Film on "Radical Islam" Tied to Pro-Israel Groups
WASHINGTON, Mar 26 (IPS) - A controversial documentary on the threat of radical Islam, promoted by the two most-watched U.S. cable news networks, was marketed and supported in part by self-described "pro-Israel" groups, according to an IPS investigation.
Abbreviated versions and segments of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" ran on FOX News and CNN, but neither station disclosed the film's connection to HonestReporting, a watchdog group that monitors the media for allegedly negative portrayals of Israel.
HonestReporting marketed "Obsession" but denies it produced or funded the project.
"We initially gave some guidance to the 'Obsession' staff," wrote Pesach Bensen, editor of Mediabackspin.com, the organisation's weblog, in an email response to IPS. "We're thrilled to see it succeed beyond our wildest expectations."
When "Obsession" was released last year, news pundits and anchors on FOX and CNN praised the independent film for its candid look at Islamic militancy. FOX incorporated footage from the film into a one-hour special, which aired seven times in November 2006. CNN's right-wing pundit Glen Beck called it "one of the most important films of our time". Sean Hannity of FOX News described it as "shocking beyond belief".
While such enthusiasm from right-wing talk show personalities comes as no surprise, mainstream cable news programmes also appeared to accept, without question, the premise of the film, which explicitly compares the threat posed by radical Islam to that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Consider, for example, CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips's exhortations during an adulatory interview in December 2006 with Raphael Shore, the film's producer: "I encourage everybody to see this movieà you definitely get an incredible education from watching this filmà The movie left many of us speechlessà We appreciate what you've done."
HonestReporting was founded in 2000 by British university students who objected to what they considered anti-Israel coverage by European media in response to the second Palestinian intifada.
There is no mention of HonestReporting's connection to "Obsession" on the film's website, www.obsessionthemovie.com. In an online "Ask the Filmmakers" segment on the FOX News website, Shore stated that he could not identify the film's funders for fear of retaliation by the "radicals" the filmmakers exposed.
Brian Gaffney, executive producer of the FOX News Documentary Unit, declined to comment on whether HonestReporting's connection was disclosed to the audience, or whether FOX was aware of the organisation's ideological perspective.
"There is no mistaking that this was a film with a clear point of view," Gaffney wrote in an email to IPS. "Its forceful case against Radical Islam spoke for itself."
In the case of CNN, which ran segments of the film in the context of a joint interview with Shore and cast member Nonie Darwish, it appears that producers were unaware of the connection.
"I was told that HonestReporting was not involved with this film," said CNN spokeswoman Megan Mahoney.
Any relation between HonestReporting and "Obsession" is also missing on the film's website, but the organisation's name does appear at the end of the film's credits. In addition, a call for tax-deductible donations to help "launch" the film appeared on HonestReporting's website, promising a free DVD of "Obsession" upon release. Contributors of 250 dollars or more were promised a free copy of the book "Israel: Life in the Shadow of Terror". An entry on Mediabackspin.com, the organisation's weblog, also describes HonestReporting as a "proud partner" of the film.
"Obsession" features interviews with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, investigative journalist Steve Emerson, Itimar Marcus of Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch, and Daniel Pipes, a controversial scholar of medieval Islamic history whose website campuswatch.com sparked criticism in 2002 for its alleged McCarthyesque attacks on Middle East studies professors.
Its production credits include the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, a translation service founded in 1998 by Col. Yigal Carmon, who spent more than 20 years in Israeli intelligence and later advised two Israeli prime ministers; and the Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group founded by Marcus, that monitors Palestinian news organisations for alleged anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
"Obsession", for all its fans, has engendered contentious debate on U.S. university campuses not only for its disquieting barrage of video footage culled from the Arab media, but also for the film's distribution network.
According to the New York Times, when a Middle East discussion group organised a screening at New York University earlier this year, distributors of the film required those in attendance to register at IsraelActivism.com, the official website of the Hasbara fellowships.
The programme, also known as the Jerusalem fellowships, was started in 2001 by Aish Hatorah -- an Orthodox Jewish outreach organisation and yeshiva based in East Jerusalem -- in conjunction with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to its website, the group "educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists on their campuses" by providing its participants with "tools, resources and confidence to return to their campuses as leaders in the fight for Israel's image."
Aish Hatorah helped found HonestReporting. Rabbi Ephraim Shore, the president of HonestReporting, also helped found Hasbara.
According to the St. Louis Dispatch, a summer screening of "Obsession" in St. Louis was sponsored by the local branch of Aish Hatora and featured a post-film discussion with Walid Shoebat, an ex-Palestine Liberation Organisation militant who was interviewed in the film. In the summer of 2006, Shoebat, a convert to evangelical Christianity, also spoke at the "Night to Honour Israel," a three-day event presented by Pastor John Hagee's Christians United for Israel, a lobby group that aims to mobilise Christian Zionists as a political force, according to the San Antonio Express.
While watching the film, it becomes clear that the controversy surrounding "Obsession" has less to with what it says about the threat of radical Islam, than how it presents the information. While the film contains disclaimers stating that "it's important to remember most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror," critics argue that it makes little distinction between the religion of Islam and the political realities that inform terrorism.
"It's all part of that industry of Muslim bashers," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"The sentiment is there, you can see in the [1995] Oklahoma City bombing that it was originally seen as an act of Islamic terrorism," said Peter Hart of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "It's almost a default position for the media, so you're going to have work like this received uncritically."
The Oklahoma City bombing, initially attributed by the mainstream media to Islamic terrorists, was actually perpetrated by right-wing extremists from the U.S. midwest.
The film's director, Wayne Kopping, argues that it aims to uncover the mixed messages propagated by radical Islamists in the Muslim world, who moderate their voices only when they speak in Western media outlets.
"Children in the Arab world are... breastfed on a diet of hatred for the West. Not only that -- the entire culture is permeated with it," said Kopping in a FOX interview. "The question is what are they [the spokespeople] saying in their own language, on their own TV stations to their own people. That's when you really hear what they think, and they call for jihad."
By Khody Akhavi
I've come to expect from zionists.
These people are shameless.
Using the Crescent for the "O" in the word Obsession is downright diabolical.
This is precisely why I think it's a mistake to adopt any symbol to represent Islam - because it can be twisted and loaded with negative connotations by diabolical spinmasters like zionists.
It's the work of the devil and it's effects are contagious.
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"Money" has no value - people do.
This is what is so amazing...they get away with it brazenly. If we do the same to the Zionists we are branded racists or something else.
Even on supposedly Muslim sites this happens. I have been banned until the 30th of March just for saying exactly the sorts of things people say on this blog all the time.
http://forum.mpacuk.org/search.php?searchid=602714
(I was racist and I posted racist links!)
Muslims like Hamza Yusuf in the US have to tow the Zionist line if they want to be able to reach people...if they alianate the Zionists they are 'shut down' and 'silenced'.
Zionists are doomed to fail...when the fall comes it will be massive, the only worry is they will want to take everyone with them, with their Nuclear Weapons they may desroy the whole planet.
Hi leftfield, you know Arabic, do you? You remember a couple of days ago, we've been shown clips from 'A TV Channel near Hamas' interviewing the children of a suicide palestinian woman. The English subtitled dialogues potrayed an appalling conversation between the interviewer and the kids, asking the kids how many Jews did mama kill with her act, the kids showing a number with their fingers (probably their own age!), etc. The TV Channel broadcasting the interview - with its own English subtitles - was a memritv.org or memntv.org or something. Could you investigate what the children and the interviewer were really saying, please? I'm sure the English translation was faked by the broadcasters.
Thanks, history_worm
is non existent maybe someone else can help? I converted to Islam and English is my mother tongue.
MEMRI are notorious for mistranslations. It is run by some neo-Cons and a former Israeli 'retired' general.
One-sided news items if watched for long periods is dangerous to ones mental state..it can really distort reality and cause confusions.
I would not be too surprised if Palestinians do hate their occupiers from a young age....I imagine having ones family killed, property destroyed and nation generally terrorised by Jewish Zionists cannot be conducive to 'peaceful' co-existence. Moreover the Zionists themselves breed hatred and hold extreme supremist views about themselves...such an attitude is hostile to non Jews.
Can anyone expand on MEMRI? What is this memritv.org site? Can anyone help debunk the memritv mistranslation of the palestinian kids' interview?
Thanks, history_worm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,773258,00.ht...
Note: The Guardian UK newspaper can be quite critical of Zionists sometimes.
Examples of Mistranslations:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15948.htm
Quote from the last link:
Last week the Israeli website Ynet interviewed Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli citizen and co-founder of MEMRI, a service translating Arab leaders’ speeches that is widely suspected of having ties with Israel’s security services. She is also the wife of David Wurmser, a senior neocon adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Meyrav Wurmser revealed that the American Administration had publicly dragged its feet during Israel’s assault on Lebanon because it was waiting for Israel to expand its attack to Syria.
“The anger [in the White House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians … The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space … They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its [Iran’s] strategic and important ally [Syria] should be hit.”
Wurmser continued: “It is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country. If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran that it would have weakened it and [changed] the strategic map in the Middle East.”
As for the peice you mention specificly I hope someone can help.
Shortly after 9/11.....
Within just a day, the news was broadcasting Palestinians dancing in celebration to the horror of 9/11. It was the same 30 second film clip shown over and over again for about 5 days. An elderly lady with glasses, smiling, her arms raised, she was dancing, and some children around her running here and there shouting and jumping.
Then this film mysteriously disappeared after the 4rth or 5th day of viewing.
If it had been true, the zionist media would have really run away with it, printed magazine covers of hateful Palestinians, newspapers, etc.
But this film clip was used with impunity and for such a brazen lie. The truth was, the Palestinian people were celebrating a Muslim holiday. The film clip was dated and some zionist jellybots decided to taint the image of Palestinians further with more of their vicious and sneaky lying, by pulling out this piece of film and claiming it was something it wasn't. And obviously this had to have been planned.
HOW SICK.
It's okay to toss Ernst Zundel and David Irving into putrid jail cells for simply doing research, but the zionist movement can lie viciously with impunity and slander a whole people with no regrets, no remorse.
After all.....
This film clip was at their disposal to make use of it which ever they deemed fit for their agendas.
Nevermind that it would be impossible for film crews to be in Palestine so quickly, just hours after 9 A.M. to film this 9/11 "celebration"......and how would they have known?
It's not easy to get into the territories, "israel" makes sure of that.
Yeah, I know 9/11 was planned and implemented by neo-con zionist KKKhazars, therefore they could have had film crews set up in Gaza or the Westbank - BUT. Too many complications. How would they know how the Palestinians would have really reacted?
Don't forget what the Palestinians already know.....everytime there is a major catastrophe somewhere on this planet, the Palestinians know all too well, "israel" will send its "courageous" boys to slaughter excessively and intensely [more so than usual] - why? Because the world has its attention elsewhere. Remember Jenin and Ramallah, among other atrocities.
I hardly believe the Palestinians had anything to celebrate about 9/11.
But the ADC looked into the film footage and found out the networks had lied, as the ADC wanted proof of when this was filmed and by who.
That's when the film disappeared and no more mention was made of the "celebrating" Palestinians of 9/11.
NO apologies, no righting a horrible wrong from the media to the Arabic people.
After all, the zionist-KKKhazars want the Iraqi people dead and their oil/resources, too.
Hi guys, I've been traveling for 10days, no PCs.
This Obsession video is typical Zionist propaganda. All the biggest Zionist Muslim-bashers are involved (Dershowitz, Piper, Emerson, MEMRI, HonestReporting, etc etc).
Note that before Americans knew of the fabricated concept of 'Islamic terror', Emerson made a documentary purporting Muslims in America to be dangerous potential terrorists. This got lots of attention, and psychologically prepared people to accept the 'Muslim terrorist' theory behind the first WTC bombing (which was actually perpetrated by a combo of FBI, Egyptian intel, Mossad, and Kahane's group).
Obsession is a continuation of this propaganda, and the reasons are simple:
Who are the most direct victims of Israel/Zionism? - Arabs/Muslims.
Who are the biggest resisters and obstacles of Zionism? - Arabs/Muslims.
Therefore who must be demonised in the eyes of the West to bring the 'West' in as allies of Zionism against these people? - Arabs/Muslims.
History-worm, gimme the source for the video, I speak Arabic and will check the translation.
BTW, MEMRI is Zionist propaganda from the beginning. They sift throughloads of Arab media, pick out the ones that sound the worst, usually out of context, sometimes mistranslated, present it as irrational hate, and say: 'look how evil they are!'
Arabs 'breastfed on a diet of hate'? Crap! That implies that the hate is something in our mothers' very essence! I guess it's all the Arabs' fault, Israel's crimes have nothing to do with this genetic hate. Na-ah. Nope.
Yaaaaawn.
Didn't see the clip in Internet, sorry, so I don't have any original clip. What I saw were photograms of the clip reported in many newspapers and the clip repeated on TV news programs in the Zionist-controlled West. That was Thursday March 22 and Friday 23, 2007. The photograms and clip seen on newspapers and TV had translation subtitles in English and the label 'translated by memritv.org' on top. So I guess one can find the clip from the site memritv.org (?).
It would be just great to debunk this one, MonkeyZerg!
I think it's the first one on the list here:
http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S1
(on previewing the comment, the linki keeps taking me to the main page. To find it, search in their site for:
#1398, or 'Children of Palestinian Suicide Bomber Rim Al-Riyashi on Hamas TV: Mama Killed Five Jews and She Is in Paradise')
The station is NOT Hamas TV (it's called Al-Aqsa, which was started under Fateh, run mostly by them), Hamas is the current enemy that's all.
I have to say that the translation was generally accurate relating to what was being said. Apparently the children's mother died in a suicide attack (or martyrdom operation, if you support the tactic) against Israel, and was being honoured as a martyr. Her kids were asked where their mother was (they responded 'in heaven'), what did mom do (they said, died as a martyr), and the presenter also asked if they knew 'how many Jews' she killed in her operation (boy responds with 5 raised fingers and says five).
I find it pretty bad involving kids, and find it tasteless asking them on tv about heavy issues they don't fully grasp. However that's the reality in occupied Palestine.
If we fall for Zionist propaganda, Palestinians are irrational, suicidal/homicidal religious fanatics who kill Jews for the sake of killing Jews. Put these kids' mother's action in the context of the Israeli occupation, and it all looks different.
I recommend the documentary Arna's Children, to show how Palestinian kids under occupation are affected by it, (it follows a group of friends, some of whom become resistance fighters, others martyrdom fighters, others avoid conflict, etc, and shows some of the factors driving them.)
Palestinians have been brutalized and treated like animals, and some lash out brutally as well. Growing up in an atmosphere of constant pressure, humiliation, destruction, and death, it's not surprising that communities living in these conditions praise those who die fighting back, and honour their memory among their children and others.
Note: through Palestinian eyes, the Jewish occupiers are referred to as 'Jews' not because of some Palestinian 'antisemitism'. It's simple, Palestinian Arabs see the conflict between themselves and foreign 'jews'. The term Israeli includes 'Israeli'(1948) Arabs, so isn't used by Gaza/WB Palestinians when referring to their Zionist oppressors. They see the conflict being between ethnic Arabs and ethnic 'Jews' (identify themselves as such).
This diabolical propaganda is extraordinarily effective and we ignore it at our own peril.
We need to start making a coordinated effort to fight this cancer before the conflict starts boiling over to the rest of the world.
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"Money" has no value - people do.
This seems like a good site for understanding Palestinians.
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2004/08/arnas_last_chil.html
Bear in mind also that many of them have been brutalized, and in many cases manipulated by their own leadership, suicide should Never be an option especially for a mother of small children. There is something very wrong if a mother does this, and it should have taken at least one sane person to stop her, or to talk her out of it.
(i feel a bit of a fraud sitting in comfort in the UK and have little inkling on how they must feel).....but the fact is Islam is not a suicide cult....it is about fighting the enemy. The enemy is powerful and the biggest military power in the world, but Muslims can unite and fight against the enemy like a well formed rank all supporting each other....the path towards this and the methods are not suicide of the young...maybe the Palestinians should abandon their land and do 'Hijra' regroup and reform a powerful resistance from another area in the region.
"I find it pretty bad involving kids, and find it tasteless asking them on tv about heavy issues they don't fully grasp. However that's the reality in occupied Palestine."
This time we must condemn the Palestinians for bringing the kids of a suicide woman on a TV show. We can understand and sympathise with their situation, but there's no excuse for interviewing kids of a dead soldier-mother of a kind and making it as if blowing up the enemy as well as oneself is a normal thing to do. The Palestinians this time have been shooting themselves in the foot. Very disappointing. Thanks MZ.