Luxor4u

President Trump will be making one of his most important speeches later today in Saudi Arabia. Mercifully, he will not be speaking extempore but in a (carefully?) crafted delivery, will be exhorting his hosts to fight against extremism in the interpretation of Islam.

A leaked excerpt allegedly contains :

"Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: barbarism will deliver you no glory - piety to evil will bring you no dignity."

"If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your soul will be condemned."

Reference to barbarism seems a bit rich, delivered in Saudi Arabia...a state which still beheads criminals in public -
sometimes for offences which wouldn't warrant a custodial sentence elsewhere.

Stoning to death and amputation of limbs used to be performed and are still, in theory, possible...although there's no reliable evidence that such punishments have been inflicted in the last few years.

Maybe they are softening. There's even discussion of relaxing the guardianship laws for women and, shock horror, allowing them to drive.

If the more conservative Saudis are at all miffed about being lectured by Trump, they are unlikely to make a fuss....having just signed arms and trade deals worth $350 billion.

Having just listened to his speech....it went down well, although the self-praise at the outset (his single-handed transformation of the American economy) seemed a bit out of place.

He managed to mention terrorism and extremism many times...but (unlike his pre-electoral speeches) didn't precede those words with "Islamic"

He laid into Iran...which will have been music to the ears of his audience.

5 out of 10 perhaps.

They have also issued a decree that certain jobs that women can apply for, will no longer need the permission from the families main male ruler. It didn't state which jobs though, probably the cleaning of female toilets and attending all female services that males would not take part in. Trump seemed happy when he was given the nice shiny necklace, their highest civilian honer. But in honer of what? All Obama received was two fingers.

Sisi sat listening to Trump exhort him , & other Arab leaders, to clear out the extremists from their own countries, their places of worship.

Here's one for Sisi to get to grips with when he returns.


Al-Aqsa Mosque Preacher Calls on Allah to Annihilate "White House Satan" Trump and the Jews
Speaking at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 21, Palestinian cleric Ali Abu Ahmad called Donald Trump "the White House Satan" and prayed to Allah to "annihilate Trump and the conspirators" and to "annihilate all the Jews." Ali Abu Ahmad called Trump's Middle East visit a "Crusader war against Islam and the Muslims," and criticized Saudi rulers for spending millions on welcoming the "head of heresy".

Jerusalem always seems to have been very extreme - and pretty inept. For reasons going back to that Nazi and Jew hater Husseini's (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) rants started to fall on fertile ground after 1945 (after the Mufti returned from his years as guest of Hitler and leader of Hitler’s Muslim SSWaffen). I think its true that al asqar and the grand muftiship are hereditary (or were) positions going to aristocratic families who represent no-one. He fails to mention that the UN agency that has kept the Palestinians going since 1947 is substantially funded, in accumulated billions, by the US. Maybe he should tell the Palestinians to cut their lifeline from the Great Satan/infidel/Crusader. The US gave (nearly $US500 million) 7 times the amount of the Emirates in 2012 when Saudi gave nothing. USAID also gives money direct to the Palestine government. Maybe the sheik could give a sermon on how the Palestinian elites, of which he is no doubt a member, have stolen much of that aid from their benighted people over 3 generations. Not only a ranter but a hypocrite.

The Muslims closest to the Jews have different views to their Muslim leaders. The regular surveys of Palestinians in Israel consistently say, by a large margin, that, given a choice between living in a Palestinian State or in Israel, they would choose the latter. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4119 ... nian-state a less biased source from 2013 is https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... n-Poll.pdf but which doesn’t take account of recent events which might have led Palestinians to fear the chaos in Muslim governed countries and look even more favorably on continuing Israeli citizenship. To be clear on this - the Palestinians in Israel prefer to live as a minority in a Jewish state, under Jewish political leadership engaged in war with Muslim countries rather than in a 'free' Palestine.

Palestine will not allow a similar independent survey of their own people. It wouldn't be the first time in the region that leaders and their people held vastly different views on fundamental issues. Also not the first time leaders have used Jew hating to hide their own crimes and failures.

For some, if the Jews and the US didn't exist- they would need to be invented.

I'm reminded of the diary entries of the various UK delegations to Palestine in the 30's and 40's to settle the matter. In all cases they found the Palestinian leadership arrogant, stupid and rabidly unreasonable. Many concluded, in private, that such people, who treated women, servants and animals so harshly, and were so indolent didn't deserve much leniency - whatever the undoubted justice of their cause. The desert Bedouin of the Hegaz by contrast were political sophisticates compared with these educated idiots. Those Bedouin got what they wanted. Saudi (lost in a subsequent civil war), Jordan (kept) and Syria and Iraq (both subsequently lost through stupidity). Seven generations of Jerusalem leadership has achieved little for their people.

Dusak. The reforms under the young Deputy Crown Prince are breathtaking in scope and imagination. The execution is bound to be flawed but the real risk is too much change too fast, leading to instability and reaction. I accept that current arrangements are bad but the plans for the future are commendable. I think you sell them short.

Not my intention of selling them short Hafiz, its just my view on a country that seems to be living in the twenty first century, but still abides by the archaic rules of the eighteenth.