Gift of the Saudi

Ten million dollars sounded like a wonderfully generous contribution to former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s charity to benefit survivors of uniformed workers who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. The donor, a Saudi Arabian prince who is No. 6 on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people, expressed condolences and went on: “I would also like to condemn all forms of terrorism, and in doing so I am reiterating Saudi Arabia’s strong stance against these tragic and horrendous acts.”

But Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud had tied a string to his gift. He promptly issued a press release saying: “However, at a time like this one, we must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack. I believe the government of the United States of America should reexamine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause … Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.” Mr. Guiliani did the right thing in rejecting the gift, tied in as it was with an attempt to steer U.S. foreign policy and, worse, an implication that the terrorist attacks were justified.

Prince Alwaleed chose to ignore the facts of the current tit-for-tat war in the Middle East. The United States, if anything, has often urged restraint on Israel to keep it from retaliating against years of suicide terrorism much like what the United States now has experienced. Whatever the original cause of the Arab-Israeli strife, the Palestinians were the clear aggressor in this current intifada.

The incident calls to mind that Saudi Arabia, which has the most to lose from the terrorism network, drags its feet as a member of the American-led anti-terrorism coalition. It won’t permit strikes against the Taliban to be mounted from Saudi air bases. It has given only minimal intelligence assistance in tracking down members of the terrorist conspiracy, even though more than half of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. It has been slow to freeze and seize the assets of the Saudi “charitable” foundations that have supported Osama bin Laden’s operation in Afghanistan and his worldwide terrorist network.

Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family knows that its overthrow is the terrorist network’s prime objective. Its recent attacks against Israel are a mere afterthought, an obvious stratagem to help organize a Muslim coalition against the United States. The Saudi rulers’ response to their vulnerability has been to exile Mr. bin Laden and his henchmen, while letting the ostensible Saudi charities funnel millions of dollars to his support.

In the current issue of The New Yorker magazine, Seymour M. Hersh writes that U.S. intercepts of conversations among senior members of the Saudi royal family “depict a regime increasingly corrupt, alienated from the country’s religious rank and file, and so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channeling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow it.” In the intercepts, according to Mr. Hersh, “princes talk openly about bilking the state and even argue about what is an acceptable percentage to take.” He reports that the intercepts “have demonstrated to analysts that by 1996 Saudi money was supporting Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Central Asia, and throughout the Persian Gulf region.”

The United States, for its part, has handled Saudi Arabia with kid gloves, respecting its vulnerability to the extremist Moslem minority and the deal that Franklin D. Roosevelt made in World War II: Saudi Arabia would keep the oil flowing and the United States would defend the Saudi rulers. The United States also has benefited from huge Saudi investments in U.S. industry, real estate and government securities.

With the Sept. 11 attacks, all this has changed. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia face a new threat. They must work together to investigate the terrorist network, cut off its financial support, root out its members, and take military action as necessary. They are in the same boat, and both must pull on the oars.