Quid Nimis

Arab American Institute (www.aaiusa.org)

AI was organized in 1985, according to its website, �to represent Arab American interests in government and politics.� Its chairman is a political operative in Washington, attorney George Salem, a partner in the Washington, DC office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP. He was a leading supporter of President George W. Bush�s campaign. Akin, Gump has been prominent in defending Saudis accused of involvement in terrorism.

AAI is much more identified with its cofounder, president and leading spokesperson, James Zogby, formerly executive director of ADC. In contrast with Salem, a Republican, Zogby is a major figure in Democrat party affairs. His brother John, who runs a polling business, is an AAI board member, along with AAI backup spokesperson Jean AbiNader, an international marketing executive.

...Jim Zogby also underwent a striking change after September 11th. The man who once charmed all comers as an Arab American Christian, who admitted no knowledge whatever of Islam but who insisted on his commitment to peaceful solutions between Israel and the Palestinians, suddenly came out of the closet as a ranting demagogue, denouncing all opponents as racist, extremist, Zionist agents. AbiNader adopted a similar manner in media encounters.

Source: Stephen Schwartz, An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Oranizations in North America, FrontPageMagazine.com, 2003

American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (www.adc.org)

ADC was founded in 1980 by former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Democrat of South Dakota, as a non-religious civil rights group. It was clearly created in imitation of, and even as a rival or counterweight to, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights organization. It originally concentrated its attentions on Christian Arab Americans, who make up a majority of the Arab American population, and has established chapters around the U.S. Its current officers are Dr. Ziad Asali, its president, its executive vice president Khalil Jahshan and its flamboyant and controversial communications director, Hussein Ibish.

Until September 11th, ADC mainly focused on paralleling the ADL, by mounting legal campaigns to defend Palestinian advocates. It frequently allied with leftist groups in campaigns against U.S. support for Israel.

After the beginning of the U.S. war against terror, a perceptible shift occurred in the orientation and activities of ADC. It became a strident voice protesting what it said were plans of the Bush administration to curtail the civil liberties of Arab Americans. ADC has labelled all efforts by the Justice and Treasury Departments against terrorism as unfair persecution based on ethnic discrimination. ADC has also fostered the belief that �ethnic profiling� is rampant in official U.S. dealings with Arab and Muslim Americans.

These claims are arguable, but such issues fall within the legitimate purview of ADC as a civil rights group. Nevertheless, after September 11th, ADC extended its range of concerns. It suddenly became a leading defender of Palestinian �martyrdom� campaigns inside Israel, as well as of Saudi Arabia, whose role in funding Wahhabism, the extreme sect rejected by the majority of Muslims worldwide, had come under scrutiny after disclosure that 15 out of 19 suicide pilots on September 11th were Saudi subjects. Such foreign topics should have had little or nothing to do with discrimination against Arab Americans. Further, ADC began to speak in the name of Islam even though its original constituency was mainly Christian.

ADC never seriously concerned itself with the suffering of Muslims in the Balkans or Chechnya. However, during the Afghan and Iraq interventions, ADC was among the most voluble entities in painting these military operations as conspiratorial intrigues controlled by Israel. ADC also engaged in extensive efforts to depict the regime of Saddam in Iraq as innocent of terrorist associations.

Source: Stephen Schwartz, An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Oranizations in North America, FrontPageMagazine.com, 2003

 

Organization; See Wikipedia Black September and Quid Nimis entry Cleo Noel: Martyr for Oil.

One Day in September is the Oscar-winning documentary about the "Munich Massacre," in 1972 when 11 Israeli athletes were killed during the Munich Olympics by members of Black September.  Highly recommended for its comprehensive approach, this film sheds light on European attitudes toward terrorism. 

From WSJ, December 28, 2006:  Branded Terrorist...by Andrew Higgins 

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hussein al-Shami, custodian of cash for the Islamist militant group Hezbollah, has had a rough few months.

During Hezbollah's 33-day war with Israel this summer, Israeli warplanes obliterated the 10-story Beirut apartment building where Mr. Shami had lived with his family. They also targeted a credit agency he runs for Hezbollah. All but one of its nine branches were destroyed, he says. Then in September, the U.S. Treasury Department named him as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."

Now he's back at work in the Lebanese capital, pursuing his intermingled missions. He's shepherding funds for Hezbollah, which the U.S. brands a terrorist group. He's also running an enterprise that the U.S. normally supports: making microloans to nurture a culture of self-help capitalism.

Mr. Shami and U.S. officials agree on little -- not even the year of his birth, which he says is 1952 while the U.S. terrorist-designation notice puts it variously at 1948, 1954 and 1960. His activities confound U.S. efforts to strictly divide players in the Middle East into realms of good and evil, and his success helps explain the resilience of Islamist groups that mix violence and virtue.

America and Israel see Mr. Shami as a grave menace for his role in minding Hezbollah finances. They blame the Islamist group, an armed militia that also provides health care and other services, for terrorist attacks including the 1983 Beirut bombings of the U.S. Embassy and a Marine Corps barracks. Today, Hezbollah, emboldened by what it calls a "divine victory" over Israel this summer, is flexing its political muscle with a campaign to topple Lebanon's U.S.-backed government. One major fund-raising group Mr. Shami has helped run, the Islamic Resistance Support Organization, has mounted past appeals to support Hezbollah's armed combat.

Mr. Shami, speaking near the bombed-out ruins of his credit agency's headquarters, fumes against "Zionist aggression" and ridicules U.S. efforts in the region. He talks proudly of his role in setting up a "martyr's fund" to support the families of dead Hezbollah militants. At his side in a makeshift Hezbollah office is the group's flag, emblazoned with a green Kalashnikov rifle.

But Mr. Shami, holder of a graduate degree in business administration and father of five, also boasts of service to a more peaceable cause. Last year he provided financing to more than 26,000 clients through Hezbollah's credit agency, Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, Lebanon's largest maker of tiny loans. "We should be encouraged, not cut to pieces," he says.

The loans averaged $865 last year, largely made to Shiite Muslims who support Hezbollah. Customers include people starting businesses, such as car body-repair shops and hairdressing salons, and homemakers buying furniture or paying school fees. The maximum loan was $1,500, but with gold or gold jewelry given as security, the ceiling went up to $3,000.

Washington has long identified economic development as the best cure for political extremism. It has financed its own microcredit agencies in Lebanon to do much the same work as Mr. Shami's. But they charge interest, and have far fewer customers. Mr. Shami's outfit follows the rules of Islamic finance, which proscribes interest and charges service fees instead.

Until war erupted in July, Washington hailed Lebanon as a beacon for its vision of the "new Middle East" -- a region committed to democracy, aligned with the West and eager to root out militant groups. Today, the country is a showcase for the growing clout of forces that America wants eclipsed: Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Lebanon's government, headed by former banker Fuad Siniora, teeters under pressure from Hezbollah, which has organized a series of peaceful massive demonstrations. Pro-American ministers, fearful of assassination after one of their number was murdered last month, mostly work, eat and sleep in a fortresslike stone building ringed with razor wire and heavily armed troops.

Mr. Shami, meanwhile, moves easily around town in a white Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle. He says he's "comfortable that America's project for the region will fail." He has set up small temporary offices to replace the destroyed branch network, and his 100-strong staff has contacted clients to assure them that the gold jewelry and other valuables deposited as collateral for their small loans are safe. Account details, stored on computers, all survived, he says.

Squeezing the finances of extremist groups has been a key front in America's "war on terror" since al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The U.S. crackdown initially focused on Osama bin Laden's network but has struck hard in recent months at Hezbollah. In addition to branding Mr. Shami a terrorist in September, the Treasury Department has targeted an Iranian state bank it says channeled funds to Hezbollah and a host of organizations and companies, including three Lebanese entities linked to Mr. Shami.

Washington argues that all Hezbollah-related money must be stopped, whether it is used to buy weapons, fund microcredits or run the group's network of clinics, schools and other services. "We don't buy into the frame of mind that you can distinguish between the military and social arms," says Pat O'Brien, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing. "Money is fungible."

The U.S. approach carries a risk: It has strengthened the view of Hezbollah's supporters, many of whom come from Lebanon's most-impoverished areas, that America wants to keep them poor, not fight terrorism. Even Hezbollah's rivals say the U.S. strategy plays into the hands of Islamist propagandists, who blame America and Israel for economic and other woes.

"It's stupid and it doesn't work," says Ahmad Fatfat, one of Hezbollah's fiercest foes in Lebanon's beleaguered pro-American cabinet. A former interior minister, Mr. Fatfat says clamping down on Hezbollah's finances may disrupt its social services but won't limit its military capabilities. Hezbollah, say Mr. Fatfat and others, generally gets its rockets and other weapons free from Iran and Syria. Moreover, he says, Hezbollah's money "comes in suitcases, not through banks."

The crackdown has made little visible impact so far on Hezbollah's ability to find cash. Soon after the war ended in August, the group began handing out wads of dollars to people whose homes had been bombed. Estimates based on Hezbollah statements put the value of the handouts at roughly $180 million. Lebanese officials say the money was probably carried by hand from Iran via Syria. Mr. Shami says the cash came from the Imam Reza Foundation, a wealthy Iranian organization that controls a revered Shiite shrine and has vast business holdings.

The sole surviving original branch of Mr. Shami's credit agency is located in a mixed Sunni and Shiite area of west Beirut. Business is brisk, with a stream of customers, mostly women, arriving to make payments on their loans. A picture of Iran's late Ayatollah Khomeini hangs on the wall. On a marble counter are two boxes for donations for other organizations. One is for the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, originally an Iranian charity now with huge welfare operations in Lebanon.

The second is for the Islamic Resistance Support Organization, the main Hezbollah fund-raising arm that Mr. Shami has helped run. It was blacklisted by the Treasury Department in August, after the war, for aiding terrorism. Its Web site and some of its leaflets have appealed for funds for ammunition. The Treasury Department also says they've solicited for money for weapons, including rockets.

Amal Dbouk, a 35-year-old housewife, said she came to the credit agency to pay off part of $1,000 she had borrowed to cover school fees for two of her three children. Abir Mansara, 27, a self-employed hairdresser, said she needed money to buy hair dye and cover other costs. She's taken out two loans, depositing three gold bracelets, a necklace and a gold ring as collateral.

Lebanon's mainstream banks, the two women say, would never give them loans. Both support Hezbollah and both took part in the recent street demonstrations against Lebanon's American-backed government. Ms. Mansara says she adores Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, comparing him to a "rock star." "He fights for his country and fights for us," she says. Ms. Dbouk complains that America helps only Israel. "Hezbollah," she says, "helps us."

Hezbollah has all along mingled charity with violence. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 at the start of what became an 18-year occupation, previously weak Islamist forces merged to form Hezbollah, or the Party of God, mobilizing both military resistance and welfare work. The Israeli assault uprooted the secular Palestine Liberation Organization, which had used Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel. Hezbollah, fired by Shiite zeal, filled the void.

A turning point came in 1983 in Mr. Shami's hometown of Nabatiyeh. A riot broke out when an Israeli military convoy drove into a crowd commemorating Shiite Islam's most sacred festival. The incident inflamed religious passions -- and helped set in motion a Shiite resurgence that is now shaking Lebanon, Iraq and the whole Middle East. That same year, more than 300 people were killed in the Beirut bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine Corps barracks, America's biggest loss of life to terrorism until 2001. Hezbollah denies carrying out the attacks but nonetheless hailed the slaughter.

Rubble is removed from Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association's former head office, which was destroyed by Israeli bombing, in south Beirut.

Working at the time as a manager in a refrigerator company, Mr. Shami joined Hezbollah. He got to know Mr. Nasrallah, who then was a newcomer to the group, and took charge of its social services, which grew in tandem with its military wing. An early concern, he says, was to ensure that Lebanon's large Shiite population avoided becoming "hostages to aid" like Palestinian refugees, who lived off humanitarian handouts in camps around Lebanon.

Calculating that loans would "force people to be productive, to work," he set up a tiny credit agency in his Beirut apartment. "People in the West don't think people in the East have a vision, or are capable of looking ahead," he says. "But people in Lebanon make plans."

The microlender gave 150 loans its first year, says Mr. Shami, who at the time sat on Hezbollah's governing council. In 1985 the credit agency moved to a rented office in Harat Hreik, a squalid Beirut suburb flooded with Shiite refugees from the south. The agency, he says, was initially called Bayt al-Mal, an Arabic term that means "House of Money." It was registered with Lebanon's Interior Ministry in 1987 as Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, or "The Good Loan Association" -- in other words, conforming to Islamic rules.

Microfinance has since become celebrated as a tool for poverty relief in developing countries. An early pioneer in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, recently was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the 1980s, Mr. Shami also set up associations to aid the war effort against Israel and to cement loyalties to Hezbollah. Among these was the Martyr's Foundation, which provided money to the widows and children of suicide bombers and others killed fighting Israel's occupation. It mimicked an Iranian organization set up during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq.

U.S. and Israeli officials today describe the Martyr's Foundation as one of the conduits used by Iran to send money to Hezbollah. Some of it, they say, has been funneled through Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat. In September the Treasury Department ordered the bank cut off from all access to the U.S. financial system, saying Saderat had made $50 million in payments to Hezbollah since 2001. Iranian officials say Bank Saderat hasn't transferred money to Hezbollah.

Mr. Shami says Hezbollah gets most of its donations directly from its own fund-raising efforts. Public anger at Israel is so strong that even Mr. Fatfat, the politician opposed to Hezbollah, says he's donated to "resistance" social causes in the past. A Hezbollah activist and others familiar with the organization say Mr. Shami still runs the main fund-raising arm, the Islamic Resistance Support Organization. Mr. Shami says he is just a financial consultant to Hezbollah.

The support organization's methods can often elude U.S.-led efforts to stem the flow of cash. By cart, bicycle or car, volunteers transport a fleet of mobile donation boxes, each fitted with a yellow Hezbollah flag. The group also raises money through Hezbollah's television station, al-Manar. During the July-August war with Israel, al-Manar solicited funds by directing donors to specific bank accounts and cellphone contact numbers.

The general manager of one bank to which the broadcast directed donations, Mounir Karam of MEAB SAL, placed advertisements in Lebanese newspapers to deny any link to Hezbollah, but an American bank that gave MEAB access to U.S. dollars severed its ties. "What can I do, sue Hezbollah?" asks Mr. Karam. Hezbollah activists answering several of the phone numbers this month said the group is no longer taking direct bank deposits, and instead asked for checks to be made out to a courier who would pick them up, rather than to the organization.

Before the Israeli airstrikes this summer, Mr. Shami worked from a huge office in the headquarters of Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, which occupied three stories in a building opposite his apartment block in Harat Hreik, Hezbollah's principal stronghold in southern Beirut. Unlike leaders of Hezbollah's military wing, who shun outsiders, Mr. Shami has for years received visitors from outside the Islamist orbit.

The operations manager of his biggest U.S.-funded rival, Ameen, met with Mr. Shami to try to satisfy his curiosity about his business. Judith Palmer Harik, an American academic who has lived in Lebanon since the late 1970s and has written a book about Hezbollah, says she first met Mr. Shami in the early 1990s, when he was running the group's social services. "I expected another mullah-type with a big beard" and found a "businessman up to his ears in projects," she says. She recalls pushing through a throng of people seeking Mr. Shami's help with "clogged drains, rain damage, medical prescriptions.... All the stuff that a government is supposed to handle, he was doing."

In 2000, Mr. Shami got a visit from Imad Hamzé, a Lebanese-Canadian expert in microfinance who had been commissioned to write a report for the United Nations on credit and poverty reduction. Mr. Shami, he says, outlined ambitious expansion plans, which included a proposed branch in a mostly Christian area.

Mr. Hamzé's report described Mr. Shami's operation as "a very creditable organization" comprising then two groups: the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association credit agency, and a sister outfit called Yousser for Finance and Investment, which the report says was established in 1990 to "serve entrepreneurs with microenterprises or investment ideas." These two entities, together with an accounting center and research branch, were collectively known as Bayt al-Mal, the report said.

In its September terrorist designation of Mr. Shami, the Treasury Department named both Yousser and Bayt al-Mal as terrorist fronts. They were functioning as Hezbollah's "unofficial treasury, holding and investing its assets and serving as intermediaries between the terrorist group and mainstream banks," said Stuart Levey, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement at the time. Treasury didn't designate Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association as terrorist, but a list of seven locations it gave for Bayt al-Mal matches six of the eight credit-agency branches destroyed by Israel.

Mr. Shami said Yousser closed amid problems with partners, but declined to give details. A senior Lebanese central bank official said he believed Yousser wound down after 2001 because partner banks feared retribution from the U.S. for working with a Hezbollah outfit. Several people who have worked with Yousser say it did handle investments and work with mainstream banks in the 1990s before it shut down.

The owner of a children's-clothing store in the southern port city of Tyre, for example, says he set up his business in 1999 with a loan from Yousser, which he said worked with local banks to provide credit. The Tyre businessman, who identified himself as Abu Ali Hassan, 39, said Yousser also provided him with a checkbook issued by a licensed Lebanese bank but bearing Yousser's name.

When Israeli ground troops attacked Bint Jbeil and other parts of southern Lebanon this summer, they seized documents related to Yousser and Hezbollah's financing. A document written in Arabic bearing Yousser's name in English and seen by The Wall Street Journal was described by an Israeli security expert as a recent receipt for a donation to Hezbollah. Israeli officials say Mr. Shami's branches were targeted in an effort to cripple Hezbollah's finances.

Mr. Shami jokes that he's "flattered" by all the attention but derides what he says is faulty intelligence about his activities. The Treasury declined to detail evidence against Bayt al-Mal and Yousser, saying the information is classified.