 Oh, eight o'clock. So, Hania, you are. Sure. Hi, everyone. And I see Abdullah here as well. Salamu alaykum. How are you? Alaykum, how are you doing? I'm doing well. Wonderful. Thank you. Wonderful. Good to have you. And I see Sanjeev also joining us. Unfortunately, we won't have Marcy with us tonight. Well, fortunately for her, she is a grandmother of now too. There she is. Yes, she is. Welcome. Welcome. Huh? There she is. I see. Yay. Hi. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Hi. Good to see you. Hi. Good to see you too. Oh, lovely. Maybe whether you're going to be here tonight or not. But there you are. I know. I just barely made it. But I'm so glad to be with you all. Happy grandmothering. Thank you. It's a busy job. No rest for the weary, as they say. Yes. It's so tough. We're so glad you made it, Marcy. I know. I know. It's good to be with friends, allies. So why don't you start it off? Oh, okay. Well, welcome. Let's see. Okay. We're still letting people in. We've got 39 now and hopefully we'll have a lot more. We have a great show tonight. We're going to update our audience and share what we're doing in solidarity with the Palestinians. We will also be looking at Saudi Arabia. What should our U.S. policy be towards Saudi Arabia? What are we going to do about all these, the blockade on Yemen and how to lift that blockade? We'll have our question and answer period. We have two great guests, two or three. And then we will have an action portion in which we will focus both on Palestine, support for Betty McCollum's bill to protect Palestinian human rights, as well as support for actions to cut off the arms flow to Saudi Arabia. Take it away, Medea. We'll just update you, Marcy, on that. We're also going to talk about, and the action will be also about cutting off weapons sales to Israel. Absolutely. $750 million, the latest, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to update us. Yeah, sure. Thank you. So, some of you may be aware, the Biden administration notified of weapons sales worth of $735 million to Israel on May 5th. This is exactly about five days before the conflict in Gaza broke out. And since Israel is a NATO ally, obviously Congress has about 15 days to review and block any weapons sales. Members of the House had very little knowledge of this until Washington Post broke the news out. And the House Foreign Affairs Chair, Gregory Meeks, decided on sending a letter to Biden urging the halt of all sales until there's a ceasefire in that region. But this may have been blocked by Hoyer or by Nancy Pelosi. So at this juncture, Congress has until Thursday to come up with either a resolution, some sort of language to block or be able to block this. And I have the latest news. I can't really share that much of a detail, but we know that there's a resolution being worked on right now at the moment by some of our progressive allies in Congress. Now, the latest I can read from the Twitter, which again, was just recently updated as a four hours ago. What is being mentioned is that the Chairman's intention, Chairman Meeks intention behind the possible letter was to create an opportunity for members to engage in a candid conversation with the administration about arm sales. A letter is no longer necessary given that the White House has now agreed to engage with members at the highest level on their concerns. And the administration's broader strategy on gaining a peaceful resolution to this conflict. The chairman is making it clear that otherwise routine arm sales will be subject to close scrutiny and oversight under this chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I'll hand it back to my wonderful co-host. But we're calling BS on that. Absolutely. Absolutely disgusting that he's been stopped from calling the administration out for this and putting a hold on this weapon sales. And so that's why one of our actions tonight will be to say weapons sales to Israel. And it just gives you a sense of the strong power of Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi, who continue to be supporters of APAC and the Israeli government, despite the horrific massacres that are going on right now. And I just want to say, while we move into the Saudi portion of our program tonight, you can also put in your comments. By the way, remember, you can say hello and say where you're from. So, Abdul and Sunjeev know who they're talking to, but also put in your questions or comments about Israel Palestine. And I'm sure we will find ways to relate that to the topic for tonight of Saudi Arabia as well. Yeah, I just wanted to also encourage people if you want to join clubhouse, if you know somebody who's not a big incentive and invitation. Medea and I have been in some of these rooms with Palestinians from all over the world and activists and it's really it's a great opportunity to talk to people brainstorm ideas to gain greater understanding. So that's, that's where I see a lot of activity on clubhouse with Palestinian rooms. Absolutely. You can put also in the chat box, any great articles that you read recently, or anything you want to share with folks. And we want to welcome and honey are you're going to do the first welcome right. Absolutely. What an honor and a great pleasure for me to introduce our very first guest, brother Abdullah. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing the last name correctly, who is a research director at dawn, democracy for the Arab world now, which was founded by murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Just to give you a little bit of a background on Abdullah's wonderful work. He is the research director for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at dawn. He is visiting adjunct professor at the Elliott School at George Washington University and a fellow at the Islamic Institute Institute. He has published extensively on Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf and appears regularly in media as a commentator. His work has been featured in the New York Times in Washington Post and foreign policy. It is an absolute pleasure for me to welcome you please take it away after month. Thank you so good. Thank you so much for having me. It's a great pleasure to be part of this and I'm really honored to be a guest. And I think I'll be very brief, but also executes my unstable internet. And speaking of instability, Saudi Arabia has never been stable, but it has never reached this level of crackdown and autocracy in its history. Yes, he took it to another level, reaching outside, killing as you know, Jamal Khashoggi, our founder and my friend at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, trying to assassinate former official Saudi al-Jabri in Canada, trying to assassinate prominent activist and close friend of mine, Omar Abdul Aziz in Canada as well. They're trying to assassinate Yad al-Bardadi in Norway. So it's it's it's going crazy. So this is outside where they are they're supposed to be more cautious. So just you can only imagine what would they do inside. There are multiple crackdowns since 2017 starting with the September crackdown in 2017 that that actually started with my father, when he tweeted in calling for reconciliation and peace between neighboring countries in the Gulf and actually went further and further like jail and economists, poets, women, prominent women, human rights defenders, like Lujan Al-Hidlul, Aziz Al-Yusuf, Iman Al-Nafjan, who have been, by the way, tortured, sexually harassed, electrocuted. And even when they were released, some of them a few months back and some of them just in February, like Lujan Al-Hidlul, who even when she was released is still on probation and is banned from traveling. So we should always remind ourselves that we should never celebrate because she's not free. She's still banned from traveling. She's and they actually just last week summoned her to sign a very vague and, you know, uncalled for. It was an uncalled for move to sign a document saying that she will comply with the order from the Saudi High Court in not posting. You know, more activist tweets or posts on social media, which is, you know, expected from such, you know, a government regime. So that's about the, you know, the crackdown. But I actually want to also point out the other, I know I didn't have a lot of time, but I want to point out to the other point, which is this crackdown and, you know, and the unprecedented level of persecution by the Saudi government actually also led to the, you know, the Saudi dissidents community being larger and broader and reaching new levels of influence. You can see now you can, you can, you know, watch and follow Saudi activists in Australia, New Zealand, UK, Europe. Generally, we have institutions, for example, in Germany where you have the Saudi, European organization for human rights. We have Al-Qust organization for human rights in the UK. We have Don in Washington DC right here, where I am part of, and we have, you know, other organizations in other parts of the world. This level of persecution led to these activists being more active, being more vocal. You know, we have just another piece yesterday from the Wall Street Journal talking about how this level of persecution by the Saudi government actually helped the Saudi dissidents community reaching new level, reaching new influence, reaching, you know, being part of many think tanks around the world and being part of the, you know, many communities that actually welcomed them and, you know, helped them get new levels. of influence and leverage everywhere. So from this, I want to also point the initiatives that we have done last year, late last year actually, that we call the Saudi people's vision of reforms. So I don't know what you know about the Saudi government's, you know, vision, but they produced a vision in 2016. And MBS himself, who is now the Saudi conference, Muhammad bin Salman, actually introduced vision in 2016, and they called it the 2030 vision. In this vision, they actually promised transparency, they promised diversity on the Saudi economy that promised, you know, improving the quality of life of Saudis and none of these actually promised objectives have been reached so far. And there is no, you know, there's actually no, no, no, there is no actually fight, there is no future for this, you know, for these promises whatsoever, we cannot even foresee in the near future if they will be implemented in any way or form. So that's why we thought, well, if the Saudi government have their own vision that they forcefully, you know, implementing against the will of the Saudi people, we should, part of the Saudi people have our own vision. So that's why we talked to diverse group of Saudis from diverse groups, groups of Saudi community coming from the Shia, the Sunni, the North, the South, the liberals, the feminists, the left, the right and all these people. And we thought, well, we should have a basic platform where we can say, this is the way that we want future Saudi Arabian, we came up with basic for about 14, you know, points and one of these points is to release all political prisoners for all background and all, you know, communities within the Saudi, you know, within Saudi Arabia. And another point that I think was really, really important is the freedom of expression, but also more importantly, we called for a basic transition into democracy into one form or another democracy in Saudi Arabia where we would be having some sort of parliamentarian system where people can elect their own representatives where they have their representations because as you know that this government vision introduced some kind of taxation so we thought there shouldn't be any kind of taxation without real representation where people know where their money go and instead of being just the top not just one percent one person deciding for the whole country what they do. The whole public should be part of the decision making instead of just being the on the other end of this system. So we come up with this vision and we thought that it was a very good opportunity and it is still very good opportunity to push for this vision for more for broader influence. It has been endorsed by so many people within the Saudi public who are outside because inside, you know, nobody can, you know, risk their lives or their families. So we thought that vision was a great way forward. And we thought also it's it's it's a vision that we can also pressure Congress on pressure people to endorse and to have in order to have a real change in Saudi Arabia. And finally for this to happen for a change to happen for releasing political prisoners for, you know, including my father of course and so many other people who are languishing in jail just because they called for peace and called for democracy and called for, you know, peaceful change in Saudi Arabia. For this to happen, we think that accountability also should be, you know, part of our agenda and with accountability meaning making the perpetrators of killing of Khashoggi accountable, making the perpetrators of human rights violation in Saudi Arabia accountable. And on the top of this, of course, is Mohammed bin Salman himself, the calm prince, who was personally involved in the killing in order in the operation of killing Jamal Khashoggi, even according to the audio and I report that was released, you know, a few months back. So with sanctioning in BS, I think we should prioritize sanctioning in BS, adopting the, the people's vision of reform. I'll, you know, conclude here and let other people speak. Thank you so much Abdullah, very informative and the fact that right now people in Yemen in particular 400,000 children are suffering starvation under the Saudi led blockade is just atrocious. I'll hand this over to media to introduce our next guest please. Yes, thank you so much Abdullah for your courage and speaking out and so sorry about the situation with your father. Our next speaker is Sanjeev Berry. He was the advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa with Amnesty International for many years where he lobbied us officials, diplomats and office holders regarding human rights in the region. He was a regional director for the ACLU. He has an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. And now he has founded an incredible new group it's called Freedom Forward. If you haven't heard about it you'll hear about it tonight but I also encourage you to go to their website and check it out. I do just one sentence from their wonderful mission statement, which is, we seek an end to US alliances with dictators, kings, and apartheid governments. We envision a world in which US foreign policy is fully aligned with the hopes and aspirations of people who desire freedom. One of the issues they work on is Saudi Arabia, and Sanjeev has done an amazing job bringing people together from all over the world those Saudis in the diaspora all over the place to come together to share information to strategize and to build global campaigns on how to hold Saudi Arabia, accountable. So Sanjeev, thank you so much for being with us. The floor is yours. Thanks so much, Medea. That's such a wonderful introduction. Whoops, I guess when you spotlight me speaking, I have to see myself speaking while I'm talking, which is a little weird. Yeah, thanks, Medea. And just for everyone, Medea may have forgotten this, but Freedom Forward's earliest beginnings involved Medea and Jodi agreeing to be our fiscal sponsor. And so, you know, big thanks to Code Pink and the Code Pink community for helping make Freedom Forward possible. You know, our collective grassroots networks give all of us the power to create new initiatives that help, you know, strengthen a lot of our work. I just thought, I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk really about a couple of things. I mean, a quick bit of background about Freedom Forward. The question of, you know, as I continue my growth as a human rights advocate, you know, in solidarity with everyone here, the question of how we can be effective allies and then, and then forgive me, Medea, you'd ask for one specific action and I think by the time I was done I broke my own rules and I think I have four now. But I'll just keep this in mind for my own humility the next time I'm annoyed with somebody else for having too many actions on a call or meeting that I've organized. It's good to be humble, faced with one's own frailties. But, you know, so Freedom Forward, it kind of came out of a basic idea that I think Code Pink has been tackling for a long time and many of us have been, which is that, you know, when you are a resident or citizen within the fortress as one might say right like living within the United States the US certainly isn't the only power in the world but, you know, as we all know what the US does has profound impacts. There are so many examples across, you know, the last even just the last 100 years right where people have mobilized around the world and then our own government here in the US has been on the wrong side of the mobilization for democracy and freedom and so the basic idea is what do we need to do here in the United States to shift US foreign policy so that the government's actions truly are aligned with its words, you know, and such that when people in outside the borders of the United States push for freedom and democracy, our own government is on the right side instead of as with the monarchies, dictators and apartheid governments in the Middle East on the wrong side. So that's the short story about what Freedom Forward's trying to do, what I'm sure what a lot of us on this call are trying to do in different communities including Code Pink. And so, you know, when I think about, you know, Abdullah's words and the work of Don and the Saudi dissident community that has come together to produce the people's vision, what I see is a real opportunity for many of us who want to be good allies to recapture some of the spirit and power of the South Africa anti-apartheid movement through a kind of solidarity campaign with Saudi dissidents who are calling for Saudi-led indigenous democracy, you know, and by doing that we can, we can flip the entire script, right, like so often the thing is that the battle is to push the US government to stop backing a dictator. Now we have the opportunity to lift up a vision of parliamentary democracy, including if you and if as I posted in the comments while Abdullah was speaking, including the possibility of an elected head of state in Saudi Arabia, and we can lift that up as the standard and build support and mobilize the public around that here in the United States, just as solidarity movements have acted with Code Pink's involvement leadership and other organizations historically, and create a world in which the US government and the Saudi monarchy have to answer to a global demand in solidarity with Saudi dissidents who want freedom and democracy that they participate in a lead. And so that to me is increasingly the big vision and Abul and I actually have a call in a few days to start hashing out details and I'd love to talk to other people here in the future, you know, as well to start making plans for how to, how to make this possible and how to bring this bring this idea to fruition. Building public support such that the American public is aligned with a vision of a democracy in Saudi Arabia, led by Saudis led by Saudi dissidents, and holding accountable members of Congress and elected officials who choose not to endorse that vision. Along the way, I think there are a number of very specific things that we can all do right now and I'm just going to post them in the chat while, while I'm talking. The first is with the horrors of the Yemen war. Senator Warren as many people here might know is circulated a letter from others by her and other senators urging the Biden administration to address and stop the blockade tactics of the Saudi Saudi monarchy. And that phrase blockade tactics is very intentional, because the State Department is using this dance of saying well it's not technically a blockade under international law blah blah blah. And, and so there's an opportunity here to call on the US government to stop the blockade tactics of the Saudi monarchy. And I'm going to post the email address for the US special envoy to Yemen, the Biden selected special envoy his name is Tim Lender King, and you can send him a personal email right now or later you can just cut and paste that if you want to, and send that message. And, or, you know, I just, I just wrote this up so maybe instead of the US must condemn Saudi Arabia's blockade taxes condemn and stop, you know, maybe that's the slide amendments I'd offer. And you can send that email right now to lender King TA at state.gov. And in addition to everything else that could think is doing the next two things I wanted to highlight. There are two bills, there are many bills in Congress on Saudi Arabia. There are two specific ones first there's the bill that's moving. And then there's the even stronger bill that really sets the watermark for what we should aim for the bill that's moving forward is the Khashoggi accountability act. And let me post this in the chat. I'm led by Tom Malinowski got 19 co sponsors. It places sanctions specific sanction on MBS, Mohammed bin Salman that would ban him from traveling to the US. And it would require a report from the US government on Saudi government harassment jailings etc US citizens with their family, such as, you know, Abdullah's father and others. And it would suspend arms export licenses based on findings of that harassment. So this bill is moving forward it's already passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee it's now in a subcommittee on immigration issues. And this is something that you can push your members of Congress to support and sign on to the second bill, which, you know, unfortunately is not moving forward now but I think actually still deserves our support anyways, is from one of our, a lot of people here would consider a leader in in saying the things that hadn't previously been said, and that is Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. And she has introduced a more robust sanctions bill that isn't just a travel ban, but also blocks MBS assets in the United States. And of course blocks him from coming to the United States and with all the money that the Saudi monarchy has. And this would be a pretty significant blow and quite frankly, this should already be Biden administration policy, if it worked for US alliances with dictators, and it worked for the vast amount of money that the Saudi monarchy has. So my encouragement is to call your member of Congress, ask them to cosponsor the Malinowski bill HR 1464 and urge them to cosponsor Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's bill HR 1511 and put sanctions on MBS. I thought, yeah, so those are those would be the four actions on my end. And I'm sure there's plenty more, you know, get familiar with the people's vision for Saudi Arabia. Start thinking about like how we can all collectively work to build massive endorsements from American society of the people's vision, including explicitly supporting a an elected parliament and an elected head of state. Now, if that thing gets momentum in the United States, that will flip the entire script on the conversation with regards to the Saudi monarchy. And then the second Tim Lender King, tell him to oppose Saudi blockade tactics, and say that you support the and then supporting Malinowski's bill and Ilhan Omar's bill. And I think if we all do those sorts of things over and over again, we're going to continue to pry open space for challenging the US alliance with this brutal monarchy. So I'll leave it at that and then we can take the call from there. Well, you can see why, Sanjeev is one of our best activists so organized so clear such terrific actions and we are never against lots of actions and I don't know. No one but you know, they're all great actions really really wonderful to know about all these bills and I hope people will be copying the chat so they can do all of these at some other time if you can't do them now. And Hania, you want to start us off with the questions. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Well, Medea you have two really great ones here that was posted in the chat. Would you like to take the lead on this or did you want me to ask another one from another member. You want to go ahead with anyone you want. Yeah, so there's a question that came in. How far away is Saudi Arabia from being able to produce its own weapons of war domestically do you think. Well, I think it's it's really far from doing that. It's it's way behind but I think what maybe what what's at stake is that there are attempts to have some kind of, let's say, help from other countries in having their own nuclear weapons, that's their own like far away vision. And it's also their own way of starting that program in order to also pressure the Americans in the West. Having any kind of, you know, agreements with Iran over the nuclear, you know, programs and all that. It's their own way of trying to also push back against any pressure from the West on human rights and on their domestic issues on the war in Yemen and all their, you know, other countries in the region. I think that's that's that's more plausible. I'll add just a quick thing on that which is and this is like this for there's like you know there's so many opportunities to be organizing a Saudi and Saudi Arabia and human rights. And I've just sat at the Saudi WMD act, you know, which is an act that was introduced by Senator Markey, and hasn't really just he's the only one on it. And I've just sort of actually Senator Markey and Senator Merkley. So from Massachusetts in Oregon, and I've just barely begun digging into this and you know with everything else going on having a time to take it further but this may be something to think about in terms of like, you know for all of the folks who sit slightly outside of our kind of human rights circles and progressive left circles. You know the simple question do you think the Saudi monarchy should have access to nuclear weapons. No, potentially, you know, urge your senator to support this bill. So something to think about as well. Wonderful. I'm going to combine a couple of questions which have to do with dissatisfaction within Saudi Arabia. Do you have any sense about how people feel about the Saudi government, and then as a kind of side thing just for what's happening now in Palestine. Did the Saudis have an outlet for expressing their support for the Palestinian people and does that outlet perhaps include getting out on the streets. Do they use clubhouse what Marcy just talked about that's used by a lot of other people in the region. And then the last around you Abdullah knowing that people in the diaspora that speak out oftentimes are endangering their families back home. How do you deal with that. Great questions, but I'll be trying to try to be brief and also quick highlights. One start from the last. The diaspora is always, you know, thinking about their families and a quick example is Omar Abdul Aziz who is in Canada. Four of his family have been arrested because of what things that he said, in order to intimidate him, you know, and six or seven of his close friends back home were also arrested and still in jail by the way, and all the investigations were over. How do you know Omar and give us his contacts and does he have contacts inside. Does he try to mobilize and all these questions. And, of course, my own family like 19 members of my own family are event on traveling, including kids who have nothing to do with anything. You know, political but they just it's their own way of intimidating others. Also my uncle, my father, my cousin, all are still in jail. You know, so many activists also have their own stories that I don't want to, you know, bore you with but this is just highlights to give you a sense of things that we deal with but also we I think collectively decided that will not just still speak out louder because that's our way of challenging the system challenging trying to silence us. If we just responded, you know, by being silenced. This is will give the, you know, the wrong message to the Saudi government that what they are doing is working and therefore they will still doing what they are doing but we'll go further. So that's why we are challenging the system more. The second thing also the clubhouse basically is blocked in Saudi Arabia like so many other websites and, you know, programs and actually just being blocked last week. They allowed it for sometimes but when it went out of hand, they did not have as Saudi bots to control like they do on Twitter. So they needed sometimes to figure out way to challenge people. So it's blocked. You know, for the other question about, you know, the, the, the, the government's popularity and whether how to know the Saudi public's, you know, opinion with things. Well, I hate to read, which is like very common in, you know, commentaries in English and so many pieces that embases popular everybody who likes him among the youth and all that and although he's very impressive. So many youth like him because he allowed cinema. He allowed women to drive and all these things and I think this is all BS just to call it what it is. Public opinion is not allowed in Saudi Arabia. How would they tell his popular, but if you want to have an impression of whether the youth likes him, take all the groups in Saudi Arabia including the Shia. Does the Shia like him? Do the Shia like him? Never. Never. He jailed the most prominent voices of them. Do the liberals like him? Never because he jailed and, you know, embrizzened and sexually harassed the most prominent voices within the liberal liberal community. Do the conservative community like him? Also never because he also did not exclude them from repression. Do the, do women like him? Of course not. Do men like him? Of course not. Do the, by the way, tribes like him? Never because he also, talking about indigenous people, he displaced so many tribes around Saudi Arabia to make room for his own, you know, economic projects like Neum and so many other mega projects of his own. So this is just a quick sense of, and I think more like an impression of whether he is popular and the government is popular in Saudi Arabia. So the last thing about whether the Saudis can talk about Palestine. Well, guess what? My cousin, Abdul Aziz Al-Oda, has been actually arrested over tweets on Palestine, in which he said he is against the normalization, he said against normalization, starting normalization with Israel before normalizing with people, with the Saudi people. And he was arrested over that tweet. So this can give you also an impression of how the Saudi government not just, you know, have the zero tolerance on political issues that deals with the Saudi government, but also anything that, you know, talks about foreign or domestic issues in Saudi Arabia. Thank you. I have a question. I just want to clarify that last thing. Just for people who might not be aware of how repressive it is, we see these demonstrations all over the Middle East in support of Palestine. Can people go out on the street? You're on mute. So the question is how can people in Saudi Arabia express solidarity with Palestinians? Oh, I see, okay. You know, and so maybe there is no parliament, there is no free platform, but the only way that usually people do is go into Twitter to express, that's the virtual kind of parliament in the past. On Twitter, you can see a lot of people who try to express themselves. I know for a fact that so many people and prominent people and public figures in Saudi Arabia indirectly try to hint that there are, you know, against the bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere, but it is still relatively, you know, very limited compared to their ability to express themselves before MBS came along. Because in the past, like before MBS, at least that kind of suppression, if you did not talk about domestic issues, you have that kind of leeway to, you know, to express yourselves, but now no more. I have a question about United States politics, our own government. I was thinking perhaps naively that with the release of the CIA report that Trump held back but under Biden was released on the Khashoggi murder that perhaps our relationship with Saudi Arabia would change. I haven't seen any evidence of change and I'm wondering if either of you see any evidence. Is there any difference under Biden as opposed to Trump? I have thoughts on it but I first want to hear Abdullah's thoughts. Abdullah, what do you think? Well, I think at the beginning there was, like, good signs of change, like, namely, four things. One, Biden still did not talk to MBS, meaning did not recognize him officially as the de facto ruler in Saudi Arabia. He talked to the king and also, you know, the Secretary of State also said Biden only talks to Saudi counterpart and his counterpart is the king, not the conference. I think that was a good sign of not recognizing MBS. Also, the release in the Audini report that actually implicated MBS in the murder of Khashoggi was a very good sign towards transparency. Although it lacked accountability and, you know, measures of accountability toward MBS, but that was at least a great sign forward. The fourth thing was suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UIE at that time was a very good sign. We're still not sure how would they do going forward. The second sign is, you know, at least they went from totally supporting the Saudis going, you know, their way in war in Yemen to stop in what they called the offensive, the American support of the offensive operations in Yemen, and a way less, you know, offensive support than just going, you know, the full package in supporting the Saudi regime in and they were in Yemen. So I think these were good signs and a bit of a little bit of a change. But accountability wise, we're still actually witnessing a similar approach to Trump because Trump let MBS off the hook and let's face it. Also, Biden did. Thank you. What about you, Sunji? Yeah, I agree with that. And I would just add that I think that the best way to sort of think about the US and Saudi Arabia is that the US is underlying ultimate priority is to maintain hegemony in the region and to maintain relationships and support for a series of stable, non-democratic governments. And so that means that at the end of the day, the US on autopilot, Republican or Democrat is not going to break ranks with a dictator, including the Saudi monarchy, because that would lead to a reduction in US power and that's not something that the US wants as a national security state that's sort of gaming the world as a chessboard. So but, you know, like, we have the power to push and break that and and Biden does not have the support of America in maintaining a US-Saudi alliance. The question is just that, you know, many people in the US have a lot of different priorities. And for us, the strategic question is how to how to elevate US discontent, public discontent with the US-Saudi alliance to the level where it kind of breaks through and weakens that alliance. So we can do that, but we have more work to do. You know, and it may involve being creative, right? Like, you know, a lot of us may not think about, you know, I'll confess that I haven't put any time into this Saudi WMD bill that I posted in the chat. And I don't think many other other organizations have, but it may be that like that's one way to do it, you know, like going out to people outside of our immediate friends and allies and and maybe even conservatives and saying, you know, you know, this this dictatorship shouldn't get a nuclear weapon, you know, full stop, right? So there may be creative ways to go about this. Thank you. And Sunjeev, just to kind of follow up on this, who are some of the lobby groups who work for Saudis? And how can we make them cancel their contracts? That's a that's a really good question. So, you know, we've been, Don and Abdullah, if you want to speak to this as well, I mean, Freedom Forward and Don have been working together on a campaign. Go ahead. Yeah, we've been working together on the on a campaign that we were about to roll out and we've decided to pause for a couple of weeks because obviously the headlines are what they are and everyone is focused on on the the Israeli apartheid and what's happening right now. But the Saudi monarchy spends a lot of money on lobbyists in the US. But Don has done great research, Abdullah's organization has done great research, and we are ready to basically hit send on a campaign that we'd love to have code pink support on. And that will involve targeting. First, I'll just say between all this year, please don't tweet it out or share it out but yet but targeting a particular lobbyist named Newberry, who works for a specific branch of the Saudi federal court, this so called media study center that employed a number of Khashoggi's killers. And that contract is right now. That contract is continuing right like he's actually a Saudi lobbyist for the specific entity that's that's named. And that information is public it just hasn't been run with yet. And then from there to kind of continue to expand. I would say that like, once we get this thing going, and by we I mean all of us here. You know, Nancy Pelosi's former chief of staff when she was the minority leader in the house, and a man by the name I believe of the theme of shami is now a lobbyist for the Egyptian dictatorship. You know so like there's just a lot of horrible things but also extraordinary opportunities to just name and shame and create an environment where nobody's happy about who they're affiliated with. I'm glad anything about that. No nothing I think he said, you know, all what everybody wants to say. We're excited about you rolling out that campaign and will also one of our many actions tonight is to contact the LS to group in Des Moines, Iowa that's got over a million dollars in a year contract, and has done work to try to position Saudi as a great model for liberating women, right. So, yes. It's ironic like one of the, like we have a section. And down the website that we call the culprits gallery that we will we will also relaunch soon with new additions and new names, but one of the culprits that we have a profile on was, you know, a woman named. She was a member of believe it or not, the Saudi Human Rights Commission, like a state sponsored human rights commission that was supposed to, you know, investigate human rights violations in Saudi prisons, but instead they were just used to, you know, legally cover up for the Saudi human rights violations. And one of the things that they did and I'm a little me visited Lujan and he was in jail. And Lujan told her about the sexual harassment, the torture, the electrocution that she faced. And when I'm a little me left prison to report on this, she actually issued a report saying women in Saudi are empowered, and we are great country. There is no torture whatsoever in jail and she was just using her own position to cover up for the violations. And believe it or not. And I think because of what she said and what they did, she rewarded her with the position and she is now just, you know, appointed as the Saudi ambassador to Norway. And she's now talking about how Saudi be empowered women, and she is an example of that. So this is just a quick example of this irony of empowering women. And maybe you want to say something about the Saudi ambassador to the US and she has put forward is put forward. Oh, yeah. Great example. Yeah, absolutely. She's, as you know, she's like the daughter of Vanderbush Sultan who was at one point, the Saudi ambassador to the US. And he was called by the way, the Vanderbush, because his close relationship to Bush administration and there were great ally at that time. And so many, you know, agenda in the region. But one of the things that they said that democracy does not fit the Middle East and especially Saudi Arabia and the inventor at one point said, if you push for democracy in Saudi Arabia. There will be a Taliban style to your currency, not as a personian democracy. So he was using that to say that the Saudi people were bad, the Saudi people are extremists and terrorists. But at the same time, the Saudi government is more progressive and trying to push the Saudi public toward, you know, being progressive and being liberal all that and, you know, it's trying to shift the blame. From being the Saudi government sponsoring terrorism and sponsoring violations locally and internationally to the, oh, the Saudi public and, and, and their, their own, you know, mistakes. So I think there, we might have time for one more but there's a question related to the talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And is that a positive thing do you think they'll move forward and what that might might that mean for anything internal within Saudi Arabia. Sanjeev, you want to, you want to. You're on mute Sanjeev. Sorry about that. I, you know that the reports about the talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I've seen analysis from the Quincy Institute that that suggests that that's what happens when the US gets out of the way that when the US like withdraws. It's hegemony and dominance. The local, you know, actors backed by the United States, you know, have to figure things out themselves and actually in some cases drop their talking points. I mean, to the extent that the Saudi monarchy and the Iranian, whatever you want to call it government, you know, authoritarian regime, I don't know, half democracy like elections if you're vetted by the the Guardian Council, if you're allowed to run for office. You know, to the extent that they're talking now it, it, you know, like there was a, I'm pretty sure I remember Mohammed bin Salman talking about Iran's government is the next Hitler. Well apparently when the US like starts to back away, you know, they're not the next Hitler anymore and there's somebody you can have a meeting with in a suite in Baghdad, you know, so it shows what's possible when the US withdraws its power that the talking points all start to crumble. I don't know. Do you want to add to that? Yeah, I think it's a great point. If I, if I may bring something up regarding democracy in the Middle East and specifically in Saudi Arabia. In my opinion here goes right in the name is a country that's for just over 100 years. It's been named after one specific clan. So how could that lead to actual democracy, not that any of the other countries in the Middle East are much better than that. And, but maybe there has to be a new thought, but how long is this going to continue one clan claiming, have a claim over a whole region or country to name that after themselves. Thank you so much for the wonderful question if you could please introduce yourself and if you do have questions moving forward if you could put them in the chat that'd be wonderful. And who was speaking please. This was a month. Got it. Okay. Any of you. I'll just say that I look at that as dictatorship marketing that doesn't really have a bearing on actual civil society or internal public dynamics right. I'll just hit, I'll hit send on my, my thoughts about that that's the phrase that had come to my mind in the past which is that's how the Trump family would, would rename America if they could right but that doesn't necessarily speak to the underlying dynamics. Okay, did you want to say anything Abdullah. I totally agree with Sanjeev I think look at the Middle East when the US actually, you know, stopped in a model between the two countries. So maybe realize that it cannot be protected anymore by the US, and therefore they have to deal with country like Iran in the Middle East and therefore they have to talk to them directly and they have to deal with it they have to live with it they have to exist and therefore they, they thought well, if this is the case that why not just talk to the Iranians directly like the Americans do, and that's what's happening. It's, it's, I mean the MBS and the Saudi government's rhetoric actually shifted dramatically in a few months from saying, literally that there is no way to deal politically with Iran other than stopping her and trying to pressure her and pressure the West in order to, you know, make Iran the prior to Iran is a great neighbor and we have a neighbor and we have to deal with her with it and MBS said that in the last, you know, last month's interview. He literally said Iran is a great neighbor, and we have to talk with with Iran. So that's a great shift and I think that's a positive shift forward actually it's much better than having wars and, you know, either directly or proxy wars. On that positive note, I'm going to ask everyone to unmute so we can thank our guests Abdullah research director at dawn democracy for the Arab world now. And Sunjeev executive director of freedom forward which works to end the US is cozy alliance with Saudi Arabia so let's unmute and thank our guests.