Posted on 05/11/2003 7:09:58 PM PDT by paltz
NEW YORK (Talon News) -- The Middle Eastern Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley, has accepted funds from a member of the Saudi royal family and a Saudi businessman that the U.S. State Department maintains are responsible for supporting terrorism, according to the Berkeley, California Patriot, a student-run newspaper.
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley runs two programs which both have stated missions to increase "understanding of Islam and of Muslim peoples and cultures in the United States and around the world." But each of those programs has ties to suspects in the War on Terror.
The web site for the center boasts that its Interdisciplinary Arab Studies Program, also known as the Sultan Program, is "made possible through a generous endowment from the Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Charity Foundation of Saudi Arabia."
Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud has been implicated as having a hand in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and is currently one of the defendants in the $1 trillion class action lawsuit filed by families of the victims.
Al Saud's role in the Saudi government extends from being Deputy Prime Minister to serving as the Minister of Defense and chair of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs.
According to the California Patriot, Al Saud is also charged with reviewing and granting aid requests from Islamic organizations, including those that the United States government and the United Nations have acknowledged support terrorism and terrorist organizations.
One particular group, the International Islamic Relief Organization, has been linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots to assassinate former President Clinton and Pope John Paul II and destroy the Lincoln Tunnel and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
"[The programs] are run by faculty committees with absolutely no obligation to, or oversight from, the donors in question," Middle Eastern Studies Vice Chair Emily Gottreich told the Patriot.
UC Berkeley administrators declined to comment further on the center's benefactors and their connection to terrorism.
The other program in UC Berkeley's Middle Eastern Studies curriculum with terror ties is the Al-Falah Program. This program was started in 1998 with the help of an endowment from Xenel Industries, who's CEO, Abdullah Alireza, is on the executive board of Dar al Maal-Islami, a bank with direct ties to Usama bin Laden's family. Alireza has also been linked to terror activities by the U.S. State Department.
That bank has been directly linked to al Qaeda by the State Department and the U.N. Dar al Maal-Islami held funds for operatives through several of its subsidiaries, and maintained investments of up to $50 million from bin Laden himself.
Copyright © 2003 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
Let's give UCB the benefit of the doubt if they close these Islamic programs and keep the monies for the general fund.
There is a small possibility that if the litigation against the al Saud Charity Foundation is successful, the endowment for the Sultan Program will be seized to satisfy the claim.
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