Then, late on Friday, it all came crashing down: Reports emerged that the women activists who pressed for the policy change had been arrested and imprisoned. As of this morning, 13 are reported to have been arrested; most are women. Apart from the driving issue, they have campaigned against so-called guardianship rules which require Saudi women to receive permission from a male relative before making many life decisions, like traveling. One of those detained was Loujain al-Hathloul, who was photographed at the 2016 One Young World Summit with none other than Meghan Markle, who married Britain’s Prince Harry on Saturday.
What is happening in the kingdom? MbS may want to discourage any popular protests seeking additional social or political changes. (Over the weekend, one American official told me that the arrests reflected the prince’s personal style, even if his name was not publicly linked to them.) His reforms were always likely to provoke opposition from within Saudi Arabia’s male-dominated, hierarchical society, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam. The apparent need to arrest women activists suggests that MbS is having to rethink his grand plans. [...]
The possibility that MbS may be facing powerful opposition emerged last month at the Arab summit hosted by King Salman in the Gulf city of Dhahran. The gathering focused on President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; the meeting’s final communiqué repeated many of the usual lines about support for the Palestinians. This was hardly surprising, perhaps except for the fact that MbS (who attended the summit, but in a supporting role to his father) had just returned from a three-week tour of the United States, where he had reportedly captivated both the business community as well as leaders of the American Jewish community. MbS reportedly told the latter group that the question of the fate of the Palestinians did not rank among the top 100 issues for ordinary Saudis—a line that reportedly caused some people to literally fall off their chairs.
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