Our Friends the Saudis
LGF
Four years after the atrocities of September 11, the Senate Judiciary Committee begins to notice the hatred radiating from Saudi Arabia: U.S. Lawmakers Told of Saudi-Funded Anti-West Rhetoric. (Hat tip: Newsbeat1.)
The government of Saudi Arabia is distributing books and pamphlets across the United States in an effort to recruit American Muslims to an international struggle against Christians and Jews, the director of a religious freedom organization told the Senate Judiciary Committee Nov. 8.
In one instance, a booklet distributed by the Saudi Embassy in Washington offers instructions on how to “build a wall of resentment” between Muslims and infidels, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom.
Among the book’s directives: “Never greet the Christian or Jew first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday. Never befriend an infidel unless it is to convert him. Never imitate the infidel. Never work for an infidel,” Shea quoted during a committee hearing.
The booklet and more than 200 others containing similar anti-Western diatribes “demonstrate the ongoing efforts by Saudi Arabia to indoctrinate Muslims in the United States in the hostility and belligerence of Saudi Arabia’s hard-line Wahhabi sect of Islam,” Shea said.
She said hate literature, booklets, text books and other material was gathered from mosques and Islamic centers in cities across the United States, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Washington and New York. Some of the material was published by the Saudi Education Ministry, Shea said.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he is concerned that Saudi Arabia is promoting Islamic extremism, and in doing so is aiding Islamic terrorists that the United States is fighting in the global war on terrorism.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s senior Democrat, said that President George W. Bush has “an obvious blind spot when it comes to Saudi Arabia.” Leahy said that although Bush has condemned Islamic radicalism in other Arab nations, the president praises Saudi Arabia: “a monarchy that has done more to promote Islamic extremism and discourage the emergence of moderate Muslim leaders than any nation.” |
