Fox News co-owner funded ‘Ground Zero mosque’ imam: report

[Zatch]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0821/fox-shareholder-funded-mosque-imam/


The second largest shareholder in News Corp. -- the parent company of Fox News -- has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to causes linked to the imam planning to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, says a report from Yahoo!News.

According to the report from Yahoo!'s John Cook, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who owns seven percent of News Corp., "has directly funded [Imam Feisal Abdul] Rauf's projects to the tune of more than $300,000."

Cook reports that Prince Al-Waleed's personal charity, the Kingdom Foundation, donated $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a project sponsored by two of Rauf's initiatives, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which is building the Manhattan mosque.

That Fox News' second-largest shareholder, after Rupert Murdoch, has financial links to the "Ground Zero mosque" will be seen as ironic by critics of the news network, who have watched with chagrin as the network's talking heads attempt to link the mosque to radical Islamism.

Last week, Daily Show host Jon Stewart lambasted Fox panelist Eric Bolling's attempt to link the Cordoba Initiative to Hamas and Iran. Stewart used News Corp.'s connections to Prince Al-Waleed, and the prince's connections to the Carlyle Group and Osama bin Laden to make a tongue-in-cheek argument that Fox News may be a "terrorist command center."
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"Stewart didn't need to take all those steps to make the connection," Cook writes.

Cook also reports that Prince Al-Waleed has in the past funded a number of Islamic organizations that have been maligned by Fox News commentators:

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.

Cook notes that it was none other than News Corp.'s New York Post that reported on Prince Al-Waleed's donation to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. He reports that Fox News had no comment for his article, and emails to the prince's Kingdom Foundation were not returned.

Prince Al-Waleed owns an estimated $2.5-billion-worth of News Corp. Majority shareholder Rupert Murdoch recently took a stake in the prince's Middle East-based media conglomerate, Rotana Group. Murdoch and Prince Al-Waleed are reportedly working on launching an Arabic news network that will compete with existing pan-Arabic networks Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

[Kregisen]

As they say down here in arizona: interesante.

[Promontorium]

So. If I buy stock in Al Jazeera, I can then donate money to a politician, and that will turn them into terrorists.

Interesante indeed.

Next money bomb: Obama and Pelosi

Bizarro world headline: "Obama and Pelosi supported by terrorists". Just like what they're doing with Fox and Rand.


So let me get this linkage right:

A Saudi Arabian Prince gives money to help people, who are also funded by people who are in the same organization as terrorists. This Prince also makes money from shares of News Corp, and also donates to an organization that gives money to people who want to build a mosque in New York.

And therefore Fox News are terrorists and hypocrites. Makes perfect liberal sense.

[Knightskye]

Don't expect any 'tea party' protests outside News Corp.

[BlackTerrel]

This is from my post on the other thread about this:
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It's a bit of a stretch to say that "FoxNews is funding the Mosque".

Assuming I believe the original post. Let's break it down.

1. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed is one of the richest people in the world. He is an investor in NewsCorp (Parent company of FoxNews) and owns 7% of it.

2. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed also funds a number of charities. One of his personal charities is called the Kingdom Foundation.

3. The Kingdom Foundation charity donates to a number of causes. One of those causes was a $305,000 check to a group called Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow.

4. Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow is sponsored by a number of initiatives including the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative.

5. Imam Rauf (the guy building the Mosque) runs (or is affiliated?) with the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative.

It's almost like that game 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Except more fun. It's the kind of "guilt by association" logic that FoxNews (and conspiracy theorists) love to do. It's also worthless.

If you take enough steps you can connect anyone to anything. Especially in the relatively small US Muslim community, if you are a prominent Muslim chances are you will be connected in some way to other prominent Muslims Anyone who has the resources to fund a $100 million dollar Mosque is going to be a prominent Muslim.