Journalist’s death raises questions

Khashoggi’s murder in Turkey puts spotlight on Saudis

Abuzer Zaidi, News Editor

NEWS BREAK: “A journalist critical of government disappeared under suspicious circumstances.”

Before October, which country would you think it happened in?

Likely, one of the first answers would be Russia or maybe North Korea. A new country entered the list of journalist killers earlier this October — Saudi Arabia.

For Jamal Khashoggi, it was a routine visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for marriage papers. There was some extra paperwork required for intercountry marriage, as Hatice Cengiz — his fiancee — was Turkish while Khashoggi was Arab.

As Khashoggi entered the consulate, he told his fiancee to call for help if he did not reappear. Something was off, and sure enough he did not reappear. Many of the workers in the consulate were told to stay home on that day.

Saudi intelligence officers, when following their schedule, happened to be at the consulate at the same time. The evidence pointed singularly at the murder or at least abduction of Khashoggi.

Turkish official claimed that the Saudis had killed the journalists, and the Saudis said that any accusations were false.

They subsequently rolled back their claims, many news agencies, the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post among them, hold that Khashoggi was tortured then dismembered by Saudi operatives.

The Saudi government claims that Khashoggi was killed in a fight in an attempt to restrain him. According to the BBC, a Saudi official said that the agents were to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.

This event is obviously horrifying, but this is in a strange backdrop.

In November 2017, a young, new, liberal Saudi Prince consolidated power by committing a ‘purge’ for the stated reason of expunging corrupt officials. Then Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) became Crown Prince and de facto ruler of the Saudi dynasty, pushing aside his cousin (who fell directly next in line), and making a figurehead out of King Salman.

This new, supposedly reformist Prince caused the mandates that allowed women to drive, new movie studios be built, and allowed women into sports stadiums.

The Vision 2030 that MBS pioneered called for social and economic reform that would result in a new, modernized Saudi Arabia.

However, amidst these reforms, the Prince has also been linked to multiple human rights violations, and the Khashoggi murder places a spotlight on it.

In light of these new developments, we need to ask two questions. Firstly, why did this murder happen? Secondly, what should the United States do as a reaction to Khashoggi?

Causes of the Murder

Before the murder, Khashoggi wrote a scathing op-ed on the state of affairs of the Saudi Government and the state of western media and politics as a whole.

His last column, as published by the Washington Post, called out the region as whole for the suppression of free speech, “These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.”

Khashoggi said the region was facing its own Iron Curtain. And this is for the large part true not just of MBS, but of the dynasty and the regime as a whole. Khashoggi cited cases of Egyptian government taking control of the media.

Doug Landis, a World History teacher here at Spring-Ford, had an immediate response: “He was killed because of free speech,” Landis said.

Saudi Arabia has a track record of killing people for this reason.

Remember Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr? For those who have forgotten, he was a leader of the Shiite community in Qatif and Awamiyya. To this day, there is a constant assault and destruction of the province. It is currently a religious cleansing of the Shiite minority in the region. No news organization is allowed in the regions of destruction without government chaperones. With dozens killed (at the very least, any reports that come out on the casualty numbers are likely reduced), thousands of wounded and many more displaced, this is a silent humanitarian crisis.

Immediately after allowing women to drive, the Saudi prince imprisoned two women’s rights activists. This adds to the thousands of long-term prisoners held without cause, according to the Human Rights Watch.

Despite a history of career infractions of human liberties and rights, Saudi Arabia is on the UN Human Rights Council. Hence, when asked his reaction to the killing, Landis said “[I wasn’t] surprised. Was I shocked? Yes.”

What should the US do?

Should the US intervene in cases of human rights abuses such as these?

“When innocents are being killed, alliances don’t matter,” said Landis.

However, Landis paired that with the assertion that we should not completely split from the Saudis. He proposed the idea of economic punishments, but the maintenance of trade ties as “World War I was (caused by) broken relations.”

However, the balance between morality and financial ties is a fine line to balance,
according to Landis. These result in one solid directive to take — economic sanctions enough to hurt but not destroy trade relations. Supposedly, this would be enough rebuke in response to the murder.

History teacher Brad Seltzer, on the other hand, relegated the mild sanctions to a “little economic slap to the wrist.” Instead, he proposed a solution that would make the condemnation quite severe. He suggested to pull funding from the Saudi government, slap a slew of sanctions on them, then lift the Iran sanctions and begin an oil-weapons trade with them. Furthermore, it would potentially cause economic competition with Russia, who are generally the primary trading allies with Iran.

Effectively, this response would begin the process of a total reversal in the Middle East. Assuming that the Iranian people would be okay with this alliance (which they probably wouldn’t), this course of action would result in a Bismarckian-Europe style reaction.

An alliance with Iran would destroy our relations with Israel, who would stop the weapons trade, and place pressure on Congress to immediately reverse these actions.

However, this drastic action points us to one uncomfortable question: are we on the wrong side of Middle-Eastern super conflict? Should we maintain trade relations at the cost of our ideals, or should we forsake any economic relations for the ideals of liberty that we keep so dear?

From Jimmy Carter until now, the US has chosen to air on the side of economic ties, and it seems unlikely President Donald Trump will change in the way Seltzer proposed.