Propaganda

Introduction

"Terrorism" & "Islamo-Fascism" Propaganda Campaigns

A Lecture By Dr. Hassan Ali El-Najjar

Invited by the Outspoken Alliance

An Emory University Student Group

October 23, 2007, 7:00 pm ET

White Hall 206, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

***

Greetings and Introduction:

It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight to participate in an educational event that I hope to increase our understanding of our world, to contribute to the world peace, and prosperity of all nations, particularly our country, the United States of America.

I'd like first to thank Cleave Pierce and the Outspoken Allies who through their efforts and courageous initiative made this event possible. They have lit tonight's candle instead of joining a long line of others who have been content with cursing darkness, in a whispering and whining tone.

I'd like also to thank the administration of the Emory University which allowed the event to happen as a contribution to increasing understanding of the University community about the this important issue.

I'd like to thank everyone here tonight promising to do my best to make this evening as educational and as enjoyable as possible.

Finally, for those who organized the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" in Emory, if anyone of them is here tonight, I'd like to tell them that I came in peace to educate them about the consequences of this campaign on their Muslim American colleagues here in Emory, and on Muslim Americans in general. I hope that I'll contribute to their education of other world views than their own.

I hope and pray that an atmosphere of respect, love, and desire for peace prevails in this night. I'm not here for anything else.

***

I learned that a week-long program has been organized in Emory and other campuses nationwide under the title of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." 

Before I start, I'd like just to tell everybody here that the mere association of Islam and fascism is painful enough for me and for Muslims to the extent of religious persecution.  

It is an attempt to instigate Christian and Jewish students against their Muslim friends, colleagues, and professors. Just imagine if somebody organizes an event to smear Judaism or Christianity associating them with fascism. I don't accept that as a Muslim and I don't expect Jews and Christians to accept it.

In brief, why is the religion of Islam being smeared and attacked, when the conflict is not religious? 

Wars have never been launched for religious purposes. 

World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, Current Iraq War, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have all started for resources and secular geo-strategic goals.

Then, how can we explain such attempts to blame Islam and smear it?

Why is this attempt to harass Muslim Americans, even innocent students and professors in their campuses?

Is it an attempt to distract the American people, including students, from the real problems facing the United States? 

Is it an attempt to prepare Americans for another devastating war, on Iran this time?

Why not organizing "Awareness Weeks" about our major problems:

- The US national debt, which exceeded $9 trillion?

- The influence of oil companies on foreign policy?

- The influence of the Israel Lobby on the legislative and executive branches of our government?

- Our health care system that leaves millions of Americans without coverage?

- The half million Americans who are killed annually by the tobacco industry? (Olson & Defrane, 2000: 32).

- The one hundred thousand Americans who are killed annually by the alcoholic beverage industry? (Olson & Defrane, 2000: 32).

- Why do we have the highest rates of imprisonment, abortion, and teenage pregnancy in the world.

- Why are all these essential problems ignored?

- Are such campaigns to smear the great religion of Al-Islam an attempt to distract the American people from thinking about these problems and expecting their government to address them instead?

***

I'd like to address some of these questions tonight by examining consequences of propaganda campaigns on Palestinians and Muslim Americans.

When propaganda campaigns are launched, there must be goals to be achieved for the organizers. 

The Israeli occupation government continuous propaganda campaigns to label Palestinians as "terrorists" aimed at dehumanizing the Palestinian people. 

The target audience of these campaigns, Americans and Europeans, are supposed to tolerate the persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people to the point of subjugation and acceptance of slavery of the occupation.

Any attempt to resist the occupation is labeled as "terrorism." Even if you try to tell the truth about the Israeli occupation, you may be labeled as terrorist, or if you're lucky as "sympathizing with terrorists."

Supporters of Israel in the US, described by Mearsheimer and Walt as the Israel Lobby, have achieved almost total control over the corporate media, Congress, and the federal government foreign policy.

This overwhelming influence of the Israel Lobby has shielded the Israeli occupation of Palestine and punished even elected officials, like Paul Findley and Cynthia McKinney, who dared to speak.

Even President Jimmy Carter has been severely attacked for daring to tell the truth about the Israeli government, as an Apartheid regime, which blocked every opportunity for peace. 

The Israel Lobby operatives are not still content with the control they have over the media, Congress, and US foreign policy. They want to subjugate US college campuses too. They want to bombard college campuses with the same pro-war propaganda and dehumanization of Palestinians, other Arabs, and Muslims.

This is the context in which these propaganda campaigns are launched. The Israel Lobby operatives in the Pentagon, Wolfowitz, Pearl, and Feith planned the US war on Iraq. The corporate media beat the drums of war, smearing Iraqis and dehumanizing them to prepare the US population psychologically to accept the horrors of the war later.

Now, they left the Pentagon but also left the US stuck there with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans dead, and the destruction of a prosperous Arab state. The damage to the US economy and the US standing in the world needs decades to repair. 

During the past six years, the US national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion (it is more than $9 trillion now) as a result of military spending on US wars worldwide, particularly in Iraq. The dollar lost more than 40% of its value. Oil prices have hit $90 per barrel and they are still on the rise.

Still, the Israel Lobby operatives are not content. They want the US to attack Sudan, and occupy the oil-rich Darfur. They also want the US to attack Iran, under the pretext of the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel.

To prepare the American people to accept the US invasion of Iraq, the war propaganda focused on two issues: Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to Al-Qaeda, both of which turned to be false according to a bipartisan Committee.

The new pro-war propaganda campaign against Iran now focuses on the Iranian nuclear program. They claim that Iran may be able to make nuclear weapons in few years, which is a threat to Israel.

The pro-war propagandists never mention that the Israeli occupation government is the only one in the Middle East which possesses nuclear weapons. It is also the most aggressive in the region as demonstrated by the number of wars it launched against its neighbors and by its continuous occupation of the Arab territories and continuous oppression of the Palestinian people.

***

Islamo-Fascism Propaganda Campaigns in US College Campuses

Organizing a week-long "Islamo-Fascism" pro-war propaganda campaigns in US college campuses is an attempt by the Israel Lobby operatives to achieve several goals:

First, to distract the American people from the major problems facing the United States internally, and directing their attention somewhere else.

Second, to justify the continuation of US wars in the Muslim world. The implication is that the US has no other choice but to fight "Islamic Fascism." 

Third, to distract attention from the horrors of the war in Iraq and its horrendous consequences on the Iraqi people and the American people.

Fourth, to distract attention from the genocidal Israeli war crimes committed against the Palestinian people generally, and Palestinians in Gaza Strip in Particular. 

Fifth, to dehumanize Muslims generally and Muslim Americans in particular, by smearing their religion of Islam as a Fascist religion. Thus, when Muslim American civil rights are violated as a result of the Patriotic Act, other Americans may accept that as warranted by security.

Sixth, to intimidate and alienate Muslim American students and creating an intellectual barrier between them and their colleagues in order to silence them so they may not tell their colleagues the truth they know.

Finally, to intimidate and alienate Muslim American professors by smearing them as followers of a fascist religion. The objective is that they may be boycotted by their colleagues and their students. By discrediting them as adherent to a "bad" religion, their knowledge, views, and contributions are also discredited.

***

Let me first address the conflict terminology used in this propaganda campaign, that is the relationship between Islam and Fascism. Then, I'd like to mention some areas in which Muslim Americans have been suffering since September 11, 2001, and finally some historical facts to show who are the real terrorists in the Middle East, the Israelis or the Palestinians.

1. Islam and Fascism

As defined in the Holy Qur'an, Islam is the religion of God and His guidance and mercy to humanity. 

Islam transcends nationalism, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic statuses. It does not differentiate between people on basis of their faith, skin color, national origin, language, or wealth. The closest to God and most rewarded by Him are those who watch Him in what they say and do.

Islam teaches believers to treat each others as brothers and sisters in faith. Nobody should be persecuted for their different characteristics, particularly for their faith, national origin, skin color, language, wealth or lack there of.

The following verses from the Holy Qura'an express the above meanings:

Chapter 2, Verse 256; Chapter 3, Verse 19; Chapter 5, Verse 3; Chapter 9, Verse 33; Chapter 10, Verse 6; Chapter 49, Verse 13; Chapter 22, Verse 45; Chapter 10, Verse 13; Chapter 30, Verse 2. 

***

Fascism, however, is a European ideology that focuses on the glorification of a specific nation and its supremacy over other nations. Fascist Italy under Mussolini used this defunct ideology to mobilize Italians to invade other nations, like Libya, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Fascist Italy also met with Nazi Germany on the same premises of supremacy of the two states and the Arian race over other nations, nation states, and racial groups.

***

What is fascism anyway:

"Fascism, modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. 

Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. 

Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence."

Encyclopedia Encarta

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568245/Fascism.html 

***

If we apply the above definition to the Israeli occupation state, we find it applies to many aspects of this state. Further, the definition applies to supporters of the Israeli occupation regime, described by Mearsheimer and Walt as the Israel Lobby in their tactics against opposition and descent.

1. The Israeli occupation regime is racist, in that it allows only Jews to immigrate to the state and get the Israeli citizenship. The native Muslim and Christian Arabs and non-Arabs are barred from immigration to Israel.

2. The Israeli occupation regime is expansionist and imperialist, as evidenced in its continuous wars of expansion, as will be mentioned below.

3. The Israeli occupation regime adopts Apartheid as a policy, in order to separate population groups on religious and racial bases., as evidenced by the network of roads and settlements, the access to which is limited to Israelis only, but not to the Palestinian people.

Conclusion:

While Islam is an international, humanist, compassionate religion, the Israeli ideology of Zionism is an exclusive, discriminatory, racist ideology working for the supremacy of the Israeli regime over other nations, particularly in the Middle East.

The term fascism is most applicable in our times to the Israeli occupation government and those who support its policies.

***

2. Persecution of Muslim Americans Since September 11, 2007

The fifth goal of such campaigns is to dehumanize Muslims generally and Muslim Americans in particular, by smearing their religion of Islam as a Fascist religion. Thus, when Muslim American civil rights are violated as a result of the Patriotic Act, other Americans may accept that as warranted by security.

The major sources of this section are:

http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/2007-Civil-Rights-Report.pdf: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the US, 2007: Presumption of Guilt, a CAIR Report 

http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx 

http://www.cair.com/Issues/Citizenship Delays.aspx 

CAIR's daily updates: http://www.cair.com

Highlights of Abuses Against Muslim Americans:

- Employment discrimination

- Verba harassment

- Denial of religious accommodation

- Passenger profiling

- Legal / immigration

- Due process issues

- Denial of service / Access to public facility

- Attack threats

- Hate mail / propaganda / Internet

- Business discrimination

- Housing discrimination

***

3. Labeling Palestinians as "Terrorists" Perpetuates Persecuting them by the Israeli Occupiers and their Supporters

1. Who is the real terrorist, the invading Israeli occupiers, or the invaded Palestinians under the most brutal and longest foreign occupation in recent history?

a) History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Main Events

- 1897: The first World Zionist Conference headed by Hirzel, decides to usurp Palestine from its inhabitants and give it to Zionists.

- 1917: British forces occupied Palestine. The infamous British foreign minister, Balfour, promised Zionist Rotschild British help to give Palestine to Zionists. This has become known as the Balfour Declaration.

- 1947: The UN General Assembly passes Resolution 181 to partition Palestine, giving Zionists 56% of Palestine, though they only possessed about 5% of the lands, and despite the fact they were half a million while there were 1.3 million Palestinians.

- 1948: Israel was declared by Zionists, who evicted Palestinians from their lands, the most infamous ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. This forced population transfer created the Palestinian refugee problem, which persists until today.

Zionists also occupied and annexed more lands than the Partition Resolution gave them. In particular, they annexed the Galilee in the north, Aujah in the South, occupied West Jerusalem and the land corridor leading to it. 

This gave them 78% of Palestine instead of the 56% given to them by the Partition resolution.

The annexation by force of 22% of Palestine made the Israeli government an occupying force since its inception. It has adopted and maintained the policy of acquisition of land and occupation ever since.  

- 1948: The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 calling for the repatriation and compensation of Palestinian refugees. Successive Israeli occupation governments never complied with this resolution, which blocked any resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem until today.

b) Expanding the Conflict to Other Arab States, in Addition to the Palestinian People

- 1956: The Israeli occupation government participated with the British and French imperialist governments in attacking Egypt, in what became known as the Suez Canal War. 

While the British and French imperialist forces occupied the Suez Canal area, the Israeli occupation government joined the imperialist camp by occupying the Egyptian territory of the Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian territory of Gaza Strip.

President Eisenhower ordered the three aggressors to withdraw from the Suez Canal, Sinai, and Gaza Strip. They did and that was the second time an American president dared to confront the Israel Lobby. 

The first was President Roosevelt, when he refused to pressure the British government to allow 300,000 European Jews to go to be repatriated in Palestine. He offered them to come to America instead. As soon as he died, his successor, President Truman, adopted the Zionist project as his own and asked the British to allow them entry to Palestine.

- 1967: The Israeli occupation imperialist government launch war on three neighboring Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, occupying Egyptian Sinai again, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the two Palestinian territories of the West Bank (which was under Jordanian rule) and Gaza Strip (which was under Egyptian administration).

Zionists rejoiced worldwide thinking that a major stage of their dream of an Israeli Empire from the Nile to the Euphrates was achieved.

The US entered the conflict forcefully, siding with the victor, providing the Israeli occupation imperialist government everything it needed to control the occupied Arab territories and the Palestinian people in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Estimates of the US military, economic, and financial aid to the Israeli occupation imperialist government range between $147 billion and $1.5 trillion. The latter figure is more likely if indirect aid is included, particularly tax-free donations to religious charitable organizations and investment of pension and retirement funds in Israeli companies and projects.

Moreover, successive US administrations have shielded the Israeli occupation imperialist government from any UN measures or sanctions by using the US Veto against any anti-Israeli resolution, weakening the UN to the level of helplessness.

Without this tremendous US support for the Israeli occupation imperialist government, the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories and oppression of the Palestinian people could have ended a long time ago.

- 1968: Israeli occupation forces attacked Al-Karamah area on the east bank of the River Jordan, in an attempt to crush the Palestinian resistance movement. The battle was a victory for the resistance and increased recruitment in the resistance ranks. 

- 1973: Egypt and Syria launched their counter attack to restore their territories from the Israeli occupation imperialist government. The US intervened shielding Israel from military defeat. Ultimately, President Carter succeeded in making a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel (1978), leading to the return of Sinai to Egypt in return for Egypt to get out of the conflict.

Syria did not get its territory back because the Israelis wanted to change the borderline to deny Syria access to the eastern side of the Tabaria Lake (Sea of Galilee). The same Israeli condition has persisted until today.

- 1978: Israeli occupation forces attacked and occupied south Lebanon to crush the Palestinian resistance movement there. They failed but established military bases in south Lebanon and stayed there until Hizbullah resistance fighters forced them out on June 2000.

- 1982: Israeli occupation forces invade Lebanon, including the capital Beirut. The objective was to drive the PLO resistance fighters outside Lebanon. The invasion was successful and PLO fighters were dispersed throughout the Middle East.

b) The Israeli Occupation Regime: Blunt Slavery and Subjugation of the Palestinian People

- 1987 (December): The first Palestinian Uprising (Intifadha) against the Israeli occupation started. It continued until 1993. The Israeli leaders realized that there was no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

- 1993: Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, signed the Oslo Agreement in the presence of the US President, Bill Clinton, in the White House. The agreement allowed the PLO fighters to return to the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The agreement also specified that the end outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would be the establishment of a Palestinian state in 1999.

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated to stop the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His successors did not continue the path of peace. They played every trick in the book to avoid the establishment of the agreed upon Palestinian state. Peres, Netanyaho, and Barak all followed this policy.

- 2000: The Palestinian people realized that the Israeli occupation government was not sincere, playing games to maintain the occupation indefinitely. They revolted against the Israeli occupation again in what became known as the second Uprising (second Intifadha), which extended from 2000 to 2005.

Thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis were killed, tens of thousands of Palestinians were injured, their homes were destroyed, all in front of the whole world through television screens.

- 2004 (November): Elected Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, dies in his office prison, in Ramallah. Many Palestinians believe he was assassinated by the Israelis. He was imprisoned in his own office, surrounded by besieging Israeli occupation forces because he refused to sell out and sign on a phony Palestinian state.

- 2005 (September): The Israeli occupation forces were forced to leave Gaza Strip by resistance, as they were forced to leave south Lebanon. 

Mahmoud Abbas was elected as the second president of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government under Israeli occupation.

- 2006 (January): Palestinian parliamentary elections were held, supervised by international observers. Prominent among these was President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center. Carter and all observers announced that the elections were democratic, transparent, and fair. 

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won an overwhelming majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament. 

The Israeli occupation government expressed its displeasure and decided to punish the Palestinian people for electing Hamas. The US-EU government followed the Israeli lead right away, as usual.

The Palestinian people were isolated, border crossings were closed, financial relations were severed, revenues were withheld, and even financial assistance from Arab and Muslim countries was not allowed to reach them.

- 2007: A short confrontation between Fateh and Hamas in Gaza resulted in the defeat of Fateh-loyal security forces. Hamas became the only party dominating government in Gaza. Fateh became the only party dominating the West Bank.

The Gaza Strip now is the largest prison in the world. About 1.5 million people cannot leave it, cannot receive financial aid from Arab and Islamic governments, most of them are unemployed living on the UN handouts.

The Gaza Strip conditions now have made the Warsaw Ghetto, during World War II, a little story.

Now, who is the real terrorist?

No doubt, the Israeli occupiers are the real terrorists.

All attempts of the Israeli occupiers and their supporters to label Palestinians as terrorists is nothing but to distract and confuse people, particularly in the US-EU countries, to keep them silent towards the horrors the Israelis have been committing against the Palestinian people. 

**************************

Appendix 

17 items

Encyclopedia Encarta

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568245/Fascism.html 

***

References

The following verses from the Holy Qura'an express the above meanings about Islamic internationalism and celebrating human diversity:

Chapter 2, Verse 256; Chapter 3, Verse 19; Chapter 5, Verse 3; Chapter 9, Verse 33; Chapter 10, Verse 6; Chapter 49, Verse 13; Chapter 22, Verse 45; Chapter 10, Verse 13; Chapter 30, Verse 2. 

Statistics about US deaths from tobacco and alcoholic beverage industries:

Olson, David H and John Defrain. 2000. "Marriage and the Family." New York: McGraw Hill (Page 32).

Encyclopedia Encarta, regarding fascism:

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568245/Fascism.html 

Persecution of Muslim Americans Since September 11, 2007:

http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/2007-Civil-Rights-Report.pdf: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the US, 2007: Presumption of Guilt, a CAIR Report 

http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx 

http://www.cair.com/Issues/Citizenship Delays.aspx 

CAIR's daily updates: http://www.cair.com

Sources for the Palestine Section:

Edward Said's Books (from Library of Congress):

Peace and its discontents : essays on Palestine in the Middle East peace process / by Edward W. Said ; with a preface by Christopher Hitchens.

Out of place : a memoir / Edward W. Said.

From Oslo to Iraq and the road map / Edward W. Said ; foreword by Tony Judt ; afterword by Wadie E. Said.

End of the peace process : Oslo and after / Edward W. Said.

Culture and imperialism / Edward W. Said.

Profile of the Palestinian people / Edward W. Said ... [et al.].

Blaming the victims : spurious scholarship and the Palestinian question / edited by Edward W. Said and Christopher Hitchens.

Covering Islam : how the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world / Edward W. Said.

Walid Al-Khalidi's Books

Islam, the West and Jerusalem / Walid Khalidi.

All that remains : the Palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by Israel in 1948 / editor, Walid Khalidi ; research and text, Sharif S. Elmusa, Muhammad Ali Khalidi.

Before their diaspora : a photographic history of the Palestinians, 1876-1948 / with an introduction and commentary by Walid Khalidi.

Rashid Al-Khalidi's Books

Iron cage : the story of the Palestinian struggle for statehood / Rashid Khalidi.

Palestinian right of return : two views / Rashid I. Khalidi, Itamar Rabinovich.

Resurrecting Empire : western footprints and America's perilous path in the Middle East / Rashid Khalidi.

Samih Farsoun's Books

Palestine and the Palestinians / Samih K. Farsoun, Naseer Aruri.

Palestine and the Palestinians / Samih K. Farsoun with Christina E. Zacharia.

Culture and customs of the Palestinians / Samih K. Farsoun.

Three main sources about the Israel Lobby in the US:

President Jimmy Carter's Book

Mearsheimer and Walt's Book

Paul Findley's Book

youtube.com/watch?v=wBJgaBe5NgM 

http://www.israellobbybook.com/book.html

Dutch TV film showing the Israelis' influence over America's Congress. http://video.google.com/videoplay?

docid=2894821400057137878