Bashar al-Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, or the man even the New York Times is calling Syria’s “Mr. Five Percent,” has decided to give back to the community, somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. The regime in Damascus may hope to impress Washington, which has sanctioned Makhlouf, but it’s not to keep the opposition at bay. Among Makhlouf’s other holdings, there’s his so-called “independent” TV station, Al Dunya, which of late the regime has used to insult Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the media holdings of Arab rivals Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Assad regime has had problems with Riyadh for some time, or ever since its alleged involvement in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was a friend of the Saudi royal family and one of the people who helped found and fund Al Arabiya. The Dubai-based satellite network was originally conceived of as “moderate” alternative to Al Jazeera, when in reality it was just how the Saudis pushed back against their rivals in Doha. But now the Arab Spring seems to have drawn them closer.