Free Republic

If .. Barack Obama isn’t happy with his press coverage in the United States, he ought to take a look at how he’s being portrayed in the Arab media. As Obama steps up his push for congressional authorization for a strike on Syria, the president is coming under withering criticism by opinion leaders throughout the Middle East, according to a review by POLITICO and experts of Arabic- and English-language media in the region. The increasingly unfavorable coverage Obama’s receiving in the Arab world - even come from the press in countries that support U.S. intervention in Syria - is doing...

Paging Al Gore! Iraq on Sunday suspended the licenses of Al Jazeera and nine other satellite stations for promoting violence and sectarianism. Al Jazeera reports: "We took a decision to suspend the licence of some satellite channels that adopted language encouraging violence and sectarianism," Mujahid Abu al-Hail of the Communications and Media Commission (CMC) said on Sunday. "It means stopping their work in Iraq and their activities, so they cannot cover events in Iraq or move around." The CMC said it believes that "the rhetoric and substance coverage" by Baghdad, Al Sharqiyah, Al Sharqiyah News, Babylonian, Salah al-Din, Anwar 2,...

The anti-semitic cartoons in the Arab press are shocking and disgusting. However, some of the cartoonists have some talent, and if they were not bigots, they could have great careers in America. See: http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism_arab/cartoons-in-arab-press-ob.asp

http://www.investigativeproject.org/pics/289_large.jpg SNIPPET: "A government agency sponsors a community outreach program, but limits media access solely to representatives of the community involved. In doing so, the most powerful press representative present was a publisher who has repeatedly endorsed two groups the United States has designated as terrorists. That's what happened last October when the Commerce Department co-sponsored a "Muslim-American Business Outreach Meeting" with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, Michigan. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealed that 75 people attended the invitation-only event. Most were touted as local Muslim and Arab-American business and community leaders. Invitations indicate...

There are two very common features in countries and areas dominated by Islam: There is no or very limited freedom of speech, religion and press, but seemingly unlimited freedom to spread anti-Semitic propaganda. Here is a map which shows the freedom of press in the Middle East, or rather lack thereof, except for Israel. In Israel there is a lively and free debate for and against the government and the relationship to the neighbours in the Middle East. In the surrounding Arab countries there is certainly freedom to incite hatred against Jews and spread lies about Israel. Here follows a...

The Middle East press has questioned President Obama's authority over Arab-Israeli issues since Charles W. Freeman Jr.'s withdrawal from his appointment to a senior intelligence position. A commentary in Abu Dhabi's the National, a newspaper owned by an investment fund controlled by the government, said Freeman's decision Tuesday to withdraw as chairman of the National Intelligence Council "threw the Obama administration into the heart of a long-running controversy over the alleged supremacy of pro-Israel hawks in determining U.S. foreign policy after having taken a cautious approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far consistent with previous administrations." The Daily Star in...

The independent Kitabat newspaper said in an editorial Wednesday that the "liberation" of Iraq uncovered the reality of Shiite and Sunni Islamic parties and revealed the true nature of religious figures. The editorial, titled "U.S. success in saving Iraq from the evil of Islamic parties," said that for the first time in the history of Iraq, religious figures and political Islam had been discarded. "Today, the average Iraqi considers Islamic activists and religious figures as thugs and hijackers," the paper said. It said the transformation of public opinion in Iraq was a "clever" move by the United States. "The U.S....

When being anti-Israel is anti-Semitic Bernard Pinsky There has been much discussion and finger pointing about criticism of Israel, its actions and its policies, and Israel's defenders' claims that much of the criticism is based on anti-Semitism. Critics of Israel say they cannot speak out for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. Defenders of Israel are concerned that anti-Semitism is the basis for the criticism in many cases. It is therefore important to know when in fact anti-Israel rhetoric is founded in, results from or itself creates anti-Semitism. 1. When the media prints every allegation against Israel, no matter how...

The site describes itself as: A selection of cartoons from the media of seven Arab countries (Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Syria and Egypt) and from the Palestinian Authority is displayed below. A number of these countries are regarded as moderate or allied to the West. Most print media in the Arab world are under the full or partial control of the ruling regimes. One picture can sometimes be deadlier than a thousand words. -- Tom Gross

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Arab press roundup for Jan. 23 Jordan's al-Rai commented Monday that a recent audiotape by Osama bin Laden aired by Al Jazeera came after more than a year of silence and intended to send several messages. The mass-circulation daily said bin Laden wanted to show he was still alive and has not been "killed by American bullets or from kidney failure, but remained silent when silence was golden." The other message, it argued, was political, made when he offered a truce with the Americans, which the paper said bin Laden knew Washington would reject...

Reading the Arab Press: A Victory for Democracy in Lebanon, Middle East News Analysis, Mohamad Ozeir,Pacific News Service, Mar 01, 2005Editor's Note: In the wake of popular protests that brought down the government of Lebanon, some Middle Eastern media are excitedly predicting the arrival of democracy region-wide. SAN FRANCISCO--The sudden resignation of the Syrian-backed Lebanese government on Feb. 28 represented a sea change in the ongoing debate about democracy in the Arab World. What made this resignation a major front-page story in the Arab press was not Prime Minister Omar Karami's dramatic announcement in front of parliament that his...

As of Monday, Nov. 29, 2004, at least 1,254 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 981 died as a result of hostile action, the Defense Department said. The figures include three military civilians...

Beware! Do not look upon the Gorgon!The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history. There are many reasons -- in foreign policy and on the domestic front -- why President George W. Bush should not be reelected. Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century. The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country. There will be only one...

The Cuban government and state-controlled press have disseminated the same bogus GI gang-rape photos that WorldNetDaily reported originated on porn sites. As previously reported by WND, the publication of the images and stories about the images added confusion to the unfolding Abu Ghraib crisis especially in the Middle East, where top newspapers and political sites published the hard-core porn photos side-by-side with genuine photos of abuse. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba has published eight of the gang-rape porn photos under the heading, "Accusing Photos." A link on the Ministry's main page, called "The photos that...

The 27-year old porn filmmaker behind the fake rape photos that sparked an international controversy spoke out today on the flap from her office in Budapest, Hungary. The bogus 'gang-rape' photos that were published around the world in newspapers and websites and presented as evidence of U.S. crimes in Iraq or as alleged evidence, were still shots taken from porn movies produced by Andrea Marchand. The movies and still shots appear on the Hungarian website "Sex in War." In many cases, the perpetrator of the hoax and its variations has remained unidentified. The Budapest-based filmmaker has been making graphic movies...

Globe caught with pants down: Paper duped into running porn photosBy Herald staffThursday, May 13, 2004The Boston Globe was reeling yesterday after graphic photos of alleged sexual abuse of Iraqi women by U.S. soldiers turned out to be staged shots from a hardcore porn Web site.      ``This photo should not have appeared in the Globe,'' editor Martin Baron said in a statement. ``First, images portrayed in the photo were overly graphic. Second, as the story clearly pointed out, those images were never authenticated as photos of prisoner abuse. There was a lapse in judgment and procedures, and we apologize for...

Yasmine El-Rashidi, "Scent of despair," Al-Ahram: According to "one gentleman playing backgammon at a coffee shop in Old Cairo," "The difference between the Arabs and the rest of the world is that we don't go around randomly killing innocent people." (April 22, 2004) Ali Kazak, "Palestinian children and Jewish state," Khaleej Times: "In its propaganda war Israel has spread many lies particularly using Palestinian children, and it is amazing how gullible some Western media are when it comes to Israel over and over again. … their latest invention is that Palestinians are using their children to carry explosives and commit...

Last Tuesday, we pointed out comments made by Sen. Hillary Clinton to an Arab newspaper, blasting the Bush administration. She said of the Bush administration: "Their stubbornness and arrogance is breathtaking. And, as a result, we continue to go down a path that I think is fraught with horrible dangers, especially for the young men and women serving in Iraq, but also for Iraqis, for the stability of the region." Her complaints were published by Arab newspapers and repeated across the Middle East. I reminded the senator that she and other public figures have to be extremely careful about what...

MSNBC TRANSCRIPT Scarborough Country April 28, 2004 JOE SCARBOROUGH: Today, the senator‘s office tried to strong-arm us into retracting that story. . . . Last night, we showed you comments made by Hillary Clinton that criticized George Bush and America‘s foreign policy in the Middle East. Her complaints run by Arab newspapers and repeated across the Middle East. She said this—quote— “Their stubbornness and arrogance is breathtaking. And, as a result, we continue to go down a path that I think is fraught with horrible dangers, especially for the young men and women serving in Iraq, but also for Iraqis,...

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's office is denying that she blasted President Bush in an interview with an Arab reporter on Monday. Sen. Clinton's office said Wednesday that she never spoke to the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. The paper offered quotes and paraphrases of her comments, which were immediately picked up by news sources throughout the Muslim world, on dozens of English language Middle Eastern Web sites and even by the usually reliable wire service Agence France-Presse. NewsMax.com's report on Tuesday recapitulated those foreign news accounts of Sen. Clinton's alleged comments. The story on NewsMax and several other news outlets here...