The murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a topic of hot dispute in Arab media. Two irreconcilable camps stand opposite each other. What separates them is less a question of their ideology than of their financiers.
Advertisement
On Wednesday morning, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan was able to announce to its readership some good news: US President Donald Trump would continue to stand steadfastly by Saudi Arabia.
That's exactly how he said it in his eagerly awaited statement; the kingdom remains an important ally of the US. In the matter of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump said, it would be difficult to learn all the facts.
The newspaper fulfilled its primary duty: it reported what Trump had to say. However, it was selective. Because Trump also said in his statement that he didn't know whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MbS for short, was actually aware of the plot. Perhaps he was, perhaps not, Trump said.
Al Watan preferred not to publish Trump's deliberative words. As long as readers didn't look at other media outlets, they would have the impression that the murder had not really changed much between the US president and senior personnel in the kingdom.
The website of the Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya reported the same story. It also quoted Trump as saying that the complete facts would probably never be known. But like the newspaper, it preferred to keep silent about Trump's half-hearted distancing of himself from their crown prince. This part of the news has not gone down well in Riyadh. So the news channel dropped it.
A different interpretation of Trump's statement, however, came from the Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera. This was "a clear signal that the strategic relations between the USA and Saudi Arabia are not dependent on the political survival of individuals in Riyadh or Washington." That looked like an attack on bin Salman — the same politician who one and half years ago initiated a boycott of Qatar by Saudi Arabia. The crown prince might be a political heavyweight, hinted the channel, but ultimately, he plays a subordinate role in the American-Saudi relationship. The state's raison d'etre is more important than particular state representatives. Even MbS, the report says, is politically just one of many. In the final analysis, he is replaceable.
Jamal Khashoggi: A mysterious disappearance and death
Official Saudi statements on the fate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have changed several times since he disappeared at the Istanbul consulate on October 2. DW traces the most important events in this intricate case.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Martin
Vanishes into thin air
October 2: Prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to obtain an official document for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never emerged from the building, prompting Cengiz, who waited outside, to raise the alarm.
Image: Reuters TV
Confusion over whereabouts
October 3: Turkish and Saudi officials came up with conflicting reports on Khashoggi's whereabouts. Riyadh said the journalist had left the mission shortly after his work was done. But Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the journalist was still in the consulate.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/V. Mayo
Murder claims
October 6: Turkish officials said they believed the journalist was likely killed inside the Saudi consulate. The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote, cited unnamed sources to report that Turkish investigators believe a 15-member team "came from Saudi Arabia" to kill the man.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/H. Jamali
Ankara seeks proof
October 8: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia to prove that Khashoggi left its consulate in Istanbul. Turkey also sought permission to search the mission premises. US President Donald Trump voiced concern about the journalist's disappearance.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/T. Kovacs
'Davos in the Desert' hit
October 12: British billionaire Richard Branson halted talks over a $1 billion Saudi investment in his Virgin group's space ventures, citing Khashoggi's case. He also pulled out of an investment conference in Riyadh dubbed the "Davos in the Desert." His move was followed by Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and a host of other business leaders.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Search operation
October 15: Turkish investigators searched the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The search lasted more than eight hours and investigators removed samples from the building, including soil from the consulate garden and a metal door, one official said.
Image: Reuters/M. Sezer
Death after fistfight
October 19: Saudi Arabia finally admitted that Khashoggi died at the consulate. The kingdom's public prosecutor said preliminary investigations showed the journalist was killed in a "fistfight." He added that 18 people had been detained. A Saudi Foreign Ministry official said the country is "investigating the regrettable and painful incident."
Image: Getty Images/C. McGrath
'Grave mistake'
October 21: Saudi Arabia provided yet another account of what happened to Khashoggi. The kingdom's foreign minister admitted the journalist was killed in a "rogue operation," calling it a "huge and grave mistake," but insisted that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had not been aware of the murder. Riyadh said it had no idea where Khashoggi's body was.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/C. Owen
Germany halts arms sales
October 21: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would put arms exports to Saudi Arabia on hold for the time being, given the unexplained circumstances of Khashoggi's death. Germany is the fourth largest exporter of weapons to Saudi Arabia after the United States, Britain and France.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
Strangled to death, dissolved in acid
October 31: The Turkish prosecutor concluded that Khashoggi was strangled to death soon after entering the consulate, and was then dismembered. Another Turkish official later claimed the body was dissolved in acid. Turkish President Erdogan said the order to murder the journalist came from "the highest levels" of Saudi Arabia's government.
Image: picture-alliance/AA/M. E. Yildirim
Grilled at the UN
November 5: Saudi Arabia told the United Nations it would prosecute those responsible for Khashoggi's murder. This came as the United States and dozens of other countries raised the journalist's death before the UN Human Rights Council and called for a transparent investigation.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Coffrini
Fiancee in mourning
November 8: Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, wrote on Twitter that she was "unable to express her sorrow" upon learning that the journalist's body was dissolved with chemicals. "Are these killers and those behind it human beings?" she tweeted.
Image: Reuters/Haberturk
Turkey shares audio recordings
November 10: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reveals that officials from Saudi Arabia, the US, Germany, France and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Presidential Press Service
Symbolic funeral prayers
November 16: A symbolic funeral prayer for Khashoggi is held in the courtyard of the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul. Yasin Aktay, advisor to President Erdogan, speaks at the service.
Image: Reuters/M. Sezer
Saudi-owned villas searched
November 26: Turkish forensic police bring the investigation to the Turkish province of Yalova, where sniffer dogs and drones search two Saudi-owned villas in the village Samanli.
Image: Reuters/O . Orsal
100 days since killing
January 10: Amnesty International Turkey members demonstrate outside the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Istanbul, marking 100 day since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. One woman holds up a street sign which reads "Jamal Khashoggi Street". The organization has called for an international investigation into the case.
Image: Reuters/M. Sezer
Saudi murder trial begins
January 3: The Khashoggi trial begins in Saudi Arabia, where state prosecutors say they will seek the death sentence for five of the eleven suspects. A request for the gathered evidence has been send to Turkish authorities. A date for the second hearing has not yet been set.
Image: picture-alliance/abaca/Depo Photos
UN inquiry team in Turkey
January 28: Agnes Callamard, who is leading the UN probe into the handling of the Khashoggi case, arrives in Ankara where she meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. The human rights expect will stay in the country for the rest of the week to speak with prosecutors and others involved in the case.
The different interpretations demonstrate the deep divide in Arabic media. This divide doesn't follow any ideological line, but more an economic and political one: Arab media outlets comply with the requirements of their financial backers as well as those of the political leadership. For less relevant topics they have relative freedom. On big issues, however, they follow orders from above. "There is no press freedom in the Arab world," said Middle East expert Günter Meyer, head of the Center for Research on the Arab World at the University of Mainz. "We are dealing exclusively with authoritarian regimes, to a greater or lesser extent. Media outlets that argue against the ruler or criticize his behavior no longer exist."
This line is followed by commentaries that use the case of Khashoggi to criticize. The Al-Jazeera-linked newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed, from Qatar, criticized the Saudi course. "The Saudi government has not succeeded in convincing the USA and other western countries to support the kingdom under the leadership of bin Salman," the paper wrote. "Khashoggi's assassination fits perfectly with the militarization of Saudi politics, its lack of a reconciliatory style, and the practice of taking action against critics. Riyadh is becoming less and less manoeuvrable in domestic and foreign policy."
The voice of Qatar: Al-Jazeera news outlet Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Gharabli
Bordering on conspiracy theories
Conversely, the Saudi newspaper Al-Jazeera — not to be confused with the Qatari news channel of the same name — complains bitterly about what it sees as unfounded attacks on the kingdom. The media of enemy countries — the newspaper mentions Qatar and Turkey — "intensify their attacks against the kingdom, fabricate stories from their imagination and attack the symbols of our great fatherland. Their words can only appear true to the simple-minded or those who are involved in the attacks." But such attacks will not impress Saudi Arabia, assured the newspaper: "In its strength and determination, with its history, its leadership and population, the Kingdom is much stronger than all these aggressive attempts. These will burn in their own flames."
Hussein Shobokshi opined in Monday's edition of Saudi newspaper Okaz that the blame lay with the activities of foreign intelligence services. "The most important question that now has to be answered is the extent of security gaps and the infiltration by foreign spies to the detriment of the diplomatic offices of Saudi Arabia abroad, as in Istanbul." Thus it is not the act itself that is the scandal, but the fact that it was uncovered.
