NYC Letter: Broadcasting A Root Cause Of Terrorism

It used to be received wisdom that a root cause of terrorism was poverty and by implication the West was self-condemned by its own prosperity. Yet the burakumin have managed redress without terror. The dalits have steadily improved their miserable lot without beheadings. The hapless and destitute boat people bootstrapped their fortunes without car bombs. But don't take our word for it, there's a Harvard study that makes the same point with footnotes.

In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there.

We think a root cause of terrorism is, well, inciting people to acts of terror. Person A convinces Person B to blow up Person(s) C, which Person B hurries off to do or is intent on doing before some self-immolating embarrassment. The causality is just so damn palpable.

So the challenge for Person A becomes acquiring Person B's attention, which brings us to Al-Manar (the "The Beacon") TV.

Al-Manar TV is Hezbollah TV, or as Ariel Cohen at TCS puts it, "All Intifada, All the Time":

Al Manar, however, makes al Jazeera look like PBS. ... Al Manar constantly calls upon the "Arab masses" to "mobilize" and "resist" the U.S. presence in Iraq and elsewhere, while it glorifies murder-suicide bombings against civilians in Israel. ... In fact, according to Hizballah, it is the U.S. and Israel which are "terrorist states" whereas

"jihad, resistance, martyrdom... is actually removing terrorism. Humanity will not be blessed without removing America's type of terrorism...We have to continue our jihad in all different types in order to save humanity from the (American) terrorist thinking."

Here's a Hezbollah program guide.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies gives a detailed report on Hezbollah's puzzle-box arrangements for Al-Manar TV "broadcasts preaching to terrorism and anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement" beamed to the great big world, which brings us to France.

Last November Al-Manar applied to the Conseil Supérieur Audiovisuel (i.e., French Higher Audiovisual Council , "CSA"), France's broadcasting regulator, for a broadcast license and promised to play nice:

"We are ready to respect French law and will submit to it," [station chief] Mohammed Haidar told Thursday's edition of the conservative Paris daily Le Figaro. "We have agreed to be bound by the agreement required of us" by the CSA.

Now granted, the EU would not come around to pronouncing Hezbollah a terrorist organization till March 10 of 2005. This non-binding resolution (the weakest of weak teas) had been long delayed by a successful French campaign of dithering over a distinction between Hezbollah's political and military wings. A distinction that, outside of the French mind, does not exist.

Muhammad Fannish, a member of the Political Bureau of Hezbollah, told al-Manar Television in January 2002 that "no differentiation is to be made between the military wing and the political wing of Hezbollah."

It has never been a mystery what Hezbollah is up to, yet thoughtful Jack concluded that "the time was not right" to properly recognize Hezbollah for what it is and does.

Against cautions and alarms and all the expectations of the established evidence, CSA granted Al-Manar a broadcast license. Shortly after Al-Manar broadcast this:

Less than ten days after Hezbollah’s “al-Manar” television station was permitted to broadcast in France, one of its commentators has stirred uproar after he accused Israel of “repeated attempts in the past several years to spread AIDS throughout the Arab world”.

The commentator, who was defined as an expert on the “Zionist entity”, described at length how Israel has been trying to spread dangerous diseases, including AIDS, in the Arab world.

Then-PM Raffarin politely bleated that Al-Manar be banned:

"Al-Manar's programmes are incompatible with our values. It is clear they will lead to the termination of the contract between the CSA and Al-Manar."

What follows is a predictable cascade of headlines:

FRENCH REGULATORS WANT AL-MANAR TV OFF AIR

PARIS, November 30, 2004 (AFP) - Communication Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told parliament he hoped the station, Al-Manar, would be taken off the [Eutelsat S.A.] satellite "very soon" ... The move to cancel the licence - which the CSA gave to the Al-Manar station less than two weeks ago - came after several "serious defaults regarding the contractual agreements" to which the channel is subject, the CSA said in a statement.

AL-MANAR TV BLASTS 'ZIONIST' PLOT TO TAKE IT OFF AIR
December 2, 2004 (AFP)

FRENCH MEDIA BODY MOVES AGAINST AL-MANAR TV

PARIS, December 7, 2005 (AFP) - French media authorities Tuesday launched a procedure against Lebanese television channel Al-Manar... The CSA addressed a letter to the president of the Lebanese Communication Group, which controls Al-Manar, quoting remarks broadcast by the station last Thursday which it described as "liable to constitute incitement to hatred or violence."

FRENCH COURT TO RULE ON AL-MANAR TV BAN
December 11, 2004 (AFP)

FRENCH COURT ORDERS END TO AL-MANAR BROADCASTS

PARIS December 14, 2005 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told television station France 2 that "we must respect" the court's ban... Al-Manar late Monday issued a statement claiming the ban was the result of Israeli pressure "following a political campaign by the Zionist lobby in France."

It said "the ban constitutes an attack on freedom of expression, a denial of the principles espoused by France and a dangerous precedent in France's attitude towards Arab media."

The head of Lebanon's broadcast regulator, Abdel Hadi Mahfouz, last Friday warned he would look at imposing reciprocal bans on French media transmitting into Lebanon if Al-Manar was taken off Eutelsat.

Sure enough.

BEIRUT CABLE COMPANIES DUMP FRENCH CHANNEL

BEIRUT December 20, 2004 (AFP) - About 50 private cable operators in Beirut have stopped the distribution of French channel TV5 in solidarity with Al-Manar, the mouthpiece of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah banned by France.

And that was where we left France's weak-wristed response to her willing assent as a tool of Hezbollah. Until we read this:

FRANCE TELECOM ACCUSED OF HELPING HEZBOLLAH

PARIS, July 20, 2005 (AFP) - The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish lobby group, on Wednesday accused France Telecom of helping Al-Manar television, the mouthpiece of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, to broadcast in Asia and Latin America.

The centre...said in a statement that France Telecom subsidiary Globecast was providing Al-Manar to Latin America through Spanish satellite provider Hispasat.

In Asia, the Wiesenthal Center said that Globecast was at fault for using Asiasat to offer Al-Manar programming.

Now a world that hasn't defined terrorism, or rather is dead set against such a definition, or consigns terrorism to a matter of semantical tastes, is a world full of shocks -- SHOCKS! -- where everyone can safely pretend they had no idea that terrorists were about. We do not ask for France to love Israel. We do not ask that France love the Jews, though we do expect her to protect those in her care. No. We only ask that France stop pretending she is shocked.

We only ask that France and her like-minded chums stop pretending.

Posted by Damian at August 4, 2005 01:00 PM