Saudi Revelations/ The European Mentality

Update from AIJAC

Saudi Revelations/ The European Mentality

August 4, 2003
Number 08/03 #02

Today, Updates leads with analysis of the recent US Congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks, and especially the much talked about 28 pages of material excised from the text, believed to be particularly damning of the Saudi Arabian government.

The New Republic has a source who says the missing section shows not only monetary contributions but deeper links between the hijackers and high levels of the Saudi government. To read this report, CLICK HERE.

Next, Arnaud de Borchgrave of UPI looks at the complex and not always antagonistic historical relationship between Osama Bin Laden and the Saudi royal house. For the details, CLICK HERE.

Finally, veteran Australian Jewish leader Isi Leibler, now in Israel, had an interesting letter exchange recently with a representative of Javier Solana, EU High Representative, which beautifully illustrates the double standards applied by many in the EU to Middle East diplomacy. You can read it, HERE.

28 Pages

by John B. Judis & Spencer Ackerman

The New Republic Online, Post date: 08.01.03

Since the joint congressional committee investigating September 11 issued a censored version of its report on July 24, there's been considerable speculation about the 28 pages blanked out from the section entitled "Certain Sensitive National Security Matters." The section cites "specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers," which most commentators have interpreted to mean Saudi contributions to Al Qaeda-linked charities. But an official who has read the report tells The New Republic that the support described in the report goes well beyond that: It involves connections between the hijacking plot and the very top levels of the Saudi royal family. "There's a lot more in the 28 pages than money. Everyone's chasing the charities," says this official. "They should be chasing direct links to high levels of the Saudi government. We're not talking about rogue elements. We're talking about a coordinated network that reaches right from the hijackers to multiple places in the Saudi government."

This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal flew to Washington for a hastily convened meeting with President Bush. Faisal publicly demanded that the 28 pages be declassified, but he had to have known in advance, and welcomed the fact, that his request would be denied--ostensibly friendly nations don't normally send their foreign ministers to meetings halfway around the world to be surprised. For his part, Bush has insisted that revealing the 28 pages would compromise "sources and methods that would make it harder for us to win the war on terror." But the chairman and vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the joint inquiry, Florida Democrat Bob Graham and Alabama Republican Richard Shelby, rejected that argument, contending that perhaps only 5 percent of the 28 pages would compromise national security if made public. Graham and Shelby are leading a drive in Congress to force the government to declassify the documents. While the new chairman and vice-chairman of the committee, Kansas Republican and Bush loyalist Pat Roberts and West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller, have yet to endorse Graham and Shelby's request, Kansas Republican Sam Brownback and New York Senator Charles Schumer have begun gathering signatures demanding declassification.

The Bush administration has, of course, good reason for not wanting to ruffle the Saudis by declassifying the 28 pages. Saudi Arabia sits atop 25 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and, through its dominant position in OPEC, essentially controls the global energy market. In addition to stabilizing world oil prices--most recently during the run-up to the war with Iraq--the Saudis also directly subsidize American consumers by offering oil at lower prices to the United States. In a 2002 article for Foreign Affairs, petroleum experts Edward Morse and James Richard estimated the subsidy at $620 million a year. It's probably much larger now, given recent trends in oil prices and the volume of oil imports. A serious conflict with the Saudis could not only disrupt an already turbulent Middle East, but could halt the economic recovery here and perhaps even precipitate a global downturn.

The Bush administration has insisted, again and again, that the war on terror is its first priority. In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued, "The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the global war on terror." Wolfowitz says this presumably because he still believes that Saddam Hussein's regime had close ties with Al Qaeda. But it's looking more and more like the principal theater in the war on terror lies elsewhere. The official who read the 28 pages tells The New Republic, "If the people in the administration trying to link Iraq to Al Qaeda had one-one-thousandth of the stuff that the 28 pages has linking a foreign government to Al Qaeda, they would have been in good shape." He adds: "If the 28 pages were to be made public, I have no question that the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia would change overnight."

John B. Judis is a senior editor at TNR. Spencer Ackerman is an assistant editor at TNR.

Osama's Saudi Moles

Arnaud de Borchgrave, UPI Editor at Large

UPI, Friday, Aug. 1, 2003

To get a clear fix on the degree of Saudi involvement with transnational terrorism one has to understand that Osama bin Laden, the world's most-wanted terrorist, became a hero in the kingdom 20 years ago. In his mid-20s, he was raising money and recruits to join the mujahedin in their guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The scion of one of the country's most-successful, non-royal business families, bin Laden had easy access to people of great wealth. His late father, Mohammed, had exclusive rights as the contractor for all royal palaces and buildings.

In those days, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were splitting the $1 billion-a-year tab of the anti-Soviet war. Bin Laden was also collecting donations from the hard-line, anti-communist royals who dipped into their numbered accounts abroad. This helped bankroll the transfer of thousands of volunteers from all over the Arab world and the Muslim world beyond.

When the last Soviet unit left Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, bin Laden came home to much adulation. It was, after all, the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire and bin Laden, as his countrymen read the embroidered saga, had starred in the denouement.

While bin Laden, hardened by his experiences with the "Afghan Arabs" in Afghanistan, did not approve of the extravagant excesses of the House of Saud, he held his fire. That is, until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait Aug. 2, 1990.

Talk of U.S. intervention to drive the Iraqis out prompted bin Laden to ask for an appointment with an old friend who was a key Saudi official Prince Turki al-Faisal, the man who had been head of intelligence for 25 years and oversaw the Afghan war effort.

As Turki, now the Saudi ambassador in London, recalled the encounter to this reporter, bin Laden said there was no need to call in the U.S. cavalry because his own Afghan-Arabs could do the job, just as the mujahedin had defeated the mighty Soviet Union. Turki thought the idea was so preposterous he laughed and told bin Laden there was no way lightly armed guerrillas could defeat the Iraqi army.

That turned out to be an expensive chuckle. Because bin Laden there and then decided the House of Saud was capitulating to the United States and that Washington would now use the pretext of Kuwait to occupy the Gulf and control its oil resources.

After the Gulf War, bin Laden sought solace in the company of Wahhabi imams who, like him, were in high dudgeon over the invasion of the American "heathens." His denunciations of the royal puppets and their American puppet-masters began in mosques and quickly ended when King Fahd expelled him from the kingdom and, in 1994, stripped him of his citizenship.

The royal family is not a monolith. There are 7,000 princes (all on generous stipends from birth) plus their wives (many still have three or four) and sisters and daughters, for a total of 24,000 members of the House of Saud. Male princes get $500,000 a year for expenses. The Saud family budget is about $3 billion a year, though the kingdom is now in hock to foreign banks to the tune of $225 billion.

Many of these princes still think of bin Laden as a larger-than-life hero who defeated the mighty Soviet Union and gave the world's only superpower its biggest blow since Pearl Harbor. Even Prince Naef, one of the Sudeiri Seven (sons of King Abdul Aziz, also known as Ibn Saud, the founder of the dynasty, and the same mother), has said publicly that bin Laden was not involved in 9/11. Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, did it, he said, regurgitating an old chestnut first peddled by a former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Hamid Gul, who is also a fundamentalist extremist.

Bin Laden remains an immensely popular figure in Saudi Arabia. Many Wahhabi clerics revere him as some sort of miracle man.

As recently as July 27, Prince Amr Muhammad al-Faisal encouraged today's enemies of the United States to study the strategies employed by America's enemies during the Vietnam War. Writing in Arab News, a Saudi newspaper, this prince of the royal blood, who frequently escorts high-ranking foreign visitors, said the U.S. Army "is so weak that Americans should fear an invasion by the Mexican army."

Amr poured out his venom on the U.S. military operation that killed Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay. "I was appalled," he wrote, "it took a 50:1 ratio (and I'm ignoring helicopters etcetera) of crack (at least that's what the Americans call them) troops five hours to kill three men and boy who were hiding, not in a heavily fortified bunker, but in a simple villa. What a disgrace! ... Had these been Saudi troops I would have urged that they be court-martialed for sheer colossal incompetence and cowardice. ... U.S. strategy, doctrine, tactics, and whatever else you can think of, have reached the point of total bankruptcy."

A month ago, Amr vented his spleen on Paul Bremer, denouncing the U.S. administrator in Iraq, for "breathtakingly brazen arrogance ... the awesome white man is no longer held in awe." In yet another of his regular anti-American diatribes, he questioned the New York Times' judgment that Colin Powell should be held responsible for the failure of U.S. foreign policy. "How did Powell become an easy victim of the Bush administration? It's simple. In American cowboy movies, the black characters die before the end of the film."

Nor does this prince charming spare the Jews, who have led "U.S. foreign policy into a blind alley" and who will become "the scapegoat ... for the failure of these policies."

Crown Prince Abdullah, who is de facto ruler due to the king's long illness, and most of his royal and non-royal Cabinet colleagues are firmly opposed to bin Laden and his evil terrorist enterprise. They know they are first on al-Qaeda's hit list.

But Abdullah doesn't speak for 24,000 royals. He doesn't even speak for Prince Naef bin Abdul Aziz, the interior minister who gives bin Laden a pass on 9/11. And who, as one of the seven Sudeiri brothers, is in line to inherit the throne. After Abdullah, Defense Minister Prince Sultan is next in line. Prince Salman, the popular governor of Riyadh, has made clear he will jump Naef when the time comes.

The 27 pages excised from a 900-page-long congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not shed any light on the kingdom's split personality and the love/hate relationship its people have, with both Osama bin Laden and the United States.

An exchange of letters with Javier Solana's spokesperson

By Isi Leibler††

Israel Insider, July 29, 2003

I received an extraordinary letter from Cristina Gallach, spokesperson for Javier Solana, the European Union High Representative.

Ms. Gallach's letter was in response to an article I had written (Jerusalem Post: "Wake Up Europe", 6 July 2003) criticising Miguel Angel Moratinos, EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process for his farewell message which highlighted the double standards embodied in European policy towards Israel.

Ms. Gallach signed her response to me with her formal title as Spokesperson for Javier Solana, but said it was not for publication - despite copying in a third party.

I feel the nature of her unsolicited communication and the importance of the issues covered do not prohibit me from releasing the exchange.

From: Gallach Cristina [mailto:cristina.gallach@consilium.eu.int]
Sent: Tuesday, 22 July, 2003 10:05 PM
To: ileibler@netvision.net.il
Subject: Right of reply

Dear Sir,

It is not my usual habit to reply to newspaper articles, even if, as is sometimes the case, they misrepresent personal views. However, I feel obliged to set the record straight as far as your recent article "Wake up, Europe" in the Jerusalem Post is concerned. Leaving aside the many unjustified comments made about Miguel Angel Moratinos, let me respond to two accusations made specifically against Javier Solana.

Firstly, it is stated that the EU High Representative has had "chat sessions" with Sheikh Yassin of Hamas. Your source for this assertion can only be in your own imagination, since the fact is that he has never met or sought to meet Sheikh Yassin. I find it highly regrettable that this erroneous assertion can be presented as casual fact when even a cursory check with my office would have clarified matters.

Secondly, it is stated that Javier Solana personally endorsed the use of cluster bombs on densely populated residential suburbs of Belgrade. Let me tell you Mr. Solana is proud to have led NATO as its Secretary General for almost five years. He is proud of an organisation that, under the leadership of the United States, has defended democracy and liberty for more than fifty years. And he is proud that, during his turn at the helm, this organisation acted decisively to put a halt to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. During the NATO campaign cluster bombs were never deliberately used against civilians, and every precaution was taken to avoid civilian casualties. When civilian deaths occurred from their use, this was a matter of profound regret, as the Alliance made clear at the time.

On the more general issue of anti-Semitism, let me repeat what Javier Solana has said repeatedly in public: we must never be complacent. Racism and anti-Semitism are evils to be banished from our societies, and must be fought with vigour and determination, as they are by all European governments. Recent acts of anti-Semitic nature in Europe are the outrageous expression of marginal groups and simply cannot be tolerated. This is the firm view of all in the European political mainstream. We will not tolerate anti-Semitism, but neither can we tolerate the insinuation that our policy is driven by anti-Semitism.

Your accusation of Europe being biased and having double standards is, ironically, one that we have often heard from Arab friends. Some of them often ask me why Javier Solana is so prompt and systematic in condemning terror attacks against Israelis, but have failed to react to many instances of the killing of Palestinian civilians, including children. Some have even compiled statistics.

The truth is that we are neither anti-Israeli nor anti-Palestinian. We are pro-peace, pro-security, pro-justice.

As for terrorism, we too have "confronted it in the face". People have been blown to pieces in the streets of Paris, London and Madrid. We need no lessons in this field: we have already learned them. When Mr. Solana was a member of the Spanish government, barely a week went by when he did not have to attend the funeral of victims of terrorism, some of them close to him.

Contrary to your assertion, Israel does not "dwelleth alone". And Europeans have done everything in the last years to ensure that it doesn't. The EU has signed key agreements with Israel, not least an Association Agreement, the closest type of contractual relationship the EU can have with a third country. As recently as last month, the EU signed a renewed scientific and technical co-operation agreement with Israel, the only non-European country to be fully associated with the EU's research programme, allowing European and Israeli scientists mutually to enhance their excellence. Trade with the EU represents 40% of Israel's imports and 30% of its exports. Israel is part of the Western European and others Group in the UN in New York. We have worked relentlessly for the recognition of Israel by its neighbours and by the Arab countries as a whole.

The entire Barcelona process is based on our vision - that we will continue to pursue - of a Mediterranean region reconciled and thriving in economic, cultural and human exchanges. Our vision is one in which hatreds - however understandable they may be - are not allowed to carry the day. This is something he has often discussed in the framework of the regular and fruitful dialogue he has with the American Jewish Congress, an organisation with which your own organisation no doubt has relations.

Yours sincerely,

Cristina Gallach
Spokesperson for Javier SOLANA,
EU High Representative

PS: I am also sending copy to this letter to Mr. Bret Stephens, a good friend of mine, with whom I worked on several occasions since he was The Wall Street Journal's deputy opinion editor in Brussels.

28th July 2003

Dear Ms. Gallach,

I do not feel morally bound to conform to your specification that your unsolicited letter not be published. I state this since your email is written officially and signed with your formal title. Secondly in light of the fact that you have already copied at least one third party, the editor of the Jerusalem Post. I believe that our exchange of correspondence is important and confirms my allegations regarding the double standards practiced by Mr. Solana and his associates.

You accuse me of flights of imagination when I allege that Mr. Solana met with Sheikh Yassin, the Hamas leader. I recollect a number of media references to such meetings. For example, I quote an article which appeared on 29/07/02 in Haaretz by Daniel Sobelman and Aluf Benn - both reputable journalists associated with a newspaper that cannot be accused of right-wing bias:

"European Union foreign policy coordinator Javier Solana met last week with Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as part of the ongoing international efforts - including Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian mediation - to win a Hamas agreement for a cease-fire that would accompany a Tanzim declaration of an end to the attacks on Israeli civilians."

If the facts in this article are untrue I certainly cannot recollect ever seeing a repudiation. But the meetings with Hamas are a minor aspect to the central issue of the bias and double standards being applied against Israel.

Your spirited defense of Javier Solana and his approval of bombing raids against civilians in Belgrade is commendable. My question to you is: Did NATO, under his authorization, try to "eliminate" Slobodan Milosevic by bombing his home which was located in a residential centre? Did Javier Solana authorize bombings which included residential areas and led to loss of innocent life? The answer to both questions would have to be affirmative.

You tell me Solana acted "decisively to put a halt to ethnic cleansing" and "never deliberately used cluster bombs against civilians." Bravo! And "when civilian deaths occurred this was a matter of profound regret." Again Bravo! But why dwell on these issues? I never criticized NATO for opposing ethnic cleansing or killing innocent civilians in error.

The reality is that your remarks embody the double standards that I condemn. You say Javier Solana was distressed when he killed innocent civilians. Are you suggesting that we Israelis are not distressed when Palestinian civilians are killed in the course of efforts to defend our children from being blown to pieces by suicide bombers? The fact is that unlike the NATO troops, to whom you refer with respect, many of our young men now lie in graves because our army did not use cluster bombs or the superior fire power at our disposal, out of a concern to minimize civilian deaths. Yet Mr. Solana and his colleagues have the gall to condemn us for defending ourselves. And you don't see the double standards?

You state that Palestinians claim you are biased against them. Really? Did you pay heed to Mr. Milosevic and his gang when they complained that you were biased?

You utter trendy buzz words about "neither being anti Israeli nor anti Palestinian" but "pro-peace, pro-security, pro-justice." You don't appreciate that you are exemplifying the moral relativism which dominates your policies. In terms of the Middle East you behave as though there is a moral equivalency to all aspects of the conflict. When Palestinian suicide bombers target innocent Israeli civilians and when Israeli soldiers try to kill those who indulge or initiate the killings -- it's all the same. It is staggering that when you express such sanctimonious cliches you remain insensitive, even oblivious to such hypocritical inconsistencies.

And then you have the nerve to tell Israelis "As for terrorism, we too have confronted it in the face." Really! I wonder whether you would dare make such an insensitive remark had you lived in Jerusalem or another Israeli town prior to the current lull and experienced the horror of being in a country whose women and children are all deliberately targeted by crazed suicide bombers brainwashed into believing that by murdering innocent civilians they are guaranteeing themselves a portion in Paradise.

How many funerals of children deliberately targeted did you or Mr. Solana attend? For us it was almost a daily event. Were you ever scared enough to avoid visiting public areas, restaurants, theatres and shopping malls? Do schools and kindergartens in major European cities require armed guards to protect the children from ghouls who would blow them to pieces?

Shame on you for comparing the relatively tranquility of Europe to what we have been enduring every day these past three years!

I never accused your superior and his associates of deliberate antisemitism. But when such double standards are routinely employed against us, there is little doubt that anti Semitism must be considered as a possible motivating factor - especially having regard to the European behavior towards Jews only half a century ago. Admittedly being a Spaniard, Mr. Solana is more detached from this question because Spain's Jewish problem was resolved by his ancestors over 500 years ago. I also note that in relation to the recent remarks by a number of US Congressmen relating to the revival of antisemitism in Europe you personally made a statement dismissing their observations as "overblown." Are you aware of the number of synagogues, cemeteries and other Jewish institutions desecrated over the past few years? the highest number since the downfall of Nazism? Do we need to have a Kristallnacht before people like you are willing to face up to the revival of Europe's oldest scourge?

You state that your vision is one in which hatreds do not carry the day. Yet as a former (now disillusioned) supporter of Oslo, I can assure you that there are no people more desperate for peace than the people of Israel. They entered into a peace process with a partner who demonstrated that he remained a duplicitous murderer who, at no stage, ever had any intention of conceding the right of sovereignty to the Jewish people in this region. As Hitler transformed the Germans into an evil nation, Arafat transformed Palestinians into a society suffused with evil in which suicide bombers are considered holy martyrs and kindergarten children are taught from infancy to kill Jews. Are you aware that Palestinians polls indicate that 80 percent of the people endorse suicide bombings? Yet you repeat the mindless moral equivalency which suggests that we and the Palestinians are simply two people hating one another, captured in a "cycle of violence." To resolve that, Javier Solana and his colleagues will be the saintly mediators who remain even handed and make no distinction between victims and killers and between those who seek peace and those who seek to annihilate their neighbors. And you persist in recognizing Arafat as the "elected" leader of the Palestinian people, although I doubt whether you would suggest that we should have applied the same approach in relation to Hitler or Milosevic -- also "elected" leaders.

I hope that in the near future the more responsible leaders in Europe will appreciate why so many of us are outraged by the double standards they apply in relation to us. Mr. Solana's activism in Yugoslavia and his inability to recognize the inconsistencies in his subsequent condemnation of acts of self-defense on our part exemplify this.

Yours sincerely,
Isi Leibler

Isi Leibler is senior vice president of the World Jewish Congress