In the heels of recent letters/articles written by some leading journalists in The New York Times and Washington Post, I write this to my friends in the United States. I fear some of them may have been influenced by the vicious attacks on the Kingdom by some journalists both in the United States and outside after the events of Sept. 11.
Dear Americans, whom I came to know during my 11-year stay in your country, I understand clearly the extent of your trust and belief in what you read, see and hear in the media. Simply watching a Hollywood film about the hijacking of a plane and then seeing an interview with someone who was a passenger and who is by virtue of his experience, an expert, you will be led to a wrong conclusion.
Dear Americans, like thousands of other Saudis, I lived among you as a student. The first of us arrived in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Since those long ago days, never did any Saudi commit a crime or end up in an American jail. The worst accusation that could be leveled against them was that they had run a red light or failed to stop at a stop sign or exceeded the speed limit. Your own records, if you will only take a look, will bear out the truth of what I say. I believe that most of you, based on your own experience with Saudi students and your knowledge of their manners and behavior, will find it difficult to believe that what happened on Sept. 11 could have been linked to Saudis. The fact is that it has not been conclusively proven that Saudis were among the elements who committed those heinous acts.
My American friends, just as I have lived among you, so have many of you lived among us in the Kingdom. Each of you learned that our religion is one of tolerance and that our schools, on whatever level, do not teach hatred or malice toward others nor do they produce extremists as Thomas Friedman alleged in his article in the New York Times of Dec. 12, 2001. The Islam that we teach in our schools is the Islam that the last of God’s Prophets, peace be upon him, revealed to us.
My American friends, you are probably aware of the high esteem in which the Kingdom is held both in the Arab and Islamic world and in the international community. You will surely appreciate the role that it has played and, in fact, envy of this role and position may be the reason for attempting to create discord between friends. In the same newspaper, Douglas Jehl wrote that all the world’s governments with the exception of Saudi Arabia remembered the events of Sept. 11 three months after they happened. In saying this, he has either skirted the truth or lied on purpose. The Kingdom was, in fact, among the first to condemn the acts and to disavow being the homeland of any person involved in them. Time will reveal the truth even if it now appears that some pretend it is an honor for the act to be attributed to them.
The fear, my American friends, is that you may be persuaded by what seems to be fact since it is so often repeated by those whom you normally believe and trust. Jehl says that Saudi officials confirm that the Kingdom lost no Saudis in the Sept. 11 attacks except those who were among the hijackers. Who are these Saudi officials who made such a statement? Or is he acting according to his usual practice — and the practice of many journalists and opinion poll takers in your country who deceive you by saying that an unnamed source said a certain thing? Or that opinion polls indicate that such and such a percentage support or do not support a stand that a certain group does or does not endorse. This opinion then becomes that of the majority though it is not representative of anything except a certain group of New York residents who support or do not support certain political moves related to the Palestinian question.
My American friends, I don’t wish to be long-winded. What I hope is that the peaceful 40 years that my fellow students and I spent in your country are used on the balance in our favor and that those years will make you carefully scrutinize whatever is presented to you — especially material that is aimed at disturbing the friendship and goodwill that is between us. The relationship between us is one of personal friendship and has gone far beyond the relations that exist between one government and another.