“Repression and intimidation are not – and never should be – the acceptable companions of reform.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I’m 60 years old, and I want to enjoy life, and I want to be free to speak for my country.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“One could imagine a day when empowered and experienced representatives of liberated areas will sit with the regime’s representatives and work to negotiate to reunify a more democratic Syria.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The death of Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh shows that Saudi Arabia is paying for its betrayal of the Arab spring in Yemen in 2011.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Osama bin Laden’s hijacked planes not only attacked the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They also attacked Islam as a faith. They attacked the values of tolerance and coexistence that Islam preaches.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“We should not need to be reminded of the value of human life.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The impulsivity of M. B. S. has been a consistent theme – from the war in Yemen to the wave of arrests of constructive critics, royals, and senior officials accused of corruption.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I often get attacked in Saudi Arabia, but the critics don’t ridicule my ideas. There were about 30 or 40 articles attacking me in the Saudi press. Not a single one debated something I wrote. They just ridiculed me as a person. They see me as a traitor who is writing in the foreign press. But discuss what I am writing? They will not.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I just want to be a free writer. I think I am serving my country and my people by providing an independent narrative.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The international community should pressure Iran to get the Houthis to agree to some peaceful understanding in Yemen. But at the same time, Saudi Arabia also needs to believe truly in democracy for Yemen.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Will Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who likely will soon become king of his country, use his power to bring peace to the world around him?”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I have left my home, my family, and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia has been successful in preventing Houthi missiles from causing substantial damage. Yet, the inability of Saudi authorities in preventing Houthi missiles from being fired in the first place serves as an embarrassing reminder that the kingdom’s leadership is unable to restrain their Iranian-backed opponent.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I expect that I will still wake up every morning and ponder the choice I have made to speak my mind about what is happening in Saudi Arabia. It is a pattern that I have grown accustomed to.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“As a Saudi journalist starting my career right after the oil boom of the 1970s, I witnessed the phenomenal growth and expansion of Saudi businesses and the pivotal role the leaders of these firms played in building the modern Saudi economy.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia needs friends. We are in a war in Yemen, in a confrontation with Iran, so we need friends like Canada, Europe.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The United States would be the only honest broker in the international effort to restore peace and justice for all Syrians.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Arab Spring is a true phenomenon. Embrace Arab Spring; embrace the aspiration for freedom of the people of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The government of Dubai, as much as it is a government, it is a corporation.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I champion a real campaign to tackle the rampant corruption that is draining Saudi resources, both financial and human.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“By facilitating a peace agreement and leading the reinvestment and reconstruction in Yemen, Saudi Arabia can turn around a failed state and bolster its standing as a global and regional leader.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Arab world was ripe with hope during the spring of 2011. Journalists, academics, and the general population were brimming with expectations of a bright and free Arab society within their respective countries.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“My publication, ‘The Post,’ has taken the initiative to translate many of my pieces and publish them in Arabic. For that, I am grateful. Arabs need to read in their own language so they can understand and discuss the various aspects and complications of democracy in the United States and the West.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia is defined and represented by its Islamic stature.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Muslims around the world deserve to see birthplace of Islam represent the ethics of Islam.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Terrorism and the refugee crisis have changed the political mood in the West and brought the extreme right to prominence there.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“There can be no political reform and democracy in any Arab country without accepting that political Islam is a part of it.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Trump administration always says it wants to correct Obama’s mistakes. It should add his mishandling of Arab democracy to its list.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Criticism of the Middle East should not be directed only at Saudi Arabia. Human rights abuses are happening throughout the Arab world.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“To bring about a permanent peace in Syria, the southern part of the country must be protected.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The United States should propose partition in Syria. Assad can keep what he controls, and the rebels can form local governments and establish a new entity.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Many Saudi clerics believe that letting women drive means they will be free to leave the house whenever they like – something that will have a liberalizing and, therefore, unwanted effect on society.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“There is nothing remarkable about having media and foreign embassy contacts. When I lived in Saudi Arabia as a journalist, this was a regular occurrence.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Many other countries in the region also have money and oil, but they haven’t done much good with it – at least not enough to stop the Middle East’s disastrous wars. Saudi Arabia at least has something else: stability, a scarce commodity in the region.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I was a teenager in the 1970s and grew up in Medina, Saudi Arabia.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I didn’t see a woman drive until I visited my sister and brother-in-law in Tempe, Ariz., in 1976.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“In the 1970s, the only places on the Arabian Peninsula where women were working outside the home or school were Kuwait and Bahrain.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Writers like me, whose criticism is offered respectfully, seem to be considered more dangerous than the more strident Saudi opposition based in London.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“If Mohammed bin Salman wants to deal properly with corruption, he must preserve two elements vital to the Saudi economy: trust in the state and the role of national companies.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Everyone knew that Saleh and the Houthis were a marriage of convenience. He was a dictator; the Houthis are ideologues who want to impose their fundamentalist vision. Neither cared for the core values of the Arab Spring – representative, accountable governance.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I knew Saleh well, having interviewed and met with him several times. He was a professional Machiavelli, fluent in all forms for political maneuvering.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“When Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen erupted in March 2015, there was widespread Saudi popular support for it – including by me.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I strongly supported the war against Houthi rebels because I saw them as the antithesis of the Arab Spring that my government, unlike me, fiercely opposed.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia has historically attempted to influence politics in Beirut.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Corruption in Saudi Arabia is quite different from corruption in most other countries, as it is not limited to a ‘bribe’ in return for a contract, or expensive gift for the family member of a government official or prince, or use of a private jet that is charged to the government so a family can go on vacation.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“In 2004, Lawrence Wright wrote in the ‘New Yorker’ about ‘The Kingdom of Silence,’ where a massive sewer project in Jeddah was really a series of manhole covers across the city with no actual pipes underneath. I, as the editor of a major paper at the time, can say that we all knew – and we never reported on it.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“When I speak of the fear, intimidation, arrests, and public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to speak their minds, and then I tell you that I’m from Saudi Arabia, are you surprised?”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“In 2003 and again in 2010, I was fired from my job as editor-in-chief of a ‘progressive’ paper, Al-Watan. During the years in between, I served as media adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Britain and then the United States.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I always found it ironic when a Saudi official bashes Islamists, given that Saudi Arabia is the mother of all political Islam – and even describes itself as an Islamic state in its ‘Higher Law.’”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I’m worried for a war to break out between Saudi Arabia and Iran, even though I rule it out.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I began to feel whatever narrow space I had in Saudi Arabia was getting narrower. I thought it would be better to get out and be safe.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I’m not an extremist. And I disagree with Saudis who are calling for regime change and stuff like that.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I really don’t like being in jail.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The core principle of Wahhabism is anti-diverse.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“That is what I want: I want a better Saudi Arabia. I don’t see myself as an opposition. I’m not calling for the overthrow of the regime, because I know it’s not possible and is too risky, and there is no one to overthrow the regime. I’m just calling for reform of the regime.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia is the mother and father of political Islam.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Saudi Arabia must return to fully supporting the Syrian revolution and to ally with the Turks.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The Iranian state sponsors radicalism.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I don’t want to be a dissident. But in the same time, I don’t want to go back home and be silent again.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“We are not a failed Arab republic, so we should not fear Arab Spring. We should embrace Arab Spring. That’s what I hope Saudi Arabia will do.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The expectation that ‘Trump as president’ will be starkly different from ‘Trump as candidate’ is a false hope at best.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“The condition that the Taliban part with al Qaeda is not just a condition, it is an objective. We must convince them that al Qaeda ideology and dogma will not help them.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I would like to see evolution in my country, not revolution. It is much better for us to work together with the government to transform Saudi Arabia for the future.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“It is good that the Canadians are raising the flag among Western countries to raise the issue of human rights abuse throughout the Middle East.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“More attention should be given to the Arab world and the human rights abuse that is taking place every day in many countries in the Arab world.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“Sometimes, I myself, even though I’m in Washington, I go quiet because there is so much intimidation around me.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“I don’t want anything to affect my freedom, and we don’t want Saudi Arabia to be another Iran.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“To destroy the Islamic State, you have to fix Syria. You have to look at the reasons that created the Islamic State. This is a huge task.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“It should be a known fact that the Arabs never had a problem with anti-Semitism, but we need to state that over and over again.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“There are many signs that the Egyptians are prioritising their relations with the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, over their relations with Iran.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
“In the event of war, probably Saudi Arabia will facilitate some certain logistics to make the operation easier for the United States, but actually, the United States does not need Saudi territories to launch a war against Iraq.”
― Jamal Khashoggi
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