Mohammed’s view
In 2017, Jeffrey Epstein tried to insert himself into the Saudi-led embargo of Qatar, organizing a meeting between (former) Qatari and Israeli leaders to help end the rift. Today, from beyond the grave, Epstein is back in Gulf politics, his emails fueling the latest feud between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Epstein spent decades circling Gulf elites, occasionally cracking the top tier but never gaining the confidence of those who truly command the region’s staggering wealth. He wasn’t the first hustler trying to break through, and won’t be the last. Since the Gulf struck oil, dubious middlemen have plied their trade in oil and arms deals, engineering kickbacks, hanging out in Monaco casinos, and procuring women. Some of this is immortalized in books and court cases, but rarely have we seen the grasping, calculating details as glimpsed through Epstein’s emails.
A network linking American, European, and Middle Eastern elites is spawning theories crediting Epstein with an outsize role in geopolitical breakthroughs like the Abraham Accords that he couldn’t have orchestrated. But proximity leaves a residue. And one of Epstein’s acquaintances — Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the CEO and chairman of Dubai ports giant DP World — has found himself at the center of the crisis.
Beyond the vulgarities is an accusation that is inflaming Muslim passions: Epstein appears to have been in possession of a piece of the Kiswah, the cloth that covers the Kaaba. It’s impossible from the emails to verify the authenticity of the assertion, but the cloth looks close enough to the real thing that it’s been weaponized online, with accusations that the UAE supplied one of Islam’s holiest artifacts to a sex offender. An image of Epstein showing the cloth to bin Sulayem is being used as proof that the UAE’s elites are hostile not just to political Islam or the Palestinian cause, but to the religion itself. (DP World and bin Sulayem haven’t commented on the reports.)
As Semafor’s Ben Smith put it, the Epstein emails are an oil slick that won’t wash off — and this may even hold true in a region where scandals are contained by closing ranks. On Tuesday, after a detailed exposé by Bloomberg, Canada’s second-largest pension fund — which has invested more than $5 billion alongside DP World over the past decade — said it is suspending future investments until DP World sheds “light on the situation and takes the necessary actions.”
Epstein never achieved his ambition of being a top Gulf power broker. In death, he’s having a major impact.
Notable
- Emails show one of Dubai’s top executives kept up a correspondence with Epstein for more than a decade after the disgraced financier was first jailed for procuring a minor for prostitution, Bloomberg reported.