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Christiane vs. Christians and Jews
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 8/27/2007 | Phyllis Chesler

Posted on 08/27/2007 5:23:48 AM PDT by SJackson

Dhabah Almontaser, the nearly anointed principal of Brooklyn's madrassa and CNN's fully annointed Christiane Amanpour both agree that in Arabic, "Intifada" means a "shaking off." Amanpour gave an example of how to use the word by saying that "Palestinian (terrorists) were (merely) shaking off the Israeli Occupation;" Almontaser, when challenged about the infamous tee-shirts, said that "Intifada-NYC" referred to young Muslim girls "shaking off oppression."

In November of 2005, Fox's O'Reilly showed live footage of the French Intifada as it raged in Paris. According to WorldNetDaily, Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, (aka Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz AlSaud), who owns 5-6% of the Fox News Channel, personally called Rupert Murdoch and asked him to change the offensive (but accurate) caption: "Muslim Riots" to the less offensive (and less accurate) "Civil Riots." Within thirty minutes, the Prince had his way.

To paraphrase New York Post columnist Cindy Adams: Only in America kids, only in America.

Our fine Saudi prince also owns shares in Times-Warner/AOL/CNN, which he first acquired in 2002. According to Forbes, the London Guardian, and other media outlets, in 2002 the Prince "claimed to own 1.4 billion in AOL stock...in 2003 he bought another 450 million of AOL stock." God knows what he owns now. (Yes, he's the very Prince whom Presidential hopeful Rudy Guiliani humiliated when he refused to accept his ten million dollar donation for humanitarian aid immediately following 9/11).

Has bin Talal's ownership influenced Amanpour's highly touted, highly slanted, and highly tedious three part series "God's Warriors?" I have no inside information here but I doubt that any overt bribes were involved.

Amanpour dresses in safari-like bush jackets but they are never grungy, and are in fact glamorous in color and fit. She is no Oriana Fallaci, no Susan Sontag, but is probably the best CNN has to offer in terms of Talking Heads who presumably think. To those unfamiliar with Amanpour's background, she lived in London (still does), attended schools in America, and her husband, James Rubin, is Jewish. He once worked for former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright--another Jew who did not know she was one.

After watching Amanpour's segment on the Jews, I was disheartened and outraged. How long will people have to suffer Big Lies on our screens and be forced to react defensively, only after the fact? How much Saudi money might really be involved in CNN's series? In addition to bin Talal, we do know that the Saudis have been buying up shares in the Western media, (UPI for example), influencing curriculum on campuses, and in some instances, buying certain journalists outright. (There is a scandal about this still under wraps in Europe right now. Stay tuned for an update).

Amanpour, whose father is a Muslim Iranian, her mother British, and who spent the first eleven years of her life in Teheran, set out to portray Jews as religiously driven terrorists, illegal land-grabbers, and fat-cat American lobbyists with dual loyalties. She interviewed former President Carter and John Mearsheimer (but not anyone of stature who can easily rebut what they say). Both men believe that Israel is an apartheid state and that the Zionist lobby controls American foreign policy. (See CAMERA'S excellent point by point refutation of Amanpour).

Amanpour makes sure to track down Israelis who have advised the government that "settling an occupied land" violates the Geneva convention and international law (such as Theodore Meron); the Jewish Israeli lawyers who defend Palestinians and who often successfully, challenge the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes. She has female settlers on camera who allegedly say that they believe Palestinians should be killed or expelled. She shows the security wall at its ugliest without context and she focuses on individual Palestinians who are indeed being seriously harmed by its creation. (No, she does not show the Jews being blown up, week after week, in a non-stop series of 9/11s that might explain the desperate need for such a tragic but strategic structure).

In my no doubt alarmist and paranoid view, she is trying to position American and world Jewish support for Israel as essentially equivalent to American and world Muslim support for Hamas and for other Muslim terorrist organizations who also engage in humanitarian aid and social service projects. Just as the leaders of the Holy Land foundation are being tried as supporters of terrorist organizations in America today, Amanpour's portrayal of Jewish support for an allegedly "illegal," "racist," or "apartheid" Jewish "settler state" with a "handful of Jewish terrorists" may now lead to simiilar attempts to shut down American-based fundraising for Israel and to dampen Congressional support for military foreign aid to Israel.

Perhaps Amanpour does not envision this at all but merely wishes to show that there is terrorism on both sides of the divide. But this is not true. While there is indeed a "handful" of "Jewish terrorists" or ideologue of Jewish reprisals, (Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir, and the Jewish Underground are named), such figures are just that--a handful, and their attempts at indiscriminate violence have either been prevented or immediately and seriously punished by the Israeli government.

Further, Amanpour fails to draw the right conclusions from what she does show on camera. In every instance, Israeli government officials, including former Shin Bet and IDF spokesmen are the ones who prevent Jewish terrorists from striking, who arrest and imprison them when they commit violence, who sentence them to between 7-15 years in jail or to life sentences. There are no posters all over Israel glorifying their violent deeds as there are on the West Bank for their shahids and shahidas and in the no-longer occupied Gaza strip. Israeli textbooks and television videos do not sing their praises in Israel as is the case among the Palestinians.

It gets worse. She views the Muslim claim to Al Aqsa and the Temple Mount, not as equal to but as superior to the ancient Jewish claim. She fails to draw a single conclusion from the fact that Muslims did not--and still do not--allow non-Muslims access to their holy Jewish or Christian religious sites although Jews guarantee that access to all religions.

So, there I was, licking my wounds when I turned on the TV to see Amanpour's second segment.

Amanpour has never met an Iranian or for that matter a Muslim whom she does not like; yes, even the terrorists and one fundamentalist imam in "the holy city of Quom" receives only a flirtatious wag of her finger when he rather cheerfully admits that women are not allowed to do certain things and are condemned to other things--but that's for their own good, to protect them. She is warm with him, much less warm with his so-called Israeli counterparts.

She opens her segment on Muslim Warriors with a charming, well-spoken, highly westernized young man, Ed Husain, who was deceived, or who rebelled and became associated with a terrorist group in his native London. Once he realized that they are killing innocent people, even children, he backed away. He has written a book about leaving Islamism.

Ed Husain does not represent most Muslims who at best, remain silent and who do not condemn Islamist imperialism, religious fundamentalism, or America- and Jew-hatred. There are a handful of Muslims who criticize Islam openly. Many are tortured, killed, forced into exile, impoverished, live in hiding, publish under psedonyms. Her interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali was very, very brief --no more than a minute altogether. On the contrary, she kept returning to former nun Karen Armstrong whose views on Jews, Israel, and Zionism are anti-Semitic with a vengeance. Armstrong also defended veiling and compared it her own habit as a nun. (Stay tuned for more to come about this).

As to women? Amanpour does not tell us any stories of honor killings or women who avoided being honor-murdered but instead focuses on a happy, modestly veiled Muslim-American woman who describes how her choice to "cover" is denigrated and held suspect in America.

Each and every portrait of a Muslin or of a Muslin terrorist's family presents soulful, thoughtful people, perhaps a bit "different" than you and I but still human, likeable, charming--maybe even made of better stuff than you and I in the west who crave material posessions, display female bodies, allow men and women to intermingle in sexually charged ways, drink alcohol, and refuse to live in a God-centered world.

Amanpour is worse than all the others (writers mainly) who have been blasting Judaism and Christianity but mainly in order to be able to also blast, but in a lesser way, Islam. The thesis is that we are all guilty, all to blame, that each religion is clannish, "different," its texts support violence, its extreme followers are but a handful, nothing for the world to worry about.

These are all false assumptions and outright lies.

THE CHRISTIAN CALIPHATE

In her three part series, Amanpour is far more combative and confrontational with both Jewish and Christian religious leaders than she is with Muslim leaders. She is warmer, softer, more "at home," with even the most extreme of Islamist leaders, perhaps even more respectful, than she is with their allegedly Jewish or Christian counterparts.

Amanpour completely fails to make the distinction between Islamists who teach hatred of infidels and women and who blow infidel and Muslim civilians up (as well as honor-murder their own women); Israelis who are under perpetual terrorist seige and who are trying to defend themselves against Islamist attacks; and conservative Christians who are trying to moblize votes, change laws, or win hearts and minds with words, not bombs (although she certainly has lots of footage of the bloody bombings at abortion clinics--bombings I personally abhor and mourn--as do many Christians).

Amanpour wants us to like Muslims--even the most extremist among them. They are human, prick them will they not bleed? But she does not want us to like Christians or Jews, especially those who are Zionists.

Amanpour does not seem to show the same respect towards conservative Christians who wish to dress modestly, remain chaste until marriage, and avoid a secular culture of rampant pornography and rape as she shows their far more extremist counterparts in the Islamist world or than she shows, at great length, one well-spoken Muslim-American woman who decides to "cover."

In one instance, Amanpour accuses Ron Luce, a Christian leader of teenagers, as being like the Taliban. He actually answers Amanpour in a rather charming, disarming way. She will not be moved. Amanpour herself takes no stand on what Luce says about an American secular and popular culture which allows virgin teenager America to be raped on the sidewalk as we pass by without stopping or caring.

Perhaps Amanpour can't forgive these "radical" Christians their support for Israel, their "Zionism." She presents Pastor John Hagee (together with the late Jerry Fallwell) as Doctor Strangeloves. Hagee, by the way, sees Iran as a threat to America and Israel. As he speaks of his Christian love of Zion, Amanpour cuts to a presumed Israeli air attack againt innocent civilians, replete with weeping, civilian Arab women.

Amanpour again returns to former President Jimmy Carter--this time to have him tell us that he had to break with evangelical Baptists over their sexist position on women in the church. Carter who believes that Israel is an "apartheid" state and whose library has been hugely funded by the Saudis is the new feminist in town.

Amanpour has a definite political agenda--no less so than the Christian conservatives whom she attacks for daring to conduct "stealth politics, under the radar" when they engage in Christian voter drives. Amanpour wants to put a Democrat in the White House. She wants someone there who will move against the so-called Israel Lobby and who will finally stop funding Israel. She wants our next Commander in Chief to engage in nicey-nice diplomacy with Iran. She wants Americans to stop fearing that every Muslim might be a terrorist and to start accepting a parallel Islamic/Islamist universe right here on our own soil.

Yes, our ethnically super-trendy, British-accented war correspondent really wants exactly this. And she wants us to see that such right-wing Christians are no different than Islamists, including Bin Laden, who want a world Caliphate. (We are all the same, all cultures are equal, remove the mote from your own eye before you judge anyone else, etc.)

To accomplish her goal, Amanpour presents Christian conservatives as truly scary, as mounting a Crusader-like Army against liberal secular America--but not necessarily a violent war against terrorist Islamism. Amanpour exploits America's hottest domestic issues (abortion and gay marriage) in order to accomplish her own foreign policy aims.

By the end of her third and final segment we are meant to fear and loathe the Christian conservative right far more than we are meant to fear or loathe Amanpour's Amadinejad whom --incredibly--she never accuses of funding Hezbollah's terrorist work abroad. What she mainly shows us in Iran are Shi'a Muslims at prayer, engaged in theatrical-religious rituals. We do not see them funding and masterminding Hezbollah as it takes down civilian (and Christian) Lebanon, lays seige to Israel, blows up the Jewish Community Center in Argentina. She shows us the child-martyrs (one estimate has 850,000 dying in the Iran-Iraq war) as themselves true believers as opposed to victims of sadistic adult handlers.

Her third segment is one long running advertisement for a Democratic candidate for the next Presidency. She is electioneering as hard as she accuses the Christians of doing.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 08/27/2007 5:23:49 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

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2 posted on 08/27/2007 5:28:13 AM PDT by SJackson (isolationism never was, never will be acceptable response to[expansionist] tyrannical governments)
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To: SJackson

Ping for myself later.


3 posted on 08/27/2007 5:47:25 AM PDT by Greg F (Ann Coulter is smarter than most of us and quicker witted than all of us.)
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To: SJackson
She has female settlers on camera who allegedly say that they believe Palestinians should be killed or expelled.

If they're on camera, they either say it or they don't. They don't "allegedly" say it.

4 posted on 08/27/2007 6:11:15 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Scratch a liberal, find a dhimmi)
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To: SJackson
In one instance, Amanpour accuses Ron Luce, a Christian leader of teenagers, as being like the Taliban.

Dear Editor:

I fought in Afghanistan as a Special Forces Team Commander. I am also what you would perceive as a “wacky-right-wing-conservative-religious-Christian-person”

So here are the differences between myself and the Taliban.

The Taliban allowed no freedom of expression, no rights for women, no freedom of religion and destroyed anything and everyone that did not abide by their version of Islam. They destroyed the famous Buddhist statues of Bamiyan because the felt they were un-Islamic graven images. The wiped out entire peoples and villages (such as the Hazara) because they were not Islamic enough. They would think nothing of executing an entire village if one family converted to Christianity. They cut the ears, eyes, tongues and noses off people for “infractions against Islam.” They turned schools into horse stables. They planted bombs and mines in children’s play fields. They torched newly built girls schools. They stoned women to death who had been raped for “adultery.” They allowed the training of terrorist groups to export their version of Islam to the world. They looked at the world as two spheres – One that has been conquered by Islam and one that will be conquered by Islam through war. They would think nothing of raping your wife and children and making you a slave or corpse. It is what you and your family, or any non-Islamic person, deserves for being an infidel. They would not allow women (and girls) to go to school, have a job or even leave their home (unless accompanied by a male relative). The Taliban ruled by fear and intimidation. They remind me of the Nazis and Communists.

What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.

Things like: Taxes we can afford; A reverence for the US Constitution as the Founding Fathers wrote it; An appreciation for the values and traditions that made this country the finest in the history of the world; A respect for all opinion, not just what is the PC flavor of the month; An understanding that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character;” And respect for life (no matter how vulnerable or powerless).

The differences are slight, but there they are. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.

De Oppresso Libre,

2banana

5 posted on 08/27/2007 6:42:38 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: SJackson

Nice. Except for the Rabbi Kahane bashing.


6 posted on 08/27/2007 6:51:32 AM PDT by dervish (Pvt. Beauchamp came pre-dehumanized.)
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To: Salem; F15Eagle; Esther Ruth; agrace; RoadTest; unionblue83; T.L.Sink; IsraelBeach; SunkenCiv; ...

Jezebel Amanpour ping!


7 posted on 08/27/2007 7:59:24 AM PDT by Convert from ECUSA (Hunter and Tancredo in '08! La Raza - the PLO of the Western Hemisphere)
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To: Convert from ECUSA; AdmSmith; Berosus; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; KlueLass; ...
There's another topic about this, but in that one I didn't notice this tidbit:
Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, (aka Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz AlSaud), who owns 5-6% of the Fox News Channel, personally called Rupert Murdoch and asked him to change the offensive (but accurate) caption: "Muslim Riots" to the less offensive (and less accurate) "Civil Riots." Within thirty minutes, the Prince had his way.

8 posted on 08/27/2007 10:03:17 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Sunday, August 26, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
Saudi says he nixed Fox News 'Muslim riots' banner

During the violent street protests in France one month ago, the prince said, Fox News ran a banner at the bottom of the screen that said "Muslim riots."

"I picked up the phone and called Murdoch ... [and told him] these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty," al-Walid said.

"Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots."

Asked by WorldNetDaily to respond, Fox News Channel spokeswoman Irena Briganti said she was not aware of any phone call from the prince but acknowledged the network changed the banner after receiving complaints.

"We had several calls from people around the world and discovered the issue was a little more complicated than how it was being characterized," she said.

The unrest, which eventually spread to neighboring countries, began Oct. 27 with thousands of mostly French Muslims in impoverished Paris suburbs engaging in violent clashes with police as they torched cars and buildings. After 20 nights, French officials gave a count of 8,973 vehicles burned, 2,888 arrests and 126 officers injured.

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Always look on the bright side of life - the French nixed their socialist candidate, elected Sarkozy of Hungarian/Jewish background and now he has a 70% approval rating!

Way to go muzzies! How's it all working out for you, hmmm?

9 posted on 08/27/2007 7:18:16 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (Fair dinkum!)
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To: Fred Nerks

The Moslem callers who complained about it ended up rioting in response to seeing “Muslim riots” on the tube. Which is weird, because they were illiterate... [rimshot!]


10 posted on 08/27/2007 9:23:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Sunday, August 26, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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