 AD disguised as an Afghan Muslim and adopting the Muslim name Abdullah, speaks of Madina boasting 55 mosques and holy shrines. Another English adventurer who visited Madina in 1877-1878 AD describes it as a small beautiful city resembling Istanbul. He writes about its white walls, golden slender minarets and green fields.
1924 AD Wahhabis entered Hijaz for a second time and carried out another merciless plunder and massacre. People in streets were killed. Houses were razed to the ground. Women and children too were not spared.
Awn bin Hashim (Shairf of Makkah) writes: "Before me, a valley appeared to have been paved with corpses, dried blood staining everywhere all around. There was hardly a tree which didn't have one or two dead bodies near its roots."...
...1925 AD Jannat al-Mu'alla, the sacred cemetery at Makkah was destroyed alongwith the house where the Holy Prophet (s) was born. Since then, this day is a day of mourning for all Muslims.
Muslims still hate our Saudi allies, yet our government still believes that our wealthy, genocidal grave-desecrating allies in the KSA are a popular, moderating force in the area.
Back in the last century, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), Churchill and most of the British establishment were justifiably reluctant to give the bloodthirsty Sauds control of Mecca and Medina. They wanted to give control of the Holy lands to the more moderate Hashemites. But thanks Saudis skillful brown-nosing of Kim Philby's father, the Holy Lands were given to the genocidal grave desecrators, a great alliance was formed and the Middle East had a peace to end all peace.
We continue to use our genocidal, terror supporting Saudi allies to act as a 'moderating force' in the Middle East. Our alliance with the sponsors of 9/11 and the sponsors of Sunni car bombings in Iraq will continue to drain our economy and encourage the growth of Saudi-funded terrorism worldwide. Our alliance with our Saudi enemies in this war will cause Iran, Russia and China's strength and influence in the world to grow.
So when our economy tanks and when we're looking at the remains of what could have been a great nation, the elected members of our government, Democrats and Republicans, and of course people like John B will still be insisting that the Sauds are still our core allies in the war against terrorism ...
...and they really are in the process of reforming! Honestly!
The West understandably objects to Wahhabiian attempts at undermining local judiciary authority in host countries like Denmark, while at the same time preaching to the Sauds in their home country that they should adopt Western liberal democracy. Shouldn't both sides respect the wishes of each for their own home countries?
Finding faults with a country is easy, especially when you're not personally familiar with the culture or have never visited the region. Western histories of the Middle East are full of one-sided perspectives. My advice is to seek out the native scholars of the country, for a more complete analysis on the matter.
The West understandably objects to Wahhabiian attempts at undermining local judiciary authority in host countries like Denmark, while at the same time preaching to the Sauds in their home country that they should adopt Western liberal democracy...
There's no reason to care whether Saudi Arabia adopts Western culture or western democracy. When a nation is infested with hate and fascism as Saudi Arabia is now, (and as Germany was in the '30's) democracy doesn't stop them from exporting their war.
"genocidal grave desecrators"
I was since my old days on LGF that I didn't see so much (stunted) creativity in finding epiteths...
I was since my old days on LGF that I didn't see so much (stunted) creativity in finding epiteths...
The creativity involved is pale, true, because it's meant to be factual.
(and I think you meant epithets?)
intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty
Sounds like Churchill could be describing the late Victorian and Edwardian English upper classes of which he was a member.
"Let the sane of Saudi Arabia unite."
Which telephone box do you suggest for the venue of the meeting?
The Saudis are predominantly sunnis as also are
Kuwaitis and other nationationalities in the
middle east. The US invasion of Iraq which was
ruled by Saddam Hussain who was a Sunni has
spoilt the equation. Iraq was 80% Shia and 18%
Sunni the rest being kurds. Now Iran which is
nearly 100% Shia is keen to add Iraq with it.
I only wish peace prevails in the middle east.
Kabir, your statistics are suspect.
Saddam claimed that iraq had many more sunnis.
The CIA estimated about 60% shia, 20% sunni, 20% kurd. (The kurds themselves are split into shia and sunni but for current purposes we'll count them as a single separate group.) I haven't found anybody who knows what the CIA based this estimate on. They didn't run their own census.
Nowadays people who do polling in iraq tend to turn up 30% sunni, 55% shia, 12% kurd, and around 3% other. Sometimes it's as high as 35% sunni, 50% shia. Is it because more shia have escaped the country? Is it because more sunnis are urban, and the pollsters do more in cities and towns? Is it that they use old census data to decide how many people to talk to from each region, and the sunni regions are listed with too many people?
I don't know what the real numbers are, and it matters a whole lot. If iraqis are going to make a deal it makes a great big difference whether the ratio of shia to sunni is 5:1 as you say, or 3:1 as the CIA says, or 11:6 as the pollsters say. Plus there are a lot of sunnis who believe they're in the majority. They won't settle for a minor role in government while they believe that.
They very much need an accurate census. But they can't get one -- there's too much violence and the iraqi government isn't up to it, and I haven't heard the US is interested in funding it, etc.
They need an accurate census to help them get a stable government, and they can't get an accurate census without a stable government. There have been a lot of problems like that after the USA broke iraq.
"But thanks Saudis skillful brown-nosing of Kim Philby's father, the Holy Lands were given to the genocidal grave desecrators, a great alliance was formed and the Middle East had a peace to end all peace."
Wrong. The Saudis and Wahabis took Mecca by force from Jordan.
This article is full of lies and contradictions, obviously based on extreme hatred and ignorance.
Some lies were pointed out by John Burgess(above), while tens others - either historical events, present conditions, and the definition of Islamic schools and divisions - consist the remaining of your article.
Is modernity - you're supposedly preaching! - teach you to lie and make things up?
Remember, you can fool your readers for a while, but you can't hide the truth!
Excuse my English,
Feras, Saudia Arabia
#14 gF:
Why do the moderators of this site allow enemy propaganda?
Crawl back into the slime you crawled out of, along with the rest of your filthy, fascist, neck-chopping, suicide-bombing "brothers". Or maybe back into the eternal fire that's waiting for you.
Deep breaths, Fletcher. The Muslim and Arab world aren't wholly our enemies, and while there's lots not to like, I think yourtake would even be out of line at LGF. Remember Clint Smith - "You'd better learn to talk real good, because out on the street you're going to talk to a lot more people than you're going to shoot - or that's how I think it's supposed to work."
A.L.
I think it would be interesting if Feras would tell us about the mistakes in the post.
Probably I would not care about some of them. I would just mentally note that there was disagreement about them. Others would be worth researching. Anyone who was interested could look for data and we could discuss which data looked like it was valid, and we might each get a clearer idea what we believed and why we believed it.
If it turns out that there are "facts" that many saudis believe that we mostly don't know about, that could be important whether or not we come to believe those things. Finding out what our friends believe can help prevent large misunderstandings.
I agree with J Thomas. I would be interested in reading about "mistakes" in the post.
Wrong. The Saudis and Wahabis took Mecca by force from Jordan.
Not exactly:
Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud over Sherif Hussein as "King of the Arabs", a difference with British policy, which was promising support for the Hashemite dynasty in the post-Ottoman world. On return Philby completed the crossing from Riyadh to Jeddah by the "backdoor" route, thus demonstrating Ibn Saud was in control of the Arabian highlands, whereas Sherif Hussein could not guarantee safe passage. Later he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Founders Gold Medal for the desert journey. Back in Jeddah he met with an embarassed Sherif Hussein.
On 7 November 1918, four days before the Armistice, Britain and France issued the Anglo-French Declaration to the Arabs assuring self-determination. Philby felt the betrayal of this assurance, along with the Balfour Declaration and other diplomatic manouvres broke faith with the promise of a single unified Arab nation in exchange for aligning themselves with the Allies in the war against the Ottoman Turks and Central Powers.
Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a "democrat" guiding his affairs "by mutual counsel" as laid out in the Koran (Surah XLII. 37), in contrast to Lord Curzon's "Hussein policy". British policy on Arab affairs was wracked by rivalries between the Foreign Office and the India Office...
...He worked with T. E. Lawrence for a while, but did not share Lawrence's views on the Hashemites. Here he met his American counterpart, Allen Dulles, who was stationed in Istanbul. At the end of 1922 Philby travelled to London for extensive meetings with all involved in the Palestinian question. They were Winston Churchill, King George, the Prince of Wales, Baron Rothschild, Wickham Steed, and Chaim Weizmann, the head of the Zionist movement.
How Philby, Dulles and Ibn Saud worked with Hitler to wage war against the Jews:
The modern world begins, the authors suggest, at the end of World War I, when British diplomat/adventurers Jack Philby (father of Soviet spy Kim Philby and legendary Arabist) and Lawrence of Arabia endeavour to unify a bunch of warring Bedouin tribes into nationhood, best represented by Saudi Arabia. Aware that black gold (oil) lies underneath the desert sands, Philby gingerly befriends Ibn Saud, and makes him the first Saudi king. But Philby is not solely interested in empire, even his own British one; he is interested in making money, and forges an alliance with an American intelligence agent in charge of Middle Eastern affairs, Allen Dulles.
By the 1930s, Ibn Saud and Philby are secret supporters of the Nazi rise to political power in Germany, and bring Dulles, a NYC-based corporate lawyer for Sullivan and Cromwell, in on their scheme. It is a triple game driven by their hatred of Zionism and the Jews, motivated by their obsessive seeking of profits, and designed to completely transform the landscape of the Middle East. Philby and Dulles convince Ibn Saud to allow limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, assuring him that the numbers will never challenge or upset his control. When Jews leave Germany, their assets are confiscated by Hitler, who shares a percentage of these with dummy corporations established by Philby, Dulles, and their allies. Some of this money is used to arm Ibn Saud, and intelligence disclosures to him by Philby enable Ibn Saud to become king of Saudi Arabia over other Arab leaders supported by the British government. This double-dealing by British and American corporations continues throughout World War II, and incredibly is never halted by the Western allies, who would rather that Dulles stay in place andround up German intelligence agents after World War II's end for the upcoming Cold War against a previous ally, the USSR. One of the reasons that Jews are so hated by this clique, which includes Rockefeller's Standard Oil, is that many Jews were supporters of the left, anathema to corporate internationalists."
In the words of John B., the Saudis were successful then because they were able to achieve their goals without becoming a hemmoroid to the British.
Our Saudi allies still work hard to be polite in their dealings with us, while still achieving their goals. They're less like a hemmoroid, more like the sneaky, quietly deadly melanoma.
"They're less like a hemmoroid, more like the sneaky, quietly deadly melanoma."
Quite. One with extensive metastases. We all know how that usually turns out, don't we?
Maybe it's time to prescribe surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.