Arab sheik's links lead to concerns over contributions

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. -- Parents were excited when a $15,000 pledge that would enable them to keep class sizes down at the elementary school came in from halfway around the world. But now they are wondering whether to return the money.

They began having second thoughts after learning that the donor -- Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates -- has ties to a think tank that critics say promotes anti-American and anti-Semitic views.

"We want to answer the question: Who is the sheik?" said Kathy Druian, a parent fund-raiser at Los Flores Elementary School in Orange County.

Harvard Divinity School in Boston is asking the same thing. The school is having second thoughts about the $2.5 million Zayed gave a few years ago to endow a professorship in Islamic religious studies.

Many roles

The answer is that Zayed has many roles.

He is regarded by some as the George Washington of the UAE, leading a Persian Gulf state founded in 1971 that is awash in oil money and has backed the U.S. war on terror, hosting at least 1,200 American troops.

He is also an outspoken critic of Israeli policies and donates millions to Palestinian causes.

And he is a generous contributor to other causes as well, using his $23 billion in personal wealth and a $1 billion foundation to aid refugees in Africa, farmers in Britain and scores of other groups. In 2000, he donated $30,000 to an Ohio elementary school after two boys there sent him get-well cards while he recovered from a broken hip. The school accepted the money.

Other ties

He made his pledge to Los Flores in June after hearing about the school's fund-raising campaign through a student's grandmother who was visiting the UAE. The woman and her family, who are not believed to be related to the sheik, asked not to be identified.

Then came word of the sheik's ties to the Zayed International Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up, an Abu Dhabi-based think tank named in his honor that promotes Arab unity and has hosted such speakers as Al Gore and former Secretary of State James Baker.

Critics accuse the center of also sponsoring speakers and issuing reports that disparage Jews and support anti-American conspiracy theories.

An official at the UAE embassy in Washington said the think tank's literature and speakers do not represent the views of Zayed.

"He's very open-minded and very respectful of other religions," said diplomat Abdulla Alsaboosi.

Harvard began reviewing its gift last year amid growing protests by students and faculty members. A school spokeswoman said no deadline was set for a decision.

At Los Flores, the parent fund-raising committee will make the final decision when school starts later this month, Druian said.

Nicole Fletcher, mother of a fifth-grader, said the committee should take the money: "Returning it would come at the expense of innocent children who would only benefit."

Druian said students would not immediately feel the effects if the money were refused, because all but $2,500 of it was earmarked for the 2004-05 school year, and it could probably be raised elsewhere.

In a similar furor in 2001, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani rejected a $10 million donation to a Sept. 11 charity by a Saudi prince who linked the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Abbas Kadhim, a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of California at Berkeley, said the vast majority of research groups in the Middle East are "somewhat anti-Zionist" or oppose Israel's policies.

"If you decide not to have relations with anyone who does have anti-Israeli politics or anti-Zionist sentiments, you will never have relations anywhere in the Arab world," he said.

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On the Net:

Zayed Center: http://www.zccf.org.ae