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    The Upshot

    News Corp’s number-two shareholder funded ‘terror mosque’ planner

    alwaleed

    The opponents of the proposed Cordoba Initiative Islamic center planned for Lower Manhattan are fond of suggesting, by way of lengthy and often confusing chains of causation and association, that its principal planner, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is connected to terrorism. "The imam has been tied to some shady characters," Fox Business Channel's Eric Bolling recently said, "so should we worry that terror dollars could be funding the project?" Blogger Pamela Geller, who has become a regular talking head on cable-news channels to denounce the mosque, has noted Rauf's involvement with a Malaysian peace group that funded the group that organized the Gaza flotilla under the headline, "Ground Zero Imam Rauf's 'Charity' Funded Genocide Mission."

    On last night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart skewered these antics as a "dangerous game of guilt by association you can play with almost anybody," and proceeded to tie Fox News to al-Qaida by connecting Fox News parent News Corp's second-largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, to the Carlyle Group, which has done business with the bin Laden family, "one of whose sons — obviously I'm not going to say which one — may be anti-American." But Stewart didn't need to take all those steps to make the connection: Al-Waleed has directly funded Rauf's projects to the tune of more than $300,000. If Fox newscasters can darkly suggest "terror dollars" are sluicing into the Islamic center's coffers via "shady characters," then are Al-Waleed, and News Corp. leader Rupert Murdoch, by the same logic, also terror stooges? (The "Daily Show" video appears after the jump.)

    The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
    Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition
    www.thedailyshow.com
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    Indeed, as none other than Rupert Murdoch's New York Post reported last May, the Kingdom Foundation, al-Waleed's personal charity, has donated a total of $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a leadership and networking project sponsored jointly by two of Rauf's organizations, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative. Al-Waleed owns a 7 percent, $2.3 billion stake in News Corporation. Likewise, News Corporation owns a 9 percent, $70 million stake — purchased in February — in Rotana, Al-Waleed's Saudi media conglomerate. Put another way: Rupert Murdoch and Fox News are in business, to the tune of billions of dollars, with one of the "Terror Mosque Imam's" principal patrons.

    cordobaAs Geller helpfully notes on her blog, Al-Waleed donated $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations — which has been repeatedly denounced on Fox News's air by Geller and others as a terror group — in 2002. Indeed, Rauf's "numerous ties to CAIR" alone have been cited by the mosque's opponents as a justification for imputing terrorist sympathies to him, yet few people seem to be asking whether Murdoch's extensive multi-billion business collaboration with the man who funds both Rauf and CAIR merits investigation or concern.

    Other beneficiaries of Al-Waleed's largess include the Islamic Development Bank, a project designed to "foster the economic development and social progress of [Muslims] in accordance with the principles of Shari'ah." The IDB funds the construction of mosques around the world, and has been implicated by frequent Fox News guest Stephen Schwartz in an attempt to spread radical Wahhabism (a fundamentalist branch of Islam) throughout the United States.

    Geller has worried in the past on her blog about Al-Waleed's ownership of News Corporation shares, but never on anything like the scale of outrage she's mustered in opposing the mosque. We asked her why Rauf's tenuous connections to radical Islam disturb her so, while Rupert Murdoch's direct ties to a man who funds what Geller regards as terrorism have spurred no such outcry: "I'm not aware that News Corp. has any such close connection with anyone connected with CAIR, and despite the involvement of Al-Waleed bin Talal in News Corp., I don't believe that the two connections are analogous. ... Fox ... has been much more honest and objective about Islamic supremacist initiatives, including this Ground Zero mega-mosque, than have the other networks. Consequently, I would say that while Al-Waleed's stake in News Corp. should indeed be a matter of concern for free Americans, at the same time a matter of much greater concern should be the funding of the other networks, and the possible influence that funding has had upon their unrelenting Leftist and pro-Islamic supremacist bias."

    Fox News had no comment. An email to Al-Waleed's Kingdom Holdings was not returned.

    (Photo of Murdoch and Al-Waleed: Getty Images/Getty Images Europe)

     

    3 comments

    • zapdam  •  Calgary, Canada  •  3 mths ago
      VIC TOEWS THE HATE MERCHANT

      He was a vocal opponent of Bill C-250 (2003), which made sexual orientation a protected category under Canada's hate crime legislation. Toews stated that the bill could restrict freedom of expression and religion, and was quoted as saying that a "homosexual activist" could sue a hotel chain to remove Bibles as hate literature. He later emerged as a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage, and suggested that changing the definition of marriage in Canada could result in polygamy being legalized. In 2005, he launched an extended filibuster to delay committee work on the issue.Despite his efforts, same-sex marriage was legalized in the summer of 2005
    • zapdam  •  Calgary, Canada  •  3 mths ago
      TOEWS THE PARROT

      HIS CONSERVATIVE COUSINS HAVE ALREADY TRIED THIS..

      AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE INTRODUCES A BILL TO SPY ON AMERICANS

      July 29, 2011
      Congress has introduced a bill under the justification of stopping
      child porn that will allow the government to spy on everyone's Internet
      usage.Congress wants to spy on everyone's Internet

      Goodbye, civil liberties! The government is using a bill
      disguised as anti-child pornography legislation to allow them to start
      monitoring Web-usage of everyone.
      The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011
      (H.R. 1981) is aiming to keep the Web safe for children, but in the
      process it will treat any user logging on to the Internet as a potential
      criminal.

      Bill sponsor Lamar Smith, House judiciary committee chairman and
      Representative from Texas, says that pedophiles have been able to avoid
      prosecution in the past because vital records linking them to web usage
      were never required to be retained. Under H.R. 1981, Internet Service
      Providers would have to hold onto those records for 12 months.

      Those records, however, won't apply to just suspected child
      pornographers and pedophiles. Instead, ISPs will be doing data retention
      on all of their customers.

      If passed, the bill will keep the names, addresses, phone
      numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers and
      temporarily-assigned IP addresses of everyone on the Internet on file
      for a full year.

      Smith says that the law is similar to what telephone companies
      are currently required to do by keeping phone records of their
      customers. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), however, says it's just an
      attempt to pry even deeper into the public lives of citizens.

      "This is not about child porn. It never has been and never will
      be," Issa said
    • paul  •  5 mths ago
      To
      HRH
      Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud
      Chairman of Kingdom holding Company
      Riyadh, K.S.A.

      Your highness,
      My name is Prabal Rai from Bhaktapur, Nepal and I'm trying to reach
      for your since from 6 year's and try to seek justice for my life. As
      I have been discharge from Saudi Arabia due to medical reason's as I
      became victim of hemorrhagic stroke due to being long time patient of
      Hypertension. And I was send back to Nepal on May, 2005 due to my
      lack of physical condition's which I no longer provide service to the
      company that I have worked. But now with regular therapy and
      medication's I was able to do all my daily activities and personal
      thing without any help or assistance from others family member's. I
      could walk freely in independently with my own and I still hope to be
      recover more in future if I get proper therapy and medication's which
      I'm now unable to continue further due to lack of financial stances
      from my side. That's why I need re-employment back in work but still
      due to my physically not fit for providing same working capacity in my
      profession which I have worked before as restaurant supervisor I
      prefer to worked as office Asst. or any desk job in office premises.
      Even I could work in any food industry warehouse inventory controller
      or in-charge.
      I need this job for my own life security and fulfillment's of need for
      therapy and medication's expenses and to support my family as well.
      Please your highness I'm requesting you i humanitarian grounds to
      assists me in form of human relationship as goodwill. I heard from
      many that you are the person with respect and kind heart who is always
      willing to help others in time of need and they ask you for your help.
      And I hope surely this time you could help me fulfill my cause to
      support my life. As you could further contact through your officials
      and from Nepal embassy in the contact address I provide yo below:
      Sincerely

      Prabal Rai

      P.O. Box 15142 K.P.C.
      Kathmandu, Nepal

      Residential address: 132/4 Balkot V.D.C. Bhaktapur

      Tel: 00977-1-6636281 (Home)
      00977-98418354836 (Mobile)

    ABOUT THE UPSHOT

    The Upshot is the Yahoo! News blog assembling choice material from The Ticket (politics), The Lookout (national affairs), The Cutline (media) and The Envoy (foreign affairs).

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