Christians Under Attack

In one instance, a booklet distributed by the Saudi Embassy in Washington offers instructions on how to “build a wall of resentment” between Muslims and infidels, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom.

Among the book’s directives: “Never greet the Christian or Jew first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday. Never befriend an infidel unless it is to convert him. Never imitate the infidel. Never work for an infidel,” Shea quoted during a committee hearing.

The booklet and more than 200 others containing similar anti-Western diatribes “demonstrate the ongoing efforts by Saudi Arabia to indoctrinate Muslims in the United States in the hostility and belligerence of Saudi Arabia’s hard-line Wahhabi sect of Islam,” Shea said.

She said hate literature, booklets, text books and other material was gathered from mosques and Islamic centers in cities across the United States, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Washington and New York. Some of the material was published by the Saudi Education Ministry, Shea said.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he is concerned that Saudi Arabia is promoting Islamic extremism, and in doing so is aiding Islamic terrorists that the United States is fighting in the global war on terrorism.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s senior Democrat, said that President George W. Bush has “an obvious blind spot when it comes to Saudi Arabia.” Leahy said that although Bush has condemned Islamic radicalism in other Arab nations, the president praises Saudi Arabia: “a monarchy that has done more to promote Islamic extremism and discourage the emergence of moderate Muslim leaders than any nation.”

Another witness, Steven Emerson, told the committee that the Saudi government has not done as much as it could to crack down on a network of charities, foundations and Islamic propaganda centers that export Islamic extremism worldwide from Saudi Arabia.

Emerson, who is director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the current U.S. policy of not publicly confronting the Saudi government on the problem has not paid off.

In the Saudis’ defense, Anthony Cordesman told the committee that the Saudi government has made some progress toward clamping down on Islamic extremists, and that the United States should not expect “instant progress.” Nor should the United States focus on Saudi Arabia alone. Money and support for radical Islam also flows from Qatar, Egypt and other countries, said Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Cordesman told committee members that radical Muslims aren’t the sole practitioners of hostile rhetoric. “U.S. clerics, intellectuals and members of Congress have discussed Islam and Arabs in equally regrettable terms,” he said.