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"The Middle East is both the most polarised region in the world - meaning you have all these divisions, all these axes - but also the most integrated, which means that what happens in Syria matters to Saudi Arabia, matters to Iran, matters to Israel," says Middle East analyst and former Obama-administration adviser, Robert Malley. "And so you cannot have an uprising that simply lives on, on its own."

Formerly a White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region, Malley now heads leading think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Under Barack Obama, Malley was part of the team that crafted the Iran nuclear deal - the one Donald Trump's White House then withdrew from in 2018, calling it "defective".

"His [Trump's] criticisms are either deliberately dishonest, or he hasn't read the deal or he doesn't know what's in it," Malley tells Al Jazeera.

He says Trump decided to withdraw from the deal to get a better deal and to curb Iran's behaviour in the region. But "what have we seen a year later? Iran is now itself moving away from the deal, so its nuclear activities are worse than they were under the deal."

"It could well lead to a war that I am profoundly convinced the president doesn't want," he says. "But I think he [Trump] is on a collision course with himself because his policies - whether he is aware of it or not - are leading towards the possibility of military confrontation that his instincts oppose."

Under the Obama administration, the US also got involved in Saudi's war in Yemen. In April, Malley wrote in the Atlantic: "For an American who had a hand in shaping US Mideast policy during the Barack Obama years, coming to Yemen has the unpleasant feel of visiting the scene of a tragedy one helped co-write."

He tells Al Jazeera that despite the US having "huge reservations", they agreed to get involved in the Yemen conflict in 2015 to support an ally, Saudi Arabia. "The feeling was we can't afford another rupture with Saudi Arabia - which could be a major one - after coming in the wake of the Iran negotiations. So the president [Obama] had this view of, we can help Saudi Arabia defend its security, defend its borders, defend its territorial integrity while trying not to get too involved in the war with the Houthis," he says.

"But in a way that was getting half pregnant. Because once you support Saudi Arabia - once you support the Saudi-led coalition - support is fungible. And the US became complicit in what today the United Nations says is the worst humanitarian crisis we face. So this is a case of tragedy in which US fingerprints are very present."

On US interests elsewhere in the region, Malley feels "the world is spending too much time talking about this 'deal of the century'" that Trump has proposed to solve the Israel-Palestinian crisis.

"We know that if and when this is put on the table, the Palestinians will say no," he says."Because even if it's slightly better than people expect, it's going to be far less than what President Clinton proposed to the Palestinians in 2000, less than what was on offer during the George W Bush presidency, less than what was on offer for the Palestinians during the Barack Obama presidency, so there is no way they are going to say yes.

"The gaps between the parties on the central issues of identity, of territory, of refugees, of security, of settlements, all those gaps are very wide. And it will take ... a very strong third party to try to get the parties where they need to go," Malley says.

Although he believes the two-state solution is "still the best possible outcome" for the region, he concedes that it's becoming harder to see it as the most realistic option.

"It's pretty easy today to say that the two-state solution is more and more a thing of the past," he says. "It's not very easy to say what's a thing of the present or the future."

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This year, large parts of India have seen the worst drought in decades.

The monsoon, which usually provides some relief, was weeks late and when it finally arrived, it was once again deficient, with less rainfall than expected.

Despite India's economic growth in recent years, it remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. And that inequality can be seen in people's access to life's most basic necessity: water.

A government report found that 600 million Indians - nearly half the population - are facing acute water shortages.

While swimming pools in luxury hotels remain full, three quarters of the population do not have drinking water in their homes.

The effects of the drought are seen most clearly in rural India. About 300,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the past 25 years, and many more have deserted their crops to move to cities in search of work, leaving behind the elderly.

In the state of Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected regions.

Villagers there sometimes wait for days before government tankers carrying water trucks, where they desperately need them. But the trucks only provide about 20 litres per person a day, which people ration for everything including drinking, cooking, bathing and house work.

"Life is very hard because of the water situation," says Sitabai Gaikwad, a school teacher in Ahir Wadgaon village. "We have water when the tanker comes. People who can't manage to put their pipes in the tanker don't have water that day."

"There are older people who don't manage to get water. Everyone's worried about themselves because of the water situation," she says.

In Maharashtra, more than 6,000 tankers supply water to 15,000 villages every day - 1,000 of these are government tankers which provide water for free.

The others are private operators who sell water to people and businesses. Villagers say the cost of buying water from them has escalated since the drought.

"People buy water according to their finances," says Gaikwad. "Some buy it, but that is difficult because it costs us 900 rupees ($13) for a month."

"When we don't have money to feed ourselves, when we don't have food and water, how can we pay that much for water?" she asks.

Although the government tankers are meant to deliver water every day, villagers complain that this doesn't always happen. GPS tracking devices have been installed on all government trucks to monitor and ensure the water arrives.

Meanwhile, across Maharashtra, many farmers are leaving their land and villages because of the lack of water, which in these farming communities, often means a lack of work.

Panduram More, a labourer, left his 40,000 square metre cotton farm to move to the city of Aurangabad.

"There is no work, so I had to migrate here and live in this small room," he says. "There is no rainfall, so the land is of no use. We can't grow anything."

Talk to Al Jazeera In The Field, went to India's Maharashtra state to look at the effect the drought is having on the lives of ordinary people.

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This year, large parts of India have seen the worst drought in decades.

The monsoon, which usually provides some relief, was weeks late and when it finally arrived, it was once again deficient, with less rainfall than expected.

Despite India's economic growth in recent years, it remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. And that inequality can be seen in people's access to life's most basic necessity: water.

A government report found that 600 million Indians - nearly half the population - are facing acute water shortages.

While swimming pools in luxury hotels remain full, three quarters of the population do not have drinking water in their homes.

The effects of the drought are seen most clearly in rural India. About 300,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the past 25 years, and many more have deserted their crops to move to cities in search of work, leaving behind the elderly.

In the state of Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected regions.

Villagers there sometimes wait for days before government tankers carrying water trucks, where they desperately need them. But the trucks only provide about 20 litres per person a day, which people ration for everything including drinking, cooking, bathing and house work.

"Life is very hard because of the water situation," says Sitabai Gaikwad, a school teacher in Ahir Wadgaon village. "We have water when the tanker comes. People who can't manage to put their pipes in the tanker don't have water that day."

"There are older people who don't manage to get water. Everyone's worried about themselves because of the water situation," she says.

In Maharashtra, more than 6,000 tankers supply water to 15,000 villages every day - 1,000 of these are government tankers which provide water for free.

The others are private operators who sell water to people and businesses. Villagers say the cost of buying water from them has escalated since the drought.

"People buy water according to their finances," says Gaikwad. "Some buy it, but that is difficult because it costs us 900 rupees ($13) for a month."

"When we don't have money to feed ourselves, when we don't have food and water, how can we pay that much for water?" she asks.

Although the government tankers are meant to deliver water every day, villagers complain that this doesn't always happen. GPS tracking devices have been installed on all government trucks to monitor and ensure the water arrives.

Meanwhile, across Maharashtra, many farmers are leaving their land and villages because of the lack of water, which in these farming communities, often means a lack of work.

Panduram More, a labourer, left his 40,000 square metre cotton farm to move to the city of Aurangabad.

"There is no work, so I had to migrate here and live in this small room," he says. "There is no rainfall, so the land is of no use. We can't grow anything."

Talk to Al Jazeera In The Field, went to India's Maharashtra state to look at the effect the drought is having on the lives of ordinary people.

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Iraq is emerging from more than a decade of intermittent conflict. People are rebuilding their cities and institutions. At the same time, they are also pursuing reconciliation and trying to reconstruct their national identity.

Women hope they will be given more of an expanded role in the political sphere and that they will be given greater rights. But it has been an uphill battle.

Iraq's penal code allows husbands to discipline their wives, and there is currently no law criminalising domestic violence. For almost a decade, women's rights groups have been pushing parliament to pass a law that would change that - but it has always stalled.

"The law in Iraq doesn't give women their rights," says Lena, a domestic violence survivor whose abuse left her with physical and psychological ailments.

We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross.

Lena, domestic violence survivor

"I tried so many times to leave [my ex-husband] ... At the end of the day, I felt that I was going to die," she says.

But the abuse was just the beginning of her ordeal. After she left her husband and filed a police report, he turned the tables against Lena and her family, accusing them of kidnapping him.

At the end of the day, Lena was found guilty and spent 16 months in prison.

Lena blames the wide-reaching corruption in the judicial system, "from the lowest clerk to the highest judge."

She says Iraqi women who are unemployed or not well educated, especially those who have children, are forced to "bear everything".

"We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross," she says.

There are no updated national figures for domestic violence in Iraq; the most recent data available, from 2012, estimated that one in five women were victims.

Civil society groups say, based on the growing number of women seeking assistance, they believe the figure is much higher today.

"The life, the traditions, is so hard on the woman, on the girl," says Hanna Edwar, a longtime activist and founder of a non-profit social services group called al-Ammal.

She calls domestic violence "a national crisis" and attributes the increase to a number of factors, including political instability, poverty, conflict, outdated traditions and lack of rule of law. She says corruption also makes it difficult for victims and survivors to get justice.

Edwar has taken the lead on the effort to raise awareness about domestic violence and is pushing to pass the law offering victims greater protection.

"This year we are really very optimistic about it [passing]," she says. "Because it's not only our demand as civil society. It is now the demands of the government [as well]."

In the meantime, many women like Lena are still awaiting recognition of the crimes committed against them.

"When I talk about what happened to me, people dismiss it as just a story ... I have not been able to convince anyone in our government to change our laws to protect women," Lena says. "I have never received justice."

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Iraq is emerging from more than a decade of intermittent conflict. People are rebuilding their cities and institutions. At the same time, they are also pursuing reconciliation and trying to reconstruct their national identity.

Women hope they will be given more of an expanded role in the political sphere and that they will be given greater rights. But it has been an uphill battle.

Iraq's penal code allows husbands to discipline their wives, and there is currently no law criminalising domestic violence. For almost a decade, women's rights groups have been pushing parliament to pass a law that would change that - but it has always stalled.

"The law in Iraq doesn't give women their rights," says Lena, a domestic violence survivor whose abuse left her with physical and psychological ailments.

We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross.

Lena, domestic violence survivor

"I tried so many times to leave [my ex-husband] ... At the end of the day, I felt that I was going to die," she says.

But the abuse was just the beginning of her ordeal. After she left her husband and filed a police report, he turned the tables against Lena and her family, accusing them of kidnapping him.

At the end of the day, Lena was found guilty and spent 16 months in prison.

Lena blames the wide-reaching corruption in the judicial system, "from the lowest clerk to the highest judge."

She says Iraqi women who are unemployed or not well educated, especially those who have children, are forced to "bear everything".

"We don't have laws in our society to prevent men from hurting women, and to protect women, and to put red lines for men not to cross," she says.

There are no updated national figures for domestic violence in Iraq; the most recent data available, from 2012, estimated that one in five women were victims.

Civil society groups say, based on the growing number of women seeking assistance, they believe the figure is much higher today.

"The life, the traditions, is so hard on the woman, on the girl," says Hanna Edwar, a longtime activist and founder of a non-profit social services group called al-Ammal.

She calls domestic violence "a national crisis" and attributes the increase to a number of factors, including political instability, poverty, conflict, outdated traditions and lack of rule of law. She says corruption also makes it difficult for victims and survivors to get justice.

Edwar has taken the lead on the effort to raise awareness about domestic violence and is pushing to pass the law offering victims greater protection.

"This year we are really very optimistic about it [passing]," she says. "Because it's not only our demand as civil society. It is now the demands of the government [as well]."

In the meantime, many women like Lena are still awaiting recognition of the crimes committed against them.

"When I talk about what happened to me, people dismiss it as just a story ... I have not been able to convince anyone in our government to change our laws to protect women," Lena says. "I have never received justice."

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- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish

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- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, also known as MINUSMA, faces unprecedented challenges. Now in its sixth year, it is caught in the middle of an unfolding spiral of violence that is moving closer to the capital and that has already been spreading to neighbouring countries.

The initial violence took off shortly after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011. Armed groups and weapons entered Mali from the north, intersecting with already existing tensions between groups of different ethnic and religious belonging.

The conflict has since changed and spread - now overtaking parts of central Mali.

"The international community needs to be more interested in what is happening in Mali," Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of MINUSMA, tells Al Jazeera.

"We say we have wiped out the Islamic State in Iraq, in Syria. Do people ask the question where these people are going?" asks Annadif. "There is a breeze going towards the Sahel."

As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe.

Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Head of MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali

Armed groups such as ISIL and al-Qaeda are gaining strength in Mali. New armed groups have entered the fray, some taking advantage of longstanding pastoral and inter-communal tensions, causing deadly violence to escalate between the Fulani and Dogon communities.

"Inter-communal conflict has always existed. It is part of the society. But in the past, there were the traditional mechanisms ... to manage this conflict," says Annadif. "The terrorists came, they chased out all these people ... Today the majority of the religious leaders of these customary chiefs are in the big cities in the capitals and they [armed groups] have taken hostages of these communities."

Annadif says the international community must "pool our resources" and do more to stem the rising tide of violence in the Sahel. He warns that a failure to do so would have wide-reaching effects.

"As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe," he says. "The Sahel is becoming an open military arsenal. There are more than 60 million weapons circulating in the Sahel. If the Europeans and the other powers are not stopping it, it is there in the Sahel, that's what will obviously contaminate Europe and contaminate the rest of the world."

According to Annadif, the crisis is complex and while the Malian army is in the process of reconstituting itself, it has suffered a shock and needs to be supported.

"The day we help the Malian security forces to redeploy to the territories, these terrorists will have no place, it will be like when they fled Iraq, like they fled Syria, like fleeing Libya. They will flee to some other place," he says. "That's why it is extremely important for the international community to stand together and take seriously what is happening in Mali, which is contaminating the entire Sahel."

He believes the 2015 peace accord signed between the Malian government and some armed groups is the best way for the country to achieve peace, even though he admits there have been some delays in its implementation.

"The agreement for peace and reconciliation has no alternative," he says. "Today it is the only tool that exists to help Malians make peace. But we need to push Malians to accelerate the pace of its implementation."

The UN secretary-general has called on MINUSMA to change its priority, focusing on the 2015 peace agreement and helping the state to re-establish its control over the centre of the country.

But MINUSMA also faces challenges unlike other peacekeeping missions: it costs $1bn and is currently the deadliest mission in peacekeeping history - with nearly 200 soldiers killed since 2013. Some UN peacekeepers are now also leaving, including those from the Netherlands who are set to withdraw.

"I dare to hope that this presence of the MINUSMA is only temporary, that it will be as short as possible and that the Malians can find this national consensus, that they can restructure their army and they can take control of their destiny," Annadif says.

"We still need the United Nations. Peace missions are still needed, but peace missions alone can not do."

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The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, also known as MINUSMA, faces unprecedented challenges. Now in its sixth year, it is caught in the middle of an unfolding spiral of violence that is moving closer to the capital and that has already been spreading to neighbouring countries.

The initial violence took off shortly after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011. Armed groups and weapons entered Mali from the north, intersecting with already existing tensions between groups of different ethnic and religious belonging.

The conflict has since changed and spread - now overtaking parts of central Mali.

"The international community needs to be more interested in what is happening in Mali," Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of MINUSMA, tells Al Jazeera.

"We say we have wiped out the Islamic State in Iraq, in Syria. Do people ask the question where these people are going?" asks Annadif. "There is a breeze going towards the Sahel."

As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe.

Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Head of MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali

Armed groups such as ISIL and al-Qaeda are gaining strength in Mali. New armed groups have entered the fray, some taking advantage of longstanding pastoral and inter-communal tensions, causing deadly violence to escalate between the Fulani and Dogon communities.

"Inter-communal conflict has always existed. It is part of the society. But in the past, there were the traditional mechanisms ... to manage this conflict," says Annadif. "The terrorists came, they chased out all these people ... Today the majority of the religious leaders of these customary chiefs are in the big cities in the capitals and they [armed groups] have taken hostages of these communities."

Annadif says the international community must "pool our resources" and do more to stem the rising tide of violence in the Sahel. He warns that a failure to do so would have wide-reaching effects.

"As the president of Mali used to say: Mali for the moment is a dam, if it gives in, it risks invading the rest of Africa as well as Europe," he says. "The Sahel is becoming an open military arsenal. There are more than 60 million weapons circulating in the Sahel. If the Europeans and the other powers are not stopping it, it is there in the Sahel, that's what will obviously contaminate Europe and contaminate the rest of the world."

According to Annadif, the crisis is complex and while the Malian army is in the process of reconstituting itself, it has suffered a shock and needs to be supported.

"The day we help the Malian security forces to redeploy to the territories, these terrorists will have no place, it will be like when they fled Iraq, like they fled Syria, like fleeing Libya. They will flee to some other place," he says. "That's why it is extremely important for the international community to stand together and take seriously what is happening in Mali, which is contaminating the entire Sahel."

He believes the 2015 peace accord signed between the Malian government and some armed groups is the best way for the country to achieve peace, even though he admits there have been some delays in its implementation.

"The agreement for peace and reconciliation has no alternative," he says. "Today it is the only tool that exists to help Malians make peace. But we need to push Malians to accelerate the pace of its implementation."

The UN secretary-general has called on MINUSMA to change its priority, focusing on the 2015 peace agreement and helping the state to re-establish its control over the centre of the country.

But MINUSMA also faces challenges unlike other peacekeeping missions: it costs $1bn and is currently the deadliest mission in peacekeeping history - with nearly 200 soldiers killed since 2013. Some UN peacekeepers are now also leaving, including those from the Netherlands who are set to withdraw.

"I dare to hope that this presence of the MINUSMA is only temporary, that it will be as short as possible and that the Malians can find this national consensus, that they can restructure their army and they can take control of their destiny," Annadif says.

"We still need the United Nations. Peace missions are still needed, but peace missions alone can not do."

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It's been two years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS) ascended to power. Many consider him to be the kingdom's de facto ruler.

A lot of people in the West had pinned their hopes on the young reformist prince and what they described as his bold vision for Saudi Arabia. But with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the persecution of activists and feminists, and the jailing of human rights defenders, including Saudi Muslim leader Salman al-Awdah, many find his leadership decisions concerning.

"The promise was to reform the social fabric in Saudi Arabia, was to diversify the Saudi economy and to promote moderate Islam," says Abdullah Alaoudh, a scholar, rights advocate and the son of al-Awdah.

"What has been done is actually the opposite of all these three different aspects," he tells Al Jazeera.

Alaoudh, a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the US, is sceptical of what he calls MBS's "superficial reforms" in Saudi Arabia, including lifting a driving ban on women, because this has happened in the midst of other basic rights and liberties being taken away.

He says the reforms are akin to a "PR campaign" for MBS who "took advantage of a lot of people in the West not knowing the dynamics of the Saudi society".

"[MBS has] attacked the moderate voices of the kingdom; the voices that have been spearheading the campaign against extremism, terrorism in the kingdom," Alaoudh says.

"Look at the liberals, the feminists, the Shia, the Sunni, the Islamists, the different women, men. The leaders of all these segments of Saudi society all have been either put in jail, silenced, intimidated or threatened in one way or another. Even the tribal leaders in Saudi Arabia. Even his own family."

Alaoudh calls the murder of Khashoggi "horrible" but says it was also a "wake-up call" for the Saudi public, the international community and global media.

"The case of Khashoggi is actually representative of the human rights cases in Saudi Arabia ... The same minds that treated Jamal Khashoggi with brutality, with a gruesome killing, are still torturing women human rights defenders, feminists, the moderate Muslims, and the economists in Saudi Arabia."

Alaoudh says he remains concerned for his own safety and the safety of his father, who was arrested after sending out a tweet - an apparent call for reconciliation - at the start of the Saudi blockade on Qatar in 2017. Calling his father a "religious democrat" and "an icon of enlightenment, of moderate Islam", Alaoudh says these are the types of discourse MBS seeks to clamp down on because he fears it the most.

Asked whether he believes that his father's death penalty would be executed, Alaoudh says: "Did we ever think that those who were sent to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul will execute that horrible, gruesome killing of my friend Jamal Khashoggi? If those who killed Jamal Khashoggi were just rogue operatives, the head of that rogue operation, is it still in force? Is it still administering and managing the situation in Saudi Arabia? So I really can't expect anything."

Alaoudh says his larger fear is for the future of his country, where extreme voices have been empowered while those seeking to uphold basic rights and liberties are targeted or tortured or killed.

"My father is the most popular figure in the kingdom and he was treated like that. So just imagine those who are less known or even not known to the public or to the international media, what would they do? How would they treat such people?"

But he says there is more to the country than those who control it today.

"MBS is not Saudi Arabia. MBS is not the history of Saudi Arabia. MBS is not his own royal family and MBS is not the Saudi public," he says.

"So if you [the West] want to really establish a real alliance with Saudi Arabia, if you want to make sure that you have a stable relationship, if you want to have a long term alliance, you have to establish that with the Saudi public who will be there forever."

--

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It's been two years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS) ascended to power. Many consider him to be the kingdom's de facto ruler.

A lot of people in the West had pinned their hopes on the young reformist prince and what they described as his bold vision for Saudi Arabia. But with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the persecution of activists and feminists, and the jailing of human rights defenders, including Saudi Muslim leader Salman al-Awdah, many find his leadership decisions concerning.

"The promise was to reform the social fabric in Saudi Arabia, was to diversify the Saudi economy and to promote moderate Islam," says Abdullah Alaoudh, a scholar, rights advocate and the son of al-Awdah.

"What has been done is actually the opposite of all these three different aspects," he tells Al Jazeera.

Alaoudh, a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the US, is sceptical of what he calls MBS's "superficial reforms" in Saudi Arabia, including lifting a driving ban on women, because this has happened in the midst of other basic rights and liberties being taken away.

He says the reforms are akin to a "PR campaign" for MBS who "took advantage of a lot of people in the West not knowing the dynamics of the Saudi society".

"[MBS has] attacked the moderate voices of the kingdom; the voices that have been spearheading the campaign against extremism, terrorism in the kingdom," Alaoudh says.

"Look at the liberals, the feminists, the Shia, the Sunni, the Islamists, the different women, men. The leaders of all these segments of Saudi society all have been either put in jail, silenced, intimidated or threatened in one way or another. Even the tribal leaders in Saudi Arabia. Even his own family."

Alaoudh calls the murder of Khashoggi "horrible" but says it was also a "wake-up call" for the Saudi public, the international community and global media.

"The case of Khashoggi is actually representative of the human rights cases in Saudi Arabia ... The same minds that treated Jamal Khashoggi with brutality, with a gruesome killing, are still torturing women human rights defenders, feminists, the moderate Muslims, and the economists in Saudi Arabia."

Alaoudh says he remains concerned for his own safety and the safety of his father, who was arrested after sending out a tweet - an apparent call for reconciliation - at the start of the Saudi blockade on Qatar in 2017. Calling his father a "religious democrat" and "an icon of enlightenment, of moderate Islam", Alaoudh says these are the types of discourse MBS seeks to clamp down on because he fears it the most.

Asked whether he believes that his father's death penalty would be executed, Alaoudh says: "Did we ever think that those who were sent to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul will execute that horrible, gruesome killing of my friend Jamal Khashoggi? If those who killed Jamal Khashoggi were just rogue operatives, the head of that rogue operation, is it still in force? Is it still administering and managing the situation in Saudi Arabia? So I really can't expect anything."

Alaoudh says his larger fear is for the future of his country, where extreme voices have been empowered while those seeking to uphold basic rights and liberties are targeted or tortured or killed.

"My father is the most popular figure in the kingdom and he was treated like that. So just imagine those who are less known or even not known to the public or to the international media, what would they do? How would they treat such people?"

But he says there is more to the country than those who control it today.

"MBS is not Saudi Arabia. MBS is not the history of Saudi Arabia. MBS is not his own royal family and MBS is not the Saudi public," he says.

"So if you [the West] want to really establish a real alliance with Saudi Arabia, if you want to make sure that you have a stable relationship, if you want to have a long term alliance, you have to establish that with the Saudi public who will be there forever."

--

More from Talk To Al Jazeera on:

YouTube - http://aje.io/ttajYT

Facebook - http://facebook.com/talktoaj

Twitter - http://twitter.com/talktoaljazeera

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US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" - his administration's proposal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - kicked into gear in Manama, Bahrain this week as officials from the region gathered for the so-called 'Peace to Prosperity' workshop.

Already, sceptics are voicing concern, saying the American side is using money to bribe the Palestinians.

The initial economic stage of the deal hopes to drum up $50bn in investment, money that primarily is expected to come from other Arab nations, principally in the Gulf.

Participants of the Manama meeting will discuss projects and conditions for investments in more detail. Then, based on the outcome of this meeting, the next step would be to fashion a political settlement that would translate financial commitments into reality on the ground in Palestine.

However, Palestinians have derided the plan as an "economy first" approach that is doomed to fail. The Palestinian Authority is arguing for a reverse order: a political settlement first, money later - an approach that would tackle the difficult questions of establishing a Palestinians state, end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and allow refugees to return.

Palestinian leaders boycotted the June 25 and 26 meeting, saying the gathering circumvents a political settlement based on a two-state solution, and is an ill-fated attempt by the US administration to "liquidate" the Palestinian cause.

However, the senior adviser to the US president and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner - who has been tasked with leading the process - told Al Jazeera the reaction was "fairly predictable". He said believed the event would be a success despite the boycott, citing the presence of delegates from regional countries and a large number of international investors.

"What [the Palestinian leadership] have been saying is a lot of hot rhetoric about rejecting everything before they even see it, which is, in my opinion, not a very responsible position."

When questioned why the proposal did not want to settle some of the political questions that could stave off conflict before it pours money into infrastructure, Kushner said: "that's been the traditional thinking, and that has not worked".

"The president is not a traditional politician. He wants to do things in a different way. If we can get people through this process to look at this problem differently, to see what the future could be, then I think that could be a very very successful thing."

Outlining the Trump administration's "different" approach, he said: "What we have tried to do is help people identify what a future could look like. And hopefully we get people to all agree ... and then we get people to look at, maybe, let's commit to the future in the event that there is a peace agreement. Perhaps that will create a different condition through which people can then approach some of these political issues that have been unresolvable for a very long time."

Kushner called the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative "a great effort" but said it is not possible to solve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a deal along those lines.

"I think we all have to recognise that if there ever is a deal, it's not going to be along the lines of the Arab peace initiative. It will be somewhere between the Arab peace initiative and somewhere between the Israeli position," he said.

He also defended Trump's 2017 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying: "Israel is a sovereign nation; a sovereign nation has the right to determine where their capital is and America has the right to recognise the decision". He said the relocation of the embassy should not affect final-status negotiations with the Palestinians.

Kushner said that on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, there are voices who accuse the other of having no interest in peace. But he added that peace needs to come from compromise and negotiation.

"If we want to find a pathway forward, it means that both sides need to find a place where they both feel that they can gain more than they give, and move forward and have the opportunities to live better lives," he said.

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