Prince Alwaleed's Georgetown Donation: A Sign of the Expanding Saudi PR Machine

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal recently garnered attention by donating $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard to promote the study of Islam and the Muslim world.  Georgetown officials told the Washington Post that the gift is the second largest that the school ever received.  The money will be used to expand the activities of Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU), which will be renamed the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Although Prince Alwaleed was previously best known for having a $10 million donation that he made in the wake of 9/11 refused by Mayor Giuliani after Alwaleed issued a statement linking 9/11 to U.S. support for Israel, Prince Alwaleed has more carefully tended to his public image since then.

This donation occurs in the context of what is clearly an effort to expand the Saudi PR machine in the United States.  Prince Alwaleed stands at the center of much of this effort.  I previously wrote about how some observers were concerned that Fox's coverage of the war on terror could change after Prince Alwaleed became the fourth largest voting shareholder in the News Corporation, which owns the Fox News Network.  Middle East Online reports that Prince Alwaleed has already boasted about changing Fox's coverage in at least one instance:

He said that during last month's street protests in France, the US television network Fox -- owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in which Al-Walid himself has shares -- ran a banner saying: "Muslim riots."

"I picked up the phone and called Murdoch . . . (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty," he said.

"Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots."

There are other signs of the Saudi PR machine gearing up.  Qorvis Communications has expanded and made some significant personnel additions in recent months.  There are slick ads for Saudi Arabia in such glossy magazines as The New Republic.  Interestingly, the December 12 cover story by Spencer Ackerman explaining why Islam in the United States is moderate is sandwiched around a 6-page special advertising section paid for by the Saudi Arabian embassy.  And the donation to Georgetown will serve more of a PR function than most people probably realize at first glance.  John Esposito, CMCU's director, has for years been one of the U.S.'s foremost apologists for radical Islam, and he's already stated that a large part of Prince Alwaleed's donation "will be used to beef up the think tank part of what the center does."  Esposito's explanation of the "think tank part" of the Center shows that he has a heavy PR component in mind:

Up to now, he said, the center has not had enough resources "to respond to the tremendous demand that is out there, from the government, church and religious groups, the media and corporations to address and answer issues like, 'What is the actual relationship between the West and the Muslim world?  Is Islam compatible with modernization?'  Now we can run workshops and conferences [on these subjects] both here and overseas."

The Freedom House released a report entitled "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques" (which I blogged about here) earlier this year.  This study has garnered enormous attention.  The true test of the beefed-up Saudi PR machine will come the next time someone releases a report exposing the effect that the Saudis have had on Islam's development in the United States and throughout the world.