Ismael’s Jambia, photo Phil Hall
by Phil Hall
The Saudi monarchy, historically propped up by Western powers since its inception—first by the UK and later under U.S. influence—has long balanced between asserting autonomy and reliance on its imperial sponsors. Today, Saudi Arabia aspires to lead the Arab nations and be more independent, but this is made more difficult because of Saudi Arabia’s deep economic and strategic dependencies on Western markets, arms, and security partnerships.
Demographically and geopolitically, Saudi Arabia is at a disadvantage when facing Iran across the Persian / Arabian Gulf. Saudi Arabia has a population under 30 million, and Iran is also an oil rich nation, but with a population of 90 million and greater resource diversity.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are still reliant on Western backing to counterbalance Tehran. The Sunni-Shia divide, however, is exaggerated and manipulated, with Western intelligence agencies exploiting such divisions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) exemplifies this paradox: though he champions nationalist and anti-imperialist rhetoric appealing to the Global South, his vision is constrained by Saudi Arabia’s deep ties to Western corporate and political interests.
Ultimately, the Saudi government’s survival still hinges on the support of its Western patrons, who originally installed the royal family and continue to sustain it in power, ensuring Riyadh’s alignment with broader the broader corporate imperialist strategies of the Anglosphere.
King Faisal is considered by Saudis—and by many others—to have been the greatest Saudi of the 20th century and a hero of the developing world. He paid for his heroism dearly with his life. The whole Arab world believes the USA had King Faisal assassinated for his temerity. He was assassinated by his nephew, rumoured to have been sent from the USA to kill him.
But what did Faisal do to deserve—it is often alleged—assassination by the CIA? He ‘tricked’ the USA out of Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth, which the USA had owned until then.
Faisal was also a great advocate for the Palestinian people and took strong, forceful steps to encourage the USA to stop supporting Israel against the Palestinians. He was outraged by the Nakba, expressing his outrage in a famous speech. He supported the PLO led by Yasser Arafat as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, albeit with reservations.
The reason for the oil embargo in 1973 was twofold: to punish the USA for its support for Israel and recoup the money the Saudi government had spent on purchasing shares in Aramco. It was a double punch.
“In 1973, following US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, the Saudi Arabian government acquired a 25% ‘participation interest’ in Aramco’s assets. It increased its participation interest to 60% in 1974 and acquired the remaining 40% interest in 1976” (Wikipedia, “Aramco,” 2023).
Faisal succeeded in recouping the loss from the initial high price the USA charged for the 25% easily because the price of oil multiplied. However, he did not succeed in forcing the USA to back off from its support for Israel.
The conspiracy theory posits that US government agencies (unafraid and ruthless enough to use Oswald in a twisted plot to assassinate their own president, like the mafiosi they were) did not hesitate to eliminate King Faisal. He had to be seen to suffer the consequences of his actions. The US metropolis of global capitalism was sending a warning to all Gulf monarchs and Middle Eastern presidents.
King Faisal paid the highest price for his nationalism and resistance and his solidarity with the Palestinian cause! It is thought that US intelligence services manipulated Faisal’s nephew, and sent him marching off like a Manchurian Candidate to kill his uncle.
One must consider that Adnan Khashoggi was in the pocket of the USA, an American asset. Jamal Khashoggi, his relative, was also very pro-American. It is possible Jamal Khashoggi acted on behalf of the USA in criticising the attempts of Mohammed bin Salman to reign in corruption. Khashoggi was a legal permanent resident of the USA. When Khashoggi was horribly killed, this may have been a message sent from the Saudi ruling class to the USA, particularly after the provocative and disrespectful comments made about Mohammed bin Salman in Washington. The murder might have been a riposte to US attempts to undermine bin Salman and have him replaced with a stooge.
The USA wanted MBS replaced to forestall his anti-corruption campaigns. Corruption is central to how US corporate and state interests exert influence in Saudi Arabia and globally. The Saudi corrupt are useful to their US counterparts; without corruption, the US loses leverage.
Interestingly, King Faisal’s son, Turki Al Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, former head of Saudi intelligence, criticised the US government for hypocrisy in singling out Mohammed bin Salman over Khashoggi’s assassination. The account between the US and Saudi elites remains unsettled—it is a family matter. On the chessboard Khashoggi was a merely a rook.
Faisal was neither a secular reformer (though he advocated for women’s education) nor a socialist nor a Pan-Arabist. He was a traditional Bedouin king who rose through rivalry with his less effectual brother, securing family support while his brother was exiled.
Faisal was not a Pan-Islamist either. The Wahhabi projection of power is one element of Saudi statecraft. Similarly, Saudi aid to poorer Muslim countries like Somalia, though religiously tinged, aligns with foreign policy.
In contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood is inspired both by Islamic and fascist ideas. It was founded in 1928 by Hasan Al-Banna and five other Egyptians and made even more extreme by the ideas and influence of Sayyid Qutb with his ideas about ”World Jewry”. The Muslim Brotherhood borrowed tropes from German and Italian fascism, and accept without question the antisemitic theories of the German National Socialists about International Jewish conspiracies. The Brotherhood’s Islam blends religion with fascism, and is rooted in Egypt’s lumpenproletariat and disgruntled lower middle class.
This repellent fusion of Islam and fascism is inherently antisemitic. Many Muslim Brotherhood members admire Hitler and sympathise with his genocidal ideology. Hamas’s political Islam, however, differs: it is a desperate response to oppression. While some Hamas ideas are fascistic, supporting Hamas does not equate to endorsing fascism. Israel conflates Hamas with the Brotherhood to legitimise its occupation of Gaza and its starvation and mass murder of civilians.
The Saudi regime employed Egyptian Muslim Brothers to aid development, particularly in education. These Brothers hoped Wahhabi fundamentalism would align with their Pan-Islamist aspirations, but instead they were exploited by the Saudi state.
Egyptian teachers who were members of the Muslim Brotherhood stoked Islamist extremism in Saudi schools. 9/11 partly, was a result of this: an Egyptian extremist led Saudi attackers. Egyptian Islamists allied with disgruntled Wahhabis, undermine Saudi nation-building. The Brotherhood’s Islam, seen as destabilising, diverges from Saudi Arabia’s traditional, state-reinforcing Islam.
Therefore, if Saudis support Hamas, they inadvertently endorse the Brotherhood—a banned destabilising force. Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, banned the Brotherhood after the Arab Spring and Morsi’s removal from power in 2013. For the Saudis, supporting Hamas in Palestine would be self-harm; Gulf states may back aid and ceasefire efforts, but they will never support Hamas itself. Hamas is an obstacle to Pan Arab solidarity with the Palestinians.
When Faisal advocated for Palestinians, he supported the secular Fatah movement. The USA and Israel sabotaged Fatah by backing Hamas, knowing Gulf monarchies would never support Islamist extremism.
Mohammed bin Salman’s qualified support for Palestinians will not mirror Faisal’s PLO stance. To redeem itself, Saudi Arabia may fund postwar reconstruction and pressure the USA diplomatically, leveraging BRICS.
No oil embargo will occur. First, past embargos failed. Second, it would legitimise Hamas and Pan-Islamism. Third, MBS prioritises nation-building, which an embargo would hinder.
Progressive forces once hoped Western-installed Gulf satrapies would become independent nation-states driving regional development. At a recent Arab summit, Mohammed bin Salman declared, “We will be the new Europe in 30 years,” while avoiding explicit support for Palestinian resistance.
Phil Hall was born into an ANC family in South Africa. The family was forced into exile in 1963 after his mother was imprisoned and his father banned. They relocated to East Africa, where his parents continued their activism and journalism. In 1975, after a period living in India, they journeyed overland back to the UK, eventually settling in Brighton.
Phil pursued a broad education, studying Russian, Spanish, politics, economics, literature, linguistics, and English grammar and phonology. His path led him to live and study in Spain, the USSR (in Ukraine), and later in Mexico, where he married and started a family. Over the next decade, Phil and his partner balanced activism with work before relocating to the UK—a move initially intended to be permanent.
However, professional opportunities took him to Saudi Arabia and then the UAE, where he spent ten years before returning to the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in Britain, he founded Ars Notoria Magazine and, alongside fellow humane socialist Paul Halas, launched AN Editions, a small venture dedicated to publishing thoughtful, progressive and exciting new books.
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