(Tech Central Station) Stephen Schwartz - The Saudi lobby in Washington has had the capital so thoroughly wired that it made the Israel lobby look like amateurs. After all, the Israelis actually had to engage in lobbying; the Saudis just sat back and enjoyed the love they believed was their due. It was in this manner that the kingdom avoided carrying out a serious inquiry into the involvement of 15 Saudi subjects out of the 19 suicide terrorists on September 11. Saleh al-Fawzan, a senior member of the Wahhabi religious bureaucracy, defended the present ban against religious rights for non-Muslims in the kingdom by quoting the Prophet Muhammad: "The prophet said there should not be two religions in the Arabian Peninsula." "Saudi Arabia" was not the birthplace of Islam, having come into existence in 1932. Mecca and Medina are located on the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula in a region known as Hejaz, conquered by the House of Saud that originated in the area called Nejd. Mecca and Medina are sacred. The rest of Saudi Arabia is not considered holy by the majority of Muslims, but only by Wahhabis. American troops have never set foot in Mecca and Medina.
2004-09-24 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive