from WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made this past weekend with news that Israel was sending a delegation to Doha, Qatar, in the hopes of advancing a cease fire with Hamas.

As NPR reports, Qatar is a tiny nation with outsized influence.

Its land juts out of the Arabian Peninsula.

It's about twice the size of Delaware, with just 300,000 or so citizens.

Despite despite its small size, the nation's influence spreads far.

It is home to the Al Jazeera news network and a U.S. air base with U.S. troops.

Last year, it hosted World Cup soccer games.

Israel's delegation trip comes after a Hamas team met Egyptian officials in Cairo on Saturday, trying to negotiate the second phase of the cease fire deal.

Israeli officials have lauded Qatar, Qatar's role in trying to free more than 200 hostages, some of them children and elderly, held by militants in Gaza.

As a new American presidential administration reshapes foreign policy, we're going to try to spend some time this hour understanding Qatar's role, understanding the nation, understanding perhaps regional politics and perhaps most importantly, the value in the role of diplomacy.

Tonight, the World Affairs Council of Rochester will host former U.S.

Ambassador to Qatar Susan Ziadeh, who is going to give a presentation focused on Qatar U.S. relations in a changing global and regional landscape.

But first, the ambassador joins us here on connections, and it is lovely to have you.

Thank you for making time for the program.

Thank you for having me.

I'm delighted.

I'm going to do my best to say this nation's name the best way possible.

How do you say the name of the nation, ambassador?

The state of Qatar.

Okay, I'm close enough.

That's pretty.

Pretty close here.

and I want to start just by asking you what you think the American public actually knows about Qatar.

When they find out that you did work there from 2011 through 2014, that you were an ambassador there.

How much civic knowledge, how much knowledge do we have generally about the state?

Well, I think it's, it varies from place to place in the United States.

probably Qatar came to the attention of more Americans, in 2022 when they hosted the World Cup.

That was a wildly successful, hosting of the World Cup.

it was beamed, across, televisions and people's livings were living rooms.

And increasingly, Americans are glomming on to the idea of soccer.

So I think they found that interesting.

also, increasingly, they those Americans who fly to different parts of the world are finding that Qatar Airways has a lot of destinations and they're offering competitive rates.

And so many people are flying to Qatar and then changing, planes at the Hamad International Airport and continuing on to their destinations, whether it's Africa, Asia, Europe, the Far East.

So with the World Cup in 2022, the state of Qatar projected at least to lanes viewers around the world, a kind of Western image.

embracing international football.

A lot of the spectacle, as you say, a lot of, you know, sort of business growth.

There's all kinds of ads.

I mean, of course, it's a great marketing opportunity.

When you host the World Cup as the United States, Mexico and Canada will do in 2026.

But I want to ask you what what it means to have either a Western disposition or if you even think that Qatar does, if that's an accurate description.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would say a Western disposition.

First of all, when you look at, certain sports like soccer, for example, or as they call it, football, it's a worldwide sport.

we, the Americans are sort of Johnny come lately to the sport.

And frankly, so.

So, it's very popular in Asia.

the country's hosted the Asia Cup, in 2005. where which was also like a test run for the World Cup.

And their success in hosting the Asia Cup was basically a stepping stone, giving them the the confidence some of the infrastructure and the knowledge to be able to pull off a World Cup, which was large.

it was the first time it was being done in one country that was so small.

it so it was logistically more of a challenge, but it proved to be very successful in the sense that people were very happy.

They didn't have to get on to planes and fly to another destination.

In a large country, they could just get on a bus or in a in a taxi and, get off to the next game, wherever that, might be.

And so it actually proved to be a different kind of model for the World Cup.

And Qatar was the country that navigated and showcased that, is it more Western oriented than its neighbors?

Well, you know, it depends.

What do you mean by Western oriented?

Qatar is an Islamic country.

It holds, very true to its Islamic and Arab, ideals, whether it's in language, in dress, in traditions, they are a religious people.

but, they certainly are, open to trade with the entire world.

they believe in, Western education.

You have, six U.S., campuses there in Qatar.

So they value our education system and are, are learning.

they are part of, their main export is energy, in particular liquefied natural gas.

So they're part of a global system with global pricing and, and, trade that takes place within the dollar currency.

So, if you say Western in that sense, yes.

Yes.

they obviously are global, I would put it that way.

And they've been referenced often as a as a key non-NATO ally to the United States.

how important is this relationship?

Well, they are a major non-NATO ally.

That was, under President Biden was given to Qatar.

I think, a couple of years ago.

It's important in terms of the military operations, that we have in Qatar and sort of mil to mil relationship and also, in terms of acquisitions of, defense, material that we, often do sell to Qatar.

So it it is an important relation ship.

I was, speaking to someone who used to work for the State Department, a couple of weeks ago, and he said that when you look at diplomacy, it's fair.

And, frankly, foreign policy, you would be surprised at all of the different ways these relationships matter.

And they matter in ways.

Take Qatar, just having American troops and having a base and having a base of operations and having relationships in many places, yields very important opportunities for our country in many different ways.

And I think this was his way of sort of euphemism and concern about where foreign policy may take us, or where fragile alliances might take us.

So let me pull back and just talk to you a little bit about the value of diplomacy.

I mean, this was this was the work that you did.

is it valued enough in this country right now?

Are you concerned about diplomacy?

I think that, diplomacy often is not well known or understood by the American public at large.

Tell me more about that.

Well, I think that, many people in the public think that diplomats lead a charmed life.

They attend cocktail parties, they, live in grand houses.

they speak foreign languages.

they are somehow, unconnected to middle America, which, of course, all of which is false.

America, our foreign service represents America.

It looks like America.

We have people in the Foreign Service of the United States, meaning our diplomats abroad, who come from every part of the United States.

We represent every, ethnicity, every, where we're diverse, like, America is diverse.

we we have people who come from private education, public education, different, educational backgrounds, different different socioeconomic levels.

So there's a broad understanding of America housed within the Foreign Service, the days of what they used to euphemistically call, male and pale and Yale are long over.

Have I never heard that phrase?

It's well known in the US.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

And so if there's been this evolution, why do you think that there is a misunderstanding about what the Foreign Service actually is?

Well, I think because we do work overseas and so the general public, unless they have an interest in overseas or they travel extensively, they don't see our footprint.

the American, average American citizen, if he goes overseas or she goes overseas and they lose their passport or they go into trouble with the local law, believe me, they know where the U.S. embassy is, and they want us to come and bail them out.

And, of course, our one of our first, important duties is to protect American citizens overseas and to help the American public.

So that is an important part of what we do.

when we look at, export of U.S. goods and trade, that means jobs in America, when we are exporting, for example, commercial aircraft to an airline that is utilizing, American aircraft, that means jobs in America and all the different components that, goes into making an airplane.

But it could be foodstuffs, it could be agriculture, wheat.

It can be, any kinds of goods.

It can be services like banking, like consulting, contracting.

the World Cup, for example, in Qatar was a marvelous opportunity.

I was lucky enough to be there just after the World Cup was announced.

And it gave us the opportunity to really advocate for U.S. companies to get a share of the pie.

As Qatar was gearing up its infrastructure to meet the needs of the World Cup.

And we did very handsomely.

I must say that announcement was 2010.

It was late 2010, late 2010, and a major announcement for such a small nation.

But can you take us through how would you describe the mission or the role that you had as Ambassador for four years, 2011 through 2014?

Yeah.

Well, my job as ambassador, of course, is to promote good bilateral relations to fully and truthfully and transparently represent our U.S. interests and our concerns to the government.

We also have people to people relationships that are important because you want people in other parts of the world to be favorably inclined to the United States, to know us, to understand us, and to, be supportive of our goals, even globally, we want to promote American goods and services, in exports overseas.

We want to be able to attract foreign direct investment.

which we have done, in particular, the Qataris have been very active in this file, investing in real estate, investing in the energy sector in the United States, among other, a whole host of areas where they have invested and they, in fact, have made it, a part of their strategic plan.

There are 20, 30 National vision, to diversify their economy, so that it's not wholly dependent on the hydrocarbon sector.

And part of that has been, foreign direct investment overseas, some of it in Europe, some in Asia, but a big chunk in the United States, which has helped, the US tremendously.

Right now, there is, what appears to be a fundamental rethinking about the way this government, this country deals with allies and deals with adversaries.

And, certainly what feels right now, I don't even think this is all that subjective to say that the relationships are becoming much more transactional.

What was what would you describe the Obama administration's view toward the value of diplomacy and the way that you interact with allies?

Well, I would say that historically, diplomacy has been, important because of the value of relationships and that those relationships have an enduring capacity to be supportive for U.S. interests, whether it's in the region or worldwide.

So that, for example, if we are concerned about, the provision of a natural gas to Europe, in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war and what countries in the world have the capacity to be able to substitute for Russian gas?

Because, we and the Europeans have put sanctions on Russia.

And so therefore and we wanted to curtail their, exploitation of Europe through the sale of natural gas.

We had to work with our partners and allies to find alternative sources of natural gas, to be able to fill the gap.

That was something important to do.

Now, many countries have a supplies that are limited in capacity.

They may be working on expanding their capacity, but at any given moment in time, a lot of let's say natural gas is already committed through contracts.

So how do you get these countries to be able to shift their contracts, their supplies?

in a way to help us, supply Europe, which in essence was a way of protecting them during the onslaught, of Russia on Ukraine and shore up, Western Europe.

and I have an observation that I suspect is wrong because my knowledge is a mile wide and an inch thick here, an inch deep.

So I apologize, but I, I want to offer an observation and get your take on how certain alliances and relationships, you know, the pressure or maybe the appropriate tensions that may exist between two governments that have fundamentally different views on a number of issues.

So it strikes me that right now, the the political right that has elected this administration is more interested in an analyzing our relationship with allies.

Take NATO and say, well, are they paying enough for defense?

Are they paying, you know, have they funded Ukraine to the level that we have?

And if not, how do we get more out of them?

Very transactional.

Whereas it seemed during the Obama administration, again, very much a lay observation that the criticism such as it was, was more along the lines of, hey, some of our allies don't engage in the kind of values that we do.

Should we be pressuring them to change internally?

More so, less transactional, more questioning?

Should this alliance exist?

If women's rights are XYZ, or if human rights are not treated?

And certainly Qatar has at times been under the microscope for, I think, very fairly, but I'm curious to know how you see that.

So was there pressure either from the Obama administration or from other sources when you were the ambassador to Qatar to say, yes, they are an ally, but we should be exerting pressure on them to change, especially visibly human rights under the Obama administration, while still transactional, because we have our interests.

And so therefore we have to be able to secure our interests.

There was certainly a focus on certain aspects of human rights and human rights, whether it was women's rights, whether it was environmental issues, whether it was labor issues.

Yeah.

Right.

broadly, in many countries, this was the case.

Sure.

and certainly in, in parts of Africa, for example, you would have focus on food security, which was something that had not been discussed as much before.

so, yes, in Qatar in particular, for example, in the run up to the World Cup of 2022, the countries understood very clearly, and I used to articulate to them that this is an opportunity for you to lead as a country that has had a mixed record on a certain rights, not so much women's rights, but more labor issues was, was a was a concern because it is a country of about 2.2 to 2.4 million, of which only 300,000 are citizens.

So the rest are expat expatriate labor.

Now you have labor that could be, unskilled, semi-skilled.

Some, some of the labor can be lawyers, doctors, heads of corporations.

In other words, you run the whole gamut in terms of that labor.

And for the World Cup to improve labor, conditions, to improve how they work, environmentally, all of these issues, the World Cup gave them a chance, really, to make the kinds of adjustments and changes in their local laws, in their practices that would, show that they can lead in, in on the human rights record in a way that had not always consistently been the case.

How they do.

They did pretty well.

they certainly did, took certain steps, from things like direct deposit of salaries into banks, to not holding passports of local labor, adjusting, times when people worked in, during the hot climate, to allowing people to change jobs from one company to another, even though they had been sponsored by an original company.

Now, some of those changes, were, were important, improvement in housing, improvement in those kinds of issues.

not always were each individual company adhering, religiously to those, issues.

They started the Cup.

The government of Qatar started actually prosecuting certain individuals.

As always, it's fine to have the the laws on the books.

And they took that step.

The question is where their prosecutions when people, were in, did not follow and, and in essence, they did take some of those steps.

Was it enough?

It would depend on whom you talk to.

But there were, international human rights groups, international labor groups that did indeed recognize what Qatar had done.

And the question is, how does a country, then, when they're not under the spotlight, continue to adhere to these new guidelines, which are important in support of labor and human rights?

Is it appropriate for the United States to try to exert pressure for other regimes to change?

I think it's important for the United States to live its values.

And if we talk about, labor rights in America, human rights in America, that we should always talk about what we think is important.

Now, every country will look at its own national, you know, national interests and what they feel is, appropriate within their culture in many parts of, of the Middle East, for example, there are certain, cultural issues that, had been, adopted by the Obama and then the Biden administration, but may.

Well, it's unclear yet, but may be somewhat walked back.

I think it has been to an extent by some of these executive orders that, President Trump has now, promulgated.

And so it will be interesting to see how that has an impact in terms of our, foreign policies going forward.

Are you concerned that we will not be living our values in the same way?

Well, I mean, in part it's how you determine what those values are.

This president and his administration has determined, a set of values that is at variance with, the values of the previous administration, to an extent.

And that is his right as the president to do.

The question is, and he has stated that that is not the goal of our foreign policy.

He has stated the goal of our foreign policy is more focused on national security and trade and foreign direct investment in the United States, which, by the way, those three elements have always been part of our, national, foreign policy, our national security interests.

But perhaps this administration is putting an even greater emphasis on those three components.

We're talking to the former US ambassador to Qatar, Susan Ziadeh, who is in Rochester as a guest of the World Affairs Council.

they are hosting the ambassador tonight for a presentation.

And, it's our pleasure to have the ambassador here on connections, learning about the state of Qatar.

the state of the relationship between the United States and Doha.

And, frankly, what is a small country but has outsized influence in the region, although, I have to say 300,000 countries, but more than 2 million workers.

Sounds like a very exploitable labor system.

I mean, that sounds very hard to get your head around it in terms of scale, in terms of just percentages of who's in a country, quote unquote, versus who is brought in to do work and therefore might be exploited.

But I guess that was the point that you're making that that history was exploitable, that it is not perfect, that you think there has been improvement.

And the real test will be, how are they acting now that the World Cup has come and gone?

Yeah.

Fair.

Yeah.

No fair.

and I think that, there is a greater understanding.

I mean, there are people who, when we say labor, they've been there for generations.

Families have been there for generations.

So it's not simply you come in for a year or two.

Some people do, but many people for a lifetime.

so take me back a little bit.

So you start the ambassadorship in 2011, and a lot of the focus lately, the headlines around Doha surround Doha.

His role in trying to be a place into and a partner to broker a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas's, comes to Hamas, comes to power in 2006, 2007.

Everything I've read and this is again, this is me trying to be a good student here, but this is not my expertise.

You know, reading from a number of different sources about, what Qatar has done.

Qatar has been called Hamas's most important financial backer and foreign ally.

and Qatar has been home to senior Hamas leaders in exile, such as Khalid Meshaal and Ismail Haniya.

And it's unclear precisely how much Hamas leaders abroad knew about October 7th in advance.

but Doha has also since Hamas rose to power, sent money to the Hamas government for the purpose of aiding the citizenry, the Palestinian people.

Now, what Hamas has done with the money certainly is been heavily scrutinized and debated.

But how would you describe what was happening at the time, 2011 2012?

I mean, how much was that an issue at the time, and how would you describe Doha's relationship with Hamas?

Yeah, I would take a little bit of exception, the money not going directly to Hamas, going, the money going, directly to the people, whether it's now in part it was government salaries.

So if the government was running, Hamas came to power before 2006 seven.

I mean, they were an entity in Gaza, but they came to power in terms of running the government in Gaza in 2006, 2007.

That's correct.

After the elections in which they got elected in 2000, there haven't been elections since, and there have not been elections since.

Neither they are nor in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

So Hamas, comes to, comes to power.

they are the governing force, Qatar was supportive of Hamas, the, Amir, the father, who was the Amir at the time, made his first visit, in I think 2012, to Gaza and pledged at that time 400 million, mostly for housing, schools, hospitals, clinics, that sort of thing.

Did the money get to those places?

And that money did get to those places.

all of it is now been bombed.

But at the time, yes, there was a whole housing complex named after the Amir.

There was a hospitals, schools, and then some public salaries, because when Hamas came to power there, the, the Palestinian Authority cut off all funding for public salaries.

And, so, the countries, tried to fill the gap.

They used to also give a lot of money for things like diesel fuel to run the bakeries, to produce food or fuel, to, to run, to produce electric City.

I do remember at times I was in Doha and we would hear, oh, they've only got 2 or 3 days of electricity left, and, there would be, urgent need for assistance in that endeavor.

And by the way, the request would come from our government to say we have to help get the countries to get the money so that they can, live now in terms of support for, the Qatar, doing development in Gaza.

All of this was done with the knowledge, the approval and the coordination of the Israelis.

So money did not go into money went into Gaza via Israeli banks.

the Israelis were well, aware of it.

And in fact, a coordinated interestingly enough, a couple of years ago, when there were tensions in the relationship between, Qatar and, they were coming under a lot of criticism for, in the West for why are they sending this money?

And they said, fine, we won't send the money.

I mean, you're going to hurt the Palestinian people living in Gaza.

You're not hurting Hamas, you're hurting the people.

But if that's what it is, well, then maybe we'll have to rethink this.

And the next day, the head of Israeli intelligence was on the plane to Doha saying, let's keep this money flow going because it's keeping Gaza quiet.

And that's in our interest as Israel.

So it really was kind of an understanding the countries didn't do it out of an interest to Israel.

They did it out of humanitarian interests for the Palestinians in Gaza.

But but to the extent that all relationships have an element of transaction ality, what what was Doha getting out of?

What were they investing in?

Oh, well, do you think it was purely humanitarian?

It first of all, they have a long history of doing humanitarian good around the world.

They have Doha does.

Oh yeah, they have the Qatar Development Fund.

They have, but they have always, done humanitarian assistance, relief, earthquake relief and many different countries assistance to, African countries, whether it's food security or others.

They have a long history.

I think they probably were, also not minding having a relationship with Israel in a way that, but in a way that doesn't, mean that they have normalized, but and yet they're having contacts with Israel.

maybe they thought the US would look upon this favorably because, it's helping Israel keep, Gaza quiet.

But from their perspective, it's also feeding the people there and building infrastructure and giving the people of Gaza, who don't have employment opportunities, some semblance of, of a livelihood and, and a decent, decent minimal standard of living, as you say.

They sent hundreds of millions of dollars to build all kinds of infrastructure.

Correct.

And in your own words, all of which has now been bombed.

Oh, yeah, it's gone.

Which is not hyperbole.

I mean, there's very little left.

Correct.

and so I want to just ask a couple points about this and then we'll move on to some other topics.

But, I, I find it surreal to see an American president talking about, you know, resorts in Gaza and Palestinians maybe not returning.

But wouldn't you like to see a casino?

Wouldn't you like to see hotels?

Does it does that strike you as serious?

Does that strike you as crass or worse?

Well, I can't really get into the, the mind of, our president when he makes statements like that.

I mean, perhaps in his mind, there's a strategy to.

Is there a diplomatic purpose to it?

I mean, you've been talking about the value of diplomacy.

What is the diplomatic purpose of that?

Well, he may be looking at it from a more transactional perspective.

Maybe he's sending a signal, to the Israelis, to the Arab countries.

He may have been sending a signal to the Arab countries, like, get your act together and come up with a plan for Gaza.

And and actually, they did, in their meeting in Cairo, where the Arab League met and came up with a Gaza plan, which, subsequently, Israel and the United States both rejected out of hand.

So, yeah, I can't speak on behalf of the administration and what their statements mean, but, I can tell you that, for many Palestinians and certainly for people of Gaza, they're not going to leave.

They're not going to leave.

That's their that's their home.

Yeah, that's their home.

That's their home.

And they will be hoping and looking to the wealthier Arab countries to help them, build and also looking to those Arab countries to leverage their relationship with the West, the United States, even Israel, for those countries that have normalized or have peace treaties with Israel, to take a stand in support of, Palestinians remaining in Gaza and having the opportunity to rebuild their lives, it's certainly going to take a lot of partners to rebuild Gaza.

I mean, it's hard to this.

The scale of devastation is staggering, isn't it?

It is staggering.

and I, I'm not sure that in the Arab League meeting while they came up with the plan, I'm not sure dollars and cents were attached to the plan in terms of who would be pledging.

so of course that's going to be an issue.

I think we'll know a little bit more, after, you know, there are talks now in, in Saudi Arabia that will be taking place about Ukraine.

On the other hand, I can't imagine that Ukraine is the only issue that will be on the table.

Secretary, Rubio was, speaking to the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who knows where, President Trump's first trip abroad will be and what will be the subject.

So I think it waits.

We wait to see, there's there's a difference between a ceasefire and lasting peace, of course.

Are you optimistic that a ceasefire can happen anytime soon?

No.

Again, an Israeli delegation has been in Doha this week trying to make progress there.

Are you optimistic on that front?

And then looking at what's happened in the last couple of years, do you feel we are farther away than ever to lasting peace, or do you think that is achievable?

I think that, lasting peace is achievable if all the right parties are at the table and there is a sense of, of support and respect for all peoples in the region and all histories in the region, I think at the end of the day, Israel will, best hope for, growth.

I don't say survival.

I say growth and prosperity is being fully integrated into the Middle East.

And I think that that can happen, but it will not happen, until there is a, a solution for the Palestinians that, respects their political, national rights, and economic rights and, provides a, a pathway to statehood in their historic land, not to elsewhere in their in their historic land.

As for a cease fire, do you think that is in the offing?

The reason to believe that?

I think there is reason to believe that.

But I think the United States, by placing more pressure on the parties, has been helpful in this regard.

And I think President Trump has been helpful in this regard.

where whereas, the previous president, President Biden, did not put that kind of pressure.

and I say pressure on all parties and Israel included, Israel's economy has been, devastated by this.

Their reserves are, tired.

the families want to get their hostages home, which is understandable.

and, and unfortunately, those who did not survive, their bodies repatriated.

and the same, by the way, in terms of Palestinians who have been, kept in jails for years, without, any due process, some of them children under the age of 18.

And there are, many unfortunately, bodies of dead Palestinians that have never been repatriated to their families as well, out of Israeli jails.

So it's a large, larger picture that needs to be looked at holistically.

If there is going to be a piece that really, secures the peace for the entire region and to include Israel, I'm late for our only break the hour.

It's a very short one, and we're going to come back and finish up with a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar, Susan Ziadeh, who is in Rochester as a guest of the World Affairs Council of Rochester.

She's making a presentation tonight focused on Qatar, U.S. relations and a changing global and regional landscape.

And we'll share some feedback that you have via email connections at cyborg.

Or you can call the program toll free 844295 talk.

It's (844) 295-8255.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

a few questions, pertaining to who becomes an ambassador.

And if you missed it earlier this hour, former U.S.

Ambassador to Qatar Susan Ziadeh was saying that there's this misunderstanding of the Foreign Service, that it's cocktail parties.

It's this easy sort of country club, international lifestyle.

And instead it's it is hard work of diplomacy.

It is often long, difficult hours, home and abroad and, you know, some listeners are saying, well, look at this ambassadorship or look at that.

I mean, sometimes ambassadorships do seem to go to the biggest donors.

and so does that hurt the reputation of the Foreign Service when you do see what looked to be just big financial or campaign donors and now their ambassador here, this loyalist, is an ambassador here.

I mean, it does still happen, doesn't it?

Know you have about one third, I think with President Trump with a historically the number was higher, maybe 40% or a little over that, that go to, you know, non-career individuals.

Some those are called political appointments.

And and to be honest, you have, some people who are not really ready for that kind of job, and you have some who have been marvelous, marvelous ambassadors and have had a real following because they understand how to manage large organizations and how to lead.

And so, as a as with career and not always, it's a good fit.

that's the case with political.

But you have some very good ones.

I would say we work long orders.

We we are in danger a lot.

many of us have served in, in Iraq, in, Pakistan, in Pakistan, in, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Congo, I mean, I there are lots of places in the world, Sudan, that are not safe places where, you know, I've had colleagues who one day they're sitting next to you at Country team, and the next day you find out you're going to their memorial service.

It's a very sobering, sobering kind of, kind of existence in many ways.

But it's the work of the American people.

And we we work hard to represent their interests abroad.

And, that's what we sign up to do.

And we understand sometimes they're tough conditions.

It's not always easy, but it's important to represent our country well and to also take care of American citizens overseas, which is a lot of what we do.

Austin emails a program to ask if you ever felt unsafe working in the Middle East simply because you're a woman.

No.

No, never.

And in fact, I would argue that.

And I was the deputy ambassador in Saudi Arabia.

I have worked actually, my entire career in the Middle East and about 12 years in the Persian Gulf area.

I've never felt, unsafe, as a woman, and frankly, I found that I often had access to areas in, in a given country where my male colleagues didn't have access.

Why was that?

Well, because I can talk to the women.

I can go into the home, into a family home.

As a woman.

I would be invited for Friday lunch with the women and the men all together.

A male colleague may not get that privilege.

So I was socially more accessible.

there were never was a time when I was the Shah in Saudi Arabia if I was representing, our president, if there were an event, I would go.

I might be the only woman in the room, but I would be there representing the president of the United States as his personal representative did.

So, no, quite the opposite.

The more critical issue was having knowledge of culture, language skills.

history, understanding where people sat, what their thinking was, what motivated them, how they saw their national interests, even culturally, how they received me, and how I could build upon that relationship and leverage it in ways that supported our U.S. national security objectives.

How are your language skills these days?

no, they're still pretty good.

Pretty good?

Yeah.

How many languages?

Oh, I speak some French, but my Arabic is flowing very good.

Yeah, yeah.

just, maybe a just a broad overview.

there's a lot of, I think, talk in this country, the assumption that, well, Islamic based countries don't have good human rights or women's rights records is that a is that too broad of a generalization?

what would you say about women's rights, especially in the Middle East these days?

well, it's varies from country to country.

I would say it's a broad, a generalization.

Okay.

women are educated across the Middle East, probably in numbers in some countries, even higher than what we see in other Western countries.

they hold jobs, they earn income.

I mean, at the end of the day, your liberation is in great part through your economics.

you have women.

So, sometimes I think, okay, this is a woman who is wearing a hijab, you know, the veil that covers their hair.

But she's the manager, and she has 40 men working under her.

So what does that mean?

The question is, how do people work and relate?

And what are their rights within society?

There are areas where, I think women can make more strides in countries around the world in general that go back to issues of whether citizenship can be passed to their children, if their husband is not a national of that country.

It's true.

But in general, in general, the right, to be educated, the right to hold the job, the right to drive, the right to vote, all of these issues have been pretty much resolved, across the Middle East.

and in some countries, it's been there for a long time.

In some countries, like Saudi Arabia, it's a more recent phenomenon.

Tom writes about.

Saudi Arabia wants to know, what we should know about the current relationship, the United States with Saudi Arabia.

What would you say about that?

I'd say that the current administration, President Trump, has a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia and in particular with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.

there are historic ties with Saudi Arabia that go back to, President Roosevelt's time in the 40s.

we have lots of ties through economics, through, through political.

They have stood with us in the trenches on many issues.

but for a president like President Trump who looks at national security, trade, foreign direct investment as the three pillars of his foreign policy, as he has articulated publicly in the last couple of weeks, the relationship with Saudi Arabia is probably, in many ways a very comfortable one based upon those three issues.

The president, I would say at the time as well, the president is going to be participating in negotiations, trying to merge World Golf Tours.

And the Saudis have been very involved with that.

With the Liv golf tours, a number of top players have taken literally hundreds of millions of dollars to go play on a tour that looks a lot like reputation laundering.

you know, that's my characterization.

I would never ask the ambassador to weigh in on that.

I'm a diplomat, too, at times.

But, the president has said he wants to weigh in on, creating a rapprochement between the tours and has said he wants his own courses to host more major golf tournaments.

So you can decide with the listeners if you think that's an appropriate thing for the president to be doing.

Tom, thank you for the email there.

Michael has let me pull this back up.

Michael says, how can there be lasting peace in the Middle East until Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist?

That's from Michael.

Well, Hamas is one element of a Palestinian national movement.

It's not the only element.

And actually, there have been, some steps that Hamas has taken historically that does, recognize or at least acknowledge the possibility of a Palestinian, state on the, 67, according to the 67 border lines, the West Bank and Gaza.

of course, with East Jerusalem, which for Israelis is not a negotiable issue.

East Jerusalem, for sure.

But there have been steps by Hamas in that regard.

I think also the question comes about that does Israel recognize the Palestinians and their human rights and their political rights?

And ultimately, you have an area of Israel, what I call Israel, 1948 West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and the number of people there you actually have, if you include the Palestinian, citizens of Israel, the population is either at parity or probably now has surpassed parity, with more Palestinians than Israelis.

So the question becomes, how is this land shared and how is it going to be where both sides recognize the other and their existence on this land?

And share it in a way that's equitable, and share it in a way that that, guarantees national economic, social and political rights for both peoples.

When you were the ambassador, what were your impressions of President Obama's desire to understand the very difficult history leading to what feels like such an intractable conflict?

Well, I think President Obama was, a person who had a world view, certainly a world experience growing up in Indonesia.

he, I think, looked at U.S. interests, and saw the possibilities to guarantee U.S. interests in the region through a broader cooperation and broader, underpinnings of linkages that would, produce a value and produce, substance further down the line.

He didn't look at relationships as a one off transaction, approach in general.

Now, there were times when I think he thought perhaps we would be, going too far into the region and took a step back.

Certainly.

the use of of chemical weapons in Syria and his, the red line that was crossed and yet we did nothing was an example of where he hesitated and took a step back.

I, in contradiction to his professed, position.

But in general, I think he was a person, a president who believed, our relationships were ones that had an endurance and would serve us well, if we worked at maintaining them.

Do you think he regrets the red line in Syria now?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

It's.

I would be curious to know the answer to that question.

Given, the fall of the Assad regime.

And what's unfolding in Syria today.

Yeah.

Just briefly, there a couple of questions on that.

just in general, what's the role for diplomacy to try to create some more stability there?

We see more fighting, more clashes with former pro-Assad forces, in certain parts away from Damascus.

But what do you see as diplomacy is role there?

Well, I'll be curious to see if, President Trump, does believe that diplomacy of the United States has a role to play.

I would argue that perhaps up until now, he has not indicated any interest in going there.

And, I suspect he would only view it as, a way that the U.S. could get mired in, in a protracted warfare that he doesn't want to see, which many Americans would probably agree with.

But at the end of the day, the question is, is there a leadership that can provide for all of the Syrian people and how to do it in a way that, doesn't allow any particular, element or interest to impose its will on the other people in Syria?

Because Syria is a very heterogeneous, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, a country historically it's always been.

And so the question is, how can that element of Syria come to the, come to the fold in a way that, protects the people across the board?

And the last question comes from Dallas wants to know which Middle Eastern country has the best amusement park.

I think people are asking, why aren't there indoor ski places?

So I don't know if they're in Doha.

I don't know if Doha was the place of, oh, probably they're thinking of Dubai.

But, Dubai, of course.

Yeah.

In Dubai, I think there's an indoor ski slope and oh, that's been there for many years.

So don't confuse Dubai with Doha.

Very different places.

Have you skied indoors in the Middle East?

no, I haven't, but I've watched people do it.

I want to thank you for an enlightening hour.

Thank you for making the time.

And thank you for coming to Rochester and sharing your wisdom with us.

It's been great having you on the program today.

Thank you.

Evan, it's been a pleasure.

Ambassador Susan Ziadeh is the former U.S. ambassador to the state of Qatar from 2011 to 2014.

Making a presentation tonight on the subject of Qatar U.S. relations and a global, changing global and regional landscape that's happening with the World Affairs Council of Rochester.

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