Author: Elaine Silvestrini (esilvestrini@tampatrib.com)
Publication: Tampa Tribune
Date: August 2, 2005
When the leader of the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad challenged the loyalty of Ramadan Shallah, who was living
in the United States, Shallah responded by sending a poem. I am against
America until this life ends and the scale is placed in the afterlife.
I am against her even if the stones
relented one day and the flint liquefied.
My hatred for America is so that
if the worlds contained some of it, the worlds would tumble down.
She is ... in evils and all evil
on this earth.
Who other than her planted tyrants
on our land?
Shallah, whose admission to the
United States was sponsored by Sami Al-Arian, told Al-Arian during a wiretapped
phone conversation in February 1994 about the poem, which he attributed
to Arab poet Ahmad Matar. Shallah told Al-Arian he sent the poem to Fathi
Shikaki after Shikaki told Shallah, ``You are living in the lion's den.''
``I sent it to soothe his mind about
the issue of America,'' said Shallah, who then was executive director of
Al-Arian's think tank, World & Islam Studies Enterprise. He would replace
Shikaki as head of the Islamic Jihad after Shikaki was killed in 1995.
Although he didn't seem upset by
the poem, Al-Arian worried about creating problems between the U.S.-based
Islamic Jihad members and those in the Middle East, particularly at a time
Al-Arian was trying to push through financial reform.
``By God, my brother, the issue
is that this is the worst time for any friction and defiance between us
and them,'' he said. ``But it's either this thing or never. I mean if it
doesn't happen now, it will never happen again.''
It was a tense time, as Al-Arian
maneuvered to implement his financial reform plan. It didn't become illegal
in the United States to belong to the Islamic Jihad until nearly a year
after the conversation, but the evidence is being presented under the theory
that it was part of a continuing crime.
Iran, the Islamic Jihad's chief
financial backer, had cut off funding after questions about whether Shikaki
was stealing money, according to transcripts read in court. In what was
known as the Beirut agreement, Iran put controls on the money. The agreement
upset members of the Islamic Jihad, and the organization was close to being
torn apart by infighting.
Al-Arian proposed rejecting the
Beirut agreement and moving control of the Islamic Jihad's money out of
the Middle East and into the hands of two committees. The one that would
receive and distribute the money would include Al- Arian, his brother-in-law,
Mazen Al- Najjar, and Shikaki. The committee that would supervise the budget
included Al-Arian, Shallah and Al-Najjar.
According to transcripts read in
court Monday, eight of the 10 members of the shura council, or governing
body, approved Al-Arian's plan, but it met resistance from the Iranian
government.
One of the shura council members
who opposed the plan was Muhammed Tasir Hassan Al-Khatib, who was treasurer
for the Islamic Jihad before the Beirut agreement.
In a tense telephone conversation
on Feb. 10, 1994, Al- Khatib told Al-Arian that the Islamic Jihad's spiritual
leader, Abd Al Aziz Awda, was upset with Al-Arian because he thought the
reform plan let Shikaki off the hook, according to FBI Agent Kerry Myers.
Al-Khatib also said Shikaki was
using Al-Arian to get control of the money again and that some shura council
members wanted to continue with the Beirut agreement.
By the end of the conversation,
Al-Arian seemed disgusted, after Al- Khatib suggested Al-Arian might want
some members out of the Islamic Jihad.
``I don't want anyone out,'' Al-Arian
said. ``Let them hit their heads together, all of them. I don't care. I
am out. That's it.''