The Saudi Dossier

Ha'aretz ^ | 5/13/02 | Daniel Sobelman

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When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's entourage arrived in Washington last week, one member of that party - Limor Livnat - handed out a comprehensive report, which included documents seized by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, that she claimed proved Saudi Arabia was providing financial backing for Palestinian terror. The 85-page report raised several eyebrows in the American capital, with some American journalists wondering out loud what was the point of proving the Saudis supported the families of Palestinian victims, especially since Saudi Arabia has admitted this in public.

It is possible, however, that the Saudi authorities are not comfortable with their support of the Palestinians being thrown into the spotlight. This is an assumption that is backed, for example, by the publication of a document, sent by the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Al-Quds Intifada to Azam al-Hadar, who is responsible for aiding Palestinian security officers injured during the intifada. Several days before the document was faxed to Al-Hadar, on February 18 this year, the official Palestinian newspaper, Al-Hiyat al-Jedida published an announcement that al-Hadar's organization was working together with the Saudi committee, and that families of the victims could receive financial aid from branches of the Arab Bank. In its fax to Al-Hadar, the committee pointed out that no announcement bearing its name should be published without prior official permission. The fax was signed by the general secretary of the committee, Dr. Walid Ben Abed al-Razaq al-Dali.

That said, the claim made by American journalists contains some measure of justification, since the Saudi committee is far from being a secret organization. On November 30, 2001, for example, the official Saudi news agency published an annual summary of the aid given to the Palestinians in the previous year - around $48 million.

Another example: Some 12 months previously, on November 14, 2000, the Saudi news agency reported that the Saudi interior minister had ordered the payment of around $5,000 "to the families of each of the Palestinian victims, as immediate aid to the Palestinian victims." The vagueness of this statement stems from the use of the word "victims" - "martyrs" in the original Arabic. The word "victim" could apply equally to an unarmed Palestinian civilian, a member of the Palestinian security force, or even a suicide bomber inside Israel.

These two examples are mentioned in Livnat's report, but Israel's primary claim in the "Saudi Dossier" is one of principal: Any financial aid increases "the motivation to carry out terror attacks, including suicide bombings." According to those who compiled the dossier, the financial support provided by Saudi Arabia to the family of a "dead terrorist" is equal to the total salary that the family could earn over a six-year period. And as far as financial support of the Palestinians is concerned, the report emphasizes, Saudi Arabia is second only to Iraq.

Those who compiled the report, which includes 13 appendices of photocopied and translated documents, attempted to show that the money transferred by Saudi Arabia for humanitarian purposes, ended up in the Hamas coffers. To this end, they produced a document, signed by an officer in the Palestinian anti-espionage unit, which was sent to Colonel Jibril al-Bakhri, commander of operations in the Palestinian counterintelligence unit in Bethlehem. In the document, dated February 10, 2001, the author points out that Saudi Arabia transferred funds to aid Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. "Saudi Arabia refused to give this money to the Palestinian Authority, fearing it would not reach the prisoners ... the money eventually reached the brothers in Hamas, who hid it. Hamas only paid money to its leaders and confiscated the rest of the money."

Livnat's Saudi file also shows how Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat was livid over the fact that the Saudi aid was being paid directly to Hamas, rather than the PA and the Fatah. Appendix 3e includes a collection of media articles transferred to Arafat on January 7, 2001, in which it was reported that $33 million was transferred to the families of Palestinian victims. At the foot of the page, in handwriting that Israeli intelligence officers identified as Arafat's, the chairman asks Saudi representative Mustafa Div "to tell me where this money went and who received it, since the families of the martyrs and the injured did not see a single penny."

U.S. officials said last week they intend to study the documents provided by Livnat, together with Israeli experts. Undersecretary of State Mark Grossman confirmed Israel had provided the U.S. with documents relating to Saudi involvement in funding terror, but refrained from commenting on the contents of the file. Instead, he repeated the usual U.S. mantra about Saudi support of the United States' war on terror, and the importance of Prince Abdullah's peace proposal.

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