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http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=5/30/2007&Cat=14&Num
TEHRAN TIMES - MEHR NEWS
May 30, 2007
World press freedom in the eyes and ears of the beholder
By Trish Schuh
UNITED NATIONS - On the 14th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, which was celebrated in May, UNESCO hosted
an event for journalists called “Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity” at the United Nations headquarters
in New York.
Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend
freedom of expression and press freedom.
United Nations Correspondent Association President Tuyet J. Nguyen spoke
about the life-threatening danger faced by journalists covering such war zones as Rwanda and Iraq where the media is controlled
by special interests or armed political parties.
Mr. Georges Malbrunot of France's neocon Le Figaro spoke
of newsgathering under various “vicious surveillance” states. In contrast, Malbrunot's embedding with American
forces in Iraq was “not a bad solution”, but opened embeddees to paranoid Arab charges of being “a spy…
It’s one of the major blames addressed to the foreign press today… Of course, this blame is 99.9% wrong, but
in the minds of these people who suffer from ‘conspiracy theory’, this accusation is serious and can cost a journalist
his life. “There is a lot of work to do to convince these groups that the journalist is not a spy.”
Malbrunot added that it is the work of Muslim imams, scholars, leaders, etc., to persuade their Muslim flock of this fact…
“Only then will the fate of the global war against terror be dramatically changed.”
This writer asked
the panel if journalists themselves could ever be partly responsible for such suspicions. Citing CNN’s Anderson Cooper,
who admitted spending his earlier summers working for the CIA: “Doesn’t this kind of moonlighting put other journalists
at risk?”
No response from the panel.
Representing half a million media professionals around
the world on behalf of the International Federation of Journalists was Judith Matloff, a professor at the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism and a member of the International News Safety Institute. Professor Matloff implored the international
community to uphold UN Security Council Resolution 1738, which prohibits the killing and targeting of media personnel and
protects free speech and freedom of the press globally.
In a follow-up conversation by telephone on May 25, I asked Prof. Matloff for her opinion on how UN Security Council Resolution
1738 applies to Lebanon’s Al Manar TV and the LMG communications network -- Lebanese media outlets bombed by Israel
during the 2006 war, and officially censored as a “terrorist organization” by the U.S. Congress?
Regarding this unprecedented, landmark free speech/censorship law, Ivy League
academic Matloff said she was “unfamiliar with these situations” and refused to comment on Middle East issues.
“I am an Africa specialist.” But wasn’t free speech protected equally around the world under Resolution
1738? In the Middle East, as well as in Africa?
Being a media expert, could she comment on what a law equating the media with “terrorism” could mean for freedom
of the press? Concurrent with Bush’s admitted deliberate bombing of Al Jazeera in Afghanistan and Iraq?
“I never heard of that,” Matloff said. With her credentials, shouldn’t
such Katrina-scale censorship have caught her eye? Or perhaps she could assess how the mainstream media’s advocacy of
falsehoods promoted an illegal war in Iraq? “The New York Times has apologized,” she said, referring to a full
page ‘mea culpa ad’. "But isn't the NYT repeating the same misleading tactics
to promote the next war?" I asked.
With this and similar questions, Matloff responded
like a true press “pro”: avoiding ethical implications, defending her product -- the status quo, and referring
most answers to “other supervisors” or experts. Her refrain of “I don't know”, “don't
remember”, “can’t comment” captured the essence of a White House press briefing. As a trainer of America’s
next generation of government “privatized propaganda contractors”, (tomorrow’s ‘mercenary press’)
Matloff diverted the subject, passed the buck, and expertly earned her tenure.
On Press Freedom Day, I also spoke briefly to New York Times correspondent Warren Hogue about the media, Iraq,
and World Press Freedom Day.
Q: It’s
World Press Freedom Day and I just wanted to ask if you have any comments about The New York Times and their reporting in
the runup to the Iraq War, and if you feel any kind of responsibility?
A: I can't talk about that -– we’ve already said everything about that to be said in the paper,
and I really don’t want to add to it. I mean, The New York Times -- more than most newspapers -- has absolutely admitted
what we thought was faulty and what was not. There’s just nothing I can add to that at all. And I certainly don’t
want to talk about that on Press Freedom Day when our thoughts are with Alan Johnston and other journalists that are being
killed.
Q: Well my thoughts are also with
the Iraqis. There are half a million dead -- thanks in part to your newspaper-
A:
Oh come on.
Q: Your newspaper was one of the primary advocates for the
war.
A: Oh come on, I can’t talk to you.
Q: Your newspaper was primary -- yes it was -- Judith Miller got a security clearance from Donald Rumsfeld, sir.
A: The New York Times is not responsible for any dead Iraqis. I won't
listen to that.
Q: None of the other American
journalists but Judith Miller from your paper got a security clearance from the U.S. defense secretary himself. How is this
different from working for the government?
A: You are defiling Press Freedom
Day -- Shut up! This is about press freedom, this is not about defiling the press. We’ve just come back from a demonstration
for Alan Johnston for journalists being killed and that’s what this day is about -- press freedom. Perhaps BBC World News Editor Jon Williams best summarized the outcome of shutting
up journalists: “We must not stand by and allow the intimidation of journalists -- wherever it happens. If we do, we
will pay a heavy price… There will be no eyes or ears telling us what's going on. We won’t have the insight
from those able to make sense of it.”
But then, that may be just how some Powers
That Be really want it. In April 2008, New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge was named Vice President of of the International
Peace Institute. Calls to the Institute regarding Mr. Hoge's propaganda role in the runup to the Iraq War were not
answered.
Secretary General Kofi Annan called Iraq war illegal
Kofi Annan and
wife at UNCA press event
Ambassador John Bolton Lies about Iraq Attack April 28, 2006
by Trish Schuh
Indymedia The United
Nations Security Council, under heavy US-Israeli pressure- finds Iran noncompliant to the NPT. The next Security Council resolution
could include a 'chapter 7' option which allows military attack on Iran. The fuse is lit.
UNITED NATIONS-
We're getting mugged again with the same smoking gun. No matter that the gun has repeatedly backfired. The Bush adminstration
and its neocon puppeteers are using the same methods and ammunition on Iran as they did on Iraq. Bolton warns that "UN credibility is on the line". But it is the US that has no credibility. Do we honor
the Rule of Law, or the law of the jungle enforced by the biggest bully?
Outside the UN Security Council Chamber,
I questioned John Bolton on the issue:
QUESTION: You talk quite often of
the credibility of the UN and it seems-
BOLTON: -and so has Secretary Rice
recently.
QUESTION: Yes, and Rice has as well. But that seems to work in
your favor when they(UN) do what you want them to do. But you violated the UN Charter when you went to war against Iraq and
you consistently lied to us about the reasons that we went to war. This war policy was drawn up in Herzliya, Israel in 1996
via the Project for a New American Century. What credibility do you have other than that based on having the biggest guns?
BOLTON: Can I ask what media outlet you're from?
ANSWER: Muslims Weekly.
BOLTON: We did not violate the UN Charter
in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and that plan was not drawn up in Herzliya for the Project for a New American Century. The above exchange was broadcast live on CNN.
Commentary in the blogosphere claimed that later editions of the exchange had the following three words deleted: "in
Herzliya Israel." All else remained intact.
This
writer spoke to Robert Fisk on the state of the US press and the internet (after the blogoshpere buzzed
over his alleged denigration of that medium).
MEDIA in AMERICA
Chat with Robert Fisk
by Trish Schuh
August 4, 2007 Beirut, Lebanon
Schuh: In terms of media, do you hate the
internet? You have dismissed it?
Fisk: Look- you misquoted
me. I did not say I hated the internet. I said the internet was a system of hate.
Q: That is a very broad statement.
A:
It is used for hate, its true-
Q: But it is also used
for-
A: Love??
Q:
Expose'. I have read much information there we don't get otherwise. We have no press in America.
A: I can answer your question very simply. When I go to the
States, I get up to 2000 people every lecture give. The reason I get that is they've read me on the internet
of course. All over the world my articles are syndicated except in the United States where no one will touch them.
And that is rather as I would like it to be. If the New York Times wanted to use Robert Fisk I'd feel I'd done
something wrong. I'd better find a new job, right? I go to America every 3 1/2 weeks so I know the problem.
Q: So what to do? We're moving into a fascistic
state-
A: You are not in a fascist state. You don't
know what fascism is if you think that. You're in a very young state in which powerful groups cling to power very
ruthlessly and destroy other groups. There are several problems. First I think your people are much brighter than
you make them out to be. I invite to my lectures Amtrak rail crews, bell hops from my hotel, airline crews...
They come.
Q: You are a world famous celebrity, and we
live in a celebrity-mad culture.
A: I don't necessarily
acknowledge that. Secondly, how can I be world famous if I'm not published in a single American newspaper?
But let me finish. I have a personal dislike for the internet. I think it wastes my time. I have friends
at the Boston Globe who say: "Bob you should use the internet. By 12:00 I've read the Boston Globe, the
Herald Tribune, the Daily Star, the Jerusalem Post and the New York Times."
By 12:00
I've done 3 interviews and am working on a story for my newspaper. As far as email for example, most of the
emails I see are ungrammatical. They're mispelled. People just sit and zap this stuff out around the world, right?
I have between 250-350 emails from last week. I couldn't take anymore mail. Couldn't take it. What
I read are the people who its important enough for them to write, and put it in an envelope and stamp. If they want
they can ring me up on my mobile or home phone. It'll cost them money, but they'll have to do it. Its the only
way. That way I thin down the people... Some people get up in the middle of the night and write six pages of complete trash,
press a button and it goes to Robert.
I can see when you're cut off from
information how the internet and googling information becomes so much more important. I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago
about the LA Times censoring a story by an Armenian, and about the Toronto Globe and Mail. My point is that one reason ciriculation
is falling in newspapers is that they're too gutless. By and large, Americans don't want to read their press. And
they're right. Not only does it present a totally false view of the world- when I read the NYT on the middle east
it is incomprehensible to me. Because I live here and I know what they want to say, but they can't say it.
I always talk to the passengers on domestic flights. I had a guy, he was Homeland Security in one
of the immigration offices in another country. He said to me: "If I was a Palestinian, I'd get a Kalashnikov
and fight like they do. What the Israelis do to them..."
Coverage of Israel is lamentable.
The French have a very good word: "enfantilism". Which doesn't mean infantile, it means "babyishness."
"That's red. That's green." "What's that color?" "Yellow!"
Its alright for babies but not for university readers.
One of the big problems you have
in the States is the leftist activist community. We all know who we're talking about: some have rings in their noses,
some do not. They center around universities. I don't think they want to win. They call the NYT 'mainstream'.
Why not call the NYT 'alternative' and say we're the 'mainstream'?
I went
to a seminar at George Mason [University]. At the seminar were activists- all of whom wanted to know how they could get their
letter into the NYT. "How can we better communicate with other activists?" I said, "forget the NYT. You're
not going to get your letter into the NYT. Or maybe just to show they're being legitimately for both sides and balanced."
They said: "How can we get on Fox and CNN?" I said "you don't want to be on Fox and CNN. All they're
going to do is give you 20 seconds to legitmate their bias." I refuse to go on CNN for any reason. I turned down the
NYT a few years ago on the grounds it would ruin my journalistic career.
But they'll have endless emails to each other, all complaining about little token dramas like Norm Finkelstein
and his inevitable failure to get tenure in Chicago. The world is not actually about Norm Finkelstein.
I know Norm very well. Norm is a friend of mine.
Q: The
Left-
A: I don't think the left in America want to
win. I think they want to be constantly abused, shouted at- to prove- its the martyrology of American politics. If you actually
gave power to the genuinely moral people in America- who would want to do it? They're not planning on power. They're
not planning on winning for God's sake! You've got to start thinking in terms of the political system. You've
got to start doing something about the democrats and the republicans.
Q:
So- the left in the country has lack of critical thinking? Or the left is not much better than the right or the mainstream
media? What?
A: The problem is- is it doesn't involve
money. What you need is a group of serious philanthropists with money to try starting a serious newspaper. Whether you start
it online or not, I don't know. I think actually most people want real newspapers in their hands. The desire to possess
paper is not gone- thank God. The internet is not making alot of money... I can't name you a single source in America
I'd go to for daily news. What you need is a newspaper online that can't be fucked around with. The trouble online
is the constant drip of error, as well as malicious error. I know of cases where people have had their wikipedia fucked
around with... A newspaper is responsible for what it writes. I've got stuff on the internet, some of them
are urging people to murder me. What am I supposed to do? I can't go to the police. So the internet
already has a bad reputation. Its not a reliable source. What you've
got to have is responsible journalism. What you need is a good newspaper with philanthropic backing. It needs to be
seen as a commerical venture... Not a paper for leftists to whine in. A paper that has been set up to get the fucking truth
of the middle east out... Get after those institutions. The job of journalism is to challenge authority, monitor the centers
of power... Make them hate you! In America, people don't just not challenge authority- they dont challenge newspapers
who've become part of the power nexus. This must not be a leftist
newspaper. This has got to be a free paper, that talks about freedom using the same language of 'freedom'. Bush has
appropriated all the language of 'freedom'. A paper that believes in freedom of information. So many Americans know
they're being lied to. To start a newspaper is very serious shit.
Its not the place where you come to grind your leftist ax. Alot of people drift up out of universities
and they don't understand they're not going to change the world, but they can contribute to it. They can give something
to it as opposed to taking, and putting the crown jewels on their head. You
need a newspaper. You [Americans] need a proper, decent good paper that is well run. You need
to have financial integrity, and its got to have alot of money. And stop trying to lose. Stop secretly praying that your paper
will be a tragic collapse- because it will if you do that.
The following article on Al Manar TV censorship resulted in
my being banned from the CATO Institute's mainstream media aggregator Antiwar.com in August, 2006 due to my "treatment
of Israel". CATO gets much of its funding from the tobacco industry, espouses avid pro-globalist free trade, and is working for the privatisation of social security- among other items.
One of its top columnists, Doug Bandow was hired after being fired from Business Week for taking bribes from 'super-lobbyist'
/ super-Zionist Jack Abramoff. Justin Raimondo defended Antiwar's hiring of Bandow in his editorials. The final paragraphs in the Al Manar piece documenting Israeli instigation of this censorship
were themselves censored by Counterpunch without prior approval. In 1975, the Trilateral Commission propsed prior restraint on the media and the formation of press
councils that would enforce "standards of journalism". By 2004, it seemed 'inevitable' that press censorship would be increasingly applied to those
who espoused uncompromising criticizism of Israel, the USA or corporate interests.
The Trilateral's suggestions were again being debated with renewed
vigor in closed door meetings at the UN in 2005. Little outcry was heard either from the mainstream media, or the 'alternative'
press on the Al Manar precedent and the UN discussions on global press regulation.  Lebanon's Al Manar TV Targeted
Free Press "Marked
for Death"
Muslims Weekly/Tehran Times/Indymedia
by Trish Schuh
July 16, 2006
After years of asymmetric attacks on the First Amendment- assassinating journalists, surveilling dissent, and censoring
the free flow of information- the Democracy Mukhabarat rules. Using national security to prohibit scrutiny or prosecution,
the Bush administration instead labels opposition media as the criminal, declaring the Fourth Estate to be the Fourth Front.
US policy equates 'unfriendly' media with enemy propaganda, declaring both "a weapon of war" and a legitimate
military target.
In 2004, the US government also declared it a Terrorist Organization. Under US Executive Order
12334, Lebanon's Al Manar TV was the first television station ever to be legally designated a 'terrorist entity'
equivalent to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration, at Israel's urging, silenced Al Manar satellite transmissions into the
US. In 2006 the order was expanded to include Al Noor Radio, Al Ahed & Al Intiqad Newspapers and their parent company
the Lebanese Media Group.
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On March 23, the US Treasury Department froze Al Manar's
financial assets. On July 16, after five attempts, the Israeli Defense Forces blew Al Manar up. Eight employees were injured,
but broadcasting continues elsewhere. IDF also bombed Al Noor Radio.
The Lebanese Media Group is affiliated with
the Arab League, the Arab Federation of Journalists and the Union of Arab Audiovisual Media. It complies with Lebanese law
and some of its staff are also democratically elected Ministers in Parliament. The organization has won dozens of awards from
media associations around the world, and Al Manar footage has been shown by such western outlets as Reuters, AP, C-SPAN, BBC,
EuroNews, FOX and CNN.
In Lebanon, each major religious sect has its own broadcasting outlet. But only LMG has
been targeted. LMG's Al Manar TV is the broadcasting outlet for Hezbollah. On April 21, 2006 I asked Lebanese Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora about the distinction. "Well of course we would prefer that all media be treated equally democratic,
but we do not make American laws so I can not comment."
Responding to the State Department 's decision
on December 17, 2004, local and international press demonstrated in Beirut to support Al Manar. The National Audiovisual Media
Council denounced the US decision. Competing MBC TV producer/director Suzen Moussa challenged the decision's fairness,
and Ghassan Hajjar, an Editorial Director for New TV told me: "International law protects the right of free speech equally
to all world press- American, Israeli and Arab. No one has the right to accuse Al Manar of terrorism for speaking their minds."
In America's losing battle for Arab hearts and minds, Al Manar propaganda is as effective as American propaganda
is impotent. Lebanon's Daily Star quoted an estimate that Al Manar has up to 200 million viewers via satellite, correspondents
worldwide, and a nightly news program that often outranks Al Jazeera. It broadcasts in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew.
An American AUB professor in Beirut, Dr. Judith Harik, told me that Al Manar often features video not seen elsewhere. "Many
people here tune into Al Manar whether they are Christian, Druse, Sunnis or what, because Al Manar has very good reporting.
Their analysis is very precise and very well thought out. They're very shrewd, forthright and are taken very seriously."
Especially in Israel. It was Al Manar's Hebrew broadcasts and images of IDF casualties during the occupation
that galvanized Israeli public opinion against the war. The Israeli military had portrayed its losses as minimal, until Al
Manar exposed the toll. Speaking to Adnkronos International, Hezbollah media director Hassan Ezz Eddine summarized the Israeli
response: "We have to watch Al Manar to learn the truth about our boys in Lebanon."
As a "fair
& balanced" Arab TV network, Al Manar TV dubs itself 'the media of resistance' to Israeli and American occupations.
Al Manar's blunt, relentless criticism of US-Israeli policy has been called hate speech and incitement to violence. The
US State Department deems Hezbollah and its TV station, "the A team of terror" and more dangerous than the "B
team Al Qaeda." Ironically, the US-sponsored Tolo TV in Afghanistan regularly features Taliban/Al Qaeda interviews along
with Taliban chanting. Attempts to halt such broadcasts were condemned by the international community as censorship.
In the Haret Hreik district of south Beirut, Al Manar headquarters are in a packed, threadbare neighborhood of family-owned
shops and apartment buildings. The streets are marked by blue and yellow Zakat donation boxes decorated with upturned hands
over an AK-47 raised in the fist of the Shia martyr Hussein, relative of the Prophet Muhammad.
It is the Party
of God's trademark, and it adorns everything from Hezbollah's yellow flags and pennants (Hezbollah owns exclusive
rights to Lebanon's soccer league), to its coffee mugs for sale at area souvenir shops.
In 2005, I visited
Al Manar's high tech offices. The state-of-the-art facilities included an extensive video archives/library, modern recording
studios, sound booths and edit bays. In the Green Room I spoke to Sheikh Khoury Noor Ad Dine of the Hezbollah Political Council.
He denied that the TV station committed atrocities or waged war on civilians. In fact, a large percentage of Al Manar employees
are female. "Hezbollah differs from many Islamic groups in our treatment of women. We believe women have the ability
like men to participate in all parts of life."
From its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah women have headed
education, medical and social service organizations. Most recently Hezbollah nominated several women to run in the Lebanese
elections. It named Wafa Hoteit as a Chief of Al Noor Radio (also recently bombed),
and promoted 37-year old Rima Fakhry to its highest ruling body, the Hezbollah Political Council. Part
of Fakhry's duties include interpreting Islamic feminism in Sharia law for the Committee for Political Analysis.
I asked Sheikh Khoury if Sharia law liberated women to be recruited in the military or as 'suicide bombers'? "Not
now. We don't need it at the present. If we need it in future we would." But the staff at Al Manar has no combat
function. These sisters, daughters and mothers in the mujahedin shoot film, not bullets.
It was an issue I also
raised with Al Manar film editor, Farah Noor Eddine, 30. Ms. Eddine has a B.A. in Journalism. She emphasized that she has
relatives in the US and likes Americans. "Being Hezbollah doesn't mean that you are a military woman or a military
creature. Hezbollah, the 'Party of God' is mentioned in the Qoran. It's a way of thinking or acting. We are ordinary
persons." She is a vegetarian, plays ping pong, but has never fired a gun or seen a 'suicide vest.'
With Israel attacking Beirut, "Radical Islamic Terrorists" are again the demons of US media sensationalism. It
was a charge that exasperated Health News anchor Mariam Karnib, so I asked her to define terrorism. "It is using excessive
force or violence in a way that is not justified. They are calling us terrorist, but I know I am not like this. I was brought
up here. We know our rights. We are not fools."
Ms. Karnib, 29 has a B.A. in Political Science and
a B.A. in Social Science and is now earning a Masters in the Sociology of Communication. I asked her if Hezbollah women
are familiar with the notorious Saudi website, Al Khansaa that trains female jihadis. She was not aware of it, she said, and
when off-duty preferred happier fare. "I love Danielle Steele, Barbara Cartland and Barbara Taylor."
Marian Karnib, Al Manar TV Health News Anchor/Producer
Al Manar TV has been boycotted for inciting violence and suicide attacks against Israel in its MTV-inspired
videos, and "Death to America" is a signature slogan. Ms. Karnib dismissed the idea that Al Manar clips were powerful
enough to produce this result, and felt sloganeering could not be taken seriously. The most effective training for 'militants'
was American cartoons, she explained, which "are filled with alot more violence, terrorism and hatred- and they are aimed
specifically at children." She also criticized video games which promote brutal killings of 'Arab Terrorists'
and 'Muslim fanatics'.
In the game of dueling propaganda, Hezbollah has met its match. Israel's media
features extermination, liquidation and elimination as frequent themes, especially regarding the Palestinians: "those
people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. So if we want
to remain alive we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day. Every day." Jerusalem Post, 5/21/04
More
recently, the Chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party called for Arab Knesset members to be executed. Israel Koenig (from Israel's
Al Hamishmar newspaper): "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social
services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
The Neocon state within a state has orchestrated its
series of "Clean Break" Arab wars via the US-Israeli military/media complex, where the Fourth Estate doubles as
a Fifth Column. According to the The NY Sun, the crusade against Al Manar TV originated with Israel's Natan Sharansky
and former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. The Israeli Defense Forces' Arab Media desk decided its propaganda leafletting
of targeted areas prior to bombing them was inadequate. "Israel must concentrate on Arab media."
On
the US side, Israeli Avi Jorisch wrote a book on Al Manar TV called "Beacon of Hatred" for the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy. It was endorsed by Dennis Ross and used to pressure Congress and the Pentagon (which had not previously
known of the station) to censor Al Manar. The coalition also pressured commerical advertisers to boycott Al Manar.
Anti-Defamation League, CAMERA.org, American Jewish Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies allied with
AIPAC against Al Manar worldwide. The neocon Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) took credit for persuading world
leaders in Germany, Sweden, Australia and France to outlaw Al Manar. The Netherlands and the EU followed suit, and Spain was
coerced into removing Al Manar from Latin American programming. MEMRI has recently announced a new front- France has just
agreed to silence Iran's Al Sahar TV.
This success has emboldened an expanding wish-list of opposition media
"soon to be banned." Like a press version of Daniel Pipe's "Campus Watch", Israel's Foreign Ministry,
the IDF and its US surrogates are blacklisting a number of Arab media- Palestinian TV, Egyptian televsion, Saudi Arabia's
Al Majd and ART TV, and Iran's Al Alam. Bomb attacks on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are well known, and now Al Manar's
facilities have been completely flattened. Both the Committee to Protect Journalists and Repoters Without Borders condemned
the bombing.
The State Department's Counter-Misinformation Office monitors international Arab media. It also
tracks image offenses against Israel under the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act passed by Congress to monitor anti-Jewish
hate speech worldwide. Todd Leventhal, whose propaganda pedigree includes the Pentagon, NSA and the Information Operations
Task Force (renamed after the Office of Strategic Influence closed) allegedly did similar Israeli protection work for the
Voice of America.
In 2005, the Israeli Knesset passed the Global Holocaust-Deniers Bill that criminalizes questions
on the Holocaust. It allows Israel to extradite deniers worldwide for prosecution. It has no statute of limitations. Al Manar
TV's dispute of the Holocaust was one reason for it being declared a terrorist organization.
The Israeli Embassy
refers to John Bolton as "Israel's sixth Ambassador". At Bolton's behest, on September 14, 2005, the
United Nations passed Resolution 1624. According to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Res. 1624 designated Al Manar a
terrorist entity. In 2006 the UN Secretary General distributed a proposal in closed session for a "code of ethics"
for journalists to fight the war on terror. It would ban interviews with 'terrorists', or press reports "that
generate sympathy for terrorist causes." (Should this not include all warmongering?)
On July 16, 2006
I spoke with Al Manar TV editor Ibrahim Moussawi in Beirut. With explosions in the background, he denied American media reports
of a hundred Iranian Revolutionary Guards helping Hezbollah in the south. "Lies- all lies. Israeli propaganda! Why do
you believe this? We have enough of our own Lebanese to fight. We don't need Iran to win!" Al Manar writer/producer
Fatima Berri's words on the propaganda constantly leveled at Hezbollah, and Arabs in general, returned. "It is untrue
information. To use lies, make up information to use against you to adjust to their policy."
Now the policy
has come home. English-language outlet Indymedia challenges established opinion, defends Palestinians and challenges
the Fifth Column media.
On one occasion Indymedia factually documented the varying estimates of Holocaust victims
in a statistical retrospective that compared various estimates of Holocaust casualties.
In March, 2006 Indymedia
was put on the "Terrorist Watch List." As of August, 2008 zionists in the American foreign policy
wing were trying to get Indonesia to ban Al Manar from its Asia-Pacific satellite. Indonesia Communications Minister
Mohammed Nuh has so far refused to comply.
The precedent for censorship of views that offend Israel was first legalized by
the successful censorship of Al Manar TV in 2004. Expect to see more 'targets' in future, due to an
ever-expanding list of reasons. We are all the media now. US
Rep. seeks to blacklist Press TV
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 Press TV
A US lawmaker is seeking to extend
a previously-proposed resolution which labels several TV channels as terrorist and include Press TV.
The US House
Resolution 1308 sponsored by Republican US Representative Gus Bilirakis would blacklist several TV channels, including the
Tehran-based Arabic language satellite channel al-Alam, as 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' (SDGT) organizations.
The bill, introduced on June 26, aims to condemn what the lawmaker calls the broadcast of 'incitement to violence'
against Americans in Middle Eastern media.
Bilirakis claimed that as Iranian state-run TV channels broadcast 'the
coverage of rallies and speeches in which Iranian leaders, clerics, children, and mass audience have declared 'Death to
America!'' they are broadcasting incitement of violence against Americans.
He then reasoned that if the
broadcast of the designated networks is not brought to a halt, it 'may increase the risk of radicalization and recruitment
of Americans' into terrorist organizations.
In the year since Press TV's launch, the channel has gained
a reputation as a satellite channel which, in its news coverage and talk shows, including Four Corners, Middle East Today,
and Fine Print, gives voice to people with viewpoints differing from that of the Iranian government.
Guests on
live Press TV shows include pro-US figures and those against the Tehran government.
The move is expected to spark
controversy as many human rights groups and advocates view the resolution as a blatant example of censorship and an infringement
of freedom of speech.
The resolution will also compel the president to 'take into consideration state sponsorship
of anti-American incitement to violence when determining the level of assistance to, and frequency and nature of relations
with, regional states'.
The H.R. 1308 is currently in the first step of legislative process, pending investigation
and revision by House committees before general debate on Congress floor.
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