News Corp. double standard: Saudi funding OK for them but not for Park51
August 19, 2010 12:02 pm ET by Eric Schroeck
This
morning, Fox & Friends fearmongered over reports that organizers of Park51 have not ruled
out accepting donations from Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi
Arabia, to finance the project.
Guest-host Alisyn Camerota said: "If the 9-11 families are
worried now and are concerned and feel hurt about this mosque, imagine
if Saudi Arabia were to give
some of this $100
million. ... Saudi Arabia,
where the majority of the hijackers, the terrorists came from. You can
only
imagine how much the victims' families would speak out in that case."
Later, Camerota stated that "the idea
for the 9-11 families that Saudi Arabia, the home to the majority of the
terrorists, could play a hand in some of this fundraising ... strikes
fear, sends a shiver down their
spine."
It seems that, by Camerota's logic, Park51
organizers accepting money from Saudi Arabia would be an outrage,
because that's where a majority of the 9-11 hijackers came from.
But would Camerota apply that same standard to News Corp., Fox News'
parent company? After all,
News Corp.'s "second-biggest shareholder" is Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal -- from (gasp!)
Saudi Arabia!
It
may also come as a shock to Camerota that, according to a December 2009
Variety article, Rupert
Murdoch struck
a deal giving News Corp. a 10
percent stake in Al-Waleed's media conglomerate,
Rotana. Variety reported that the deal "deepens the
strategic partnership between Rupert Murdoch and
Prince
Waleed, who is a substantial investor in News Corp." and that Fox and
Rotana
"have a long-standing relationship."
So,
by her own logic, Camerota (and 9-11 families) should be absolutely
outraged by this.
But would she ever try to suggest that News Corp. is
somehow linked to terrorists because a part owner is from Saudi Arabia? Of course not. Which is why this latest
attack on Park51 is nothing more than a ridiculous double standard, and
the latest in a long line of smears
and
falsehoods
surrounding the Islamic center.
Have any of the 9/11 families even chimed in on the mosque?
To them, all Muslims are suspect. And that's THEIR bigotry showing, and is bigotry that shouldn't be indulged!
Currently, every workday in the Pentagon, on the "hallowed ground" where the terrorists crashed a plane into the building, in the rebuilt section, there's an Islamic prayer group that meets. Monday through Thursday they have simple prayers and on their Sabbath on Friday, they have an actual religious service!
How come that's okay? If they weren't hypocrites on this issue, that would be an even greater offense - that Muslims actually pray directly on the site of the actual attack, not 2 1/2 blocks away!
But neither activity should offend them. It's unfair to tar the Sufi group with the same broad brush that one would tar the terrorists with. Just like it'd be unfair for me to classify any white person in the USA from Southern Indiana southward as a lover of the KKK, since a small percentage of people in the past supported the KKK! Not every southerner is responsible for the misdeeds of the KKK, and not every Muslim-American is guilty either - and therefore, this Sufi group shouldn't be restricted from building a community center just because 9/11 families are still hurting from the terrorist attacks!
And not all Saudi's are bad either! This black and white thinking is pervasive in the rightwing, and we need to fight against it whenever we see it.