SAUDI ARABIA: FROM INCEPTION TO NOW

By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA)

Saudi Arabia, on the Arabian Peninsula,  sits above some of Earth’s largest petroleum reserves and contains Islam’s holy cities, MECCA and MEDINA. Its modern history joins monarchy, religion, petroleum, foreign powers, workers, women, war, and resistance. Within the rigid Saudi Islamic caste system, rulers suppress and oppress the ordinary people who struggle to emerge into the modern world with more autonomy, respect for female rights, and a preference for citizens rather than hired foreign labor.

Throughout Saudi Arabia’s history, we also follow both of these Anunnaki-inculcated values. The rulers of Saudi Arabia inflict the ancient Anunnaki DOMINATOR DICTATES and, to a much lesser degree, allow some COOPERATOR CONCERNS. Dominators declare: Wealth, information, and Power devolve from rulers who concentrate wealth, information, and power. Coordinators can, to some degree, some of the time, contest the dominators.  Coordinators prefer that power — the ability to influence policy — be shared with We the People; that means slavery will be forbidden and that commoners, women, and workers can affect policy. Leaders must live as partners, not dictators, and must share power, protect people, and encourage citizen participation in decisions that affect them.

Backstory: ANUNNAKI ENFORCER GABRIEL FORCED ISLAM ON MOHAMMAD OF MECCA

Allah, Islam’s god, like the gods of Judaism and Christianity, threatens us with death.  “Islam revised Jesus’ call for equality among all people but taught that ‘women are not equal to men.”

“ALLAH,” the Anunnaki god of the Arabian Peninsula, whom the Anunnaki enforcer Gabriel, posing as a representative of Anunnaki Prince Nannar, forced and trained a prophet — Mohammad — to take charge of the area. Before that, NANNAR-SIN “Allah” was MARDUK-RA, who claimed to embody all Anunnaki Lords. Each designation of Allah’s identity is correct; Nannar, Gabriel, and Marduk are all Anunnaki Lords from the Planet Nibiru who posed as gods in Arabia across different epochs.

Tellinger identified Marduk-Satan as Allah, the god of Islam. Marduk said, I’m Satan. He also said I’m Yahweh, I’m Enki, I’m Inanna, and each of the other gods of Sumer and Egypt–they are my aspects or avatars.  Marduk manipulated followers of each region’s god against every other region’s gods while he secretly ran each [Slave Species: 318].

Gerald Clark thought Nannar– Lord of the Sinai Peninsula (not Marduk)–sent Ambassador Gabriel to choke Mohammad into submission.  For Clark, Nannar is “Allah.”

ISLAM DEVELOPED ON THE ARABIAN PENINSULA BETWEEN  ROMAN CONSTANTINOPLE, IRAN’S PERSIANS, & ETHIOPIA ACROSS THE RED SEA

Islamic power grew among the descendants of nomadic camel-herding clans who wandered from oasis to oasis across the Peninsula. “They were organized into CLANS, linked in TRIBES,” which ASSEMBLIES OF CLAN ELDERS ran.  The nomadic tribes “fought each other and launched raids on settled peoples beyond the desert.”

These camel nomads also traded with, and at other times raided, Persia (Iran) and Roman Byzantium. The nomads operated on the Anunnaki principle of domination and valued individual and clan honor. They boated and traded with the Ethiopians across the Red Sea. “Some of the nomadic families settled in trading centers as they accumulated wealth, using camel caravans to carry luxury goods between the Roman Empire and the eastern civilizations. Mecca had become a thriving town by 600 BCE.

Nomadic clans in the Arabian Peninsula were loyal to their clan’s patron deity. In southern Arabia, many Oasis-dwelling Arabs worshipped Jesus, the Rabbi or the Catholic Jesus, whose main function was dying and ascending.

Roman Constantinople in Iran’s northwest and the Persian Arabian Peninsula were bordered by huge empires — Roman Byzantium in the northwest and the Persian/Iranian Empire, which included Egypt and Syria in the northeast. [Harman, C., 2017, 123-129]

Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh, controlled shrines in Mecca to several Arabian deities, one of whom was Allah.  Mohammed claimed spiritual descent from Abraham’s son Ismael, who built the Kaaba (Mecca’s main sanctuary).

GABRIEL SOCIALIZED ISLAM TO CONQUER THE WORLD & TAUGHT MOHAMMAD TO REVISE JESUS’ CALL FOR EQUALITY AMONG ALL HUMANS

Gabriel told Mohammad that he represented the only Anunnaki god all Earthlings should worship and follow. He taught Mohammad that “women are not equal to—they are subordinate to–men.” Yet I have not, after decades of study, found any evidence that Nannar taught violence & misogyny. Nannar was a baby born of a forcible rape of his mother, Sud, who became Anunnaki Commander Enlil’s (Yahweh’s) wife.

The Anunnaki Council had exiled Enlil for the rape, but let him return to command when he married and pledged fidelity (which he probably honored) to her. Enlil struggled to accept Nannar.  Nannar opposed violence and advocated sea and overland trade as an alternative to war. It seems to me that it was Gabriel, not Nannar, who pushed the jihadists of Islam.

And Nannar loved, honored, and exalted his mate, Ningal. Nannar’s marriage to Ningal shows a man deeply in love with his mate & honors her fully, and certainly not a subservient sycophant.

NANNAR SUCCEEDED ANU AS KING OF NIBIRU; HE ORDERED THE ANUNNAKI TO PROMOTE PEACE ON EARTH

Since the Nibiran King, Anu, abdicated in Nannar’s favor & made Nannar King of Nibiru, Nannar has advocated peace and reconciliation among Earthlings.

Gabriel, not Nannar, is, IMHO, probably the sponsor of Islamic violence & woman-oppression in radical Islam & Sharia Law. I think that Gabriel, not Nannar, goaded Mohammad’s bloody behavior. Gabriel has been a power-obsessed Anunnaki operative, threatened Mohammad with death & encouraged him to rape, kill, and conquer. From my studies, Nannar always advocated peace & commerce rather than war and strife. In Nannar’s long sojourn on Earth, he avoided ordering violence & did not participate in wars.

The hawks in Islam, like those in Judaism, Mithraism, Pauline-Catholic Christianity & Fundamentalism, resort to violence. They kill or, in the cases of Jihadist Muslims, Christian Crusaders, and Europeans in the Americas, enslave, forcibly convert, or take the territories of the peoples they can subdue. The warmongers & terrorists in the conservative orthodoxies perpetrated & still conduct killings of those with whom they disagree about the nature of gods & ethical conduct.

ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE IN EVERY TRADITION DROP THE CASTE SYSTEM ENLIL (Yahweh), AND GABRIEL FORCED ON HUMANITY

Some Islamists, as also people who follow progressive forms of Judaism, Christ-Consciousness & idiosyncratic forms of spirituality, dropped the cruel, Anunnaki, domination-obsessions of the traditions that bound them and instead embraced ideologies of partnership with all beings.

ALAS MOHAMMAD

Mohammad, alone in a cave in the mountains above Mecca, entered a trance induced by breathing exercises. Then he meditated. In his trance, he saw the Anunnaki emissary GABRIEL and two other men in the cave with him.

Gabriel ordered him, “Recite in the name of God.” 

Gabriel grabbed Mohammad’s throat and shook him hard.

“Recite,” he commanded again. Mohammad still said nothing.

Gabriel choked Mohammad until, to his own amazement, he recited spiritual information.

The two men, Mohammad said, knocked him down, cut open his belly & inserted something [an implant] in it. From then on, Mohammad said Gabriel “possessed” him. He gave Mohammad downloads over the next few years. With the implant, Mohammad, an illiterate, learned to write what Gabriel dictated.

Gabriel’s dictation constitutes the Quran, one of Islam’s two holy books.

Mohammad claimed the Quran was “the words of Allah, the one true God.” The other Muslim holy book, the HADITH, contains Mohammad’s teachings.

MOHAMMAD, LIKE MODERN JIHADISTS, MURDERED JEWS

In 627 CE, Mohammad & his followers beheaded 900 men of Medina’s Jewish Qureyz tribe, even though they surrendered without a fight. He killed them because they would not convert to worship of Nannar, rather than Enlil, Nannar’s father.

Mohammad, following Gabriel’s precepts, gave the Jewish women and kids as slaves to his followers and killed the male relatives of the Jewish captive Rayahana before her eyes, then raped & declared her as another of his wives.

SHARIA LAW

In the Quran & subsequent rule-making, Islam’s men-only religious teachers forced their conservatism and misogyny on people they bossed. They built Sharia law & made women wear veils & shroud themselves in a garment called a burqa that completely covers them.

MOHAMMAD WANTED ALI, his adopted son, TO SUCCEED HIM LEADING ISLAM, BUT HIS INNER CIRCLE MADE ABU-BAKR CALIPH OF ISLAM

In 630 CE, Mohammad made a pilgrimage to Mecca in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia. But soon after, back in Medina, Mohammad became deathly ill with bacterial meningitis.

Mohammad preferred his adopted son ALI as his successor and ruler (Caliph) of Islam.  But Ali wouldn’t leave Mohammad while “the Prophet” still breathed. So Ali missed the meeting of Mohammad’s inner circle in 632 to choose Mohammad’s successor.  In Ali’s absence, those present ignored Mohammad’s preference for Ali and instead chose Mohammad’s patron, Abu Bakr, as Islam’s first political leader. Nowadays, Turkey’s dictator Erdoğan aspires to be Islam’s Caliph, temporal leader of Islamists who are to conquer all of the Earth for an all-Islamist paradise, with Iran’s top Ayatollah, the Shiite spiritual leader, who would help kill off all non-believers and bring a savior to organize us, Earthlings. 

The followers of Ali, known as the SHIA, objected & insisted that “Ali’s bloodline would be the line of succession” to rule Islam. The Shiite power nowadays is Iran.

The Sunnis disagreed that Abu Bakr and his descendants should rule. The Sunnis created their first dynasty in Damascus (Syria).

Muhammad’s unprovoked, murderous attacks on Jewish tribes are acts of utter barbarity. His extermination & genocide of the whole community, such as that of Banu Qurayza, make it worse.

Mohammad was a slaver. He set up slavery as a divine order, sold Banu Qurayza captives in Nejd & advocated sex with slave-girls.

Mohammad is still the inspiration for murderous jihad crusades–a typical Anunnaki dominator activity–which modern, peaceful Muslims reject & advanced thinkers in the Muslim tradition (like the Sufis) transcend. Mohammed’s first two caliphs, Abu Bakur and Umar, “deflected the energies of the feuding pastoral tribes and clans” into attacks on the Persian and Byzantine Empires that fell to their Islamic fighters–Syria (in 636), Persia’s capital Ctesiphon (637), Egypt’s suburb “Babylon” in Cairo (639) and Alexandria (642). “Muslim conquerors left old administrations intact and respected the beliefs of Christians, Jews and Persian Zoroastrians alike.” All the Islamic conquerors demanded “payment of taxes as tribute, confiscation of lands belonging to the [conquered] state and of those who continued to resist their rule.

” Leaders of the Arab tribal armies and the leading families of Mecca shared the booty, so that they constituted Arab aristocracy.” They “lived in newly built towns and extracted taxes but left existing landowners and officials run the lands of the old empires.

“After the murder of Umar, the second Caliph in 644,” authority “passed to Uthman, a member of the most powerful Meccan merchant family.” Uthman’s cousin established a hereditary dynasty known as the Umayyads.

Islam accounts for 18.3% (1.87 billion, 254,222,000 individuals) of the world’s population.  Nowadays, Islam is the planet’s second-largest.

These Anunnaki religions–hierarchical, patriarchal, and hostile to each other still compete with each other but give Anunnaki Lords & their Hybrid hands control of Earth.

1727–1818 CE: ISLAM & THE HOUSE OF SAUD PRECEDED SAUDI ARABIA

Islam began in the 7th century CE; Saudi Arabia did not yet exist. 

The first Saudi political-religious alliance arose in central Arabia during the eighteenth century, when MUHAMMAD IBN SAUD joined his political power with the religious movement associated with MUHAMMAD IBN ABD AL-WAHHAB.

Their alliance helped create the First Saudi State.

The Ottoman Empire and regional forces destroyed that state. 
Another Saudi state followed.
The House of Saud survived.

1902–1932: IBN SAUD CONQUERED ARABIA & CREATED SAUDI ARABIA

1902 began with Ibn Saud’s recapture of Riyadh, which launched his campaign to rebuild Saudi rule; 1932 ended the unification period with his proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

After years of exile in Kuwait, Ibn Saud returned with a small band of followers and launched a surprise raid on the Al Rashid garrison in Riyadh. The victory gave him a foothold in NAJD and restored the House of Saud as a political force.

SAUD EXPANDED FROM RIYADH ACROSS CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARABIA

From his Riyadh base, Ibn Saud gradually defeated or absorbed rival rulers, cultivated alliances with tribes and religious leaders, and extended his authority through Najd. His forces included THE IKHWAN, formidable tribal-religious fighters who became crucial to Saudi expansion.

In 1913, Saud established control over AL-HASA in eastern Arabia. He ruled much of the Arabian Peninsula through more than two decades of warfare, alliances, religious-political organization, and consolidation.  He progressively transformed his original Riyadh foothold into a large territorial state.

During World War I, Britain concluded a treaty with Ibn Saud in 1915 and also supported the Hashemites in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

1924–1925: SAUD CONQUERED THE HEJAZ, MECCA, MEDINA & JEDDAH

The Hejaz was then ruled by the Hashemite King HUSSEIN IBN ALI. In 1924, Ibn Saud’s forces invaded; Hussein abdicated, and Saudi forces advanced through the kingdom, ending Hashemite rule in the Hejaz.

Ibn Saud’s forces advanced into the Hejaz and entered Mecca in 1924 after King Hussein’s position collapsed. Ibn Saud thereby gained control of Islam’s holiest city—an enormous increase in both his political importance and religious responsibility.

Saudi forces besieged the remaining Hashemite positions, including Medina and Jeddah. Medina eventually surrendered during the final conquest of the Hejaz, and the Hashemite kingdom collapsed by the end of 1925.

SAUD EXPANDED SAUDI ARABIA FROM RIYADH ACROSS CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARABIA

From his Riyadh base, Ibn Saud gradually defeated or absorbed rival rulers, cultivated alliances with tribes and religious leaders, and extended his authority through Najd. His forces included the Ikhwan, formidable tribal-religious fighters who became crucial to Saudi expansion; by 1913, Ibn Saud had also established control over al-Hasa in eastern Arabia. He controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula through more than two decades of warfare, alliances, religious-political organization, and consolidation, transforming his original Riyadh foothold into a large territorial state.

In 1924, the Hejaz was ruled by the Hashemite KINT HUSSEIN IBN ALI. Saud’s forces invaded; Hussein abdicated, and Saudi forces advanced through the kingdom, ending Hashemite rule in the Hejaz. Saud’s forces advanced into the Hejaz and entered Mecca, thereby gaining control of Islam’s holiest city—an enormous increase in both his political importance and religious responsibility. Medina did not fall simultaneously with Mecca; Saudi forces besieged the remaining Hashemite positions, including Medina and Jeddah. Medina eventually surrendered during the final conquest of the Hejaz, with the Hashemite kingdom collapsing by the end of 1925.

BRITAIN DEALT WITH IBN SAUD AS IT COMPETED FOR INFLUENCE IN THE REGION

During World War I, Britain concluded a treaty with Ibn Saud in 1915 and also supported the Hashemites in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire. As Ibn Saud became increasingly powerful, Britain had to accommodate the political reality his conquests created. In the 1927 Treaty of Jeddah, Britain recognized Ibn Saud as an independent sovereign over his territories; Ibn Saud relinquished the British subsidy he had previously received.

ABDULAZIZ IBN SAUD captured Riyadh in 1902 and expanded his territory. His forces eventually controlled much of the Arabian Peninsula, including the HEJAZ and the holy cities of MECCA and MEDINA.

In 1932, Ibn Saud proclaimed the KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA, naming the country for his dynasty. Saudi Arabia MEANT Arabia of the House of Saud.

1932: OIL, MANAGED BY U.S. COMPANY ARAMCO, ENRICHED SAUDI ROYALS AND DEVELOPED SAUDI INFRASTRUCTURE

Oil was discovered in commercial quantities in Saudi Arabia in 1938 as British imperial power declined and American power moved into the region. American oil companies became central to its development and the company that became ARAMCO transformed the Saudi economy.

In February 1945, PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT met KING ABDULAZIZ aboard the USS Quincy.  They put petroleum at the center of the relationship between Western governments and the Saudi monarchy. The kingdom supplied oil. The United States supplied weapons and security cooperation. Domination devotees demanded control of the oil, but improved infrastructure benefited both commoners and Saudi Royals.

Oil revenues enriched Saudi Royals and Aramco, and gave Saudi Arabia roads, bigger cities, hospitals, schools, and expanded water and electricity systems that benefited commoners too. The oil bonanza brought thousands of foreign workers to Arabia.

1973: SAUDI OIL REACHED INTO EVERY AMERICAN HOME

War broke out between Israel and Arab states in October 1973.

Arab petroleum exporters imposed an oil embargo against the United States and some other countries.
Oil prices rose; Americans waited in gasoline lines.
European countries confronted their dependence upon imported petroleum.
Oil had become geopolitical power.

Saudi Arabian petroleum affected workers, drivers, factories, governments, and households thousands of miles away.
Saudi Dominators, in thrall to the Anunnaki-dictated dementia, declared: use scarcity to increase power.
Cooperators in the U.S. fretted: We should not be hostages of countries that have petrol reserves we lack.

1957–2011: BIN LADEN—FROM SAUDI ARABIA & THE AFGHAN JIHAD TO AL-QAEDA, 9/11 & THE WARS THAT FOLLOWED
Did Osama Bin Laden direct 9/11, or Was He Used As U.S. VP Cheney’s Patsy?

SAUDI PRIVILEGE, RELIGION & THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

OSAMA BIN LADEN was born March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, into the wealthy bin Laden construction family.
His father, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, built businesses with the Saudi monarchy and secured major government construction contracts.
Osama grew up as a member of one of the kingdom’s richest and best-connected families. 

Saudi Arabia meanwhile became a refuge for members of the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD and other Islamists persecuted by secular Arab nationalist governments.
Brotherhood-associated ideas formed part of the ideological environment from which bin Laden’s more militant movement eventually emerged.
Bin Laden also studied with Palestinian Islamist ABDULLAH AZZAM. Azzam became bin Laden’s mentor.

1979–1989: AFGHANISTAN TRANSFORMED BIN LADEN

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 transformed bin Laden’s life. The UNITED STATES, SAUDI ARABIA, PAKISTAN, and other governments supported Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation.

Bin Laden traveled from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan soon after the Soviet intervention and began raising money and supplies for the Afghan cause.
His earliest journeys were fundraising and support missions.

With AZZAM, bin Laden helped establish MAKTAB AL-KHIDAMAT—the Services Bureau—which recruited and assisted Muslims traveling from other countries to participate in the Afghan jihad.
Bin Laden contributed money, fundraising connections, logistical support, and eventually facilities for Arab volunteers.
Afghanistan consequently gave bin Laden international contacts, committed followers, fundraising networks, organizational experience, prestige, and access to militants from throughout the Muslim world.
By 1988, he founded AL-QAEDA—“THE BASE.”
Al-Qaeda subsequently developed training camps, raised money, trained militants, and built an international organization capable of conducting attacks far beyond Afghanistan.

9/11: THE OFFICIAL CASE AGAINST BIN LADEN

The established U.S. investigative account attributes the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York to AL-QAEDA under bin Laden’s leadership.
The FBI said that bin Laden and al-Qaeda orchestrated planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, made the building next to the buildings they hit also collapse, hit the Pentagon with another hijacked plane, and crashed another plane in Pennsylvania. They denied allegations that U.S. agents had planted explosives that made the buildings collapse.
The FBI nailed their case down when they found the Quran of a hijacker-pilot of one of the planes that hit the WTC. 

After years of carefully reviewing evidence, I conclude that the Bush administration stood down so the Twin Towers 911 demolition would look like Bin Laden in Afghanistan organized it.
V.P. Cheney, who actually ran the U.S., and President Bush, who let Cheney run the U.S., used the pretend terrorist attack as an excuse to go to war in Afghanistan, kill Iraqis and steal their resources, and abrogate more civil rights with the PATRIOT ACT.

1990–1994: BIN LADEN TURNED AGAINST THE SAUDI MONARCHY

The CIA, Pakistani intelligence, and pro-Western Middle Eastern governments armed volunteers to fight Russians in Afghanistan.
When the volunteers returned home, they turned on the Royals and their Western capitalist friends.
The governments that helped mobilize Islamist resistance against the Soviets could not control what those militants would do after the Soviets left.

The 1990–1991 Gulf crisis

After Saddam Hussein’s Iraqis invaded Kuwait, the Saudi monarchy accepted massive deployment of American and allied military forces to protect Saudi Arabia and prepare the campaign against Iraq.
Bin Laden fiercely objected to non-Muslim American troops in the Saudi Kingdom because Saudi Arabia was the host city of the Muslim holy cities of MECCA and MEDINA.
He attacked the U. S. and the Saudi monarchy. His former relationship with the Saudi establishment turned into open opposition.

Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s for SUDAN.
The Saudi government revoked his citizenship in 1994 and froze his assets.

He returned to Afghanistan, where his organization, al-Qaeda, developed its camps and international militant network.

Bin Laden justified his hostility toward the United States by pointing to American military forces in Saudi Arabia, American involvement in the region following the Gulf War, the suffering of Iraqi civilians from sanctions imposed on Iraq during the 1990s, and American political and military support for Israel.

Al-Qaeda translated his rantings into violence.
Its campaign included attacks on American targets during the 1990s, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. 

9/11: THE OFFICIAL CASE AGAINST BIN LADEN

The established U.S. investigative account attributes the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York to AL-QAEDA under bin Laden’s leadership.
The FBI said that bin Laden and al-Qaeda orchestrated planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, made the building next to the buildings they hit also collapse, hit the Pentagon with another hijacked plane, and crashed another plane in Pennsylvania. They denied allegations that U.S. agents had planted explosives that made the buildings collapse.
The FBI nailed their case down when they found the Quran of a hijacker-pilot of one of the planes that hit the WTC. 

2017- Now: MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN

KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ became king in January 2015. His son, MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN—known as MBS—took authority over defense, economic planning, and other important institutions.

 In April 2016, MBS launched VISION 2030, a program intended to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on petroleum and diversify its economy. King Salman appointed him CROWN PRINCE, Saudi Arabia’s ruler and heir to its throne.

MBS sought to transform both Saudi Arabia’s economy and its public image. Under VISION 2030, the government poured enormous resources into tourism, entertainment, sports, technology, construction, and new businesses, much of it connected with the kingdom’s huge PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND.

Saudi Arabia opened more widely to international tourism, promoted destinations such as AlUla and the Red Sea, expanded hotels and entertainment venues, and pursued spectacular construction projects to create jobs, attract foreign investment, and build income sources beyond oil. Saudi government reports describe tourism as a major component of this economic diversification.

Cinemas reopened. Concerts, sporting events, and other forms of public entertainment, previously severely restricted, became increasingly common. MBS liberalized portions of everyday social and economic life, but he kept centralized political control. He jailed women’s-rights activists, critics, clerics, intellectuals, and online commentators.  His enforcers jail people for complaining or dissenting. He even forced Saudi princes, businessmen, and former officials into financial settlements with the state.

Women drive, tourists arrive, entertainment expands, giant projects rise from the desert, and new industries are cultivated—while organized political opposition and independent dissent remain sharply constrained.

MBS, a total dominator, proclaims,  I will modernize society, but I decide how far change goes and who may challenge my authority.  Saudis who embrace the cooperative partnership long for the right to participate in shaping reforms, criticize their government peacefully, and share in deciding their country’s future.

SAUDI WOMEN CHALLENGED MALE CONTROL

Saudi women lived under laws and customs that restricted movement, marriage, work, travel, and public activity.
The women organized against restrictions.

Some challenged the prohibition against women driving.
The government finally removed that prohibition in 2018.

Women drove.

2018: MBS’S GOONS TORTURED, MURDERED & DISMEMBERED AMERICAN JOURNALIST AMAL KHASHOGGI IN THE SAUDI CONSULATE IN TURKEY

On October 2, 2018, Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist JAMAL KHASHOGGI entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain documents he needed in order to marry his Turkish fiancée, HATICE CENGIZ. She waited outside. Khashoggi never came back out. A 15-member Saudi team had flown into Istanbul, and Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.

U.S. intelligence later concluded that Saudi Crown Prince MBS approved an operation. The U.S. Treasury subsequently described the operation as one in which a Saudi team murdered and dismembered Khashoggi.

Khashoggi had once moved within Saudi establishment circles; MBS had the journalist killed for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s concentration of power.

Living in the United States, Khashoggi used his Washington Post columns to advocate greater freedom of expression and political openness in Saudi Arabia. The 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment stated that MBS viewed Khashoggi as a threat to the kingdom and broadly supported using violent measures when considered necessary to silence dissidents abroad, but American spooks pretended they did not know in advance that Saudi officials decided to kill Khashoggi.

THE KILLING WAS AN ORGANIZED STATE OPERATION

MBS approved the gruesome killing. His henchmen included Royal Saudi Court officials and 7 members of his elite Rapid Intervention Force (a unit of the Saudi Royal Guard that answered to him). The U.S. intelligence community concluded that these men’s participation made it highly unlikely that an operation of this sensitivity could have occurred without MBS’s approval. In 2021, the U.S. Treasury stated that former deputy intelligence chief AHMAD AL-ASIRI had been assigned to murder Khashoggi and helped organize the 15-man team that killed and dismembered him.

COVER-UP UNCOVERED

There was clearly an effort to conceal what had happened, although responsibility for every aspect of that concealment remains disputed. Saudi Arabia initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate. But faced with evidence, the Saudi authorities acknowledged that he had died but lied again, this time saying Khashoggi died from a fight.  

Turkish authorities eventually brought a criminal case against 20 Saudi nationals and opened an additional investigation into people suspected of destroying evidence or otherwise participating in or instigating the killing. Turkish investigators, intelligence evidence, surveillance and other evidence, investigative journalists, international investigators, and eventually U.S. intelligence findings kept the case in international view while evidence increasingly contradicted the changing Saudi explanations but in February 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its assessment: MBS approved the operation.

In November 2018, the Treasury Department sanctioned 17 Saudi individuals implicated in Khashoggi’s killing, freezing property under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting Americans from doing business with them. In April 2019, the State Department publicly designated 16 Saudi officials for their roles in the murder, making them and certain family members ineligible to enter the United States. 

MBS himself was not sanctioned by Trump, and Trump explicitly resisted allowing the murder to rupture the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Instead, Trump emphasized Saudi oil production, arms purchases, jobs, cooperation against Iran, and the broader strategic relationship. Trump said Prince MBS may have known, or may not. Trump declared that the United States intended, either way, to remain a “steadfast partner” of Saudi Arabia. Trump openly placed the strategic and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia—including oil, arms sales, jobs, and opposition to Iran—alongside the human-rights issue and chose to preserve the relationship rather than isolate the crown prince.

CONGRESS PUSHED HARDER

Members of both parties in Congress pressed the administration for greater accountability. Senators invoked the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and demanded a determination concerning responsibility for Khashoggi’s death. Congressional critics complained that the Trump administration failed to provide the determination they sought concerning who ultimately bore responsibility. Legislation was introduced that would have required sanctions against any Saudi official or royal-family member determined to have ordered, controlled, or directed acts contributing to Khashoggi’s death. Trump sanctioned some of MBS’s men while preserving America’s relationship with MBS; members of Congress pressed for broader accountability and disclosure.

BIDEN RELEASED THE INTELLIGENCE FINDING

After JOE BIDEN became president in January 2021, his administration publicly released the intelligence assessment that the Trump administration had not made public. It stated plainly: “Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”  he Biden sanctioned former intelligence official Ahmad al-Asiri and the Saudi Rapid Intervention Force, and created the KHASHOGGI BAN, under which the United States initially imposed visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals believed to have participated in threatening dissidents abroad, including people connected with the Khashoggi case. But strategic relations between Washington and Riyadh continued.

KHASHOGGI’S MURDER EXPOSED THE CONFLICT BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND STATE INTERESTS

Khashoggi walked into a consulate seeking paperwork for his marriage and never walked out. What followed showed the danger journalists face when they challenge powerful governments as well as the limits of international accountability when the suspected decision-maker is the leader of a strategically important state. The murder produced investigations, sanctions, visa bans, congressional pressure, international condemnation, and eventually a public U.S. intelligence finding pointing directly to MBS’s approval of the operation. Yet neither the Trump administration nor the Biden administration severed the American relationship with the crown prince.

DOMINATORS approved, saying, Silence the critics. Conceal responsibility. Protect the powerful; liberal Democrats demanded, Protect our journalists, expose what governments do in secret, and defend every person’s right to criticize those who rule.

1970s–NOWADAYS: MIGRANT LABORERS BUILT MODERN SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia’s transformation after the oil boom required far more workers than the kingdom itself could provide. Beginning especially in the 1970s, millions of migrant workers arrived from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines, African countries, and elsewhere.

They erected skyscrapers and apartment buildings. They poured concrete, laid roads and railways, installed utilities, cleaned offices and hotels, drove vehicles, staffed shops and warehouses, cooked meals, cleaned private homes, and cared for Saudi children and elderly people.

The futuristic Saudi city was not built by petroleum money alone.

MIGRANT LABORERS BUILT MUCH OF IT, BUT THEY ARRIVE IN DEBT BEFORE EARNING THEIR FIRST RIYAL

For many workers, exploitation could begin before they even reached Saudi Arabia. Recruiters and middlemen sometimes charged workers substantial fees for jobs workers believed would let them support families back home.

Amnesty International’s 2025 investigation of 38 Bangladeshi, Indian, and Nepali men who worked on the RIYADH METRO found that nearly all had paid recruitment fees and related costs. Reported amounts ranged from about US$700 to US$3,500—even though Saudi law prohibits charging workers recruitment fees. Some borrowed money or sold family assets to obtain their jobs.

This created a powerful trap. A worker who owed thousands of dollars could not simply decide after several weeks, I don’t like this job; I’m going home.

He had a debt waiting for him.
His family might depend on his remittances.
His ability to endure mistreatment therefore became economically connected to the survival of people thousands of miles away.

SOME LABORERS EARNED LESS THAN $2 AN HOUR

Pay varied enormously according to occupation, nationality, employer, and period, so there was no single “migrant-worker wage.” But documented examples show how low wages could become.

Among workers Amnesty interviewed for its Riyadh Metro investigation, many earned less than US$2 an hour, and some earned approximately half that amount. Virtually all of the interviewed workers were putting in 60 hours or more each week. One Nepali worker described a basic salary of only about US $266 a month.

The situation could be still worse for domestic workers. In a separate 2025 investigation involving more than 70 Kenyan women who had worked in Saudi homes, Amnesty reported average pay of approximately 900 Saudi riyals—US$240 per month. Because many women reported working at least 16 hours a day without overtime, Amnesty calculated their effective hourly earnings at around 50 cents an hour.

The salary nevertheless represented something enormously important to many workers:

MONEY FOR THE FAMILY BACK HOME.

It could pay for children’s schooling, food, housing, medical expenses, and debts. Migrants could therefore continue working under conditions they otherwise would have abandoned.

SOMETIMES THE PAYCHECK DID NOT COME

Low wages were one problem.

WAGE THEFT WAS ANOTHER.

Workers have reported delayed salaries, unpaid salaries, and unpaid overtime. Human Rights Watch reported in its 2026 assessment that wage theft remained among the widespread abuses affecting migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.

In a 2024 investigation of migrant workers at Carrefour facilities in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty found workers reporting that overtime was not properly paid. Some said this deprived them of dozens of hours of additional wages each month, amounting to hundreds of dollars over a year.

The consequences reached beyond Saudi Arabia.

When the worker’s wages disappeared, the family’s money disappeared too.

THE KAFALA SYSTEM GAVE THE EMPLOYER EXTRAORDINARY POWER

For decades, Saudi Arabia’s KAFALA sponsorship system connected a migrant’s immigration and employment status to a sponsoring employer.

Saudi Arabia has introduced reforms that have reduced some restrictions, but human-rights organizations report that employers continue to exercise disproportionate power over migrant workers, particularly in circumstances involving job changes, residency, and employment status.

Workers have reported passport confiscation, contract substitution, recruitment abuses, delayed or unpaid wages, and obstacles to escaping abusive employment. Human Rights Watch has warned that such combinations of employer control and economic coercion can, in severe cases, produce conditions amounting to forced labor.

A contract could also prove different from what the migrant believed he or she had accepted before leaving home. Workers have described recruiters misleading them about wages, duties, benefits, or even who their actual employer would be.

Thus, the worker might arrive thousands of miles from home already indebted and discover: THIS IS NOT THE JOB I THOUGHT I ACCEPTED.

WORKERS OFTEN LIVED CROWDED TOGETHER

Housing varied greatly, but investigations have repeatedly documented overcrowded and unsanitary accommodations.
Workers interviewed about Carrefour facilities described company-provided housing in which six or eight men could share a room.
One worker compared the accommodation to a cowshed.
Amnesty’s Riyadh Metro investigation likewise documented reports of overcrowded and unsanitary housing.

Domestic workers faced a different kind of isolation because their workplace was also their home.
Kenyan women interviewed by Amnesty reported sleeping in storage cupboards or on the floor of children’s bedrooms, sometimes without adequate bedding or functioning air conditioning.
For them, there might be no workers’ camp to return to after work.

THE EMPLOYER’S HOUSE WAS THE WORKPLACE, THE LIVING QUARTERS, SOMETIMES THE PLACE THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE & FOOD WAS A MEANS OF CONTROL

Construction and commercial workers’ circumstances differed from those of live-in domestic workers, but the latter provide some of the starkest testimony concerning food.
Almost all of the Kenyan domestic workers interviewed for Amnesty’s 2025 report said employers had at times deprived them of adequate food or given them leftovers. Some reported surviving on extremely limited food such as bread, biscuits, or instant noodles. When an employee lives inside the employer’s home, control of employment can consequently become control over food, sleep, movement, and contact with the outside world.

HEAT MADE  CONSTRUCTION DANGEROUS

Saudi Arabia’s spectacular construction boom occurred in one of the world’s hottest working environments.
Workers on the Riyadh Metro described laboring through extreme summer heat.
Amnesty reported that temperatures could remain at or above 40°C—104°F—for more than eight hours during summer days.
Saudi Arabia has imposed a midday prohibition on outdoor work in direct sunlight during part of the summer, but a fixed clock-based ban does not adequately protect workers from dangerous heat exposure outside those hours.
The person admiring a new tower could therefore see polished glass, steel, and concrete.
But the laborers who built it remember heat, exhaustion, overtime, and debt.

PREJUDICE FOLLOWED SOME WORKERS INTO THEIR JOBS

Economic hierarchy overlapped with hierarchies involving nationality, race, occupation, and social class.
Amnesty’s Riyadh Metro investigation documented discriminatory pay; its investigation of Kenyan domestic workers described racial abuse directed at Black African women.
Women interviewed reported racist insults, humiliation, and being treated as socially inferior.

Migrant domestic workers could be particularly vulnerable because several inequalities operated simultaneously: they were foreigners, frequently poor, often women, frequently isolated inside private homes, and dependent upon the employer connected to their immigration and employment status.
Some women interviewed by Amnesty reported verbal and physical abuse; others reported sexual assault, including rape.

These experiences should not be attributed to every Saudi employer. Millions of migrants have worked for many different households and companies under widely varying conditions. But the documented abuses reveal what could happen when enormous power differences existed between employer and worker and effective remedies were weak or inaccessible.

SOCIAL LIFE COULD SHRINK TO OTHER WORKERS AND A PHONE BACK HOME

For many migrant workers, Saudi Arabia was never intended to become home in the ordinary sense.
Home remained Dhaka, Kathmandu, Manila, Nairobi, Delhi, Lahore, or another distant community.

A worker’s social world could revolve around coworkers and compatriots in shared accommodations, accessible religious communities, inexpensive gatherings on days off, telephone and video conversations with family, and the repeated ritual of sending part of the paycheck home.
But conditions varied sharply.
Construction, retail, transportation, and other workers who had time away from work could develop friendships and communities with fellow migrants.
Live-in domestic workers could experience much greater isolation.
Amnesty found that virtually all of the Kenyan domestic workers it interviewed reported receiving no day off during their employment, which for some lasted as long as two years; some said they were prevented from leaving the employer’s house.

Imagine crossing an ocean to earn money for your children—and then spending month after month caring for someone else’s children while communicating with your own through a telephone.

THE WORKER COULD BECOME INVISIBLE BEHIND THE PROJECT

Saudi Arabia’s transformation produced highways, airports, hotels, shopping centers, homes, skyscrapers, railways, stadiums, and entire new urban districts.

The finished project bears the name of the government, developer, architect, corporation, or royal initiative.

The individual laborer usually disappears.

Yet behind the glass towers stand millions of human stories: workers who left spouses, parents, and children; workers who borrowed money to migrate; workers who endured heat and long hours; workers who sent their earnings home; workers who experienced exploitation; and workers who helped construct one of the most dramatic physical transformations of any country in the modern era.

Migrant workers said: SEE ME. I BUILT THIS.
Dominators demand, Keep the worker indebted, dependent, cheap, and replaceable.
Cooperators counsel: A contract purchases labor. It does not purchase a human being.
The worker remains a human being wherever the worker was born.

The essential question is therefore not simply WHO PAID FOR MODERN SAUDI ARABIA?
It is also WHO ACTUALLY BUILT IT—and what did building it cost them?

2015–NOWADAYS: SAUDI ARABIA INTERVENED IN YEMEN’S WAR

DONALD TRUMP made Saudi Arabia the destination of his first foreign presidential trip in 2017.
His administration developed close relations with Saudi leaders.
American arms sales, Saudi investment, oil policy, and regional strategy became parts of the relationship.
Trump-family businesses also developed commercial relationships involving Saudi-linked projects.

SAUDI ARABIA, ISRAEL, PALESTINE & THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS

The Abraham Accords of 2020 reshaped the Middle East’s diplomatic map. With American mediation, ISRAEL established or advanced formal relations with the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, BAHRAIN, MOROCCO, and SUDAN.

Trade, tourism, investment, intelligence cooperation, technology, and security relationships followed or expanded. But the largest Arab economy and guardian of Islam’s two holiest cities—SAUDI ARABIA—did not join.

Saudi recognition of Israel could transform relationships across the Arab and Muslim worlds. For years, American officials explored whether Washington could broker an agreement in which SAUDI ARABIA would recognize ISRAEL, while Riyadh sought benefits from Washington, including stronger security arrangements and other forms of strategic cooperation. Saudi Arabia, however, also kept the PALESTINIAN QUESTION in the negotiations. Recognition of Israel could not be treated simply as a commercial transaction among governments while millions of Palestinians remained without an independent state.

Then October 7, 2023, and the Gaza war changed the political landscape. Hamas attacked Israel, killing civilians and soldiers and taking hostages. Israel responded with a massive military campaign in Gaza. Gaza suffered enormous destruction and loss of life, and the Palestinian question—sometimes pushed toward the margins of regional diplomacy—returned to the center of Middle Eastern politics. Years later, Gaza remains devastated; Reuters reported in September 2026 that much of its infrastructure remained destroyed or severely damaged and that reconstruction remained stalled amid unresolved political and security conditions.

For SAUDI ARABIA, normalization with Israel therefore became entangled with a larger question: What happens to the Palestinians?
The Saudis continued to support Palestinian self-determination and an independent Palestinian state.
Saudi officials have also condemned Israeli settlement and territorial measures in the occupied West Bank.

In 2026, Saudi Arabia joined other Arab and Muslim governments in condemning Israeli measures that they said threatened Palestinian land and prospects for statehood.

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE represent only one part of Saudi Arabia’s security equation.

To Saudi Arabia’s northeast stands IRAN, the kingdom’s great regional rival for decades.  Iran possesses substantial military power and has cultivated relationships with armed groups throughout the region. Saudi leaders consequently have had to calculate whether confrontation, deterrence, negotiation, or some combination of them offers the kingdom greater security.

To Saudi Arabia’s south lies YEMEN, where years of civil war brought Saudi forces into direct conflict with the HOUTHIS, an armed movement backed by Iran. The Houthis developed missiles and drones capable of reaching Saudi territory. The conflict therefore crossed Saudi Arabia’s border not merely as a diplomatic problem but as a physical threat to Saudi cities, airports, petroleum installations, and infrastructure.

The geography magnifies the danger. Yemen sits beside the BAB EL-MANDEB, the narrow maritime gateway connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Ships carrying oil, manufactured goods, food, and containers between Asia and Europe pass through this corridor. Disruption there can reach far beyond Yemen or Saudi Arabia, affecting shipping, insurance costs, energy markets, and international commerce. In September 2026, renewed Houthi advances and attacks again intensified concern over navigation through the Bab el-Mandeb and security along Saudi Arabia’s southern frontier.

The RED SEA thus became another arena connecting local wars to global power. Houthi attacks on shipping, regional military operations, and the presence of American forces demonstrated how quickly a conflict involving Yemen, Gaza, Israel, or Iran could draw in the UNITED STATES. Washington’s longstanding relationship with Saudi Arabia includes military, diplomatic, intelligence, counterterrorism, and economic cooperation, while the United States also maintains its deep security relationship with Israel.

Saudi rulers therefore confront a strategic puzzle with pieces that refuse to remain separate: ISRAEL, GAZA, PALESTINIANS, IRAN, YEMEN, THE HOUTHIS, THE RED SEA, BAB EL-MANDEB, AMERICAN MILITARY POWER. A decision concerning one can change the risks surrounding the others. Saudi cooperation with the United States can strengthen Saudi defenses but also affect Riyadh’s relationship with Tehran. Normalization with Israel could open trade, technology, diplomatic, and security opportunities while producing opposition if Palestinians see themselves abandoned. Conflict with the Houthis can threaten Saudi territory. Conflict involving Iran can threaten petroleum facilities and shipping routes. War in Gaza can ignite political anger across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

By 2026, Saudi Arabia was still publicly tying regional peace to Palestinian political rights and statehood. Saudi statements have called for a political process leading to Palestinian self-determination and an independent state alongside Israel, while also describing regional security and stability as objectives of such a settlement. Saudi Arabia consequently sits near the center of an interconnected struggle over territory, petroleum, shipping lanes, military alliances, religious sites, national identity, and political power. The kingdom can purchase weapons, negotiate agreements, cultivate Washington, communicate with Tehran, confront or negotiate with the Houthis, and consider relations with Israel. But none of those actions by itself resolves the human conflicts beneath the geopolitical map.

DOMINATOR DEMAND: Alliances that preserve power. Arm allies, deter enemies, control strategic territory, protect shipping routes, and use economic and military leverage to shape the regional balance.

COOPERATORS, if they didn’t fear their murderous ruling prince, would call for: Palestinians, Saudi, Yemeni, Iranian, and even Israeli security. Security that protects one population while leaving other populations dispossessed, bombed, blockaded, attacked, or permanently afraid creates the conditions for the next war.

THE QUESTION FOR SAUDI ARABIA IS NO LONGER SIMPLY WHETHER IT WILL RECOGNIZE ISRAEL. THE LARGER QUESTION IS WHAT KIND OF REGIONAL ORDER SAUDI POWER WILL HELP CREATE.

SAUDI ARABIA, ISRAEL, PALESTINE & THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS

Saudi Arabia did not join the 2020 Abraham Accords. Later negotiations considered possible Saudi recognition of Israel. Saudi Arabia also linked normalization to the Palestinian question. Then the regional war changed the calculation; Saudi Arabia had to weigh its security among them all. Saudi Dominators insisted on alliances that preserve power; Cooperators, however, concluded that Palestinians, Israelis, Saudis, Yemenis, and Iranians all need security. Cooperators knew 

2026 –  SAUDI ARABIA FACES THE HOUTHIS

Ibn Saud created a kingdom.

Oil made the kingdom powerful.

Oil connected the kingdom to American power.

Foreign workers helped build it.

Saudi women challenged restrictions.

Critics challenged rulers.

War crossed Saudi Arabia’s borders.

And ordinary people continued living beneath decisions made by governments, armies, corporations, religious authorities, and royal families.

DOMINATOR: Whoever controls oil, weapons, money, and information controls history.

COOPERATOR: Ordinary people make history too.

VIDEOS

BEST OVERALL HISTORICAL COMPANION: House of Saud, PBS FRONTLINE. It traces roughly a century of Saudi history, Ibn Saud’s unification of the kingdom, oil, ARAMCO, the U.S.-Saudi relationship, religious politics, and the period surrounding September 11.

BEST FOR MBS + KHASHOGGI: The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, PBS FRONTLINE. It concentrates on MBS’s rise, modernization program, repression of dissent, and Khashoggi’s murder.

BEST FOR WOMEN AND INTERNAL REPRESSION: Saudi Arabia Uncovered, PBS FRONTLINE. It includes women’s-rights activists, the former driving prohibition, punishment, and political dissent.

BEST CURRENT VIDEO FOR THE TRUMP–SAUDI SECTION: The Crown Prince & the President, PBS FRONTLINE, released June 30, 2026. It is especially useful because it examines Trump, MBS, U.S.-Saudi policy, investments, Trump-family financial connections, Khashoggi, and the relationship between government policy and private business.

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