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1)THE WESTERN FOUNDATIONS THAT FINANCE LOCAL RESEARCH AND NGO's IN
ARAB STATES by Abdallah Hammoudeh

It is obvious that societies, like people, can't live isolated. They
need to cooperate to survive and thrive especially in the shadows of
today's massive communications revolution.  However, each society and
individual stands unique in his or her own character.  And it is
concern for the independence of the character of our society and people
that motivates this paper.

Before proceeding nevertheless, two things need to be clarified at the 
outset:

1) Western foundations on our soil are to be considered extensions of 
the policies of their governments and organizations in their mother 
countries, as they say in their own literature.  Individuals on the 
other hand may have good intentions, and people should not be always 
held responsible for the policies of their governments.

2) Western foundations on our soil are not all the same. They have
different interests and agendas, and some are infinitely more dangerous 
than others. However, the fact that they operate publicly and overtly 
doesn't make the dangerous ones any less harmful.  Rather, it is their 
role in our society that should determine where we stand towards them.  
The particular seminars they conduct and the information they collect 
are not at issue here, but their huge permeation of our social structure
to obtain leverage.  The issue is their attempt to know EVERYTHING
about us and to incubate local models to inoculate us with their viewpoints.
THAT IS THE HEAVY SOCIO-POLITICAL PENETRATION of Arab society which
these foundations can undertake, but only because they have over us the
advantage of lots of money to spend and plenty of media access.

Who's Using Whom?
- - - - - - - - -
As many of our professors, research centers, and non-governmental 
organizations (NGO's) compete for funding from these Western 
foundations, the real question becomes who is using whom!!  What are 
the conditions attached to the money spent locally?  Who benefits more from
the aid, us or them? As a consequence, is this relationship with these 
Western foundations going to carry our societies a step forward or a 
step backward?  This is the real question that begs an answer.. So 
let's first look at the record.

Looking at the Record
- - - - - - - - - - - 
In the 1920's, there was in Palestine under the British mandate an 
association known as the Research Association which collected 
information about persons, families, and the country as a whole.  Later 
on, this so-called association became known as the Shamllan Institute 
in Lebanon (closed down in January 1997).  According to the former British
Ambassador to Lebanon in a speech praising the accomplishments of the
institute (Al-hayat, 11/1997), this center graduated all the British
Ambassadors to the Arab world as well as the head of the British
Council, the British Ambassador to the United States, and the present
director of British intelligence!!!

Nowadays, there are dozens of such institutes and Western foundations 
operating all over the Arab world.  they are typically American, 
British, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Canadian, or Australian.  
They study and work with everything from women's issues to rural 
development, clinics, social research, the environment, political 
parties, democracy, population growth, family structure, the 
constitution (or lack of), and ways of encouraging small businesses,
but very rarely the transfer of technology for example.

Yet all their activities in these areas are usually subsumed under the 
broad title of WESTERN FOUNDATIONS WORKING WITH LOCAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL 
ORGANIZATIONS (NGO'S).  The sheer breadth of their areas of interest 
thus gives them unprecedented access to local writers, professors, 
journalists, women activists, parliamentarians, political parties, 
opposition leaders, and the most distant of Arab regions.

For example, in Jordan, the American Near East Foundation (NEF), which 
has been in the country since 1937, cooperated with USAID and others to 
reach and thoroughly research distant villages like Azznaibah, Alghal, 
Alhamayydeh, and the Wadi Arabah Region.

Another example is found upon reading the publication of AMIDEAST in 
Jordan where we are told that in 1994 alone, over 12,000 people were 
received who were interested in studying in the U.S.  We're also told 
in the same publication that AMIDEAST sometimes contacts the parents
offering advice, and that it has sponsored other programs like an
information network for Arab women.

But this is really the less interesting part of the picture.  American 
institutions like NEF, Fulbright, the Ford Foundation, Rand, Brookings, 
and the research centers of Georgetown and Harvard University include 
think-tanks that influence U.S. foreign, presidential, congressional, 
and defense policy, i.e., they are very governmentally connected.  Yet 
they have been given free reign by some of our Arab regimes to operate 
on our soil as they please [at a time when opposition group activity is 
highly restricted - FAV].

For example, the Washington Institute in particular has been very 
active in trying to get the Arab mind to accept "Israel". It prepared
the main papers of the Madrid Conference and held meetings with dozens
of Palestinian and Arab writers and opinion leaders to market the policies
of the U.S. government.  In fact, Martin Indyck and Dennis Ross themselves,
two Zionist Jews who are influential Middle East policy makers, are counted
among the pillars of the Washington Institute (The Egyptian weekly, Al Yassar,
no. 94, January 1997, pp. 11-16).

The Fulbright Foundation offers scholarships by the hundreds and has 
dozens of agreements with Arab universities and ministries of
education.  It has worked hard to build goodwill with the Arab people,
then it announced the establishment of the Annual Isaac Rabin Award!!

Throw Cash like Trash
- - - - - - - - - - -
Muhammad Hassanain Heikal, the Egyptian writer and journalist said in 
the Lebanese daily Assafir (January 7, 1997): "My opposition to foreign 
finance of local research is that it is totally out of control.  It 
reminds me of the English proverb about how whoever pays the piper gets 
to pick the tune.  We have no say whatsoever in the direction of this 
research financing.  We don't know to whom the results of all this 
research are eventually presented!  In the absence of any supervision 
of any kind, this undirected financing of research enters perhaps to 
control the mind and behavior of our society...What's happening in 
Egypt now is like nothing happening anywhere else.  I mean when research
is openly financed by the CIA or the Israeli Academic Center, HOW COULD 
THAT BE NORMAL?! Can we really separate academic research from those 
who are going to benefit from it?!!"

Moreover, the Egyptian weekly Roselyousif (July 11, 1994) said that the 
Ford Foundation alone spent about $800,000 in Egypt in 1993 on 
research, out of which about one-fourth was used to research matters
related to "peace and security".  The overall reciepients of Ford's money
were 4 governmental organizations, two private groups, a studies center,
the American University in Cairo, the Police Academy, and 25 non-governmental
organizations (NGO's).

The French Connection
- - - - - - - - - - -
The French in turn have the Center of Research and Studies on the 
Modern Middle East which is financed by the French Foreign Ministry.
There's also the French National Scientific Center which studies Hamas
and the Muslim Brotherhood.  But perhaps one of the strangest kinds of
research that the French are doing is a more comprehensive survey of the
Christians of Palestine and Jordan on the individual and family level
and the kinds of churches that they are affiliated with.

FAFO: The Norwegians Playing it Cool
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In August 1990, the Norwegian FAFO foundation began a comprehensive 
survey study of the West Bank and Gaza employing tens of Palestinian 
personnel in the process.  The results of the study were announced 
after three years in August 1993, i.e., one month before the secret deal
that was cooked in Oslo the capital of Norway went through.. Before that
however, some of the Palestinians participating in the survey somehow 
became involved with the Madrid and the multiple peace talks.
Strangely enough, the head of FAFO himself, Mr. Larsen, became the resident
representative and coordinator of the United Nations Secretary General
in Gaza!!

In Jordan, FAFO finished about a year ago another survey about
Palestinian refugees there.  According to the Jordanian daily
Addoustour (August 28, 1994), FAFO was commissioned by the Jordanian
government to do another three-year survey of Jordanians in February 1994...

The Germans Don't Beat Around the Bush!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fredrick Newmann is a German foundation concerned with the environment 
and population policy.  This foundation advocates the official western 
line on these issues as can be gleaned from an article written by the 
Newmann's representative Mr. Rodahl in Rissalat al Bi'ah which is 
issued by the Jordanian Environmental Society.

Nevertheless, in a meeting held in Amman, Jordan on December 11, 1994 
for non-governmental organizations (NGO's), Mr. Rodahl told everybody 
that what he really wants to do is common workshops with Israelis, and 
whoever wants to go to "Israel" should contact him personally!!

A Matter of Cultural Indoctrination
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In conclusion, the lack of local funds for local research and 
supporting NGO's is naturally one major loophole through which these
foreign foundations can seep through into our social fabric. As Muhammad
Hassanain Heikal pointed out in additions to his remarks in Assafir 
above, about one-third of Egyptian professors are now working directly 
or indirectly for these foundations.  Yet when one watches so much 
western money being shed to "research" Arab states, contact Arab 
people, and financing local NGO's, one just has to wonder what the real
purpose is.

In the most innocuous of cases, the effect is cultural, where we give 
up our culture and adopt another.  Then the more dependent our culture
becomes on the culture of the West, the more it appears in a local and 
national custom, the more the "world" refers to the West, the more 
"human" becomes Western, and "money" becomes greenback Uncle Sam 
dollars.

Therefore, we need to make others aware of this and to develop a 
coherent Arab grass-roots strategy for dealing with these foundations.

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2) NGO's IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA by Adel Samara

* NGO's were first used by Western governments to break through the
refusal of the peoples of the third world to deal directly with former
colonial regimes.

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