Is Fox News evil or stupid? Jon Stewart parses Ground Zero mosque funding
By: Brendan Patrick Keane | Published Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 2:40 PM | Updated Friday, September 9, 2011, 9:47 PM
Jon Stewart is the only pundit to take-on the question of the
Ground Zero mosque's funding with anything like detail.
The mosque is being funded in-part, by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who is also a major shareholder in Fox News Corporation. Other benefactors of the poorly placed mosque project are unknown and will remain so, according to organizers.
This means the media outlet most critical of building the mosque on top of a site destroyed by parts of the hijacked plane, is also kind-of building it.
Fox and the mosque are shareheld by the same Saudi Arabian prince.
Who is Prince Alwaleed? and what is Wahhabism? What other Wahhabists are paying for the project? These questions are not asked on TV, and yet the answers are what will define the mosque on a site so much intimately associated with Ground Zero, that it is Ground Zero.
American news should hash this out. Who is Alwaleed? And what is his Wahhabi Islamic political ideology? To leave these questions hanging makes it possible for Wahhabi idealists to fund this mosque, and have a chance to claim a piece of Ground Zero.
If we can be critical of the Christian right on TV, New Yorkers can be critical of Wahhabi Islam building anything on Ground Zero. It's not racist, it's about the ideas and feeling and messages and symbols of 9/11 made possible by building the mosque on that site.
The media was supposed to get us to the Wahhabi discussion, but did not, preferring to couch the debate as people against all Muslims. It was left to
Jon Stewart to bring up the Wahhabi connections. Before that, the mosque had nothing to do with Wahhabi-sympathetizers, at least in how it was presented. We now learn, it's probably going to be entirely funded by them. Is that wrong? We are not allowed to know.
Prince Alwaleed is no more a spawn of evil than any other hoarder of immense wealth. Wahhabism may really just be fundamentalism that was perverted even further by a worse sub-sect. I don't know, and it's not my place, I now realize, to explain those nuances. I'll leave that to Jon Stewart, who is alone on TV for even beginning to explain how Saudi Arabian Wahhabi billionaires will own and define what is their project.
Jon Stewart is the only pundit to take-on the question of the Ground Zero mosque's funding with anything like detail. 
Who is Prince Alwaleed? and what is Wahhabism? What other Wahhabists are paying for the project? These questions are not asked on TV, and yet the answers are what will define the mosque on a site so much intimately associated with Ground Zero, that it is Ground Zero.
American news should hash this out. Who is Alwaleed? And what is his Wahhabi Islamic political ideology? To leave these questions hanging makes it possible for Wahhabi idealists to fund this mosque, and have a chance to claim a piece of Ground Zero.
The media was supposed to get us to the Wahhabi discussion, but did not, preferring to couch the debate as people against all Muslims. It was left to Jon Stewart to bring up the Wahhabi connections. Before that, the mosque had nothing to do with Wahhabi-sympathetizers, at least in how it was presented. We now learn, it's probably going to be entirely funded by them. Is that wrong? We are not allowed to know. 
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Monsoonman | Aug 31, 2010, 10:36 AM EDT
Lad, David Cohen is a vice president of one of Americas largest media company's. Take a look at obama fund raising dinners in Hollywood, it is the entire media in attendance giving him millions....and you get indignant because ONE media company gives a different perspective? So what if Fox/Murdoch go against the grain, there needs to be a counterbalance to the propaganda. You should be glad there is a venue where an opposing viewpoint can be heard, where's your sense of "fairness", isn't that a liberal mantra? As far as the labor unions go, there is no problem with private sector unions let them battlle it out in the marketplace, they have their place...But the public sector unions, where there is no competition and no choice, are strangling the american public. They have grown like an aggressive malignant tumor and now own the democrat party. I remember the days when unions fought for higher wages....Now they fight for higher taxes.
seanomelbourne | Aug 31, 2010, 06:20 AM EDT
I am not familiar with David Cohen. The unions here (traditionally)underwrite the labour party but to be fair they founded the labour party,these donations are no different to private or corporate donations to the right. I do take exception to print or visual media of any persuasion treating the truth "loosely". We now have News Ltd (Murdoch) bullying the independents to back the right here in Aus. In the past he has backed both sides in his editorial content, depending on who will change the media laws to his advantage, not an honourable person in my opinion.
Monsoonman | Aug 30, 2010, 11:41 PM EDT
Lad, what do you think of Comcast corps. vp. David Cohen raising 6 million for obama? How about GE's (owns nbc) 245k donation to dem governors, not to mention being a 24/7 propaganda machine for the dem party. But what I find most offensive is labor groups, the Service Employees International Union, which donated $1.1 million, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which contributed $3.3 million to the dem governors. My state is 45 billion in debt due to unfunded public employee union mandates for pensions and benefits. Public employee unions own the democrat party and own the country.
seanomelbourne | Aug 30, 2010, 10:29 PM EDT
Monsoonman you are not by inference claiming that Fox is not influencing public opinion? Do you think they should be "fair and balanced" and donate a million bucks to the dems as they did to the GOP? This is a no spin zone here.
saratoga | Aug 30, 2010, 04:04 PM EDT
No Victory Mosque at Ground Zero!
Monsoonman | Aug 30, 2010, 10:17 AM EDT
Does Irish Central receive any George Soros grant funding?
seanomelbourne | Aug 30, 2010, 12:33 AM EDT
Dr tiller, Ahmed Sharif whose next in line? Fox should suspend it's gutter reporting demonising some people then washing their hands of responsibility when some r/wing freak rallies to their cause and murders some unsuspecting individual.
Monsoonman | Aug 27, 2010, 10:42 AM EDT
Unlike George Soros organizations who are set up to sway American opinion, Newscorp is a publically traded company. anyone can buy or sell stock in this company. If the prince wants to sell all of his stock tomorrow he can do it, he has no influence on the product put out by this company. It would be the same if the Prince bought a large stock position in GM, GE, etc.
dseigler2 | Aug 25, 2010, 09:57 PM EDT
http://groundzeromosquetheamericanway.blogspot.com/
DennisQ | Aug 25, 2010, 06:29 PM EDT
You'll see their ugliness momentarily . . .
As I predicted yesterday, the anti-Muslim mob was embarrassed by a drunk who stabbed a cab driver for being a Muslim. It's pretty ugly behavior, and it shows what happens when you encourage bigots to act out.
BrendanPKeane | Aug 25, 2010, 02:15 PM EDT
woodkern: take that "Obnoxiousness" to a non-symbolic site.
tetome1 | Aug 25, 2010, 10:37 AM EDT
@ McNabb1966 - I don;t think Stewart is seriously saying that News Corp funds terror. It's just that the dufuses on Fox News are the only ones clamoring about where the money is coming from for this mosque, only to find out it's coming from their own backyard. I just find the irony amusing.
McNabb1966 | Aug 25, 2010, 09:24 AM EDT
@DennisQ...Sounds more like a screenplay to me, than reality. I'd say you've watched "The Wall" a few too many times.
Woodkern | Aug 25, 2010, 01:38 AM EDT
Obnoxious rich people have been funding the erection of houses of worship since Solomon's Temple. The benefactor doesn't necessarily reflect the edifice, nor does the ediface redlect the benefactor. Another NYC example,,, Arch-capitalist (and anti-Semite right-wing) John D. Rockefeller built Riverside Church.., and one of my fondest memories (aside from its tower view of the Hudson River)was the joint Pete Singer/Billy Bragg concert that I attended in its sanctuary. I suppose that it's easy to cut a cheque than it is to repent.
DennisQ | Aug 24, 2010, 11:58 PM EDT
Fall all we know, the thuggishness calling itself patriotism may have already reached Ireland. All the elements are there - an embattled, uneducated working class full of resentments about foreigners undermining "their way of life," they claim. The English Defence League look very similar to the goons who attend the anti-Muslim rallies here. The accents are different, but the feeling of class entitlement is the same.
I call it racism, a word that reaches into their motivations more than similar words. They are more than religious bigots; they are bigots seeking to restore a tradition of intolerance that's been discredited for many years.
They will no more be able to restrain themselves than their counterparts in Israel are able to restrain themselves. All your pretty talk about how high-minded there purposes are will go for naught once they spill over the line . . . and they are bound to. The Israeli thugs claimed to be motivated by security interests, but then came Qana and Gaza and the other massacres.
Yer backin' the wrong horse, McNabb. These people are ugly and they're going to stay that way. You'll see their ugliness momentarily . . . .
McNabb1966 | Aug 24, 2010, 10:55 PM EDT
@DennisQ...More irrelevent nonsense that has nothing at all to do with opposition to the Cordoba House initiative.
McNabb1966 | Aug 24, 2010, 07:49 PM EDT
@McNamara31... Fox News is not "in partnership" with the Saudi prince. He is a shareholder in a PUBLICLY-TRADED COMPANY. He is neither on the board of directors nor on the management team. For the record, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al, are there specifically to give "opinion." But if you're paying attention, you'll see that the news division of Fox News isn't providing any opinions. That's reality and I'm sorry if it disrupts that nifty conspiracy you're concocting.
DennisQ | Aug 24, 2010, 07:33 PM EDT
The people opposing the Park 51 center are part of an international movement. The local variant, called "Stop the Islamization of America" (SIOA) derives from an earlier group called "Stop the Islamization of Europe" (SIOE). Within the past year a mob of football hooligans has morphed into a group calling itself the English Defence League.
Nobody really know where the money is coming from to bring celebrity bigot Geert Wilders to address rallies in England, unless he's working for free. However, since he's coming to New York for the big anti-Muslim rally sponsored by Pam Geller and Beth Gilinsky, the air fare and hotel costs are mounting up. And you can be sure that Marine Corps murderer Larry Pantano - also scheduled to address the crowd - will receive some kind of honorarium.
The English Defence League are not patriots - they are working class brutes looking to get into it with Britishers from Pakistan and smash heads. Eventually their lust for violence will break through and they'll spread civil disturbances throughout England. They are using their alleged love of country to legitimize hooliganism.
We may be seeing the beginning of the same movement underway here. Don't dismiss the ugliness and the racism that are essential to what the English Defense League are all about. The people who comprise the Stop Islamization of America have similar motivations. They're not patriotic; they're just looking to throw their weight around. Who is financing them?
McNamara31 | Aug 24, 2010, 03:30 PM EDT
Last year I posted several times the connection between "Fox New's, Murdoch" and his largest investor and part owner of FOX News Corp. Saudi Prince Alwaaleed bin Yalal. This is the same Saudi Prince whose donation to rebuild the Trade Towers was rejected by the City of New York, because he had also blamed the attacks on U.S. policy even though he remained a close friend of the Bush family. Now this same Prince is being accused by FOX as the "nameless" Saudi "terrorist" funding the Mosque. My question is, why is FOX News in partnership with someone "they are reporting" as suspect, or terrorist related, and does all their "conservative rhetoric" go out the window when millions in investment dollars grease their palms? Either way, its very insightfull of who Fox News Corp really is, and why it's all "opinion there" and not journalism.