Lebanon: CHANGING REACTION

Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27

At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.

Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”

Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.

The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.

“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.

American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.

Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.

An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.

After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.

“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel
oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an interview. “I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!’ ”
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.

“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,” she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.

In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.

A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.

Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.

Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.

Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.

“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine.”

Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.

But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.

Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.

“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said. “In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.

Lebanon Crisis

Lebanon: Saudis and the Old Arab World
Arabnews, The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily, 26.07.2006

By Adel Al Toraifi
altoraifi@alriyadh.com

Recent events in Lebanon have brought up a number of questions regarding the real target of the Israeli military operations taking place there. Israel has crossed all red lines in a shameless invasion of Lebanon. They took aggressive action against unarmed civilians, alleging that was the only way to get to Hezbollah. Hezbollah, on the other hand, gave reasons for initiating the crisis. Its members claimed that their operation was to release the prisoners of Hezbollah and other detained Arabs. Both parties have advanced spurious reasons to justify their actions.

In short, the war is an indirect Iranian-Israeli battle on an alternative battlefield - Lebanon. The Iranians and the Israelis realize this too. We are face to face with an Israeli-Persian conflict for power and authority at the expense of the region's peace. It's a battle for hegemony that both sides are engaged in and one of its aims is to isolate two major countries: Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The missiles that are being used to shell Lebanon were released by orders from Tehran and Syria. Hezbollah didn't initiate this operation to release the Palestinian or Lebanese prisoners or with the motive of undoing the blockade around Gaza or to solve the dispute over Lebanon's Shaba farms. There are other parties involved with Iran that approve of Hezbollah's ideologies and dynamics. For instance, Shiite parties in Iraq are isolating and eradicating their Sunni brothers. Hamas is allied with Hezbollah because the former held obsequies and memorial gatherings to lament the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

The Iranians have rejected the proposals from the international community seeking to stop its nuclear weapons project. When the issue was brought to the Security Council, Iran asked for an extension until next August. The time exte nsion had already been planned so as to set off a new conflict that would lift the burden from their shoulders.

Jordan's King Abdallah noted previously that there was an Iranian attempt to foist a political Shiite strategy on the region. The Iranians have a vision of controlling 140 million Shiites in the region. They believe that their government and authority should hold sway over more than one country. There is no better proof of this than Hezbollah flags and Hassan Nasrallah's pictures that have been used in protests by some Shiites in Bahrain and Kuwait. Iran is trying to say that it holds the key to solving the crisis and that whoever thinks of participating in solving problems must go to Tehran, not to Riyadh, Cairo or any Arab capital. Iran has conditions and plans for the region that would make it stronger than their Arab neighbors.

Only Saudi Arabia realizes this and rejects such plans in every possible diplomatic way. Saudi Arabia has tried many time s to convince Tehran to give up its inclinations that disrupt the balance of power in the region and neutralize opportunities for peaceful cooperation and existence.

King Abdullah has expressed his dissatisfaction on many occasions over Tehran's efforts at the "not peaceful" nuclear program. Up to now, the Saudis have never refused an invitation to Tehran. They have made it clear on many occasions that they are willing to cooperate and support a regional partnership. Saudi Arabia will, however, never accept the idea of dragging the region into a conflict that innocent Lebanese pay for in order to enhance the Iranian position.

Iran must realize that Saudi Arabia and no other country began a diplomatic campaign through Prince Bandar ibn Sultan - secretary-general of the National Security Council - to convince Washington not to proceed with its plans to attack Iran. In fact, Saudi Arabia reached the limit by building an international agreement with Russia and Euro pean countries to prevent a fatal confrontation with Iran. Iran must think seriously of the consequences of this crisis and its impact on its relations with neighboring countries. For a start, Iran can pressure Hezbollah to cease taking these risks.

As for Hassan Nasrallah, he is upset by the Saudi position. In his recent speeches he sounds like Osama Bin Laden, reflecting his fears of the Saudi position0 that is totally aware of the tragic results of these events. Hassan Nasrallah reminds Saudi Arabia of Israeli "cluster bombs" in 1996. He claims that was a victory despite the Saudis' disapproval of his operations. But what Nasrallah doesn't want to admit or say is that if it weren't for the Saudis and the French, Lebanon would have never been able to overcome that problem.

Rafik Al-Hariri, who designed the plans for the country, was supported by Riyadh and not Tehran. Nasrallah says, "What has been demolished, friends will help reconstruct using pure virtuous money." In fact, this is not a ploy that he can use against Saudi Arabia in his speeches. Saudis along with some Gulf countries and international and European loans rebuilt Lebanon. Saudi Arabia provided the largest loans of any country in the region; I do not say this begrudgingly but as a way of saying that Saudi Arabia did its duty when others in the region did not.
We are sick and tired of all the accusations against Saudi Arabia that come along with every crisis. Saudi Arabia can take part in all efforts aimed at stopping the suffering of Arabs and in settling the Arab problems.

Arabs of the old world are now free to choose between renewing their cooperation on an international legal basis relying on real facts and political logic, or they can become involved in a Western-Persian Cold War.

- Adel Al-Toraifi is a Saudi writer. He is based in Riyadh

Copyright:Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.

Hizbullah winning over Arab street

Hizbullah winning over Arab street
By Dan Murphy and Sameh NaGuib
Tue Jul 18



With Israel's confrontation with Hizbullah and Lebanon lurching closer to all-out war, winds of anger are blowing through the Middle East that are likely to strengthen the political hand of radical Islamists from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

Since the fighting began, at least 24 Israelis, 12 of them civilians, have been killed and at least 175 Lebanese, nearly all civilians. In recent weeks, about 200 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in a separate showdown between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group who won power in elections earlier this year.

The confrontation – coupled with the rising civilian toll – also poses a serious threat to US interests in the region.

Islamists who are hostile to Israel and the US – and to their Arab allies who have criticized Hizbullah – are shoring up support, increasing the chances they will seize power if the elections President Bush has urged for the region take place.

Iran is making new friends, as is Syria. And if history is a guide, a new wave of outrage could bring new recruits to terrorist groups, much as Israel's occupation of parts of Lebanon in 1982 fueled the rise of Hizbullah.

Last Friday, Mr. Bush called Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – America's closest Arab allies – and urged them to help defuse the crisis. Those calls, and the attitudes of those countries' people, served to emphasize the ways in which this crisis could hurt Israeli and American interests far beyond Lebanon and the Palestine territories.

Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak responded with a joint statement condemning Hizbullah for "adventurism that does not serve Arab interests." Soon after, a Saudi spokesman also blamed Hizbullah "adventurism" as "exposing Arab nations ... to grave dangers without these nations having a say in the matter."

But countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have little influence over the militant Shiite group and its backers Iran and Syria, so their statements may be of little practical value. Instead, their comments emphasize the widening gap between these regimes and their people.

"These events put pressure on Arab governments to take action, and they haven't," says Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington. "Shouldn't they be recalling their ambassadors? That's what the people on the street would be thinking."

That gap, fed by support for Palestinians, hatred of Israel, and anger at its close alliance with America, is already being exploited by the region's Islamist movements, turning TV images of dead civilians into political opposition to their own regimes. In particular, the peace deals signed by Egypt and Jordan with Israel make these governments less popular with their people.

"The Arab leaders are traitors who work for the Americans and the Israelis.... [Hizbullah leader] Hassan Nasrallah represents Arab and Islamic dignity," says Ahmed, an Egyptian mechanic who asked that his full name not be used.

"The regime claimed that peace with Israel would create prosperity and jobs. But we have been at peace for over 20 years and have not seen any prosperity. We can't watch our Palestinian and Lebanese and Iraqi brothers be slaughtered every day and do nothing."

In Saudi, too, the regime's position isn't shared by its public. "I don't think the Saudi government's statement is in tune with how most Saudis feel about the Lebanese situation," says Bassem Alim, an activist lawyer based in Jeddah, and frequent government critic.

"The way they said it was extremely damaging to their reputation in the Islamic world."

Anger at Saudi Arabia's close relationship with the US, and by association Israel, has long generated support for Al Qaeda among many Saudis, so the government has taken a risk by speaking in a manner that jihadists view as supporting Israel.

But he and other analysts say that Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia's history of animosity with Shiite Iran, which sought to challenge the Saudi monarchy's position of leadership among world Muslims after its Islamic revolution, has left the regime more nervous about Iran's nuclear program than about flareups of terrorism that, while dramatic, have never challenged the regime.

"The Saudis are trying to make sure that the United Nations and the Security Council will be involved in the region as a way of controlling Iran,'' says Saudi political analyst Adel al-Toraifi.

The escalating confrontation between Israel and Lebanon is also helping Syria and Iran gain influence and prestige among Arab populations for their strong support of Hizbullah and Hamas.

"Iran will certainly benefit from Hizbullah strikes in some ways,'' wrote Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington. "They distract from its nuclear activities. They show the Arab and Muslim world that Iran is a government willing to strike at the Israeli enemy... [and] Israel's reprisals build Arab and Muslim anger against the US."

Meanwhile, Hizbullah, with its status as the most organized force in the region willing to oppose Israel, is likely to deepen its support among Lebanon's Shiite community and at the same time exacerbate the sectarian tension in the country that fed its 16-year civil war, which ended in 1990. In Egypt thousands have protested what they're terming "Israeli aggression."

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's strongest and most popular opposition movement, stated its strong support for Hizbullah and Hamas and condemned Arab governments for passive support of Israel. Hamas is an informal offshoot of the Brotherhood.

"The position of the Arab regimes has ... [become] one of silence toward Israeli crimes and probable collusion of some regimes with the enemy," Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef said last week about the fighting in Lebanon.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Monday, he lashed out at Arab leaders again, and then went further, comparing Israel with Nazi Germany and praising Hizbullah. "The Lebanese who kidnapped the Zionist soldiers are true nationalists led by a great man. These regimes continue to serve foreign interests completely ignoring and repressing the demands and hopes of their people," he said.

In Jordan, a protest of a few hundred citizens over Israel's strikes into Lebanon Saturday also focused on the restrictions on political organization and speech inside the country. Many Jordanians say the repressions of their own regime are tolerated by the US in exchange for Jordan's peace deal with Israel.

And as the crisis has spiraled, even Arab leaders close to the US and Israel, have warned of the potential for blowback. "Israel will not emerge as a victor in this war. It will only create more enemies," Egyptian President Mubarak said Monday. "The war will only inflame Arab animosity toward Israel (and) many anti-Israel extremist forces will surface."

On Monday, at least 17 Lebanese were killed in Israeli bombings, and the Israeli military confirmed a raid into Lebanese territory the previous day. Eight of the dead were Lebanese soldiers. Hizbullah responded with another volley of rockets at Haifa, which exploded without causing casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Israel would pursue its offensive against Hizbullah until two captured soldiers were returned and Lebanese Army troops controlled all of southern Lebanon.

The fighting led to calls from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the insertion of an international peacekeeping force into southern Lebanon, though that's an option that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert staunchly opposes.

Whether Syria or Iran has the ability to force Hizbullah leader Nasrallah to release two Israeli soldiers his forces kidnapped a week ago, precipitating the crisis, is unclear. Nasrallah, a fiery Shiite cleric, has vowed to release the soldiers only in exchange for three Lebanese and a much larger group of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Note: Rasheed Abou-Alsamh from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and wires contributed to this report

A Saudi rebel prince has vision for reform

Talal hopes long-held liberal ideals take hold on kingdom
By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post
May 14, 2006

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The coffee was served, then the dates. And at that, Prince Talal, the son of Saudi Arabia's founder and long the ruling family's bete noire, smiled wryly. "This is what we used to live on," he said, "dates and camel's milk."

It was his way of saying: To look ahead, sometimes we need to look back.

Talal is 75 now, still tall and formidable, with a glimmer of defiance as he smoked a cigarette, cautiously doled out by an aide. But humbled by back pain, he is a shadow of the man once known as Saudi Arabia's "Red Prince." The color represented his politics, a leftist bent that as a young man turned him against the ruling Saud family, shook the kingdom and led him into exile in Lebanon and Egypt.

His voice is softer these days, mellowed perhaps by failure, but the words about his family remain remarkably the same.

"Here, the family is the master and the ruler," he said of his brothers and cousins, as he sat at Fakhariya Palace. "This style can't continue the same way. There has to be change in the nature of authority, if things are going to change in the kingdom itself."

Talal is many things: for 50 years, the most liberal figure in a family that remains the most conservative and traditional of the Persian Gulf's monarchies and tribal dynasties; a philanthropist who brings a ruthlessness to business that he once saved for politics; a glimmer of light for the kingdom's liberals, many of whom acknowledge that change here will probably only come under the auspices of religion and its modernization, not through the secular talk of civil society and individual rights.

Perhaps most compelling, though, is that Talal takes a debate about democratic reform in the Arab world, defined lately by the Bush administration, and illustrates a broader, more enduring context, one that speaks to experience rather than promise. His calls for change are little different than in the 1950s and '60s, when he was dismissed as a communist sympathizer; he remains a critic of U.S. policy, citing Iraq's trauma as the latest example. To Talal, the battle itself is not new, only the players. And in his words are a sense of vindication for ideas he believes are no less crucial today.

"The world has changed, not me," he said. "History has proved the rightness of what I was talking about."

"Some of the members of the family were against those ideas," he added. "Now they're talking about them."

On politics, women, reform
These days, Talal advocates a constitution that would bind an absolute monarchy by law, "a social contract between the ruler and those who are ruled." The parliament, now an appointed, relatively toothless body known as the Consultative Council, would be at least partially elected, with the right to oversee the budget, monitor the government and question ministers, he said.

Women? "Right now, we have more than 2 million female students," he said, shaking his head. "When they graduate, where are they going to go? Either you close the schools and leave them to illiteracy or you grant them an opportunity to work."

He laughed. "Can you imagine, can anyone imagine, that women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia?" he said.

His list went on: Progress is impeded by "the opposition of religious extremists." The religious establishment, long the allies of his family, should stand aside as the country forges a division of power -- judicial, executive and legislative. Along the way, the kingdom, he said, must determine the mechanism of passing the monarchy from the aging sons of the country's founder to their grandsons before simmering rivalries between the branches of the House of Saud flare into the open.

"The goal remains the same," he said, "the participation of people in forming opinions and making decisions."

The same words, a different era: "Now we're freed from the notion of the Red Prince, the name the Americans gave me."

Talal was reputed to be the favorite son of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, the desert warrior who fielded a puritanical army in his conquest of much of the Arabian Peninsula between 1902 and 1925. He became in king in 1932, eventually siring Talal and 35 other recognized heirs, the descendants of an array of marriages that cemented his connections with the country's fractious tribes. Talal's mother was a servant -- some say of Circassian origins, others say Armenian -- who, it is said, eventually became his favorite wife.

Talal was among the savvier of the children, spending time in Beirut, where he married Mona al-Solh, the daughter of Lebanon's first post-independence prime minister. (One of their children, Walid bin Talal, is a billionaire Saudi investor.) For Talal, Lebanon was an introduction to pan-Arab aspirations, espoused by the leading Solh family, and was a taste of the emerging cosmopolitanism of Beirut.


Finding his place
The years after the king's death in 1953 were unsettled. Power was inherited by his eldest son, Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, a spendthrift more adept at showering largesse on the tribes than administering the country. His brothers soon contested his rule, and Talal navigated the rivalries for influence. Early on, the present Saudi king, Abdullah, was an ally, and in time as a minister, Talal began pushing for reform -- a constitution, elections, a parliament and free press. Together, he and his allies became known as the "Free Princes," a name taken from the Free Officers that overthrew Egypt's monarchy in 1952 and were eventually led by Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

He admits now to moving too fast.

"We were too young," he said. "We wanted 100 percent, but if we took 50, even 60 percent, we would have been blessed."

King Saud rejected the idea of a constitution, and Talal bitterly criticized the decision in statements to Egyptian and Lebanese newspapers. When Talal went for vacation in Beirut in 1961, the king moved against him, declaring him persona non grata.

He recalled the confrontation at the Saudi Embassy in Beirut as the ambassador asked him and his brothers to turn over their travel documents: "I said, 'Why?' He said, 'I don't have reasons, it's the order of King Saud.' I said, 'If the passport is the property of Saud, go ahead. If the passport is the property of the kingdom, then I have every right to keep it.' And I gave him the passport."

Against his better judgment, Talal and four brothers sought help in 1962 from Nasser, who had electrified a generation with promises of Arab unity, the liberation of Palestine and denunciations of regimes he deemed regressive, Saudi Arabia among them. Unlike most of the Saudi royal family, Talal was enamored with the Egyptian president -- he feels the same today, he said -- but he feared being exploited.

"I said to Nasser, we came here just for the passports because we want to go to Lebanon. I didn't want to stay with him. I knew his policy. I knew his way of thinking," Talal said. "He told me, 'I'll give you 500 passports.' "

The passports didn't come for two months. In the meantime, Talal spoke on the Voice of the Arabs, a Cairo-based radio station that often carried Nasser's stentorian voice. The speeches -- denouncing Saudi Arabia's rulers and calling for democratic reform -- solidified his reputation as the Red Prince. It would be another two years before he returned to Saudi Arabia.

Mistrust of U.S.
For years, Talal remained silent, amassing a fortune and running a philanthropy. But in past years, he has begun pressing the issue of reform again, often from Fakhariya Palace. To him, the family can bring about change by redefining its role.

"In the 21st century, the king should be the guardian of the law, but the laws and legislation should come from the people, and the people should elect the members of the parliament," Talal said, sitting next to a rendering of the family tree.

He retains his suspicion of U.S. intentions. He traveled last week to Egypt, speaking at the American University of Cairo. He was relaxed, in a crisp, dark suit and maroon tie. At one point, he urged women in the audience to ask questions. As he did 45 years ago, he tried to distance his country's needs for reform from U.S. policy in the region.

"Does America want direct and transparent elections that allow the people to make their own decisions in choosing who will be in power?" Talal said, in reference to the success of Islamic activists in recent elections in Egypt and the Palestinian territories. "Or are we tailoring elections to the United States that serve American interests?"

In the mercurial politics of the House of Saud, Talal's role is debated. He is a member of the family council, a body of 18 influential members drawn from Abdul Aziz's sons and grandsons and other branches of the family. Some say he has the ear of Abdullah, and his son, Prince Turki, says he talks to the king weekly. That gives the country's small coterie of liberals hope.

"It's going in his direction. He was just 40 years too early," said Beshr Bekheet, an economist and candidate in last year's municipal elections.

Others discount any special influence, and in private, some princes are especially venomous about Talal's past. As a liberal in a country where the monarchy claims authority through religious legitimization, Talal remains a maverick.

"Even a cleric -- an outspoken but a minor one -- would command more attention from the government than he would," said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi writer and newspaper columnist.

Talal, a little hard of hearing, doesn't claim influence. To describe the king these days, he quoted a description of a U.S. president before and after he took power. "He was simple before he was president. But as president, he's become a peacock."

At the end of his story, Talal posed for a picture. He decided to don his traditional white headdress, reluctantly. Tradition still doesn't sit well.

"I hate to wear this," he said.

Special correspondent Lindsay Wise in Cairo contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

CPJ Special Report, Saudi Arabia May 2006

Al-Watan columnist Adel al-Toraifi witnessed the change overnight. A day before the bombings, al-Toraifi’s editor had spiked a prescient column warning of the threat from religious fanatics who operate openly in the kingdom. Headlined “To Prevent a Saudi Manhattan,” it discussed the looming terrorist threat in Saudi Arabia and said that religious sheikhs were inflaming tensions and promoting extreme interpretations of Islam. The article ended up running prominently on Al-Watan’s opinion page two days after the bombings. “My editor knew it could be published and that I would not be punished for it,” al-Toraifi said.

In the following months, al-Toraifi and other Saudi writers served up daring columns on extremism that obliquely criticized the government for tolerating Islamist fanatics. Newspapers examined how extremists exploited the education system to indoctrinate youths. Commentators scrutinized Wahhabi restrictions on women and what they called hard-liners’ intolerance of other religions’ beliefs.

“It grew to the point where I wrote that the religious establishment continues to be an obstacle to the war on terrorism,” al-Toraifi said.

_____________________________________________________________________________________By Joel Campagna, Joel is a senior program coordinator responsible for the Middle East and North Africa at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Note: Read the complete reoprt on the CPJ web site