Saudi Arabia Gets Its First Real Government
MBS is remaking the family business into a functioning country.
by Daniel P. Goldman
November 11, 2017
A couple of years ago I attended seminars with Chinese and Israeli counterterrorism experts in Beijing, in my capacity as a board member of a foundation that promotes Sino-Israel relations.
A senior Chinese official complained that the Saudi royal family funds every radical madrassa in Xinjiang province, where Muslim Uyghurs of Turkish ethnicity form the majority. With a long and porous border stretching through sparsely-populated lands, Chinese security couldn’t prevent the funds from pouring in.
I asked our Chinese hosts why they didn’t remonstrate with the Saudi government. The Chinese official said:
"We talk to the Saudis all the time, and they say they will have nothing to do with it. But this is not a government. It is a family! Some crazy cousin is always sending money to terrorists through informal finance channels.”
Now it appears that Saudi Arabia has a government, thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s weekend purge of the royal family…
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