From a European reader who wishes to remain anonymous:
Just spent a few boring hours going through the forum of the newspaper “Le Monde” to figure out what was the fuss about Al-Manar TV, not pretty reading, it seems like the anti-anti-Israel is really gaining ground, but anti-Israel (or anti-Zionism or plain anti-colonialism) are also closing the gap on the cultural (or for the believer racial) issue, finally claiming their Semitic identity.
Seems that the protocol of Zion are the problem indeed (since it is forbidden to publish them /sell them and read them it is difficult to figure out if they are only ridiculous or actually a problem) but one book should definitely be taken out and burnt: “The old testament” inciting hatred against most of the non-Jewish middle east, including, in the children book version against Egyptian, etc…… and promoting genocide (of the Amalek), philistines (a minister of the church reminded us that they still exist today and are called Palestinians!).
Other interesting facts collected reading “Le Monde”: 3 separate incident of anti-Jewish acts actually proven not to have been such, first one arson of a Jewish centre for which some Arab kids were actually sent to prison was in fact a accidental fire (caused with cigarettes by the security guard), the infamous non Jewish girl, not attacked by anti-Semite and lastly another arson of a Jewish building committed by a (Jewish) employee, but initially blamed by the entire political class and Israeli establishment, proof that Jews are not safe in France (who is safe or not safe anywhere?).
Occasionally “Le Monde” will remind us that most anti-Muslim act (including police brutality versus teen-ager and act committed by Jewish “terrorist” organization BETAR) are not worth publishing because they are too common, maybe one remembers in “tolerant” Holland the murder of a Muslim family (children rescued by a neighbour) by another nice European. Guess Michael Neumann published a few articles in Counterpunch along that line.
Normally I suspect that censorship is stupid and counterproductive but coupled with the right type of propaganda it is really frightening. I remember last year, the censorship of Al- Jazeera (still not allowed in Irak) and taking down Yellowtimes.org for showing pictures of dead Irakis and a link to Al- Jazeera to get more information. And more recently taking down Indymedia (not very clear where it came from and why exactly).
Sad thing is most are not even aware of the existence of Al-Manar TV and they just have in the periphery of their mind the idea that it is a terrorist organization successfully brought down by joint US_FRANCE operation, for others at least we can ask question about what is going on and may be why some people in Lebanon do not have our vision of Israel/garden of Eden, we can even wonder why exactly we have this ridiculous crusade against Islam (in the name of feminism???) we might even try to discover what Islam is about and why not that there are plenty of other religions practiced on this planet (the one with the Christmas tree, by the way, is definitely not christian) including centuries old Chinese atheism!
Happy New Year
PS: Sorry I could not resist writing all this after reading your second piece on the subject!
MoPress 