CHARITY AND TERROR

It is unlikely that the wife of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States knowingly gave money to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The Saudi royal family has reason to consider Americans as patient to a fault in this lopsided friendship, but it surely is aware that even the most powerful thirst for oil would not excuse such an offense.

Princess Haifa al-Faisal did transfer $15,000 in 1998 and then $2,000 a month to Osama Bassnan of San Diego. She says it was to help a countryman with family medical expenses – one of the five pillars of Islam, after all, is Zakat, the systematic setting aside of a portion of one’s wealth to help the needy, charity preferably done in secret.

That money, and money another man received from other Saudi givers did end up in the hands of two of the hijackers who attacked the Pentagon. Chances are, however, that the medical-expenses story was a scam and the princess was among the duped – after all, her own father, King Faisal, was murdered by an Islamic extremist, making her willing support of Islamic extremism improbable.

This explanation, however, does nothing to resolve the real and persistent problems in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. It may have been sheer coincidence that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis, or even that much of the funding that got Osama bin Laden started in the international terrorism business originated there. It is not coincidence that, on the matter of severing al-Qaida’s money pipeline, the Saudi government continues to waver between irresolute and utterly uncooperative. Despite initial promises to work with the international community, the government of Saudi Arabia continues to deny the existence of Islamic charities that support terrorism, it thaws bank accounts previously frozen, it continues to generously fund the Islamic schools that teach the rabid anti-Americanism that helped make Sept. 11 possible. And, to the shame of the governments of both Saudi Arabia and the United States, more than 90 American women and girls, either wives or daughters of Saudi men, still are denied the freedom to leave, despite months of promises to the contrary.

A few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia – apparently with some warning that the Princess Haifa money trail was being investigated – announced it was developing a system in which all charitable funding leaving the country would have to pass government review to ensure the money will not bankroll terrorism. To prevent this from becoming one more promise not blatantly broken but certainly not kept, the United States, as the stated target of this terrorism, must insist on a substantial degree of oversight to guarantee that this system is developed and operated vigorously. If not, patient to a fault becomes sheer gullibility.