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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Envoy as Sonderkommando: James Wolfensohn to oversee Jewish deportations from the West Bank & fund PA terrorist entity

Envoy as Sonderkommando: James Wolfensohn to oversee Jewish deportations from the West Bank & fund PA terrorist entity

Ex World Bank president welcomed by Abu Mazen : Al Hayat journalist praises his help with the 'final solution'
April 15, 2005

President Wolfensohn and Muslim cleric at burned mosque. Johannes Linn, the Bank´s vice-president for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, stands in the background

MIM: James Wolfensohn's warm welcome by Arabs in his role as envoy/Sonderkommando to oversee the deportations of Jews from the West Bank and fund their terrorist aspirations should come as no surprise . Wolfensohn's post 9/11 track record included a meetings with Iqbal Asaria , an Al Qaeda operative in the UK who chaired the economic and finance committee of the Muslim Council of Britain. The meeting took place at Downing Street, a few weeks after 9/11 and Asaria " argued that reducing poverty was contingent on good governance a factor that may be overridden by security concerns in an anxious post-September 11th world..."

MIM: In 2004 James Wolfensohn was the keynote speaker at a conference which typified the agenda of many World Bank endeavors , and featured Mary Robinson, the former UN envoy is so notorious for her anti Israel and anti semitic initiatives that Michael Rubin wrote a piece entitled: "Mary Robinson - War Criminal?"

"...During the last four years of Robinson's tenure, the European Union donated large sums of money to the Palestinian Authority. Ireland even held the presidency of the European Union for the second half of 1996. During this time, Arafat siphoned large amounts of European aid money away to pay for terror....On April 15, Robinson's commission voted on a decision that condoned suicide bombings as a legitimate means to establish Palestinian statehood..."Curiously, in the months preceding Israel's incursion into the U.N. refugee camp in Jenin, suicide bombers launched from the camp wearing explosives likely bought with European money killed more than 100 Israeli civilians..."

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MIM:In a cynical show of 'philosemitism', Saudi journalist Jihad Al Khazen gushed in an Al Hayat op-ed about what he termed the 'good Jew' Wolfensohn, "who promised to offer his assistance"in implementing what Khazen termed "the 'final solution' between Israel and Palestine".

"...Every people have their good and bad elements; there is no better example on the good Jews than James Wolfensohn, and no better on the bad elements than Paul Wolfowitz..."

However, my good impression of this man doubled in the lapse of one meeting I had with him in the suite of Yasser Arafat near the end of January 2001 in Davos, on the margin of the World Economic Forum that year.

Arafat was receiving a President of state, when the head of the World Bank arrived; so I went with my friend Sobeih Al Masri to sit with him around a circle table on the other side of the large room, and we were later joined by Dr. Saeb Erakat, who came from Taba carrying the maps of the 'final solution' between Israel and Palestine. Wolfensohn followed the account of the senior Palestinian negotiator with a lot of interest, and he promised to offer assistance..."

MIM: Wolfensohn's promise to help with what Jihad Al Khazen termed 'the final solution' earned him a warm welcome from PA terrorist chieftain Abu Mazen. Who sees him as a 'kosher' cash cow whom he can milk for all he is worth and then do to him what he plans to do with all those he regards as 'Zionist enemies' . http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/371

MIM: The praise which Islamo facists Mazen and Jihad Al Khazen lavish on Wolfensohn is further proof that his role as special envoy for the Gaza disengagement" and efforts to make the West Bank Judenrein is akin to that of the Sonderkommandos in World War II.

"...For the realisation of their criminal plans the German occupying authorities created 'Sonderkommandos', both in the transit and permanent camps for prisoners of war, on German territory, in the so-called Polish 'Government General' and in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union..." http://ftp.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-07/tgmwc-07-60-04.shtml

"...Comparatively well equipped, the Sonderkommando operated in the front line under the command of the military units ... "With the seizure of the cities the onslaught on cultural institutions began. The entrances of occupied buildings were marked with special seals of the military unit..."

http://www.dhh-3.de/biblio/bremen/sow2/sonderkommando.html

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PA Welcomes Wolfensohn appointment

The Palestinian Authority Friday welcomed the appointment of outgoing World Bank Chairman James Wolfensohn to ease the Gaza transition.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday announced Wolfensohn's appointment as a Quartet Committee envoy to the Middle East. The Quartet includes the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

A PA spokesman said in an official statement, President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA are ready to cooperate and coordinate with Wolfensohn to make his mission succeed.

Wolfensohn will be coordinating political and economic issues between Israel and the Palestinians during and after the Israeli army pullout and the settlers' evacuation of Gaza and the northern West Bank.

We want Wolfensohn not only to coordinate the pullout from Gaza, but also to prepare the ground for implementing the roadmap peace plan, to achieve security and peace between us and the Israelis, the statement said.

The statement added they hope Wolfensohn would help the Palestinians to establish their future independent state.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=442748b268827db4

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Last update - 02:35 17/04/2005

Coordinate the evacuation


U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced last week the appointment of James Wolfensohn as the special envoy for Gaza disengagement. Wolfensohn, an investment banker, will end a decade as head of the World Bank in about six weeks. He is to stay at his new post until the end of the year and has been given a two-fold task: to coordinate the civilian aspects of the handover of Gaza and the northern West Bank from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, and to jump-start the Palestinian economy after the evacuation.

Wolfensohn's appointment expropriates the evacuation from the sole province of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, where it was purported to be a unilateral issue, and transforms it into a multilateral one, overseen by the international community.

Wolfensohn, an American citizen, is first and foremost the representative of President George W. Bush and Rice. But the three other members of the Quartet - the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - were also party to it. Thus, Wolfensohn's activity is linked to the road map, as is the disengagement itself. It allows those who sent him to determine which of the parties - the Israelis or the Palestinians - has met its obligations, according to this plan, after evacuation.

Wolfensohn has also been authorized to strengthen the ties between the two sides, to make it difficult for them to refuse to fulfill those obligations.

From now on, the Bush administration and its partners have two tools at their disposal to improve the odds of the evacuation's success. On the security side, General William Ward is urging the chairman of the PA to streamline the clumsy and debilitated security forces that are supposed to answer to him. On the civilian side, Wolfensohn will try to serve as a shock absorber, so that the transfer of Gaza leaves the PA with an asset instead of a burden.

Israel should have an overwhelming interest in the success of Wolfensohn's mission. The goal of evacuation from Gaza is moving ahead toward coexistence between two countries, Israel and Palestine, in political acceptance, military calm and economic prosperity. For Israel, it is worthwhile for the new Gaza to be a positive and encouraging model with a backdrop of growth and cooperation, and not to have destruction and bitterness as the last course in a meal of enmity.

Wolfensohn's first order of business will be to coordinate the transfer of Israeli property. Israel must aspire to transfer to the Palestinians - whether directly or by sale to international bodies like the World Bank, which Wolfensohn will continue to head until the end of May - the entire, functioning infrastructure of daily life. Scorched earth will be bad for both sides. So even when it comes to privately owned premises, the precedent of Yamit should not determine what is expected to happen in Gaza.

Palestinians have internal problems - who among them will rule the areas and the structures to be evacuated; how to prevent looting; whether they will have a use for the homes evacuated by the settlers or prefer to build more densely. But it is better for Israel to maintain the principle of the transfer of property that is whole. Those who fear pictures of Hamas members flying their flags over the houses of settlers as a sign of victory should themselves produce a ceremony as it should be held, for all the world to see, in which an Israel Defense Forces officer takes down the Israeli flag, and a Palestinian officer raises the flag of his own nation.

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MIM: PA wants homes of Jewish deportees from Gaza razed and demands Israel "remove all the rubble" to facilitate creation of Arab lebensraum. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8201647&type=worldNews

By Cynthia Johnston

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority wants Israel to destroy the homes of departing Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip to make room for high-rise housing to ease crowding, a key Palestinian minister said on Saturday.

Housing and Public Works Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Israel should raze the homes of 8,500 settlers slated for evacuation from July and remove all rubble. He said keeping the homes would not resolve a Palestinian housing shortage in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth.

"We are hoping that the houses will be destroyed. Other infrastructure, if they want to leave it, they are welcome," Shtayyeh told Reuters in an interview...."

"...Shtayyeh said no final decision had been made on the use of the land vacated after the withdrawal because Israel had yet to inform Palestinians what assets will be left behind.

"Whatever brings economic return for the people and the economy of Gaza, that is our target," he said. "Housing schemes are the most likely scenario...

"New housing, which Shtayyeh hoped would be paid for largely by international donors..."

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http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6BG2N2?OpenDocument

Source: United Nations Secretary-General

Date: 14 Apr 2005

UN SG welcomes James Wolfensohn's appointment by Quartet as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement

SG/SM/9820

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

The Secretary-General warmly welcomes today's decision by the Quartet to appoint Mr. James Wolfensohn as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. He sees this as an important step towards realizing the vision of the Road Map: Two States -- a secure Israel and a sovereign, democratic, independent and contiguous Palestine -- living side by side in peace and security.

The Secretary-General believes that Mr. Wolfensohn's blend of vision and experience make him uniquely qualified for the task of overseeing and coordinating the international community's efforts in support of the disengagement initiative. He will have a particular role to play in relation to the methodology of withdrawal, including the disposition of assets, and the post withdrawal revival of the Palestinian economy, including investment and financing.

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OPT: Statement by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn on his appointment as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement

Press Release No:2005/430/S

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2005 - World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn Thursday made the following statement on his appointment by the Quartet Principals as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement:

"I am deeply honored to have been appointed by the Quartet as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. I believe that there is no more important issue for global peace than an equitable and secure solution to this problem. I look forward to assisting the Israelis and the Palestinians as they strive to reach and implement a peaceful solution that restores hope and confidence to the people of the region."

Earlier today, the following statement was released by the Quartet Principals.

SPECIAL ENVOY FOR GAZA DISENGAGEMENT

The Quartet Principals (US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan) announce the appointment of Mr. James D. Wolfensohn as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement.

The Special Envoy is charged by the Quartet with leading, overseeing and coordinating the international community's efforts in support of the disengagement initiative. He will report to the Quartet.

The Special Envoy will be the single international interlocutor at the political level on disengagement and the address for specific needs for assistance to support disengagement. The Special Envoy will work with the Palestinians on specific reforms and steps to promote economic recovery and growth, democracy, good governance and transparency, job creation and improved living standards.

The Special Envoy's mission is to promote coordination and cooperation between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority on implementation of Israel's disengagement initiative from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank. This mission does not extend to the military and security aspects of disengagement.

T his will require close collaboration with both Israel and the Palestinians to identify and implement those actions and policies to ensure smooth and successful implementation of the disengagement initiative.

The Special Envoy will focus his efforts on two areas in particular:

  • Methodology of withdrawal, including disposition of assets.

  • Economic issues related to post-withdrawal revival of the Palestinian economy, including investment and financing issues


The Special Envoy will assume his duties effective June 1 for a mission lasting no longer than December 31, 2005. In view of the urgency of this mission, and taking into consideration the role the World Bank already plays in this process, its Board has authorized Mr. Wolfensohn to conduct some preparatory work immediately.

Contacts:

Gerry Rice - (202) 473-1842, [email protected]

Damian Milverton- (202) 473-6735, [email protected]

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MIM: Who is James Wolfensohn?

Since becoming the World Bank's ninth president James D. Wolfensohn has travelled to more than 80 countries to get first-hand experience of the needs
of the developing world. Developments puts these air miles into perspective with a look at one of the main players in the international debt arena.

Mr Clean, ‘modern-day Santa Claus', and a ‘man of courage' have all been used to describe World Bank President James Wolfensohn, but how accurate are they?

Wolfensohn became president of the World Bank in 1995, shortly after receiving an honorary knighthood for his services to . . . well, not development, but the arts. Up until he took over the presidency in June the Australian-born naturalised American had won most recognition for his support of US institutions such as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Centre. This had been preceded by the gilded career of a born (in 1933) winner: Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, Olympic fencer, Harvard MBA, lawyer, investment banker, bailer-out of Chrysler, married with three children – his is the sort of life one only expects to read about in a Jeffrey Archer novel. Of course, in an Archer paperback we would learn all this in the first few pages – to set the scene so to speak – as our silver-haired hero sits in the back of a limo gliding through Washington's concrete jungle on his way to his greatest challenge yet: to take over the reins of the world's bank!

And it was a challenge: created at Bretton Woods while WW2 still raged, the Bank soon moved from its brief of helping re-build war-torn Europe to assisting the developing world. All well-and-good, but by the end of the Eighties the Bank's image was starting to become tarnished. Critics hit-out at both its policy, which they claimed had moved from practical technical assistance to a free-market dogma in thrall of (whisper it) ‘the economists', and corruption characterised by kick-backs and poor accounting procedures.

Wolfensohn realised early on that in order for the Bank to retain credibility (and presumably the confidence of the governments that back its $200 billion loan portfolio) he needed to institute reforms. This he has done: on the policy side he has put poverty centre-stage, encouraging some of his top staff to take time out to live with ordinary people in the South. He has fulfilled additional pledges to increase decentralisation, flexibility, and transparency, introducing a much wider dialogue with the development community.

He was also behind the Bank's first steps toward eradicating developing world debt. In 1996 the Bank, along with the IMF, put together the multilateral debt relief proposal for heavily indebted poor countries, aimed at easing their debt burden. The Bank's loans represent about seven per cent of what the developing world owes and it has committed an initial $2 billion to the initiative: not enough say some, better than nothing say others.
http://www.developments.org.uk/data/profile98.htm

For more on the World Bank see: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/480

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MIM: What is the difference between the WB and the IMF?

http://www.skill-link.com/Docs/IZ/career_advisor114.htm

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) were established in 1944 and designed to achieve different but complementary ends.

The IMF was designed to defend the international monetary system which meant in effect helping governments overcome balance-of-payments problems. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment. The IMF lends money to countries which are in deep economic trouble - Mexico in the 1980s for example, Mexico again in 1995, South East Asia and Russia in the late 1990s, Argentina in 2001. Egypt has regularly benefited from the IMF support.

The World Bank - its full name is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - has the role to invest in specific programs to promote development. Today these often include financial support for social networks to protect the poor from some of the worst effects of the economic problems the IMF is trying to overcome.

Since its education funding began, in 1963, the World Bank has provided some US$31 billion in loans and credits, and it currently finances 158 education projects in 83 countries. The Bank works closely with national governments, United Nations agencies, donors, non-governmental organizations, and other partners to help developing countries in their efforts to reach the goals of Education for All. The World Bank has also committed more than US$1.7 billion to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS around the world. Providing poor people with basic health and nutrition lies at the heart of reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. The World Bank commits an average of US$1 billion in new lending each year for health, nutrition, and population projects in the developing world. Bank funds are helping to combat malaria in 46 countries and tuberculosis in 30.

The World Bank Group consists of five closely associated institutions, all owned by member countries. Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards. These institutions are:

· The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
· The International Development Association
· The International Finance Corporation
· The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
· ICSID The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes

The Bank employs approximately10,000 people, including economists, educators, environmental scientists, financial analysts, anthropologists, engineers, and many others. Employees come from about 160 different countries, and over 3,000 staff work in country offices.

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http://www.palguide.com/missions.htm

MIM: The IMF is listed on the PAL guide to aid commissions

"...The International Monetary Fund announced yesterday an audit of Palestinian Authority funds revealed President Yasser Arafat had diverted some $900 million to a special bank account he controlled..." worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34820

MIM:Instead of demanding a cessation of terror, and investigate Arafat and the PA for corruption, Wolfensohn blithely noted that "conflict" had wiped out 50% of the PA's GDP and proclaimed that "international donors would have to donate $1.7 billion over the next year."

...According to James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, the last eighteen months of conflict have wiped out over 50% of the Palestinian Authority's GDP and caused as much as $600 million of physical damage. The devastation means that international donors would have to donate over $1.7 billion over the next year ..." http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2002/04/20.html

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Conference co-chair and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Professor Philip Alston (left), in discussion with President Wolfensohn and Mary Robinson.

MIM The conclusion of Michael Rubin's article could be the UN High Commission and World Bank Mission statement:

"...Accountability has become a dirty word. And looking the other way, especially regarding terrorism, has become a form of art. But then again, why reform if bashing Israel and sponsoring forums to promote anti-Semitism can reinforce your credentials in the eyes of your peers?

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http://www.nyuhr.org/events.html

The conference examined the role of human rights in relation to some of the major development challenges of the day, including poverty eradication, wealth creation, gender equity and governance.

Introductory remarks by Mrs. Mary Robinson can be found here.
Key note address of James D. Wolfensohn can be found here.


The event was co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) with support from the World Bank

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From Mary Robinson - War Criminal?

By Michael Rubin

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-rubin052002.asp

"...The trouble starts with Robinson's tenure as president of Ireland. During the last four years of Robinson's tenure, the European Union donated large sums of money to the Palestinian Authority. Ireland even held the presidency of the European Union for the second half of 1996. During this time, Arafat siphoned large amounts of European aid money away to pay for terror. Robinson can plead ignorance, but documents seized during the recent Israeli incursion into the West Bank revealed that the Palestinian Authority spent approximately $9 million of European Union aid money each month on the salaries of those organizing terror attacks against civilians. While European officials like Robinson looked the other way, the Palestinian Authority regularly converted millions of dollars of aid money into shekels at rates about 20 percent below normal, allowing the Palestinian chairman to divert millions of dollars worth of aid into his personal slush fund...."

"...Robinson's tenure at the United Nations has been little better than her record as Ireland's president. She was the driving force behind the Orwellian "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance." At the conference, Robinson presided over little more than an intellectual pogrom against Jews and Israel. She remained largely silent as the preliminary Asian Regional Conference in Tehran (to which Israel was excluded) inserted blatantly racist statements into the conference agenda. She failed to speak out when, on the grounds of the U.N. conference itself, the Arab Lawyers Union distributed pamphlets depicting hook-nosed Jews as Nazis spearing Palestinian children. In the same tent where nongovernmental organizations depicted Israel as a "racist, apartheid state," were distributed fliers entitled, "What if Hitler had won?" The answer: "There would be no Israel, and no Palestinian bloodshed." While Robinson takes no responsibility for enabling the greatest single display of anti-Semitism in 50 years, she failed to lift a finger when the South African government denied visas to European anti-slavery activists critical of human rights in Islamic nations like the Sudan, where over two million people have perished in a war since the regime in Khartoum declared a jihad against non-Muslims in 1983. Either black Sudanese are less worthy of concern to the human-rights commission, or it would be inexcusably politically incorrect to actually protest human-rights violations conducted in the name of Islam.

Robinson's post-Durban record is little better. On April 15, Robinson's commission voted on a decision that condoned suicide bombings as a legitimate means to establish Palestinian statehood (six European Union members voted in favor including, not surprisingly, France and Belgium). The vote came after Robinson initiated a drive to become a fact finder to investigate the now-famous massacre in Jenin (also known as "the massacre that never happened"). Curiously, in the months preceding Israel's incursion into the U.N. refugee camp in Jenin, suicide bombers launched from the camp wearing explosives likely bought with European money killed more than 100 Israeli civilians.

However, for Robinson, a massacre is the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians in a war zone (47 Palestinian militants and 23 Israel soldiers also died). The deaths of more than 100 Jewish civilians by suicide bombers is worthy of little more than deafening silence interrupted by an occasional pithy statement of moral equivalence. The world still waits for Robinson to use her bully pulpit to call for an investigation of the terrorist murder of Jews (but then again, such an inquiry might lead uncomfortably close to UNRWA and European Union officials ).

Of course it's farcical to believe that Robinson will ever be brought before the International Criminal Tribunal, or that she even should be. With her double standards, amazing ability to look the other way, and her record at the Human Rights Commission, Robinson has done more than any other international official to demonstrate that international courts, commissions, and agencies are more about politics than ethics, human rights, or morality, and therefore should never the legitimacy of U.S. endorsement.

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MIM: Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissionar for Human Rights, who condoned suicide bombings and directly financed terrorism when she lead the EU, took a firm on the issue of "gender based violence" or GBV. She was joined in her crusade against what she termed 'the most virulent form of gender inequality' together with James Wolfensohn and other members of the World Bank, whose silence on the victims of WB financed PA terror was deafening.

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/BSPAN/PresentationPrint.asp?PID=1333&EID=656

"...Director of the Ethical Globalization Initiative Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke next. She complimented President Wolfensohn on his candidness with regard to the need for increased effort on behalf of the World Bank in curbing GBV. She added that one reason to focus on GBV as a development priority is economic cost. She cited a WHO study that determined that Nicaragua and Chile forgo one to two percent of GDP annually due to GBV. Robinson called GBV the most virulent form of gender inequality and said that one in three women in the world has experienced some form of violence at the hands of their intimate partner. She noted that it is important to understand how GBV can exacerbate other human rights problems. To illustrate this, Robinson drew examples from the HIV/AIDS experience in Africa. Robinson ended her remarks with a three item "wish list" for the World Bank in 2005: Firstly, the Bank should do more to measure and assess GBV; secondly, the Bank must do more to target GBV in judicial reform; and finally, increased dialogue on the subject is essential.

After a brief question and answer period with Wolfensohn and Robinson the focus shifted to the causes and costs of GBV..."

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Below: Al Qaeda webmaster Iqbal Asaria was a speaker at a 2004 Islamic financing conference in the UK.

Which begs the question if any of his projects, and that of the Muslim Council of Britain, have received World Bank or other international funding.

Financial inclusion amongst Muslim communities in the UK - what institutions are doing to offer Shariah compliant products. http://www.islamicrealestate.com/programme/themes2004.htm

Iqbal Asaria

Business & Economics Committee, Muslim Council of Britain

more about the speaker

MIM: Less then 6 weeks after 9/11 Iqbal Asaria, known as a webmaster for Al Qaeda, who ran sites such as Jihad.org since 1996, met with World Bank president James Wolfensohn and the Archbishop of Canterbury for breakfast at the HM Treasury to discuss 'globalist concerns'.

Asaria, a Saudi born economist who is chairman of the economis and finance committee of the Muslim Council of Britian expressed concern that" post 9/11 security priorities might conflict with aid programs". http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/248

Meeting at HM Treasury

http://www.mcb.org.uk/mcbnewsletter3.html

Iqbal Asaria, Chair of the Business and Economics Committee attended a Breakfast Seminar at 11 Downing Street on Tuesday November 13th. Other parties invited to the seminar were non-governmental organisations, faith groups, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey and the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn.

The seminar, called by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown and Secretary of State for International Development, Rt. Hon. Clare Short, was organised to discuss the need to revive 2015 targets of reducing world poverty and the need to increase aid budgets with a renewal of the commitment of 0.7% of GDP. The participation of faith and other groups in the developmental process was also discussed and approved

Iqbal Asaria raised his concerns over the credibility of achieving the 2015 targets given current practices. He argued that reducing poverty was contingent on good governance a factor that may be overridden by security concerns in an anxious post-September 11th world.

Other matters discussed included Chancellor Gordon Brown raising the possibility of the MCB Business and Economics committee taking some initiative on social exclusion and the postponed launch of the MCB/ DFID booklet being reinvigorated; tentative date is after Ramadhan.

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In 2002 Iqbal Asaria met with head of British finance.

http://www.mcb.org.uk/e34.html

Work on Islamic Finance

Iqbal Asaria of the MCB's Business and Economics Committee is part of a working party convened by the Governor of the Bank of England and chaired by Andrew Buxton, former Charman of Barclays Bank.

This working party is liaising with different government departments to work out ways to incorporate into UK law and procedures the changes required

to allow a level playing field for Shari'a compliant finance products, including home purchase.

One of the key changes required is to the way stamp duty is levied at present.

Iqbal Asaria participated in the working party's meeting on Wednesday 16 October with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Ruth Kelly MP

to discuss this issue. The Financial Secretary responded positively to the suggestions and proposals of the working party. The Treasury was favourable to receiving proposals relating to the levying of stamp duty for incorporation in the 2003 Finance Bill, parliamentary schedules permitting. In the interim, suggestions for a satisfactory arrangement for avoiding double stamp duty would also be considered.

In addition to the Treasury, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has also indicated that it will consider proposals for modifying the capital reserve ratio requirements for the treatment of Islamic financial products. Iqbal Asaria was also invited to attend the launch of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) in Malaysia last week.

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Domain registration for Jihad an Ummah.org list Iqbal Asaria as the administrator from 1996 to the present.

Asaria Iqbal also ran an Islamic computing center.

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Domain ID:D2334692-LROR

Domain Name:JIHAD.ORG

Registrant Email:[email protected]

Admin Name:Iqbal Asaria (19178824I)

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Domain ID:D265907-LROR

Domain Name:UMMAH.ORG

Registrant Name:Islamic Computing center

Admin Name:Iqbal Asaria (19178824I)

Admin Street1:Firdaus Nagr

Admin Email:[email protected]

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Excerpts from "The Real Mr. Wolfensohn"

I wonder if Sebastian Mallaby had Stevenson in the back of his mind when he was writing this book, for the World Bank President James Wolfensohn he portrays here appears to be almost exactly 50 percent Jekyll and 50 percent Hyde. Wolfensohn/Jekyll is the irresistible charmer seen at his vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., who can turn bitter foes into best friends (or at least "frenemies") with a single shot of his charisma. Wolfensohn/Hyde is the intolerable monster seen on Wall Street and in Washington, whose egocentric tantrums have just the opposite effect. The moral of Mallaby's story is that Wolfensohn's presidency of the World Bank would have been more successful had Dr. Jekyll been in sole charge. But that may underestimate the usefulness of Mr. Hyde.

Wolfensohn's career is an astonishing story in its own right, and Mallaby, an accomplished British journalist who is now a Washington Post editorial writer, tells it well. Born and raised in Sydney, the son of an unsuccessful Jewish businessman who had quit England for Australia during the Great Depression, Wolfensohn was an underachiever in high school but a renaissance man in college. He learned to fly. He learned to fence, captaining the Australian Olympic team. And then, at Harvard Business School, he learned to schmooze. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, he clawed his way up the greasy pole of global finance, working in New York for both Schroders and Salomon Brothers and accumulating not only a substantial fortune but also one of the world's classiest Rolodexes. One of the wizards of the age of relationship banking, Wolfensohn brought to finance many of the skills that his friend Bill Clinton brought to politics -- in particular, an ability to make every contact in a vast network feel loved.

Yet mere wealth was never enough for him. Wolfensohn also found time to nurture and then to display his musical gifts. At age 40 he was encouraged by his ailing friend Jacqueline du Pré to take up the cello. Ten years after his first lesson, he was sufficiently accomplished to perform in concert at Carnegie Hall. It did not hurt that he was then chairman of the Carnegie Hall board.

In Wolfensohn's philanthropy, too, he hankered after public performances -- and when it comes to doing good, the stages don't come much bigger than the World Bank. Getting there took him slightly longer than getting to Carnegie Hall. Wolfensohn was first considered for the job as early as 1980, but it was another 15 years before he got it.

As he pitched it to the key players in the Clinton administration, Wolfensohn plus the World Bank would be a marriage made in heaven: His charisma and boundless energy would be wedded to its resources and global aegis. But despite being called a bank, the institution he yearned to run was in many ways much more like the financial division of the United Nations. Its cosmopolitan civil service culture was a thousand miles removed from the yelling, table-thumping style of the investment banks of New York and London. It was this cultural gap, Mallaby argues, that kept turning Jekyll into Hyde.

Outsiders only saw Jekyll. Confronted by the bank's increasingly vociferous critics among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Wolfensohn listened, nodded, affected contrition, pledged repentance. Confronted by the bank's senior staff, he morphed into Hyde -- bullying, swearing, slamming doors, threatening resignation.

Mallaby is full of praise for Wolfensohn in his Jekyll guise. We see Wolfensohn wooing the NGOs, recoiling from the corruption of the Ivory Coast, smelling a rat in Suharto's Indonesia, spotting a success story in Uganda and brilliantly seizing an opportunity in Bosnia, ensuring that the World Bank played a decisive role in stabilizing that shattered country after the 1995 Dayton peace accords.

Perhaps most impressive of all is Mallaby's account of how Wolfensohn outwitted his critics in the Bush administration. With some sensationally deft footwork, he managed to weave around Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (who allegedly wanted his scalp) and to reverse the president's stance on foreign aid (who else could have got Bush and Bono, the Irish rock star turned development activist, onto the same stage?). By 2003 he felt sufficiently secure to refuse requests for World Bank assistance with the reconstruction of U.S.-occupied Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63755-2004Sep30.html

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Ayoon wa Azan (Good and Bad)

Jihad Al Khazen

Al-Hayat

2005/03/20

Every people have their good and bad elements; there is no better example on the good Jews than James Wolfensohn, and no better on the bad elements than Paul Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz will succeed Wolfensohn in heading the World Bank, after the latter completes two terms that were the best that the World Bank ever witnessed since its establishment in 1946. I will talk about Wolfensohn in more detail after he retires next June; as for today, I would like to start with a few words on him before moving on to Wolfowitz.

I knew about Wolfensohn and his work through my membership in the committee of advisors of the World Bank in the Middle East and North Africa. I appreciated his interest in the Arab countries, and his attempt to help and offer advice; I also appreciated his interest in the poor countries, especially those of the southern African Sahara.

However, my good impression of this man doubled in the lapse of one meeting I had with him in the suite of Yasser Arafat near the end of January 2001 in Davos, on the margin of the World Economic Forum that year.

Arafat was receiving a President of state, when the head of the World Bank arrived; so I went with my friend Sobeih Al Masri to sit with him around a circle table on the other side of the large room, and we were later joined by Dr. Saeb Erakat, who came from Taba carrying the maps of the 'final solution' between Israel and Palestine. Wolfensohn followed the account of the senior Palestinian negotiator with a lot of interest, and he promised to offer assistance. Later on, he visited Lebanon after receiving an invitation from late Rafiq Hariri, and when I told him to take care of Lebanon's Prime Minister, he told me that he was friends with Hariri, that he was proud of this friendship, appreciated the work of Hariri, and was willing to help him in any possible way in order to help rebuild Lebanon.

When we moved to the corner of the room in which Arafat was, Wolfensohn took out his notebook, and started reading out to the Palestinian President the derails of his trip to the Gulf and Western Europe, advising Arafat on what he could demand, what he could expect, and the best way to deal with this or that country.

Wolfensohn was speaking smartly and accurately, and we were sometimes helping him in translating for Arafat. I felt that the Head of the World Bank wanted a Palestinian State with the same fervor that we felt, and wanted it to be a state capable of life, in which its people would have a good living.

When a man is good, his good reaches all people, and not only one people apart of others, or one cause without any other; The Economist said last year that the World Bank was doing more to fight poverty, than any other international institution. As Wolfensohn had always been interested in the status of poor countries, tried to assist them, push the wealthy countries to exempt them from debts, and push them towards reforming their political and economic institutions.

Wolfensohn is an international banking man par excellence, and a big millionaire who stopped all kinds of financial and banking activities when he became the head of the World Bank. He also has some cultural and welfare activities all over the world.

On the other hand, Wolfowitz is an important academician and intellectual, who has a very sharp intelligence, and who has a long and varied governmental knowledge.

I am writing this based on my Arab convictions, and I wish to be objective despite my general national commitment; I would like to attest that Wolfowitz has used his high intelligence and influence in order to oppose the Arabs and Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, and wherever he could.

He started working with Richard Perle for Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, and in 1973, started working for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). In 1978, he was investigated for providing a classified document on the proposed sale of U.S. weapons to an Arab government, to an Israel Government official, through an AIPAC intermediary. On that same year, I started getting interested in the Israeli mob of extremist officials in the American administration, with the uncovering of the Stephen Green scandal, which also involved the leaking of secret documents to some Israeli officials, just like Wolfowitz did, and many others of Israel's supporters prior to him and after him, until the Larry Franklin affair last year; however, each of these cases was closed, and no one was punished except Jonathan Pollard.

Wolfowitz could not care less about punishing the terrorists who killed thousands of Americans in the 9/11 attacks; however, he found in that incident the perfect opportunity to push the U.S. administration towards going to war on Iraq. It later turned out that he had demanded this war during the first administration meeting following 9/11 and that he repeating this demand until he succeeded in launching the unjustified and destructive war.

The interested reader could have a look at Wolfowitz's stance as part of the 1998 public letter to President Bill Clinton, which he co-signed, organized by the "Project for the New American Century." The letter, citing Saddam Hussein's continued possession of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), and argued for military action to achieve regime change and demilitarization of Iraq. ?A similar letter was addressed to George W. Bush on September 20th 2001, which contained incitement against Iraq, Hezbollah, and sided with Israel against the Palestinians. Both letters were signed by the most prominent Israel supporters within the administration and around it, and who claim to be Americans.

Wolfowitz said that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs, and this accusation was proven wrong. It was also proven that Saddam had no link with Al-Qaeda. Wolfowitz said that the Iraqi people 'would welcome us as liberators, just like the French did in the 1940s,' and the result is that more than 1,500 Americans were killed in the war so far, in addition to tens of thousands of injured, and around 100,000 Iraqis killed, with the sweeping majority being civilians.

Wolfowitz said that Iraq's oil would pay for the reconstruction of the country, and the war has cost $200 billion so far. General Tommy Franks confirmed that he had advised Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his Depute Wolfowitz, to prepare for the post-war stage, but they did not. Iraq, its people, and the people of the region and the world will all pay the price.

I cannot believe that a man as intelligent as Wolfowitz was fooled by the likes of Ahmad Chalabi; I think that the neo-conservatives' agenda was the lack of having an agenda, in order to lead to the destruction of Iraq as a favor for Israel.

Today, I am comparing between Wolfowitz and Wolfensohn, and I would like to say that there is no way for comparison. I would also like to warn the Arab reader who thinks that all Jews are of the likes of Wolfowitz, that the likes of Wolfensohn are many.

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