Christians Under Attack

financial support, through its Red Crescent Society, to families of Palestinians, militants as well as civilians, who have been wounded or killed by Israeli forces, according to Red Crescent documents.

The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven small states including Dubai, where a government-owned company was due to take over some American port operations. Facing intense Congressional opposition, the company said recently that it would sell its operations in the United States to an unrelated American company within six months.

In 2002 and 2003, the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Society, a quasi-governmental organization, made donations to Palestinian charities that included social groups associated with Hamas, the radical Islamic organization that won Palestinian parliamentary elections and has long been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

A glimpse inside the Emirates aid programs comes from documents provided to The New York Times by Gary M. Osen, an American lawyer litigating cases in the United States federal courts on behalf of American victims of Palestinian terror attacks. The documents include unclassified materials seized by Israeli forces from Palestinian organizations in the West Bank.

Mr. Osen, of Oradell, N.J., said researchers in Israel who were helping him gather evidence for the lawsuits had found the documents there in archives of materials captured in Israeli military operations.

The records include international financial transfers from the Emirates Red Crescent Society as well as budget and program reports from its Jerusalem branch, which handles programs in the Palestinian territories. They show differences between American and Emirate views of Palestinian violence, although President Bush has said the countries see eye to eye on fighting terrorism.

In 2002, according to a spreadsheet of the annual budget, the U.A.E. Friends Society in Jerusalem, the local branch of the Red Crescent, designated $100,000 to pay 50 annual stipends of $2,000 under a "martyrs' families sponsorship" program.

Officials from the government and the Red Crescent Society said "martyrs" referred to any Palestinian who had died in the conflict with Israel, including civilians and armed fighters. In a news release on May 5, 2002, Mohammed Hamad Saif, a representative accompanying a 40-ton shipment of Red Crescent relief supplies, said "the priority" of that aid would be "the needy and families of the wounded and martyrs."

In one case, the documents show, the Emirates Red Crescent provided cash payments to the wife and two children of Anwar Awni Mustafa Abdel Ghani, who was identified in a news release on Feb. 15, 2002, from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant organization, as a mujahid, or fighter, for the group. The news release, and news reports from that date, indicate that Mr. Abdel Ghani was killed in a clash that day with Israeli forces in a village near Tulkarm in the West Bank.

Emirates government and Red Crescent officials confirmed that the martyrs' family support continues, including payments for at least one of Mr. Abdel Ghani's children.

There are sharp differences between American and Emirates officials over assistance to "martyrs." United States officials say payments to families of violent militants constitute direct support for their cause and encourage others to join.

Officials of the Emirates government and the Red Crescent Society said the payments helped create possibilities for younger Palestinians. They said most of the beneficiaries were relatives of civilians who had been killed, and that the society handed out cash payments only for Palestinians under 18. Spouses and older children receive coupons for food, medicine and housing materials.

"What is the fault of the orphans?" a government official said, referring to children in the martyrs' program. "By helping them, you are pulling them away from extremism."

Daniel Glaser, a deputy assistant Treasury secretary, said the Emirates was "one of our primary partners" in the Middle East in combating financing of terrorist groups. He said the Treasury had a close working relationship with the Emirates central bank, and that financial officials there had provided concrete cooperation in recent investigations

Mr. Glaser said he was not familiar with the details of Red Crescent programs. But as a general matter, he said, "Charities that are supporting terrorist activities, including by supporting family members and orphans — we consider that to be terrorist financing."

The documents contain no evidence that the Emirates provided direct aid to armed militant groups.

In the ports controversy, President Bush hailed the Emirates as a like-minded ally in fighting terrorism. He cited support from the sheiks who lead the Emirates for American efforts in Iraq, including a United States military air base there.

But in Israel, some Palestinians regarded as terrorists by the United States are viewed as resistance fighters and martyrs by the Emirates officials.

The Emirates government condemns suicide bombings and terrorist attacks on civilians, and officials said the Red Crescent Society had taken increasingly strict precautions to avoid providing relief to Palestinian groups engaging in such attacks, or to social groups linked to them or to bombers' families.

After "bad experiences" during the mayhem of 2002 and 2003, when some Emirates Red Crescent money ended up in militants' hands, the organization has used modern controls to track its donations and vet its staff, the government official said.

The official said there was no direct cooperation between the Emirates Red Crescent Society and Hamas. He requested anonymity, saying he did not want to awaken new controversy between the Emirates and the United States.

Documents from before 2004 show that the Red Crescent made donations through the Tulkarm Zakat Committee, identified at that time by American officials as a Hamas front. A top administrator at the Red Crescent's Jerusalem offices was Najih Bakirat, whom Israel has identified repeatedly as a Hamas member.

But the Emirates officials said they had stopped sending money to the Zakat Committee and had cut ties with Mr. Bakirat when questions arose about his political activities.

The secretary general of the Emirates Red Crescent, Sanaa Darwish al-Kitbe, said the goal of its Palestinian programs was to "influence the negative atmosphere" to build peace. "By building homes and helping people to have a better life," she said, responding to written questions with a statement sent by e-mail, "you are creating some hope in the middle of all this suffering," allowing young Palestinians to "concentrate on the positive and move away from extremist views and actions."