Enter in peace and exit in pieces!

Social media is abuzz with the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage There were many missives but what gripped my attention was a couple of witty but incisive WhatsApp messages. The first one reads as follows:

A Saudi asked his wife to let him marry a second wife,

“But I have one condition” said his wife;

The man jumped with joy and said: “Tell me, tell me please, I agree with your every condition.”

The wife answered: “You will have to make the Nikah paper in Turkish Saudi consulate, and I will be waiting for you outside the embassy.”

The second one was brief but razor sharp.  With its traditional sword and date tree logo behind Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, it says: “Come in peace and leave in pieces.”

The above subtle messages convey and pre-warn that the Saudi regime will not tolerate and physically liquidate any dissidents and human rights advocates if they dare to go against its tyrannical ruler. Like Israel’s deadly Mossad, Saudi regime’s notorious “hit squad,” no matter what country its dissidents reside, will reach out to carry its ruthless mission with military precision without leaving any trace or evidence.

A case in point is how Jamal Khashoggi, a high-profile critic of de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, was trapped inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey and dismembered by a 15-member Saudi hit squad which arrived from Riyadh and departed a few hours after his death. His brutal murder has generated international outrage.

What heinous crime did Jamal Khashoggi commit against the Saudi regime to warrant such a horrendous punishment? What kind of a sinister person is he who ordered to chop and dismember Jamal Khashoggi’s body into pieces? If it isn’t a premeditated murder of the highest degree, then what is it?

Jamal Khashoggi is not an ordinary journalist. An eminent journalist and editor for 30 years, he hails from a wealthy family and nephew of Adnan Khashoggi, the world’s richest arms dealer who was instrumental in procuring a fleet of F15 multirole fighter jets to Saudi and closely related to Harrods and Ritz Carlton famous Al Fayed family. Besides, Jamal Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist.

Ever since Mohammad Bin Salman became Saudi Crown Prince in June 2017, a reign of terror was unleashed in Saudi Kingdom. Under the guise of Kingdom’s “prejudicial of public order and to stir up sedition in the kingdom,” more than 400 people, including 11 founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, journalists, clerics and even businessmen are languishing in Saudi jails. Thus, gagging, imprisoning, kidnapping and even killing become order of the day. “The greater the power,” wrote Edmund Burke, “the more dangerous the abuse”.

MBS is an ace manipulator and he has artfully sealed Donald Trump’s loquacious lips by giving more than $100 billion worth of arms deals to US military contractors. Moreover, MBS conducts all the wheeling and dealing through Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, a key adviser on the Middle East. In addition, Saudi regime liberally donates to American think-tanks and hires influential lobbyists like Marc Lampkin from public relations firms to prop up its image.

United Kingdom is another western power which has sold its soul to Saudi regime for petro-dollars. The British government which pontificates about human rights and dignity world-wide has licensed over five billion-pound sterling worth of arms exports to Saudi. Saudi investment over the next decade is estimated around 65 billion-pound sterling. The House of Saud spends hundreds of thousands on British MPS on foreign trips a as well as bankroll the Oxford University.

Salman’s foreign policy is a total disaster. The three-year bloody war between Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has pushed already the impoverished country to the brink of widespread famine. It is estimated that over 10 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation and nearly one million people are suffering from cholera. Over the past three years Saudi military has killed more than 13,500 lives – many of them in airstrikes. The Saudi-led coalition has admitted an air attack in August that killed dozens of children travelling on a bus.

Since the creation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, till to date, the religion of Islam has been craftily and brazenly exploited by the House of Saud ruling the kingdom with iron-fist autocracy. Also, the House of Saud pompously brag that, the King of Saudi Arabia is the Custodian of The Holy Makkah and Medina and that it strictly adheres to the noble religion of Islam. 

Fundamentally, killing is anathema in Islam and the religion has g given so much importance to human beings that it regards the killing of a single person is like killing the entire humanity. The Holy Quran, states: “Whoever kills a person, it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind” (Quran, 5:32). Moreover, Islam has taught its followers to treat all mankind with mercy, tolerance and justice.

Waging a genocidal war and starving the people in Yemen is totally contrary to the Islamic tenets. So, does the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi. It appears that, the House of Saud is endowed with hindsight without being blessed with foresight!

It is akin to case of woodpecker and the banana tree. Generally, the woodpecker always like to peck the tree trunks but when it happens to peck a banana tree, its pointed beak will get struck and will find hard to remove. Similarly, this time, the House of Saud cannot pull the wool over someone’s eyes, and easily get away and go scot free, as Turkish authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate.

With due apology to Shakespeare, it is befitting to paraphrase the bard’s immortal lines (Macbeth): “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten the blood-stained hand of Mohammed Bin Salman.”