The New York Times on Tuesday ignited a wave of backlash after revealing a framed photograph of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman displayed inside the New York City mansion of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The article, which takes readers inside the late convicted paedophile’s seven-storey Manhattan home, features surveillance cameras positioned above his bed and in adjoining rooms, taxidermied animals, and provocative artwork, including a sculpture of a bride clutching a rope suspended from the ceiling in the atrium.

The criticism escalated as people connected the image to long-standing allegations of Gulf-Israeli collaboration.

Sam Youssef, author and editor of American and International Affairs, asked: “Do you now understand why Arab rulers kneel to Netanyahu and the Mossad?”

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    2 days ago

    The photo in question. Please download and share for the Streisand effect!

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I get that you may not like the guy but that’s straight up slander. there’s no evidence he had anyone killed with chainsaws. it was a bonesaw.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Good thing he’s Twitter’s second largest investor, so he can wave away this a well. Less messy than having to trick a reporter to go to his embassy and having him chopped up to bits to shut him up from Twitter.

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    The man that has dismembered journalists might have had sex with children? I’m shocked. He seemed like such a nice guy.

    • haloduder@thelemmy.club
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      2 days ago

      Rich people love raping children.

      It’s an industry and part of their culture.

      If you support rich people, you support child rapists and child rape.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        JFC talking about a fucked up over generalization

        “Jews love raping children”

        “Blacks love raping children”

        Do I even need to continue to make the point? Yeah, (ultra) rich people probably are abusing employees and probably are way too much creative with taxes and I could point out a whole lot more selfish behavior but FFS dude, you’re really making shit up here.

        Rich people are very problematic and shouldn’t be allowed to exist (as in, make them as rich as everyone else though heavy taxes for them, not murdering them all), there is no need to make sick shit up just for shits and giggles

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          i agree that the generalization here was dumb but “rich people” is not at all the same category as “jews” or “black people”. so no you don’t need to continue to make the point because you’re not doing it well.

          you yourself make a distinction in your final paragraph. imagine saying “jews are very problematic and shouldn’t be allowed to exist”.

  • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Aren’t parts of Dubai basically just an alternative to Epstein’s island? We’ve known about Dubai/yatch girls and their poop play for about a decade now, I think. The whole Gulf region is compromised… They’ll taste Hell but I wish something was done today as well.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 days ago

      Yes, the UAE is the most compromised Middle Eastern country. Saudi rulers however try to paint a conservative image as they heavily profit from Muslim pilgrims.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, when I saw this my first thought was: you mean the guy in a leadership position in a country where it’s legal and normal to literally sell your underaged daughters to middle aged men, was interacting with a known sex trafficker for underage girls? Shocking!

      … But I don’t know enough about what’s happening in that country to know whether that specific thing is still legal/normal. Bluntly, I don’t really care. I care that young women are being put through that, I don’t care about the culture or the people in the culture that would participate in such activities. To me they’re all assholes.

    • Mac@mander.xyz
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      3 days ago

      Hell is a punishment fetish for religious extremists.

    • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      They’ve always been compromised. It’s a backwards culture (not everyone is part of it but the heads of state certainly are) that only has wealth because of oil. Otherwise they’d be living still like they did in the 1800s.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        only has wealth because of oil

        And that’s why they fund troll farms and fascist politicians to oppose renewable energy and to lie about the climate crisis. Their economy is far from diversified, and without oil, they’ll be back in tents within a decade, if the TCNs don’t organize and overthrow the reactionary parasitic bastards first.

      • TurkishKebab@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        “Otherwise they’d be living still like they did in the 1800s.” It was much better in the 1800s, because the saud family didn’t rule anywhere but in the desert wastelands

  • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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    It would be so ironic if MBS raped girls together with Barak the former prime minister of Israel. The most fucked up way to make peace in the Middle East imaginable.

      • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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        They did not increase oil production to replace Russian oil, after the full scale invasion of Ukraine. That was something the US really wanted, so hard to say they are in the pocket of the US. The simple honest answer is that the entire Gulf leadership has no problem with large scale human rights violation and starving thousands. They did it themself in Yemen and currently partly in Sudan.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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          That’s true. They do look out for their own wallet first. Any time they can earn 5 bucks by slaughtering a poor brown person the Gulf leaders are the first ones in line.

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          the entire Gulf leadership has no problem with large scale human rights violation and starving thousands

          No way! What about the fact that they’re boldly standing up for their coreligionists in Palestine?

          /s just in case.

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    It’s funny to think that the world is mostly able to get along except for the faux friction cultivated between cultures by a handful of people to maintain a status quo which affords them any luxury they could crave. More articles like this and I won’t need to buy tinfoil.

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It hurts my soul every day to think of what things could be like if we weren’t held back by this handful of evil manipulative people that sow chaos where otherwise we might have peace, cooperation, empathy, unity, and strength.

  • venusaur@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    It’s illegal to have sex outside of marriage in Saudi Arabia and while there is no age of consent, you must be 18 to marry. It’s not like he would break the rules.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        That’s a Shi’a practice. The Saudi royals aren’t Shi’a; they belong to a rabidly anti-Shi’a Sunni sect, the Wahhabis. The Saudis routinely murder and terrorize members of the Shi’a minority in the Eastern Province.

        The reason for temporary marriage is generally “try before you buy” during marriage negotiations. It’s a loathsome practice but not relevant to the slimy deeds described here.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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          Wahabis are mostly their own sect. They also fight Sunnis. They primarily fight Sunni’s actually. Wahabis believe that they are the only correct sect and all Muslims should be killed.

      • burgerchurgarr@lemmus.org
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        That’s a Shiaa thing and in Saudi Arabia Shiaa are being persecuted. There are plausible reasons for this practice to exist, e.g. being in a committed relationship and wanting to get married properly but for whatever reason not being able to get married currently. Prostitution is not a plausible reason, even though it’s common practice to use it as way to "legalize“ it.

        • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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          2 days ago

          That’s a Shiaa thing

          That’s a novum for me, thanks for that bit of info.