printThanks to reader Dr. Frank Zavisca for sending a link to what appears to be an endorsement here of the arrest of “Javed Iqbal, suspected al-Manar TV agent,” for broadcasting al-Manar television from his home.
According to the New York Times, Iqbal’s
“house and storefront were raided by federal agents, and Mr. Iqbal charged with providing customers services that included satellite broadcasts of a television station controlled by Hezbollah — a violation of federal law.
Yesterday, Mr. Iqbal was arraigned in Federal District Court in Manhattan and was ordered held in $250,000 bail. The Hezbollah station, Al Manar — or ‘the beacon’ in Arabic — was designated a global terrorist entity by the United States Treasury Department in March of this year. Hezbollah was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997.”
Al-Manar, as footage provided by Michelle Malkin clearly demonstrates, is unadulterated, vicious propaganda — a one-stop shop for every anti-Semitic canard in the book. However, and as Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit notes, “There’s a pretty good argument that this sort of prosecution violates the First Amendment.”
Although “The Beacon” does appear to be far and away worse than MTV, reader Frank’s libertarian (American) instincts are alive and well: “If you believe in freedom of speech,” he writes, “you would have to support [the right to access this channel].”
The notion that government (often pressured by sectional interests) should decide what speech Americans access is offensive and un-American, although it’s in the best of European and Canadian traditions, where the state has long since adjudicated speech. That Americans have accepted government’s role in screening such subject matter is even more disturbing.
Compiled by Malkin for “Hot-Air,” the horrible segments al-Manar broadcasts are indeed atavistic — a medieval throwback. But it’s good for people to see this stuff for themselves.
Avi Jorisch, author of “Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s al-Manar Television,” warns that “al-Manar’s programming puts American lives at risk, both in Iraq and elsewhere, and hinders the prospects for peace and stability throughout the region.” Jorisch wants Washington to “expand its efforts to alter or silence the station’s message.”
Most Americans will recognize al-Manar’s message for what it is. That we have a sizeable community in the US that believes or is open to this message — that Jews use Muslim children’s blood to make matzoth, or that Israel was behind 9/11 — is a separate matter, to be tackled through immigration policies, not by limiting American liberties.
We have been practicing censorship in this country for years. Go to any school library and look for a copy of Huckleberry Finn or a biography of Robert E. Lee. You won’t find one. You can probably find a bio of Fidel Castro or Spike Lee. I’m just amazed that we actually want to censor The Beacon. Unadulterated, vicious anti-israel and probably anti-US propaganda are usually at the top of those civil liberties that any Ivy League trained lawyer worth his or her sheep skin would defend to the death.
Where’s the ACLU? I can’t believe they’re not all over this one.
All that said, I am against censorship in all it’s forms. Certainly, young children should be protected by older and wiser people but beyond that, if someone wants it out there, let it be out there. The readers/watchers must decide whether it’s a message or trash.
This brings to mind a conversation I had with a Jewish girl some years ago. She was describing the humiliating (to her) experience of having had a professor who made her read Mein Kampf. She was going on about how he had made her read “that madman” and was somewhat taken aback when I told her, “I’m with him, you ought to read it. And I don’t think Hitler was a madman, at least at first – he was an evil man. There’s a difference.”
During World War II the great Frank Capra was given the job of creating propaganda (in the neutral sense of the term) for the American people, to explain the reasons for the war and its objectives. He made the daring and controversial suggestion that they show our people the propaganda of our enemies, excerpts from The Truimph of the Will et. al.
As one who believes that our civilization is at war, whether we like it or not, I say we need to look at what our enemies are saying and take them seriously when they tell us what they are going to do to us.
That being said, I have to add that I don’t object in principle to preventing our enemies from operating on our territory. But as a practical matter, it makes sense from a number of perspectives to allow them to propagandize freely. Firstly, it displays a confidence in our culture that they may sneer at, but have to find unnerving on some level. And secondly, if we don’t drive them underground then we know where they are when we need to find them.
We should not censor this stuff (or anything else) in America. It’s terror, it’s not tolerant…yada…yada..BS. It is free speech. All this does is get us off the REAL SUBJECT MATTER.
Why would we let Muslims migrate to this country? They all have the desire to watch this nonsense and the tendency to believe it. The vast majority of Muslims I grew up around watch this stuff incessantly on the Internet etc.
I am an expert on Muslims. I have a practical PhD in Islam. I grew up in Dearborn MI [and myself in the Middle-East]. Nothing going on these days with Muslims has caught me off guard. These fools that think they can ‘change Islam’ and make it a ‘play nice’ religion are naive at best. They are the equivalent of the poor women who gets abused by her husband and still thinks she can change him and make him play nice. These women usually end up dead. Tolerance is death and we deserve what WE tolerate.
And if you disagree with me. You can always move to a growing Muslim area and live around them and let your kids go to school with them for a couple decades. Please do not post about some nice Muslim named Abdul that you met at some cultural awareness festival. That is a con 8 times out of 10. Islam is a religion of peace??? Where??? I have never seen it. Someone show me where on this planet that religion is peaceful. As soon as a country hits critical mass (the point at witch Jihad becomes an Obligation to Muslims. Yes JIHAD is an OBLIGATION to all Muslims)……you will have massive problems. Why should we put Western Civilization in this kind of kind of danger? They cannot in any way carry on our culture or traditions.
Let us vote—or have a referendum—on the matter of immigration from Islamic countires. After all, America is a democracy (or it was).