A news item claiming that Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States has pledged to Rep. Adam Schiff to work toward the passage of an Armenian Genocide resolution is false and was published on a web page called Adamcshiff.com [sic], which is also a fake website purporting to be the congressman’s campaign portal.
“A fake web page impersonating Rep. Schiff’s campaign website was recently created, and a press release was posted describing a meeting between Rep. Adam Schiff and the Saudi Ambassador. The website is fake, and the meeting described is completely false. There was no such meeting and Rep. Schiff has never discussed these issues with the Saudi government. Rep. Schiff will take appropriate steps to report this effort to spread disinformation,” said Emilie Simons, a spokeswoman for Rep. Schiff:
The article, written in poor English with factual and grammatical errors, suggests that Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., allegedly has agreed to financially sponsor the Armenian Genocide resolution after purportedly being asked by Schiff, who is a co-author of the resolution, and in the article has been mistakenly identified as a Republican. Such an “ask” by a member of Congress is illegal.
The article titled, “Riyadh to Take Revenge on Erdogan by Supporting the Congress Resolution Recognizing Armenian Genocide,” claims that “It seems that Princess Reema’s meeting with Senator Schiff and her support for the Resolution has been Riyadh’s diplomatic response to Turkish actions over the past months regarding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and this meeting brings a clear message to Ankara.”
An investigation into the origins of website revealed that adamcshiff.com [sic] domain was purchased on April 24 and routed to the adamschiff.com url.
The article was posted on April 26, but garnered traction on Monday, when most all media outlets in Armenia picked up the story and without fact-checking ran the story. Among the outlets that reported on this story was azatutyun.am, the Armenian service of the Congressionally-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
One would think if the government of Saudi Arabia was concerned with the Armenian Genocide, official Riyadh would have recognized the Genocide and not employed such a back-door effort to express its support about the issue.
I don’t know what is worst, the fake news or the lack of fact-checking by media outlets. Things like this make us look naive and ignorant. Maybe more work on sophistication and worldliness is necessary.
Whoever did this is totally out of touch with reality. Their wishful thinking that somehow this will trigger a Turkish backlash is totally crass. First off, the Khashoggi case is being used by all sides for their interests. The Turks are simply using it like the Sword of Damocles to threaten to reveal damaging evidence if the US decides to punish Turkey over its treatment of the Kurds and the purchase of the Russian S-400. The US is also using the case to make sure the Saudis are under pressure to follow orders and increase oil production to both harm Iran and reduce oil prices worldwide. The Russians are also in the mix by wanting to make sure to have a way to blackmail any country that wants to exclude them from the region. Of all these players and scenarios, the least of their concern is the genocide. It’s only important if it can be used to manipulate the opponent, otherwise, it’s a passé concern. The Khashoggi case will continue to resurface when tensions rise and later again be stored under the rug until for another day.
Fanatic Muslim country like Saudi Arabia will never do such a pledge, President Trump didn’t understand that a Muslim before anything is a Muslim.