 The US House of Representatives Tuesday adopted a bill asking the US president to report to Congress on incitement to anti-American violence on television networks in the Middle East. Lawmakers adopted the measure in a decisive 395-3 vote. The bill asks the US president to report, six months after the text has passed, "on anti-American incitement to violence in the Middle East, and for other purposes." "For years, media outlets in the Middle East have repeatedly published or broadcast incitements to violence against the United States and Americans," the bill read. "Given the dangers such incitement poses to American soldiers and civilians in the ... region and at home, it is long past time for the US and other responsible nations to stop this growing threat," said Republican Gus Bilirakis, author of the bill. It calls for punitive measures for networks deemed to be fueling terror. Among the networks mentioned are al-Aqsa, Hamas' television station, which broadcasts from Gaza, and Hezbollah's al-Manar. The US Senate has yet to weigh in on the issue. YNet 
 Anne Frank's diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by the terror group Hezbollah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism. The row erupted after Hezbollah learned excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews. "What is even more dangerous is the dramatic, theatrical way in which the diary is emotionally recounted," said the report aired last week and also published on the station's website. It questioned how long Lebanon would "remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education." A member of the school board, Jimmy Shoufani, told AFP the school dropped the textbook from its curriculum after the controversy erupted. He asked that the school not be identified. Hezbollah officials could not reached for comment. In the Al-Manar report, party MP Hussein Hajj Hassan had criticized the school for showing poor judgment in picking out its textbooks. "These respected, established schools are teaching the so-called tragedy this girl lived, and yet they are ashamed to teach the tragedy of the Lebanese people, the tragedy of the Palestinian people... the tragedy of the people of the south under the hands of Zionist occupation," he told Al-Manar. Paris-based organization Aladdin's Project, which fights Holocaust denial and first translated Anne Frank's diary into Arabic, issued a statement condemning Hezbollah's "intimidation campaign." Hezbollah fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in 2006. It has since refused to surrender its weapons arguing they are necessary to fight Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. The militant party last month also took aim at another textbook used in a leading private school in Beirut in which Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are referred to as "terrorist organizations". The chapter in question is usually blanked out by Lebanon's censorship bureau, but an uncensored copy purchased by a student abroad apparently sparked the uproar.
HEZBOLLAH’S TV station, twice banned in Australia for supporting terrorism, has been given permission to broadcast into this country after an investigation found it did not breach the anti-terrorism standard. The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) decision on the Lebanese-based al-Manar TV station, announced yesterday, outraged Jewish groups, which said they were less concerned with the station promoting terrorism than its "vicious anti-Semitism". Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Muslim party, is banned in the United States as a terrorist organisation, but only its armed wing is proscribed in Australia. Its TV programs endorse suicide bombers, call for Israel’s annihilation, and refer to Jews as the offspring of pigs and apes. More ...Source: Andrew BoltH/T: Gramfan
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced New Jersey resident Saleh Elahwal to 17 months in prison for providing material support to the terrorist organization Hizballah. Elahwal pled guilty in December to aiding the broadcasts of Al-Manar, a Hizballah-operated television channel which produces hate programming like this. Elahwal's attorney, Edward Sapone, seemed relieved at the sentence and acknowledged that providing satellite access and technological help to a terrorist organization like Hizballah is not activity protected by the First Amendment. In December Elahwal admitted that during 2005 and 2006 he helped provide satellite transmission services for Al-Manar. Elahwal and co-conspirator Javed Iqbal received $112,000 from Al-Manar through HDTV Limited, a Brooklyn company they operated. Iqbal also pleaded guilty in December to providing material support to Hizballah and was sentenced to 69 months in prison. Read more about Elahwal and Iqbal's guilty pleas here. Read more ...Source: IPT BlogSaleh Elahwal
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
  By Mark Dubowitz and Roberta Bonazzi Their propaganda notwithstanding, Hamas and, two years ago, Hezbollah suffered devastating military defeats that may diminish their ability to attack Israel with rocket fire. But these Iranian-backed terrorist organizations are deploying another dangerous weapon in their war against Western democracies -- terrorist television stations. Thanks to Arab satellite companies, Hezbollah's al-Manar and Hamas's al-Aqsa TV stations can still beam their incitement and hatred into European living rooms, radicalizing Muslim immigrants throughout the Continent. Al-Manar, however, is not a mere propaganda tool. Founded in 1991 by Hezbollah guerillas, it is an operational weapon in the hands of a deadly terrorist organization. Following a 2006 letter to then-President George W. Bush signed by a majority of the U.S. Senate, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Treasury Department designated al-Manar as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. This designation placed, for the first time, a media outlet on the same terrorism list as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah itself. Read more ...Source: WSJ - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123490878778903321.html H/T: Europe News
 The European Foundation for Democracy (EFD) applauds the French broadcasting authority Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) for issuing a broadcast ban of al-Aqsa TV, the satellite television of the EU-listed terrorist organisation Hamas.
According to the order, al-Aqsa TV “violates article 15 of the French media law of 30 September 1986 which prohibits all forms of incitement to hatred or violence on the ground of race, religion or nationality”. Al-Aqsa TV has been broadcast into Europe by Atlantic Bird 4, owned by the French satellite provider Eutelsat.
“We commend the French broadcasting authority for implementing European audiovisual law and standing up against inflammatory broadcasts that incite terrorism,” said Roberta Bonazzi, Executive Director of the European Foundation for Democracy.
“Incitement to violence is not protected by free speech and terrorists should not be permitted to hide behind the facade of media and abuse European democracy to promote terrorism. We are confident that Eutelsat will take all necessary measures to comply with the ban,” Bonazzi continued.
Al-Aqsa TV and Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV, after which al-Aqsa is modeled, promote Jihadism and violent ideologies, indoctrinate their audiences with hate, incite terrorism and glorify suicide bombers. They spread viciously anti-Semitic propaganda, and call for attacks against the West.
Al-Aqsa TV continues to be available in Europe via Arabsat, whose largest shareholder is Saudi Arabia. “European governments and citizens should demand that Arabsat drop al-Aqsa TV from its offering,” says Alexander Ritzmann, EFD’s Senior Terrorism Analyst. “Hamas’ al-Aqsa TV and Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV are radicalizing Muslims in Europe. Their broadcasts of children dressed as suicide bombers practicing attacks - instructing them that they will be rewarded for these attacks - will raise a generation who view terrorism as legitimate behaviour.”
In a recent typical broadcast, a radical cleric used al-Aqsa TV to promote jihad in Europe. He proclaimed in a May 2008 unedited broadcast without opposing views that “Spain – Andalusia – is also the land of Islam. Islamic lands that were occupied by the enemies will once again become Islamic. We will reach beyond these countries. We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once, and as it will be conquered again. We will rule the world, as has been said by the Prophet Muhammad. We will face a battlefront that is broader and stronger. Its beginnings were in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in Chechnya. What has begun will be completed. It will not stop.”
Al-Aqsa TV and al-Manar TV offer live internet streaming of their programmes and are distributed by other internet services, making them available around the world. New EU-wide legislation on combating terrorism, adopted on 28 November, prohibits the “distribution, or otherwise making available, of a message to the public, with the intent to incite terrorism.” This particularly applies to the internet. EFD calls on all European internet service providers to cease their relationships with all terrorist media, including al-Aqsa TV and al-Manar TV.
Al-Manar TV was removed from all European satellites in 2004 and 2005. It is still available in Europe via Arabsat and the Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat. In November 2008, the German Ministry of the Interior outlawed al-Manar TV and declared it to be in violation of the German constitution because its content incites hatred and terrorism. The order prohibits broadcasting al-Manar TV in public such as in mosques and makes it illegal to cooperate with al-Manar TV. Al-Manar TV is already outlawed in France, Spain and the Netherlands.
EFD, a founding member of the Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM), has worked with its coalition members, including the American Jewish Committee, to raise awareness of the threats posed by terrorist-controlled and funded media and to ban it in Europe and the Middle East. The Coalition consists of Muslim, Christian, Jewish and secular organizations in Europe, and from around the world who are committed to working with government and the private sector on issues relating to terrorist media. Source: Europe News
 An image from Hizbullah's Al-Manar television
showing Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah By Benjamin Weinthal BERLIN - Germany has banned Hizbullah's Al-Manar satellite television station, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter revealed on Tuesday. Dichter was in Berlin to sign a declaration of intent with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, to foster cooperation on counterterrorism and crime-fighting technology. When asked if Hizbullah's status as a legal organization in Germany - it has 900 active members there - would be on the agenda in his talks with the German Interior Ministry, Dichter told The Jerusalem Post: "I heard they banned Al-Manar." An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed to the Post that Schäuble had issued an administrative order on November 11 and that the ban would go into effect toward the end of the month. Read more ...Source: Jerusalem Post
Bin Laden deputy slams Tehran for purporting Israel behind terror attacks on US, says Shiite rule Iran trying to discredit Sunni group's 'successes' Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaeda terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The comments reflected the increasing criticism by al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri against Iran, which al-Zawahri has accused in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hizbullah allies in Lebanon. Al-Zawahri spoke in a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamic militant Web site, in which he replied to hundreds of questions submitted on the Internet by al-Qaeda sympathizers. One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated in the Middle East and elsewhere that Israel was behind the 2001 suicide airplane hijacking against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Al-Zawahri accused Hizbullah's Al-Manar television of starting the rumor. ''The purpose of this lie is clear - (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,'' he said. Read more ...Source: AP
Moroccan Security forces have dismantled an alleged terror network, arresting 23 people, including Al Manar TV's correspondent, in connection with a plot to carry out attacks in the Kingdom, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Wednesday. An investigation by the judicial authorities led to the sweep Monday in the capital Rabat. A security source told Agence France Presse several arms were seized during the raids. A report by the state-run news agency MAP identified only three suspects: Mustapha Moatassim, the secretary general of a small, legal Islamist party, Al Badil Al Hadari, Mohammed Merouani who heads the illegal Umma Party and the alleged group ringleader Abdelkader Balliraj. Read moreSource: AFPH/T: Atlas
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