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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
In a controversial speech, the president's younger brother tells Saudi audience Arabs must play U.S. media game better.
Jan 24, 2002 | Presidential brother Neil Bush, while giving a speech Monday in Saudi Arabia, condemned the American media for stereotyping the Arab world and urged Arab leaders to hire lobbyists and public relations representatives to combat these negative images as well as to sway public opinion to a more sympathetic view of Arabs in the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to reports in foreign media outlets. Bush implied that Israel has done a better job of getting its message across in the American media.
"The U.S. media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims, and the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, could be influenced through a sustained lobbying and P.R. effort," said the younger Bush, according to the Arab News, Saudi Arabia's first English-language daily. "Public opinion shapes public policy dramatically. It's true in the U.S., in this part of the world and elsewhere."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment. Bush, chairman and CEO of Ignite! Inc., an education software supplier, could not be reached for comment. Louise Thacker, the marketing manager for Ignite!, said that he was out of the country and unreachable; she said she could not provide a copy of his speech, nor could she comment on press accounts of his speech. She also said she had "no idea" who paid for the trip. State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan told Salon, "I can't say that we were contacted by Neil Bush's people" regarding his trip to the Gulf or the contents of his speech.
The Jeddah Economic Forum, where Bush delivered his remarks, was called to help maintain good relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which is the United States' second-largest supplier of oil. But -- perhaps inadvertently -- the younger Bush stepped on a number of tripwires in the highly precarious U.S.-Saudi relationship. His speech seems to touch on a number of Saudi complaints, from the American media being too tough on the Saudis, to whether U.S. support for Israel is a cause of terrorism and whether that support is a consequence of unfair media coverage -- by a media that the Saudis continually complain is under Zionist control. In each case, Bush seemed -- if his quotes were reported accurately -- to be preaching to the Saudi choir. And the speech seemed to only underline further the strong, historical connections between the Saudi royal family and the Bush clan.
The third annual forum, at which Bush was an attendee as well as a speaker, was sponsored by the business community in the port town. The area's business leaders include the Binladin Group construction company, the owners of which are the estranged relatives of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who, long an enemy of the House of Saud, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.
"American public opinion sees Arabs as terrorists and has the desert-man image about them," Neil Bush said, quoted this time by Agence France-Presse. "I wish the Americans would see Arabs and Muslims the way I see them ... but Arabs are losing the public relations battle in the United States."
Bush also suggested that the Arab-Israeli conflict was linked to terrorism. "In the speech, he called for the root causes of terror to be explored," according to the Arab News report, which then quoted Bush saying: "There could be economic disparities, social unrest or unemployment causing growing dissatisfaction in the region. But I have been told that the bigger issue is the resolving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
In response, James Taranto, a writer for the Wall Street Journal's Opinionjournal.com, called Neil "the Bush Black Sheep," and said that he -- like Roger Clinton and Billy Carter before him -- "has emerged to embarrass the man in the White House." Before now, Neil may be best known for his role as former director of the Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association from 1985 to 1988, who was sued by federal regulators in 1990 for the S&L's collapse, which cost taxpayers approximately $1 billion. Bush paid $50,000 in a court settlement.
Since Saudi Arabia does not have freedom of the press, the government controls what is reported in the pages of its newspapers. But if Bush's comments were made as reported, they no doubt found a receptive audience. "The U.S. media has been reporting Israelis defending themselves from rebels disrupting their stability," Bush was quoted as saying. "So public opinion is bigger in my opinion. No wonder the people of the U.S. side with Israel."
