There’s an unpleasant fact at issue that American officials are still hesitant to admit: While some Muslims’ generosity has truly been exploited, other Muslims genuinely support militant groups and would like to help them out financially, provided they can do so with impunity. Appealing subtly to both types of donors is the essence of the Arabic-language public relations challenge the Saudi charities now face–and the reason behind the seemingly contradictory rhetoric routinely expressed by their leadership.

The article goes on to show how it behoves the Saudi charities to say they have stopped the flow of money to terrorists (who kill Saudis), and to insinuate to Arab donors that they give money to insurgents and freedom fighters (who kill Americans). This is understandable. However, the fact that we do not have a trusted third party auditing the charities makes me wonder. Sarbanes-Oxley is applying much stricter oversight on every single public company in the USA than any of these Saudi charities. We need some trustworthy international organization (assuming there is such a creature) to audit these charities, and keep on auditing them.

Sincerely, Lorenzo

A Comptroller from the ISA may also have been involved in terror and one more of several thousand students was flagged for possible involvement with terrorist. So that doubled the student participation: it’s now 2/20,000. What the explanation for why the other 19,998 students aren’t similarly engaged?

That Abu Ali hung around with very questionable people is also clear. They, too, lived in N. Virginia, but don’t seem to have any connection with the Saudi Academy. If there’s evidence that suggests otherwise, I’ll be happy to note it.

That some Americans don’t have any idea that there are schools in the USA that don’t follow American curricula–as there are American schools abroad exercising the same privilege–is also clear from the 2002 Washington Post article from which the Counter Terror and Front Page pieces are taken. The people at Counter Terror and Front Page should know it, though; they’ve lived overseas and some of them are products of just such schools. I suspect they do, but find they can use that general ignorance as a useful tool with which to make their larger points. There are French, German, British, Indian schools in the US which behave in the same way–not following American curricula–but pointing out that fact doesn’t move forward the proposition that it’s Islamic schools at the heart of terrorism.

You ask how one can check whether there really is reform in Saudi schools and that it’s not just PR fluff.

The best way is to write your Congressman/woman to ask that they check. When I was at the US Embassy in Riyadh, in 2002, they did exactly that and my office collected every single textbook used in schools and sent them to Congress for examination. (That examination resulted in the seminal Washington Post article from which the other pieces you cite originate.) An updated examination would put the matter to the test.

That examination was a useful exercise because it also brought to the attention of otherwise unengaged Saudis that they had problems with the textbooks. One result was the Foreign Minister’s acknowledgement at “15% was questionable and 5% was abhorent”.

You can follow the dialogue in Saudi newspapers as Saudi parents complained about extremist materials and demanded their removal. And see that the government responded to demands from its own citizens. Their complaints now focus on the teachers and what they actually are teaching. I try to cover these issues with this blog.

As far as the “empty promises” in restricting charitable giving, your perception does not accord with that of the US Treasury, FBI, or State, all of whom find that significant controls are in place and in operation.

Treasury even notes that some of those controls are the strictest in the world. Google the name “Juan Zarate” and read his Congressional testimony. You can also check this press release from Treasury. Zarate is Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Anti-Terror & Anti-Crime Financing. He believes it, though, as always, there’s “more that could be done”.

Last August, a former comptroller of the school, Ismael Selim Elbarasse, was arrested as a material witness by federal authorities who called him a high-level operative for Hamas, the Palestinian terror group.

In March 2002, another graduate of the school, Mohammad Usman Idris, then 24, was charged with lying to a grand jury probing plots against Israel.

From Counter Terror blog

A December 16, 2004 decision by U.S. District Court Judge John Bates includes some interesting facts about Abu Ali: He is apparently associated with the “Virginia paintball” case, in which two men, Randall Royer and Ibrahim al-Hamdi were convicted for their participation in what prosecutors called a “Virginia jihad network.” Royer and al Hamdi received long prison terms; seven others pleaded guilty or were convicted in that case, and two were acquitted at trial. Abu Ali might have known defendants in the Royer case; he and three of the Royer defendants were arrested in June 2003 in Saudi Arabia, where he was held there at the request of the FBI until just recently.

From Warriors for Truth blog, taken from a Washington Post article

Eleventh-graders at the elite Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia study energy and matter in physics, write out differential equations in precalculus and read stories about slavery and the Puritans in English.

Then they file into their Islamic studies class, where the textbooks tell them the Day of Judgment can’t come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews. …

The 11th-grade textbook, for example, says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.”

Several students of different ages, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that in Islamic studies, they are taught that it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims.

Some teachers “focus more on hatred,” said one teenager, who recited by memory the signs of the coming of the Day of Judgment. “They teach students that whatever is kuffar [non-Muslim], it is okay for you” to hurt or steal from that person.

From Front Page on-line magazine

The Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Northern Virginia forthrightly states that even though it exists on U.S. soil, it is “subject to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Students at ISA are not required to study U.S. history or government. They do, however, receive instruction in Wahhabism.

Outsiders are not permitted to observe Wahhabism lessons or any other classes at ISA. But early this year, students at the academy told two Washington Post reporters some of the things they learn at school. Among other things, students discover the intricacies of Judgment Day.

One event on that formidable day will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews. The cowardly Jews will seek refuge behind trees. Much like the trees in the forest scene from the Wizard of Oz, these trees will become animated and aggressive. They will call out to the righteous: “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.”

Students also said they are taught “it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims.” Furthermore, students learn, it is okay to hurt or steal from a non-Muslim.

The Saudi-supplied textbooks at this and other Wahhabi schools state that Muslims are obliged to consider all infidels the enemy. Certain enemies are not even acknowledged in geography class. Wahhabi schools in America are notorious for doctoring maps of the Middle East, and hanging them in classrooms – with Israel blotted out.

The evidence I could find online about the ISA doesn’t cast it in a good light.

Something I would like to find out is exactly how the educational program has changed in Saudi schools. How are the Qutbist and Jihadist/Muhirab leanings of the old instruction being ameliorated? I’ve read plenty of pretty platitudes about fixing the education system, but have seen no concrete proposals or proofs of change. Is it another chimera, like empty Saudi promises to restrict charitable giving to terrorists? I hope not. But I fear so.

Sincerely, Lorenzo

[UPDATE: I changed the formatting for hyperlinks in this comment because they were messing up the page layout. No other changes were made. JB]