Abramoff and al-Arian: lobbyist's "charity" a front for terrorism.

• Author: Cole, Professor Juan
• Position: Salvaging Democracy - Jack Abramoff, Sami al-Arian

The guilty plea of fabulously wealthy and highly corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff raised the question of whether he would roll over on Congressmen involved in illegal fundraising and other crimes with him. Some 20 Republicans on Capitol Hill are said to be in danger.

Abramoff's dense network of illicit finances and phony charities might end some political careers in the United States. But the investigation into his activities by the FBI also shed light on the ways in which rightwing American Jews have often been involved in funding what are essentially terrorist activities by armed land thieves in Palestinian territory.

Indeed, it was this terror funding of Israeli far right militiamen that tripped Abramoff up, since the FBI discovered that he had misled Indian tribes into giving money to the Jabotinskyites, and then began wondering if he had defrauded the tribes in other ways. The Indian leaders were furious when they discovered they had been used to oppress another dispossessed indigenous people, the Palestinians, calling it "Outer Limits bizarre" and saying that they would never have willingly given money to such a cause.

Newsweek's Mike Issikoff reported last May that Abramoff diverted $140,000 from a charity, ostensibly to benefit inner-city youths, to militant Israeli colonists who had usurped land in the Palestinian West Bank. Issikoff wrote:

Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as "security" equipment. The FBI, sources tell Newsweek, is now examining these payments as part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Abramoff, a legendary lobbyist particularly close to DeLay, is also a fierce supporter of Israel--"a super-Zionist," one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff s paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors.

Yitzhak Pindrus, the settlement's mayor, says that several years ago the town was confronting mounting security problems. "They [the Palestinians] were throwing stones, they were throwing Molotov cocktails," Pindrus says.

Abramoff s connection to the town was Schmuel Ben-Zvi, an American emigre who, the lobbyist told associates, was an old friend he knew from Los Angeles. Capital Athletic Foundation's...