Reply #48: Disney also has Saudi connections [View All]

[starroute]

This came up here during the flap over The Road to 9/11, but here's something FAIR put out on the subject in 2004:

http://www.fair.org/activism/disney-moore-update.html

On the television network that his company owns, Disney CEO Michael Eisner dismissed the idea that forbidding Disney subsidiary Miramax to distribute a controversial new documentary by Michael Moore was a form of censorship. "We informed both the agency that represented the film and all of our companies that we just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically-oriented film during an election year," he told ABC World News Tonight (5/5/04), referring to Moore's Fahrenheit 911, which examines the connections between the Bush family and the House of Saud that rules Saudi Arabia. . . .

So what is the real reason it won't distribute Moore's movie? The explanation that Moore's agent said he was offered by Eisner-- that Disney was afraid of losing tax breaks from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush-- is more persuasive than Eisner's obviously false public rationale. But more relevant may be Disney's financial involvement with a member of the same Saudi family whose connections to the Bush dynasty are investigated by Moore. Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a billionaire investor who is a grandson of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, became a major investor in Disney's Eurodisney theme park when it was in financial trouble, and may be asked to bail out the troubled project again.

Al-Walid bin Talal also owns 5.5% of Fox News and hasn't been shy about using his influence there.

Israeli interest in provoking a war with Iran is obvious -- but Saudi interest in the matter may be even greater, and perhaps more significant.