WASHINGTON, D.C. The
suicide bombing of three residential compounds in Riyadh on May 21 was
the thirteenth recorded attack on Westerners in Saudi Arabia since 1995.
All but one of them occurred in Riyadh and Khobar. During my conversations
with Saudis and Americans in these two cities and elsewhere in the Kingdom,
I was consistently assured that the intense, aggressive hostility toward
non-Muslims is limited to a small minority of Islamists. They accuse
the ruling princes of allowing the American government to impose its
wishes upon the Saudi people.
The Saudi rulers have been indecisive in coping with the opposing demands
they face: on the one hand, the radical Islamists, among them a few
death-defying activists; on the other hand, the pro-Western advocates
of a less restrictive way of life.
There are Muslim clerics, like Sheik Shouabi in Buraida, preaching that
"everyone who supports America against Islam is an infidel, someone
who has strayed from the path of Islam." Crown Prince Abdullah
warned the radical clergy: "It is your duty to weigh each word
before saying it, because you are responsible before God and the Muslim
nation."
When terrorist attacks occurred, the government has been quick in prosecuting
and convicting the perpetrators. All the Western compounds I saw were
guarded against intruders but could hardly be expected to be impenetrable
by assaulting trucks loaded with explosives. Bin Laden and most of his
recruits left the country years ago, but al-Qaeda retained clandestine
ties inside the Kingdom.
A growing number of politically moderate opponents of the House of Saud
are operating from abroad. Radio Al-Islah, the voice of the Movement
for Islamic Reform in Arabia, recently began broadcasting out of Europe.
Its talk shows are focusing on perceived weaknesses of the Saudi regime,
such as lack of transparency, corrupt practices, and inequalities.
Among the thousands of Saudis who have studied in America and Europe,
many are eagerly waiting for the day when the traditional social restrictions
would be reduced and women in particular would be more integrated in
public life. That, however, is not easily achieved, as long as Islamic
conservatism remains popular and strong among the clerics and the lower
classes.
The Saudi government not only walks a tight rope between the religious,
social, and political divisions in society, it also bears the heavy
burden of the widespread anger about the pressures exerted upon the
nation by the United States. Americans too easily overlook the fact
that the eastern Arabs suffered centuries of colonial occupation by
Turkey and Britain. After the Second World War, it seemed that all Arabs
would at long last be in control of their own destiny, but the United
States injected itself into the Middle East with two dominant interests:
oil and Israel.
When President Roosevelt met with King Abdelaziz in 1945, he promised
not to make a major decision on the future of Palestine without consulting
the Saudis. President Truman ignored that promise because, he explained,
he had no Arabs but many Jews among his constituents. If America's leaders
had ever tried to be even-handed peacemakers between Israelis and Arabs,
the Holy Land could have been spared half a century of bloodshed and
misery. This is the point that virtually all Arabs will make when you
ask them for the root cause of the troubles facing America in the Middle
East.
The Saudis are used to hearing an incessant barrage of American criticism
of their society and their policies. When the Crown Prince made a constructive
proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, however, Washington
ignored it. Saudis do not understand why President Bush condones the
killing of Palestinians and calls Sharon "a man of peace,"
why Israelis have "a right to defend themselves" but Palestinians
do not, and why Israel's weapons of mass destruction do not constitute
a threat to its neighbors.
If the patently unfair and biased attitude toward Arabs and much of
the Islamic world does not change at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue,
it is difficult to envision an end to terrorism against both America
and its friends in the region.