Karen Elliott House

“Beyond that, many Saudi citizens want a more open society, still devoutly Islamic but free of some of the restraints imposed by…

— Karen Elliott House

“Saudis of all sorts recent having to beg princes for favors to secure services that should be a public right”

— Karen Elliott House

“Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, minister of education and King Abdullah’s son-in-law, adds, “The king’s message is that oil is not our first…

— Karen Elliott House

“It is wishful thinking that an anti-extremism campaign will work when this country was founded on puritanical Islam. We have to grow…

— Karen Elliott House

“With this latest largesse, public expenditures have tripled since 2004, while the private sector’s contribution to non-oil GDP has stagnated.”

— Karen Elliott House

“On the other hand, he continues, “splitting off the Eastern Province, with its large Shiite population, might be doable.”

— Karen Elliott House

“Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you” is the mentality of most…

— Karen Elliott House

“Over the next thirty to fifty years,” he says, “Islam will challenge democracy as a way to live and practice human rights.”

— Karen Elliott House

“Invading a country is easier than changing educational curriculum,” the late Ghazi al Gosaibi, a confidant of King Abdullah,”

— Karen Elliott House

“His U.S. interrogators wanted to know why he and others turned to terrorism. “If you are someone with no job, no family,…

— Karen Elliott House

“The Al Saud believe they have an asset more powerful than the ballot box: they have Allah.”

— Karen Elliott House

“(The extended royal family, including progeny of Abdul Aziz’s siblings, is said to include roughly thirty thousand members.)”

— Karen Elliott House

“Visiting one of these tenements, where the stairs are littered with broken glass and stained with spilled liquids and urine, conjures up…

— Karen Elliott House

“The country is rich but weak. It owns massive amounts of modern military equipment but has almost no military might.”

— Karen Elliott House

“If the ruler is ruling by Islam, even if he got there illegally, he must be obeyed.”

— Karen Elliott House

“Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz, a blind religious scholar who believed the earth was flat because that was how it…

— Karen Elliott House

“What unites conservatives and modernizers and young and old, is a hunger not for freedom but for justice; for genuine rule of…

— Karen Elliott House

“The only way to combat extremist ideas of religion is for government to teach the right religion.”

— Karen Elliott House

“The United States has a rich history of sticking with losers too long.”

— Karen Elliott House

“Tellingly, the entire subject of philosophy, in which questions would be the core of a curriculum, is banned in Saudi.”

— Karen Elliott House