Peloni: For more on the Saudi influence operations, see Ted Belman’s “Saudi Arabia and the Peace Process” which I reposted earlier today.
Diana W | realDiana West | May 15, 2025
President Donald J. Trump and Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the United Nations General Assembly (Photo by The White House from Washington, DC – 21687022_1434965293257866_1733024928180559512_o, Public Domain)
Before there was Qatar & influence operations, there was Saudi Arabia & influence operations. If it is Qatar is in the headlines for buying politicians, media, universities, and for its terrorist connections, Saudi Arabia was making the same headlines and more (anyone remember 9/11?) a few years ago. Don’t look now, but Saudi’s Alwaleed bin Talal is a constant player. For starters, he was Fox’s No. 2 owner then, and he is Twitter’s No 2 owner today. Meanwhile, according to Forbes, Qatar threw a few hundred million dollars into Elon’s Twitter purchase as well. Who knows? Maybe, we are all Qataris now.
How did this happen? Some rather important part of it starts with Alwaleed’s buy into the leading American conservative media network, Fox News, over twenty years ago. The Saudi stake would grow to 7 percent, second only to holdings of the Murdoch family. I am posting a syndicated newspaper column I wrote on the subject in 2010. The whole thing bothered me then as it all bothers me, and greatly in this week of Trump’s Arabian Processional, about which I will have more to say. For now, the 2010 column, posted below, will serve as a refresher course — and for me, as well.
I will note that this column and hundreds more are collected in my 2013 book, No Fear.
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Should Fox News register with the State Department as a foreign agent — an agent of Saudi Arabia? by Diana West, February 7, 2010
First off, is that a farfetched question? Not when a leading member of the ruling family of the Sharia-totalitarian “kingdom” of Saudi Arabia, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has made himself the second-largest shareholder of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Fox News’ parent company.
Just as Steven Emerson believes that American universities using Saudi mega-millions (many from Alwaleed) 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’s long march through U.S. institutions is a mainly post-9/11 progression greased by his purchase of about a 5.5 percent stake in News Corp. in 2005, and his purchases, I mean, gifts, of $20 million apiece to Georgetown and Harvard Universities, also in 2005.
There have been other eye-catching displays of Alwaleed’s largesse — $500,000 in 2002 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas- and Muslim-Brotherhood-linked entity, and a whopping $27 million, also in 2002, to the families of Palestinian “martyrs,” aka suicide bombers. These, along with Alwaleed’s self-described “very close relationship” with Murdoch son and apparent heir-apparent James, a left-wing global-warmist with virulently anti-Israel views, should only deepen Americans’ concerns about Fox’s ties to “the prince.” Recently, Murdoch and Alwaleed have discussed expanding their business relationship through the Murdoch purchase of a substantial stake in Rotana, Alwaleed’s huge Arab media company.
Before entering his Murdoch association, Alwaleed gave a remarkably candid interview in 2002 about what Arab News described as his belief that “Arabs should focus more on penetrating U.S. public opinion as a means to influencing decision-making” rather than boycotting U.S. products, an idea of the moment.
The Arab News reported: “Arab countries can influence U.S. decision-making ‘if they unite through economic interests, not political,’ (Alwaleed) stressed. ‘We have to be logical and understand that the U.S. administration is subject to U.S. public opinion. We (Arabs) are not so active in this sphere (public opinion). And to bring the decision-maker on your side, you not only have to be active inside the U.S. Congress or the administration but also inside U.S. society.'”
And active inside U.S. society living rooms — even better. Alwaleed would seem to have hit on a Fox strategy some time after Rudy Giuliani refused to accept, on behalf of a 9/11-shattered New York City, his $10 million check-cum-lecture that essentially justified the al-Qaida attacks as having been a response to U.S. foreign policy. This was “such an egregious, outrageous, unfair offense that I would have nothing to do with his money either,” Sean Hannity said at the time on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes,” his remarks (and those of other Fox personalities) recently re-examined by the left-wing group Media Matters. “This is a bad guy,” Hannity said. “Rudy was right to decline the money.” Bill Sammon called Alwaleed’s check “blood money,” adding, “we’re better off without it.”
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