Did Saudi Investors Pressure Disney To Drop Michael Moore's New Film on 9/11?

In a letter to his fans and supporters this week, filmmaker Michael Moore said his latest film Farenheight 9/11 will hit American theaters well before November’s presidential election despite what Moore calls the Disney Corporation’s attempts to censor the film. The New York Times revealed last week that Disney executives have forbid Miramax films from distributing it. The film explores the Bush family's close personal and financial ties to the Saudi royal family, and describes how the current Bush administration helped evacuate relatives of Osama bin Laden from the United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Disney executives were quoted in the New York Times as saying that when Michael Eisner was the company’s top executive, he “expressed particular concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where President Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor." But the media watchgroup FAIR released a statement giving another potential motive. FAIR said, “Disney may have another reason, not mentioned by the Times, to reject a film that might offend the Saudi royal family: A powerful member of the family, Al-Walid bin Talal, owns a major stake in Eurodisney and has been instrumental in the past in bailing out the financially troubled amusement park. The project is facing a new cash crunch, and Al-Walid has been mentioned as a potential rescuer. In a moment, we will be joined by Peter Hart from FAIR.

But first, we turn to an interview I had with Michael Moore last October. We discussed an incident that happened in the days after the September 11th attacks when all flights in the U.S. were grounded.

American skies were empty, yet at the same time 140 influential Saudis were effectively chaperoned out of the country, without ever being questioned by the FBI. Among them, were several dozen members of the bin Laden family.

Despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, top White House officials approved the evacuation of Saudi citizens at a time when all other planes were grounded. This is what Michael Moore had to say.

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/11/1341206