Friday, April 22, 2005
(Note: I'm back! Probably going to be sifting through email and posting on subjects that may be a few days out of date to those of you who stay up to speed on the blogs on a daily basis, so sorry for that, but I'm a link pack-rat, I just can't help it. BTW, met and interviewed Richard Landes yesterday, also got a peek at the CAMERA offices. Probably won't have a post ready on the interview for awhile, though. Over an hour of audio to sift and transcribe.)
You think that Saudi funding is only causing trouble overseas? You think it's only in certain mosques here in the States? Well it's on the radio now, too, and may be in your city now.
Boston Phoenix: PR - The Saudi connection
Must be just another grassroots group fighting to get Israel out of the West Bank, right? Not exactly. The ads were placed by Sandler-Innocenzi, a political-advertising agency that has done spots for Republican House majority whip Tom DeLay and the Republican National Committee, among others. A Sandler-Innocenzi staffer contacted by the Phoenix acknowledged involvement with the ad and gave a phone number and address for the Alliance of Peace and Justice. The address — 8484 Westpark Drive in McLean, Virginia — is the home of media firm Qorvis Communications. Where does this complicated trail lead? To the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which, according to the federal government’s Foreign Agents Registration Act office, hired Qorvis on March 6. Qorvis did not respond to phone calls requesting comment on the ads.
The Saudis, of course, don’t acknowledge the ads. A woman working in the Saudi embassy’s information office says, "We have nothing to do with those ads. We don’t know who that is." To be sure, just because the Saudis have a financial relationship with Qorvis doesn’t mean they placed them. But the plan of the "League of Arab Nations" described in the ads sounds suspiciously like the one recently floated by Saudi crown prince Abdullah. In addition, those who have looked into the matter say radio-advertising salespeople involved with the buy report that the Saudis were behind them. "Believe it or not the Saudi Arabian Embassy wants to get on 4/8 and 4/15 so I was able to use the new rates," reads a redacted April 4 e-mail made available to the Phoenix by Steve Silberfarb, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Silberfarb, in turn, received the e-mail from a radio executive who wanted to remain anonymous. Mstreet.Net, which covers the radio industry, reported Tuesday that "the Saudi-funded ‘Alliance for Peace and Justice’ bought time on about 100 US stations."...
Not only do they spread their propaganda here, but they lie about doing it.
Oh, and when you hear the words "Peace and Justice," cover your wallet, count your fingers and watch your back.