"Investing
in terror"
"A direct line extends from the demolition of the holy places in Medina and Mecca through the slaughter of 58 tourists in Egypt in 1997, the orgy of killing in Algeria in this decade, and the bombardment of the Buddhist statues at Bamyan by the Taliban only months ago to the assault on the World Trade Center, symbol of Western wealth and power. In all these cases, unrestrained destruction and bloodshed were justified by Wahhabi doctrine." (Stephen Schwartz)
News and commentary on Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism.
Part 1: 2001/09/22 - 2001/12/31
Part 2: 2002/01/04 - 2002/06/18
Part 3: 2002/07/08 - 2002/11/30
Part 4: 2002/12/01 - 2003/04/29
Part 5: 2003/05/01 -December 2001
"Saudi Columnists: Urbanization and Development in Southern Saudi Arabia, Not Poverty, Led to September 11" (Special Dispatch No. 323. MEMRI, 2001/12/31)
"Saudi Government Daily: The Jews are Taking Over the World" (Special Dispatch No. 321, MEMRI, 2001/12/28)
"Saudi Arabia's Apartheid" (Colbert I. King, The Washington Post, 2001/12/22)
"How to Save the Arab World" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2001/12/24 issue)
"The Real Roots of Terror" (Jack Beatty, The Atlantic, 2001/12/05)
November 2001
"The Dogs of War" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2001/11/06)
"Wahhabis in America" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, 2001/11/05)
"Bin Laden popular in Saudi Arabia" (Frank Gardner, BBC News, 2001/11/03)
"New York doesn't want your $10m, I told Saudi prince" (Rudolph Giuliani, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/11/02)
"Saudis Debate the Annihilation of Christians and Jews" (Special Dispatch No. 295, MEMRI, 2001/11/01)
October 2001
"Hijackers were from wealthy Saudi families" (The Sunday Times, 2001/10/28)
"Seeking Moderation" (Stephen Schwartz, The National Review, 2001/10/25)
"With the ground offensive underway, the 'propaganda war' heats up" (U.S. Department of State, 2001/10/24)
"Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade Saudi Schools" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2001/10/19)
"Saudi clerics issue edicts against helping 'infidels'" (Nicolas Pelham, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/12)
"Bin Laden stirs up Arab world" (Frank Gardner, BBC News, 2001/10/08)
"Terror network built on outcasts" (Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/04)
"Saudi Friends, Saudi Foes" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/10/08 issue)
September 2001
"Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Taliban" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/25)
"This business all began in Saudi Arabia" (Stephen Schwartz, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/23)
"Ground Zero and the Saudi connection" (Stephen Schwartz, The Spectator, from the 2001/09/22 issue)
"Saudi Columnists: Urbanization and Development in Southern Saudi Arabia, Not Poverty, Led to September 11" (Special Dispatch No. 323. MEMRI, 2001/12/31)
"In principle, I agree with him that the link drawn between terrorism and poverty and unemployment is not true at all, and recent events attest to this. Most of the perpetrators were from families that had been favored by fortune. In most cases, they weren’t even middle class, but higher. If poverty was a cause of terrorism, we wouldn’t hear about a single Saudi in this affair; the accusations would be directed at Somalia, Burundi, Chad, Bangladesh, and other countries classified as below the poverty line. ... If poverty and unemployment were the fuel of terrorism, [terrorism] would have engulfed other regions. The 'Asir region is, according to all assessments and statistics, the fastest-developing region [of Saudi Arabia]. ... The problem is not one of development. Laying [the responsibility] for the problem on development diverts the blame to the wrong address. [The right address] is, using religion as a cover beneath which venom is disseminated…" ['Ali Sa’ad Al-Mussa, Al-Watan, 2001/12/24]""Saudi Government Daily: The Jews are Taking Over the World" (Special Dispatch No. 321, MEMRI, 2001/12/28)
Translation of an anti-Semitic article from the Saudi daily Al-Watan by Abdallah Aal Malhi entitled "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world.": "At the end of the last century, the Jewish organizations consolidated a hellish plan to take over the world by sparking revolutions or taking control of the keys to governments in various countries, first and foremost the US and Russia. ... The arrogance and tyranny of the Jews, who manage to hide it from the Western public, has reached such proportions that anyone who talks about them, their hegemony, and their racism knows that he will pay a high price. ... So as to prove our words, we will not address Jewish control of the media in Western countries, primarily in the US… but we will give an example of the Jews' infiltration and control of the top positions in the American administration. This control aroused astonishment in the days of the Clinton administration…: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, FBI chief George Tenet, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger – all Jews. Through this infiltration of the various American administrations, and through controlling the media and money, the Jews impose their agenda on the other peoples, and the Jewish sense of superiority, whose aim is to recruit the peoples and their resources for the good of Jewish interests and their racist state Israel, remain unchanged.""Saudi Arabia's Apartheid" (Colbert I. King, The Washington Post, 2001/12/22)
"Then he threw in this grabber: 'One of the (still) untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men's sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women's or families' sections are often run-down, neglected and, in the case of Starbucks, have no seats. Worse, these firms will bar entrance to Western women who show up without their husbands. My wife and other [U.S. government affiliated] women were regularly forbidden entrance to the local McDonald's unless there was a man with them.'""How to Save the Arab World" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2001/12/24 issue)
"America's allies in the Middle East are autocratic, corrupt and heavy-handed. But they are still more liberal, tolerant and pluralistic than what would likely replace them. If elections had been held last month in Saudi Arabia with King Fahd and Osama bin Laden on the ballot, I would not bet too heavily on His Royal Highness’s fortunes. ... A similar dynamic is evident in the kingdoms of the gulf from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. In Jordan and Morocco, on virtually every political issue, the monarchs are more liberal than the societies over which they reign. ... In most societies dissidents force their country to take a hard look at its own failings. In the Middle East, the democrats are the first to seek refuge in fantasy, denial and delusion. The state-owned media do not need to promote crazed conspiracy theories about the Mossad's secret role in bombing the World Trade Center or the CIA's fabrication of the bin Laden videotape. The "free" television station, Al-Jazeera, does it voluntarily - and the public laps it up.""The Real Roots of Terror" (Jack Beatty, The Atlantic, 2001/12/05)
"All but three of the terrorists, like Bin Laden himself, were from Saudi Arabia; Mohamed Atta, their ringleader, was from Egypt, as is the number two man in al Qaeda, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Something about these countries helped to produce the terrorists. The terrorists are dead; bin Laden will soon join them. But that something endures. The domestic political arrangements of Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be regarded as among our real enemies in the war on terror. The regimes in these countries, we know, are repressive, but so are governments throughout the Third World. What is special about the repression in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is that both governments escape its consequences by redirecting popular anger toward the United States. ... Egypt exports the terrorists the repression produces, but not before its state-dominated media has taught them to blame the misery and backwardness of Arab nations on the U.S. The terrorists then attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are not a wicked nation but, as long as we subsidize this fated cycle, we are a stupid one.""The Dogs of War" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2001/11/06)
"The Saudis' princes tease us with polite lectures about our errant policies, more obliquely suggesting that our bombing may lose "friends" among the moderate states. Yet America, unlike Saudi Arabia, has not merely the veneer of modern civilization, but is its wellspring. In a real war, despite severe dislocation we can survive, as in the past, without Saudi oil. The royal family and the faux-culture of the Gulf cannot. Fifteen of their citizens helped to murder 6,000 unsuspecting Americans in a time of peace - a single wing of American fighters could end their entire regime in a few days of war. Such are the frightening and horrendous realities that lurk beneath the unspoken surface when the dogs of war are unleashed. ... After the unprovoked murder of thousands of Americans, the governments in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, and Iran should not lecture us about either our policies or morality, but rather should fear that they themselves are on the edge of a frightening precipice. ... There is a growing chorus of rarely-heard-from Americans between the two coasts - one little known by fundamentalists in the Middle East, or their agents in our capital - which has had enough of all this. They are reaching a state of fury over thousands of our dead, constant germ scares, bomb threats, screaming imams on public television slandering our dead, sneering caveats from puffed-up academics, and lectures from corrupt governments mixed with veiled threats.""Wahhabis in America" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, 2001/11/05)
"As Powell should be aware, the Wahhabi-Saudi establishment subsidizes terrorism while seeking to control Muslim religious institutions and activities around the world. Saudi influence reaches even the overwhelming majority of mosques in the United States. The issue, therefore, is not muzzling the Wahhabis, but removing the muzzle from their victims, over whom they exercise an abusive control. ... For Wahhabis everywhere, the party line is laid down in Riyadh, which simultaneously foments terrorist teaching and disclaims any responsibility for Wahhabi atrocities, exemplified by those of bin Laden. Saudis corrupt Muslims abroad in exactly the way that the Soviet Union once bought the loyalty of foreign intellectuals, labor leaders, and guerrilla fighters, and for the same ends. This worldwide subversion can be combated only as fascist and Communist sedition were once fought: with courage and determination, and in full solidarity with the Muslim heroes in the forefront of resistance to it.""Bin Laden popular in Saudi Arabia" (Frank Gardner, BBC News, 2001/11/03)
"Support for Osama Bin Laden appears to be running high in his native Saudi Arabia, while anger grows at the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan. Many Saudis refuse to believe that Bin Laden was connected to the terror attacks of 11 September. Instead, many hail him as a Muslim hero, who stands up to the United States. They hate the West for what they see as its biased policies against Muslims. They adore Bin Laden. ... The FBI says Bin Laden was behind the attacks in New York and Washington. But many Saudis insist that the Arabs on board the hijacked planes were just passengers, nothing more. It was an inside job, they say, by American fanatics, or maybe by Israelis.""New York doesn't want your $10m, I told Saudi prince" (Rudolph Giuliani, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/11/02)
"This was an attack upon the very idea of a free and inclusive society, the rule of law, political, religious, and economic freedom, and our respect for human life. This was an attack upon civilisation. To entertain any thought of moral relativism that attempts to justify this attack - through historical, political or religious interpretations - is an assault on the very principles of civilisation.""Saudis Debate the Annihilation of Christians and Jews" (Special Dispatch No. 295, MEMRI, 2001/11/01)
"Khaled Muhammad Batrafi, a Saudi columnist for the London daily Al-Hayat, recently published an article headlined “Why do we hate the People of the Book?” (namely – Christians and Jews) in which he tells of a religious argument he had with a friend regarding the annihilation of Christians and Jews.": "The preacher [at the mosque] called for the death and annihilation of Christians and Jews; he called to make their children orphans and their wives widows. After prayers, I told my friend: 'These are words of heresy.' My friend replied: 'Do you support [the Christians and Jews]? If so, the words of Allah apply to you: ‘Whoever supports them - belongs to them.' ... [I said:] Can a preacher with a heart full of animosity towards the believers of other religions speak with enthusiasm to persuade them [that Islam] is a religion of mercy and tolerance? Allah, do not punish us for the deeds of these idiots.""Hijackers were from wealthy Saudi families" (The Sunday Times, 2001/10/28)
"Most of the hijackers in the terrorist attacks on America were recruited from wealthy Saudi families and were bound by family ties, the first detailed account of their background has revealed. ... Fifteen of the 19 hijackers are now known to be Saudis, including the brother of a police commander, the son of a tribal chief, two teachers and three law graduates. ... Al-Fagih, the leader of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, said contact with dozens of local sources confirmed visits by at least 11 of the hijackers to training camps of Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.""Seeking Moderation" (Stephen Schwartz, The National Review, 2001/10/25)
A critique of David F. Forte's "Religion Is Not the Enemy" (The National Review, 2001/10/19): "First, the claim of a moral distinction between the Wahhabi sect and al Qaeda is worth just as much as the claim of a moral distinction between the Nazi Party and the SS, and no more. And that is the way the majority of traditional Muslims in the world see it. ... Wahhabism justifies terrorism, whether that of the Saudis in 1924, bin Laden, or Hamas. Hizbullah represents a Wahhabized Shiism. The Taliban are a non-Wahhabi sect that has been bought by Wahhabi petrodollars. If Forte wishes to find some moderate fundamentalists, he should start with the Taliban. ... Wahhabism rejects any and all coexistence with Judaism and Christianity, and would treat the good Forte more or less as the aliens in Independence Day treated the dancing hippies calling for cosmic love - by killing him. Wahhabis would be much happier with Noam Chomsky, but they would kill him too, eventually.""With the ground offensive underway, the 'propaganda war' heats up" (U.S. Department of State, 2001/10/24)
A survey of foreign media reactions between October 15-24. Here's an example of anti-Semitism from Saudia Arabia: "Since the Zionist terrorism is being inflicted on the U.S. daily, it blocks the improvement of American-Arab-Muslim relationships. We know quite well that the American media is the first target of Zionist terrorism. This influence on the media sometimes even works against American interests. Therefore, we are not surprised by the current American media campaign against the Kingdom...but for this campaign to reach Congress, the source of American domestic and foreign policy, indicates that the Zionist Anthrax has penetrated the American body to the bone." (Abha-based, moderate Al-Watan held (2001/10/23))"Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade Saudi Schools" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2001/10/19)
"The textbook for one of the five religion classes required of all 10th graders in Saudi public high schools tackles the complicated issue of who good Muslims should befriend. After examining a number of scriptures which warn of the dangers of having Christian and Jewish friends, the lesson concludes: "It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy." That extremist, anti-Western world view has gradually pervaded the Saudi education system with its heavy doses of mandatory religious instruction, according to Saudi officials and intellectuals. ... The United States seeks to build a coalition against terror with the kingdom, long a Western business and military ally, and yet the country has revealed itself as the source of the very ideology confronting America in the battle against terrorism.""Saudi clerics issue edicts against helping 'infidels'" (Nicolas Pelham, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/12)
"In what could be one of the most significant internal challenges to the Al Sauds in their 80-year dominance of the Arabian peninsula, Sheikh Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi, a senior cleric, issued his fatwa just days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Whoever supports the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel.... It is a duty to wage jihad on anyone who supports the attack on Afghanistan." ... Four days into the aerial bombardment, the wave of dissent the fatwas promised to inaugurate has not materialized. But a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a German couple, and a Canadian was shot dead in Kuwait. And Saudi security officials remain on high alert following the killing of two Americans by a suspected suicide bomber on Oct. 6 in Al Khobar, a city in Eastern Province where 13,000 Americans live.""Bin Laden stirs up Arab world" (Frank Gardner, BBC News, 2001/10/08)
"Over the last few weeks, the West's message of the need to get tough with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban has singularly failed to permeate through to most Arabs. They are not really listening to what President George W Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair have to say. Instead, they are too busy watching the latest vitriolic interview with Osama Bin Laden himself on al-Jazeera, the popular Qatari satellite TV channel. ... Despite his extremist Wahhabite interpretation of Islam, his declared motives tap into a rich vein of Arab discontent. "I swear by Almighty God," he told the Arab world on Sunday, "that neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed". Palestinians clapped for joy when they heard these words. Some Saudis even wept with tears of emotion. This is a man who speaks the language of the Arabs in more ways than one.""Terror network built on outcasts" (Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/04)
"The ranks of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network were formed in part with the help of America's closest allies in the Arab world - Saudi Arabia and Egypt. ... "Half the countries in the region, including our friends in Egypt, emptied their jails and sent all their troublemakers to Afghanistan with the hope that they might become martyred in the jihad," says Milt Bearden, former chief of Central Intelligence Agency programs in Afghanistan from 1986 to 1989.""Saudi Friends, Saudi Foes" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/10/08 issue)
"A direct line extends from the demolition of the holy places in Medina and Mecca through the slaughter of 58 tourists in Egypt in 1997, the orgy of killing in Algeria in this decade, and the bombardment of the Buddhist statues at Bamyan by the Taliban only months ago to the assault on the World Trade Center, symbol of Western wealth and power. In all these cases, unrestrained destruction and bloodshed were justified by Wahhabi doctrine.""Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Taliban" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/25)
"Saudi Arabia cut all ties with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia on Tuesday, saying its leaders were defaming Islam by harboring and supporting terrorists. The move by one of the most influential nations in the Islamic world leaves Pakistan as the only country to maintain diplomatic relations with the hard-line Islamic Taliban, and hands the United States a major success in its effort to isolate the Taliban over their refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden.""This business all began in Saudi Arabia" (Stephen Schwartz, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/23)
"[Wahhabism] is a strain of Islam that emerged not during the Crusades, nor even at the time of the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less than two centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia, and it is the official theology of the Gulf states. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism. ... The same influences are brought to bear throughout the 10-million-strong Muslim community in America, as well as those in Europe. In the US, 80 per cent of mosques are estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in Lebanon and now living in the US, to be under the control of Wahhabi imams, who preach extremism...""Ground Zero and the Saudi connection" (Stephen Schwartz, The Spectator, from the 2001/09/22 issue)
"But if you ask educated, pious, traditional but forward-looking Muslims what has driven their umma, or global community, in this direction, many of them will answer you with one word: Wahhabism. ... It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia, and it is the official theology of the Gulf states. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism, and its followers are called Wahhabis. Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are Wahhabis - except, perhaps, for some disciples of atheist leftists posing as Muslims in the interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or Saddam Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of the most extreme Protestant sectarianism. ... Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and emitting blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the purification of the world consisted of murdering people for such sins as running a movie projector or reading secular newspapers. So are the Taleban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder Hindus. ... None of this extremism has been inspired by American fumblings in the world, and it has little to do with the tragedies that have beset Israelis and Palestinians."
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