NYT Runs Pro-Saudi Op-ed Without Disclosing Op-ed Writer's Think Tank is Funded by Saudi Arabia

A useful window in how "think tanks” function as influence laundromats. On 9/11, no less.

The Biden Administration is in the midst of a “diplomatic push” to “normalize” and codify a security alliance with two of the world’s worst human rights abusers: Saudi Arabia and Israel. It’s bizarrely referred to, sometimes, as a “peace deal.” (If Israel and Saudi Arabia are currently at war, someone should let them know because they’ve had a de facto alliance for over a decade.) But the maneuver is so cynical and lacking in even the pretense of concern for democracy or human rights, it’s been condemned by the New York Times’ usually hawkish columnist Thomas Friedman, who notes how it will shore up two regimes, that of Mohammed bin Salman and Benjamin Netanyahu, that are in urgent need further isolation, not the fresh stamp of approval from Washington.  

Cue a P.R. push then by sectors of the Foreign Policy establishment needing to see this deal make it over the finish line. A column Monday in the world’s most premium media real estate, the New York Times opinion section, by Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW), took on this disagreeable task. “A Saudi-Israel Deal Would Bring Big Benefits—to the U.S.” goes in for the hard sell, running through the usual talking points: It will make the US safer. If the US doesn’t build deeper partnerships with despotic regimes, the Chinese will. No mention of human rights or democracy at all. Fear mongering about “security threats” from Iran. It’s all presented as pragmatic, unsentimental, and clear-eyed.

The problem is AGSIW  is funded by the Saudi regime—and a who’s who of weapons contractors with massive Saudi weapons deals. 

The Institute, created by Saudi Arabia and Saudi ally United Arab Emirates in 2015, frequently serves as a mouthpiece for the regime. As Responsible Statecraft noted in 2020, AGSIW has dismissed and belittled Saudi critics like DAWN, an organization founded by the late Jamal Khasshogi, who was butchered by the Saudi regime in 2018. 

AGSIW’s major funders include Aramco, the Saudi state oil company controlled entirely by the regime. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are also major funders. According to reports, in 2018 Saudi Arabia accounted for 5 percent of Raytheon’s total business. Lockheed Martin proudly announces on its website that in 2017, the dictatorship bought over $28 billion in weapons from the company. Not to mention the untold billions worth of combined business Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have in Israel, whose “security” is bolstered even more if such a security alliance goes through. 

Shouldn’t the New York Times disclose this obvious conflict of interest? Shouldn’t Times’ readers know they are reading a column from someone working for a think tank whose major funders—including a dictatorship that just executed a man for criticizing the regime on Twitter—have a lot to gain from the relevant “normalization” deal? 

The New York Times’ own reporting from last year details how Saudi-controlled Aramco uses its half a trillion dollars in revenue to manipulate the public about climate change. Perhaps its opinion page editor can read the publication’s own reporting and ask why a Saudi-funded think tank may be pushing for a normalization process that legitimizes and benefits the Saudi regime. 

Laundering influence through think tanks is but one way the Saudi government attempts to influence the US public and lawmakers. Recently, The Guardian revealed how Saudi funding of Vice News led to the company pulling punches on its coverage including removing a documentary critical of bin Salman from its YouTube page. Saudi Arabia is now, behind Elon Musk, the second largest investor in Twitter (d/b/a “X”), helping Saudi authorities gain favorable treatment when jailing or executing regime critics. Saudi Arabia is now a major player in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and the DC lobbying world. 

But nothing quite has the subtle—and respectable—impact of a well-placed think tank op-ed in the english-speaking world’s most influential newspaper. The pretense of academic credibility, the Serious Foreign Policy Person prose, the inability for even the most skeptical observer to know who’s footing the bill for the writer in question. If the Times wants to publish writers commenting on Saudi affairs who are backed by the Saudi regime—on 9/11, no less—that’s their prerogative. But if they do so, they should at the very least let readers know about the glaring conflict of interest at work.