A prince who is afraid of his shadow.

Soon after, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman learned the art of espionage from his inspiration, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who during his reign learned the basics of espionage and control of Emirati citizens.

The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar wrote on Friday: Bin Salman was convinced that in order to overcome his temptations, he needed the experiences of Bin Zayed to pave his rocky path to the throne of the kingdom.

 In the first two years of his rise to the throne and to restore his face, the Saudi prince displayed fascinating effects such as the opening and, in parallel, the post-oil era, perhaps to give the West a glimpse of the developments that are about to take place. In the framework of the pioneering reform program, “Vision 2030” will occur.

At the time, former US President Donald Trump’s administration was pleased with bin Salman’s actions, eliminating anyone who might have stood in his way to the throne, including opponents, protesters, activists, officials and relatives.

In the summer of 2017, when bin Salman was elected Crown Prince following the ouster of his cousin Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi officials quietly reorganized the Saudi Public Prosecutor’s Office and Security Services after ousting former senior security and intelligence officials. They came under the direct supervision of the royal court.

In September of that year, the Saudi government began arresting dozens of active critics and those likely to oppose the Saudi regime’s policies, including prominent clerics, intellectuals, academics, and human rights activists.The second wave of “purges” in November 2017 included some senior Saudi businessmen and princes opposed to bin Salman’s monarchy, and in May 2018, the arrest of prominent Saudi women human rights defenders was on the Saudi government’s agenda.

Bin Salman, who did not give in to the temptations to ascend the throne, did not settle for the purge campaign he launched under the guise of “fighting corruption” and at the same time propagandized that the West was surprised by the Saudi prince’s determination to reform. .

The coin of the Saudi prince’s actions had another side, and that was the Saudi monarchy resorting to espionage as a way to confront the opponents and shut their mouths. It took the Saudi critic in Istanbul, Turkey, it affected the world for weeks and months.

The espionage scandal, however, began in late 2016, about two years after the ouster of Salman bin Abdulaziz, when the Israeli company entered into negotiations with Saudi intelligence and security officials to sell the Pegasus spy system to Riyadh.

The sale of this spy system and the cooperation of this Israeli company with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would not have been possible without the green light of the Israeli Ministry of Security.

According to a recent media investigation, Israel has formally allowed companies that specialize in programming and hacking to sell special espionage and hacking programs to Saudi officials to control Saudi citizens.

Cooperation between the Israeli and Saudi regimes has continued even after Saudi Arabia used spyware to prosecute dissidents and human rights activists and to assassinate Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.