Points to Ponder Number 19 28th September, 2014
How many times have you heard, or been told, that the Jews/Zionists control the world – the media, finances, governments, Hollywood? To support this theory “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is cited despite the fact that this is known to be a Russian forgery of the early twentieth century.
Have you ever paused for a moment to ponder how fourteen million Jews, 0.02% of the world population, could achieve this? Are you aware that Moslems make up 23.2% of the world population? Your calculation was correct. There are over 1,150 Muslims for every Jew. Is it possible that there is a Muslim lobby, bankrolled by the oil to which we are addicted, and not a Jewish one?
The opinions expressed by reputable think tanks, “a body of experts which provide advice and ideas on specific political or economic problems”, the media and University academics are largely responsible for the opinions we form. As we have seen in previous issues of Points to Ponder”, we cannot always trust the accuracy and trustworthiness of the media. But surely well-thought-of think tanks are above bias. Or are they?
According to a New York Times investigation, foreign governments and state-controlled or state-financed entities which have paid tens of millions of dollars to dozens of American think tanks acknowledge that their contributions are pivotal in furthering their policy priorities.
On 7th September, 2014 the NYT graciously provided a table listing the fifty major donors to American think tanks and, surprise, surprise, Israel isn’t on the list.
To read the full article, “|Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks” by Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams and Nicholas Confessore
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Here are excerpts from an article by Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute on the above-mentioned NYT article.
“Buried deep in the Times’ epic snoozer was a world-class scoop related to one of the world’s biggest and most controversial stories—something so startling, and frankly so grotesque, that I have to bring it up again here: Martin Indyk, the man who ran John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, cashed a $14.8 million check from Qatar.
“Yes, you heard that right: In his capacity as vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the prestigious Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk took an enormous sum of money from a foreign government that, in addition to its well-documented role as a funder of Sunni terror outfits throughout the Middle East, is the main patron of Hamas.”
According to Indyk, “the best way for foreign governments to shape policy is scholarly, independent research, based on objective criteria.”
Lee Smith continues “Really? It is pretty hard to imagine what the words “independent” and “objective” mean coming from a man who while going from Brookings to public service and back to Brookings again pocketed $14.8 million in Qatari cash. At least the Times might have asked Indyk a few follow-up questions, like: Did he cash the check from Qatar before signing on to lead the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians? … Did the Qatari money land in the Brookings account only after Indyk gave interviews and speeches blaming the Israelis for his failure?” Read the full, interesting article.
At last we have uncovered the Jewish/Zionist lobby!!!! Martin Indyk is Jewish. Or have I missed something here??? Shouldn’t the Jewish/Zionist lobby be pro-Israel????
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So, neither the media nor the think tanks are as uncorrupted as we would like them to be. That leaves the academia.
When asked why Arabian Gulf countries donate to US universities, Jay P. Greene, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas replied: “They probably have a few reasons. They provide a louder megaphone to people articulating their interests and shift the selection and development of future Middle East experts toward their way of thinking. … The biggest recipients (at that point b.r.) were the University of Arkansas, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and Harvard University.”
In 2011 Clarice Feldman, a retired litigation lawyer, published a list of the major donations to US universities in 2010. An updated research would no doubt reveal an exponential growth of this oil money influence.
Georgetown University received $6,000,000 from Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia who previously made $20 million gifts to Harvard and Georgetown for Islamic studies. Georgetown also received a $20,124.955 contract from the Qatar Foundation as well as a contract for $42,800,000
Columbia University received $1,666,666 from Arif Naqvi of the United Arab Emirates, the CEO of a Dubai-based bank, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Columbia University Middle East Research Center.
Harvard received $600,000 from Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz University which also has a variety of contracts and agreements with American colleges and universities, including the Universities of Michigan and Virginia and even the Tufts dental school.
Purdue University received it received $6,033,300 from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and $349,825 from Qatar University.
More details can be found on this blog.
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Lest it be thought that only the US universities receive questionable donations let me quote from a 2011 article in the London Telegraph by Stephen Pollard.
“Between 1995 and 2008, eight universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, University College London, the LSE, Exeter, Dundee and City – accepted more than £233.5 million from Muslim rulers and those closely connected to them.
“Much of the money has gone to Islamic study centres: the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies received £75 million from a dozen Middle Eastern rulers, including the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia; one of the current king’s nephews, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, gave £8 million each to Cambridge and Edinburgh. LSE’s own Centre for Middle Eastern Studies got £9 million from the United Arab Emirates.”
Interestingly or surprisingly members of the governing boards of these centers lead the demand for the boycott of, the sanctions against and the divestment from of Israel. (the BDS movement b.r.)
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As long ago as 2008 Prof. Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University’s Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies warned that the propagation of one-sided views of Islam and the Middle East at universities amounted to anti-Western propaganda. Three years earlier he claimed that up to 48 UK universities had been infiltrated by fundamentalists and warned that the threat posed by radical groups should be “urgently addressed”.
Today PM Cameron and Brits in general are pondering – where did the fanatic Islamism with which they are faced originate? I guess Prof. Glees had at least one of the answers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584954/Extremism-fear-over-Islam-studies-donations.html
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In view of the above, I guess we can safely say “another canard bites the dust”. There is no Jewish/Zionist lobby. But might there be an Arab/Muslim one?
