Georgetown Accepts Millions From Saudis to Whitewash Islam for Students

Washington Times Writes About Saudi Influence at Georgetown

If you wonder what Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been doing since Mayor Rudolph Giuliani publicly rebuked him and rejected his $10 million dollar gift following the attacks of 9-11, this article from The Washington Times gives some answers. He's been buying American public opinion with endowments to major universities, including money-grubbing quasi-Catholic Georgetown.


A few excerpts from the article:

Although few details have been released about how the money has been spent,
at Georgetown, the money helped pay for a recent symposium on Islamic-Western
relations held in the university's Copley Formal Lounge.

"There's a possibility these campuses aren't getting gifts, they're getting
investments," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies. "Departments on Middle Eastern studies tend to be dominated by
professors tuned to the concerns of Arab and Muslim rulers. It's very difficult
for scholars who don't follow this line to get jobs and tenure on college
campuses.

"The relationship between these departments and the money that pours in
is hard to establish, but like campaign finance reform, sometimes money is a
bribe. Sometimes it's a tip."

At Georgetown, the money was funneled toward its Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding, which was quickly renamed the Prince Alwaleed
bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center, part of the
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, trains many of America"s
diplomats.

The Alwaleed Center is tucked away in a small suite of offices in the
Bunn Intercultural Center. Its reception area is decorated with blue and white
Pakistani tile, a framed page from the Koran and mother-of-pearl depictions of a
menorah, the Nativity and the Dome of the Rock. The center's aim, according to
its mission statement, is to "improve relations between the Muslim world and the
West and enhance understanding of Muslims in the West."

The center's director, John Esposito, a prolific writer and praised by
many as being a national authority on the religion, was severely criticized by
several scholars for downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism in the 1990s
when he was a foreign affairs analyst for the State Department.

Mr. Esposito, "more than any other academic, contributed to American
complacency prior to 9/11," Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Olin Institute at
Harvard, wrote in a Jan. 2, 2006, commentary on his blog,
sandbox.blog-city.com.