Saudi billions support Murdoch’s extreme pro-Israeli advocacy

Murdoch's ambitions in the Middle East
Dahr Jamail
AAl Jazeera 20th July 2011

"My own perspective is simple", Murdoch told the Anti-Defamation League on December 13, 2010. "We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews...Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel. My view is the opposite."

Murdoch received the American Jewish Committee's National Human Relations Award in March 2009, less than three months after the end of Israel's bombardment of Gaza.  He said: "The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight. In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace ... who reject freedom."

Ari Rabin-Havt, Executive Vice President of the media watchdog group Media Matters, says Murdoch's Fox News in the US "is one of the most bigoted, anti-Muslim channels on TV"...

Billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud...the richest man in Saudi Arabia...is also the second biggest shareholder (at seven per cent) in News Corporation, only behind Murdoch himself...Prince Walid declared himself to be a "good friend" of Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and staunchly defended the men amid the ongoing NewsCorp scandal...

"They [Muslims] are much harder to integrate into a community than the average Indian or Chinese or Japanese even," Murdoch told the Sydney Morning Herald on June 26, 2006.

Bill O'Reilly, a leading host on Murdoch's Fox News channel, said, during his broadcast on October 18, 2010: "Folks are fed up with politically correct nonsense. There's no question there is a Muslim problem in the world."...The next day, O'Reilly repeated the claim that there was "a Muslim problem in the world"...

Days after the closing of the News of the World newspaper, senior executives Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton resigned over the scandal.

Their resignations came after Prince Walid urged Murdoch and his son James to "cooperate fully" with inquiries into the scandal. "If the indications are for [Mrs Brooks'] involvement in this matter ... for sure she has to go, you bet she has to go," Prince Walid told Newsnight.

Possibly underscoring Prince Walid's power in News Corp, fewer than 24 hours after that interview was broadcast, it was announced Brooks had resigned from her position as chief executive of News International...

 Read Dahr Jamail's full report here