Posted on 04/10/2002 3:08:32 AM PDT by Dallas
WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) -- The Saudi Arabian government has paid out at least $33 million to families of Palestinians killed or injured in the 17-month-old intifada and in December 2001 earmarked another $50 million for the payments, according to Arabic news agencies and the Saudi Embassy's Web site.
Similar payments promised by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have drawn sharp condemnation from U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The Saudi Committee for Support of the Al-Aqsa Intifada distributes payments of $5,333 to the families of the dead and $4,000 to each Palestinian receiving medical treatment in Saudi hospitals. The fund is managed by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, according to the embassy.
The sum is far less than the $10,000 Iraq offers to the families of those killed and the $25,000 it gives to the kin of suicide bombers, but is nonetheless significant to the average Palestinian whose annual income is $1,575.
Saudi Arabia makes no distinction in compensation to families of suicide bombers and those killed by Israeli military action. There have been more than 50 suicide bombings since the intifada began in September 2000.
According to Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic faith enjoins Muslims to take care of widows and especially orphans. The families of suicide bombers are just as needy as those killed by military attacks, he said.
"They want to make it sound like (all the money is for) the families of suicide bombers," Hooper told United Press International.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld professed ignorance of the Saudi fund Monday.
"I have no information whatsoever that suggests that the government of Saudi Arabia is doing what Iraq is," he said at a Pentagon news briefing.
Saudi Arabia created the fund in October 2000 at a conference of Arab nations held in Cairo, Egypt. It donated 25 percent of the $1 billion fund, $200 million of which goes for direct payments to families of the dead and injured and $800 million to fund economic development in the Palestinian territory.
As of January 2001, the Saudi government had paid $33 million to families of 2,281 prisoners and 358 "martyrs," as well as to 8,000 wounded, 1,000 handicapped and another 102 Palestinians who have been treated in the kingdom's hospitals. In addition, food hampers were distributed to more than 200,000 families, according to the embassy Web site.
The Bush administration avoided commenting on the Saudi fund but has decried the Iraqi payments -- especially to suicide bombers -- as inducement to murder.
"They're not martyrs," President Bush said April 4 at the White House. "They're murderers and they undermine the cause of the Palestinian people. Those governments like Iraq that reward parents for the sacrifice of their children are guilty of soliciting murder of the worst kind."
Bush and Rumsfeld charge the promised payments only serve to increase the violence.
"Here is an individual (Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) who is the head of a country, Iraq, who has proudly, publicly made a decision to go out and actively promote and finance human sacrifice for families that will have their youngsters kill innocent men, women, and children. That is an example of what it is we're dealing with," Rumsfeld said last week.
Since Saddam increased the payments for suicide bombers in late March there have been more than 13 suicide attacks. That increase also coincides with Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, a military crackdown known as Operation Defensive Shield. It began March 28.
Nearly 1,300 Palestinians have been killed since the uprising began, according to the Palestine Monitor, a pro-Palestinian Web site maintained by non-governmental organizations in Ramallah. More than 340 Israelis have been killed. More than half of the dead are men between the ages of 19 and 29, according to the Palestine Monitor.
"Sometimes I'd like to ask these people who criticize these things (the funds) to find a list of Palestinian orphans who shouldn't be fed. Give us a list of Palestinian widows and orphans so Muslims can comply with dictates of not feeding the wrong people," Hooper said. "Are you supposed to penalize some child, some widow, because of what their father did or did not do?"
Hooper said the criticism "plays very well (in the United States) when you have this hysteria fed by the far right."
The Saudi government's press office in Washington did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
When I pull up to the pump, do I turn into a station that imports from the Middle East or the British North Sea and the Americas? How about you?
Lets send Saudi Arabia a copy of the Palenstinian "mayrtrs" list so they will know who should NOT get money. These are young Arabs, often teens, who are being brainwashed into being suicide bombers, they are not normally husbands and fathers. There ususally are NO "widows" or "orphans" left behind, just mothers and fathers and siblings of "jihad" killers.
Again the Bush adminstration, that I helped to vote in and fully supported, sticks its hand in the sand of Saudi Arabia and sees nothing. Saudi Arabia is a supporter of terrorism and should be so treated.
BP extracts the Alaskan North Slope oil but immediately trades it to Japan for Peruvian oil so they save shipping costs to the East coast.
Then, they cook it with a little African stuff and some LA goop and sell it under the green and yellow sign.
Do you only collect if you are killed or maimed????????
Not that I am promoting it but doesn't it seem obserd that you collect nothing if you pull off a "successful" operation, where you walk away and your military target is destroyed?????
Am i missing something, what is being promoted here.
The so calld martyrs blow themselves up, and the cowards who offer the rewards are way,way,way in the rear of the action.
Pick out the dummies.
I think all Saudi visas should be pulled and no Saudis should be permitted into the United States. These people are crazy.
Any family of a bomber should be prosecuted--just as we hold parents accountable for damages caused by their children in this country--the Israelis should be able to deport these families (preferably to Saudi Arabia) and confiscate any property they have and/or one parent should be given 30 years in jail. (Although perhaps both parents should be jailed--they aren't doing a great job at parenting. It is pure and simple child abuse at a level beyond anything we could ever imagine. If a mother put her daughter on the street to turn tricks, we would arrest the mother. These 'parents' are lower than slugs!)
Good for the comPost. Great reporting.
They finally got this in the paper a mere nine days after it was posted here on FR, and only a week after Fox News began covering it.
Saudi Embassy USA Support Of Palestinian Suicide Bombers
Saudi Embassy | Various | Saudi Embassy USA
Posted on 4/1/02 6:35 PM Eastern by angkor
We keep hearing Clintons' speeches about how America needs to share it's wealth with the rest of the world to secure peace (verbal treason), yet they seem to have enough money over there to just throw it around. I'd say they have too much if they're going to waste it the way they are. It's time to cut back on their allowance.
It's not a political conflict, it's religious and ideological. War looks more and more like the only option every day.
It doesn't have to be a long war, if those with the superior firepower wouldn't fear using it to make it a short war.
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