Saudi Billionaire Buys Pieces of America

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Saudi Arabia royal billionaire, has become a major player in Saudi Arabia's propaganda campaign, which is aimed at providing it's archaic, Wahabbi-funding regime with a humane face. Bin Talal has done so by whitewashing the role the Saudis have played in promoting Islamic and Wahabbi intolerance towards non-Muslims and radical Salafist movements, which engage in terror and stealth Jihad. To accomplish his task, he has bought a slice of American and Western academia, and increasingly, the media.

In an expensive (approximately $295K) full-page advertisement published in the Wall Street Journal, Alwaleed Bin Talal stated: "We are dedicated to build a bridge of communication between East and West to achieve a comprehensive tolerance beyond geographical boundaries."

The ad shows images of academic institutions where the Alwaleed Bin Talal foundation has invested millions, including the Program for Islamic Studies at Harvard University; the Center for Islamic-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University; the Center for the Study of Islam in the Modern World at Edinburgh University, Scotland; the Centre for Islamic Studies at Cambridge, UK; a program for Furthering Understanding Scholarship Scheme at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University, UK. These are just some of the Western institutions Bin Talal is invested in. Others include the Islamic Art Wing at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and the Centres for American Studies and Research at the American University of Cairo (Egypt) and Beirut (Lebanon).

In what appears to be a mission statement at the bottom of the full-page ad, there was this:

Supporting cultural diversity through dialogue, the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation embraces the tremendous diversity of people, religions, and cultures around the world. In support of this belief, the Foundation has established academic and cultural centers at iconic institutions to nurture our common interests and potential. By supporting historical research, open dialogue, and objective analysis, the Foundation lays the groundwork for mutual understanding among nation.

So who is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, this "philanthropist" who wants to "achieve tolerance beyond geographical boundaries?

Appearing on Fox News on August 26, 2010, Dan Senor, a former Bush administration official hinted that Feisal Abdul Rauf, the "Ground Zero Mosque" imam, received financial support from Alwaleed Bin Talal's foundation. Although Dan Senor did not mention the prince's name, he qualified him by saying, "The Kingdom Foundation [Bin Talal's foundation], so you know, is this Saudi organization, headed up by the guy who tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back. " The money was returned because Alwaleed bin Talal had suggested that U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the September 11 attacks. Senor also inferred that Alwaleed Bin Talal has "funded radical madrasas all over the world."

In her February 5, 2010 blog, Diana West asked rhetorically if Fox News should register as a Saudi agent. She wrote: "Alwaleed bin Talal's charm-blitz through NY, juxtaposing Fox News' Neil Cavuto's sweetheart interview with "the prince" and Charlie Rose's far more revealing conversation – essentially, it's…all Israel's fault, and "my" 1.5 billion Muslims are all like the 'underpants' bomber's father [who informed authorities about his terrorist son]."

West pointed out that "just as Steven Emerson believes that American universities using Saudi mega-millions (many from Alwaleed Bin Talal) to set up Islamic studies departments should register as Saudi agents, I believe an American news channel part-owned and part-influenced by the Saudi prince should, too."

Alwaleed Bin Talal's "contributions" to U.S. institutions are attributable to the anti-Saudi backlash that followed 9/11, which prompted his 2005 purchase of a 5.5 percent stake in News Corp and his "gifts" of $20 million to both Georgetown and Harvard Universities, also in 2005.

Alwaleed Bin Talal's spending spree includes a $500,000 check in 2002 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood-linked entity, and, also in 2002, a whopping $27 million to the families of Palestinian "martyrs" — aka suicide bombers.

Diana West referred to Alwaleed's self-described "very close relationship" with Rupert Murdoch's son and heir-apparent, James Murdoch, a left-wing global-warming alarmist with virulently anti-Israel views, and suggested this should deepen Americans' concerns about Fox's ties to "the prince."

Asked by Charlie Rose in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview (1/21/10), whether he is confident about the future given his huge investment in News Corp, Alwaleed Bin Talal replied:

I have a very close relationship with Mr. James Murdoch. James is now managing Europe and Asia. I would be the first one to nominate him to be the successor of Mr. Rupert Murdoch, God forbid something happens. I have full trust in him. He is really a Rupert Murdoch in the making, and he's almost there. And I told that to Mr. Murdoch.

An apologist for radical Islam, the US-educated Alwaleed Bin Talal provides clever answers that suit American ears when he is interviewed. In response to Charlie Rose's question about whether the world's perception of Islam is misunderstood, he said:

After 9/11, the world changed, and Islam came under attack. You had all these terrorist acts on U.S. soil committed by Muslims and Arabs and Saudis. So I don't really blame the West for being worried about Islam. But you cannot generalize and say all Arabs or Muslims are terrorists. All the discussion has been around the Somali guy who tried to bomb the airplane, but his father turned him in… This guy represents me and all my 1.3 billion Muslims. Not the guy with the bomb. Islam means peace[.]

Alwaleed Bin Talal understands that the nature of the Saudi regime, with its denial of religious freedom in the kingdom and its teaching of intolerance and hatred towards Jews, Christians, Israel and even America, does not render it a friend of America. Furthermore, the Wahabbi-Islam that Bin Talal represents is contrary to everything Americans with Judeo-Christian values believe in. Bin Talal has therefore taken upon myself the task of influencing the way Americans think, and he is doing it by buying off Western academic and cultural institution such as Harvard, Georgetown, Cambridge, etc., where a sanitized version of Islam and its relationship to the infidel West is being taught.

Bin Talal has reasoned correctly that if Islamists cannot win over the American people through their true beliefs, then they must feed them twisted reality in the form of "news" through their expensive Washington lobbyists and increased media control (as with Fox News and the Wall Street Journal). This allows the Saudi façade as "a friend of America" to remain.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

receive the latest by email: subscribe to campus watch's free mailing list

Middle East studies in the News

Saudi Billionaire Buys Pieces of America

Related Documents