On May 17, Alex James, an independent researcher whose posts are published at American Free Press posted a WARNING about the bill HR 2278, introduced by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla) – which was passed by Congress in January 2010. The bill is aimed to ban in United States more than 17 TV stations that broadcast “the alternate news” from the Middle East. Why? Because these TV stations have the bad habit of criticizing America’s blind support for Israel and its expansionist wars against it neighbors.
Gus is member of House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security. Gus told his District’s Bay 9 News TV station on 12/9/09: “My legislation will provide the United States with critical baseline information to combat media outlets that serve as vehicles for violent anti-American incitement. Given the danger such incitement and radicalization poses to Americans both at home and aboard, it is crucial that these tools of terror be distinguished from reputable news outlets. We already spend too much on foreign aid to countries that take our money with one hand and slap us (no mention of the greatest slap worth more than US$6 billion/year from Israel) with the other. This legislation will help us ratchet down foreign aid to countries who take this approach.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (Jewish from Minnesota) headed a rally and fundraiser event for Gus Bilirakis on March 31, 2010.
Bill HR2278 would provide Israel lobby groups an excuse to label certain Middle Eastern satellite channels and providers, especially those which sympathize with Islamic Resistance groups in Occupied Palestine (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) and Lebanon (Hizb’Allah) – as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT)”. The HR 2278 is almost a carbon copy of an earlier bill HR1069 (2008) which was passed to target Hamas for its Al-Aqsa TV program Tomorrow\’s Pioneers. The children program was labeled as “anti-Semite” for teaching children how the European Jews had stolen their land, by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an Israel Hasbara outlet based in Washington DC. Currently, the Al-Aqsa TV reaches American audience via the French-based Eutelstat.
However, the main target of the new bill HR2278 seems mainly to target Hizb’Allah’s Al-Manar TV channel. Al-Manar has become the second-most viewed TV in the Middle East after Al-Jazeera. It’s carried out by SA-based Arab League-owned Arabstat and Egypt-based Nilestat. Hizb’Allah is a Lebanese Islamist political party, an military Resistant group, country’s largest humanitarian organization and currently member of Lebanon’s Unity Government. Hizb’Allah is designated as “terrorist organization” by Israel, the US and Canada.
Bush administration put Al-Manar TV on post 9/11 terrorist list on December 17, 2004 on orders of then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. The allegations being ‘anti-Semitism’ for airing a Syrian produced 29 episodes, The Diaspora, which documented the history of Zionism at the end of 19th century upto the creation of the Zionist entity on May 15, 1948. One example of claimed “Diaspora” anti-Semitism was the challenged statement of an alleged Zionist leader talking to Adolf Eichmann and telling the SS official, “Mr. Eichmann, believe me that if we Zionists were not Jewish, we would have been Nazis. You Nazis consider the Aryan race to belong to the perfect people and the German people as the most perfect. We also consider ourselves a perfect people, and Zionists, the most perfect ones.” According to the US based Anti-Defamation League, this statement is not accurate but rather was based on the 1982 comment of Ariel Sharon in which he was reported to have said to Menachem Begin, while arguing in favor of invading Lebanon, “The Nazis of course were correct Prime Minister, they just chose the wrong people to persecute”, implying that killing of the Roma gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, French and Russian prisoners, and Polish citizens was acceptable as was the likely 20,000 deaths estimated to occur during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
Interestingly the current US Congress has its first Muslim member representing country’s largest religious minority (over 3% of totla 300 million population) – while there are 43 Jewish members representing less than 2% of US population – plus one Buddhist. The remaining members belong to different Christian sects, such as, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Mormons and Episcopalians.
