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Al Manar is the TV station of the controversial Lebanese organization Hezbollah (sometimes spelled Hizbullah). Both Hezbollah and Al-Manar are listed as terrorist organization by the United States State Department.
Content
Al-Manar is a TV channel, dedicated to promoting Hizbullah's views and interests. It serves to convey official statements by Hizbullah and broadcasts Hassan Nasrallah's speeches.
In addition to news, speeches and religion-shows, Al-Manar became famous for its broadcasts of battles between Hizbullah and Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon. The withdrawal of Israeli troops in 2000, while hailed by it as a great success, left something of a gap in its programming.
Critics claim that Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV channel airs antisemitic broadcasts, blaming the Jews for a Zionist conspiracy against the Arab world, as well as airing excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Al-Manar officials deny broadcasting anti-Semitic incitement and state that their position is anti-Israeli, not anti-Semitic.
Al-Manar aired a drama series, called "The Diaspora", which Jewish groups and European observers say is based on historical anti-Semitic allegations. BBC correspondents who have viewed The Diaspora note that "it quotes extensively from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious 19th Century publication used by the Nazis among others to fuel race hatred." (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3581514.stm)
An Al-Manar commentator recently referred to "Zionist attempts to transmit AIDS to Arab countries".
Al-Manar appears to have been the main source of the best-known conspiracy theory implicating Israel in 9/11.
Litigation
The broadcasting of Al Manar in France is controversial; it has been accused of promoting religious and racial hatred (more specifically, against Jews), which is a criminal offense in France. On December 13, 2004, the French Conseil d'État, acting on the request of the French TV authorities, issued an injunction ordering Eutelsat to cease broadcasting Al Manar in France. (full text of the decision (http://www.conseil-etat.fr/ce/jurispd/index_ac_ld0460.shtml), press release (http://www.conseil-etat.fr/ce/actual/index_ac_lc0418.shtml) (in French); BBC report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4093579.stm)).
Following the French court ruling, the United States added on December 17, 2004, Al-Manar to the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. [1] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041217-3.html)
See also
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