Isabel Macdonald writes: In the midst of remarkably cynical election-time mud-slinging, the Obsession campaign is truly in a class of its own.
Over the past weeks, 28 million copies of the anti-Muslim propaganda film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West have been delivered to the doors of newspaper subscribers in swing states. The 2006 documentary, which has been a mainstay of David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," describes "radical Islam" as a menace comparable to Adolf Hitler that, according to the film's website, "is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western civilization under the yoke of its values."
....
There has really just been one small glitch in the plan: The public doesn't seem to be buying it. Newspapers that carried the DVD have faced floods of complaints from readers, and the past week has seen protests and press conferences denouncing the film.
The problem, it would appear, is that many readers simply do not accept the notion their newspaper should provide a cover for hate propaganda. As one Durham, N.C., News & Observer reader put it, "I cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering video disk Obsession in my newspaper! What will you enclose next? KKK robes?"
The public, it turns out, is a much a tougher sell than the corporate media. Major corporate media outlets have for years been citing the anti-Muslim pundits featured in Obsession as "experts."
For example: Steve Emerson has been invited regularly on NBC and described as an "anti-terror expert," despite the fact his research has been repudiated many times over. This is an "expert" who initially blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Middle Eastern terrorists, and who is now going around claiming that the Bush State Department is collaborating with extremists.
And then there's Daniel Pipes. While he's repeatedly been cited by the media as an "expert" on Islam and the Middle East, he has warned that "the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims" entail "true dangers" for American Jews, and led a witch hunt against a public school official who was slated to run an Arabic-language charter school in New York City.
Just a month before a critical election, there are no signs that the anti-Muslim mud-slinging campaign is going away. In fact, the secretive nonprofit called the Clarion Fund behind the Obsession campaign just came out with a brand new DVD, The Third Jihad, featuring Mark Steyn -- who, as FAIR's new report documents, has warned of the "demographic decline" posed by Europe's emerging Muslim population, and suggests there are lessons for Europeans in the Balkan example of ethnic cleansing.
You can read all about Emerson, Pipes and Steyn in a new report that's just been released called "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation" . The report profiles 12 top anti-Muslim pundits, including prominent talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
The media's long record of failing to challenge (and often enabling) anti-Muslim smears should leave us quite worried about how this final leg of election '08 will play out: Will the media continue to provide a platform to the anti-Muslim smear machine, or will they uphold standards of responsible journalism?
Salaam writes: Richard Silverstein reports at Tikun Olam that 'Third Jihad' producer Erik Werth was arrested in 1995 for impersonating a Secret Service agent. He includes an excerpt from an article from the Charlotte Observer, and attributes the discovery of the information to Tampa Bay Tribune reporter Meg Laughlin. I can't find an active link to the Charlotte article (not surprising, considering the age of the story), and I can't find any stories by Laughlin that mention the Werth arrest, so i can't independently verify this report. Richard has a good record of credible reporting, so I'm excerpting his report here.
Richard Silverstein at Tikum Olam writes: Many of the journalists who've reported on the Clarion Fund and its anti-Islam "documentary" Obsession have wondered why the film credits listed fake names for the two producers. Yesterday we reported that the real name of one of the producers is Erik Werth. Thanks to Meg Laughlin of the St. Petersburg Times, we may have the answer. The Charlotte Observer reported the following in 1995:
Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)
August 2, 1995 Wednesday THREE EDITION
Man charged in Secret Service ruse
COLUMBIA - A former U.S. Treasury Department adviser has been charged with impersonating a Secret Service agent in order to get a airline service charge dropped, U.S. Attorney Pete Strom says.
A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted Erik Werth, 25, of Rosslyn, Va., a former policy adviser to the Treasury Department's undersecretary for enforcement, Strom said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Ruschky said the undersecretary oversees agents in the Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the Customs Service.
The indictment accused Werth of impersonating a Secret Service agent by threatening to have an employee arrested at the Columbia airport on May 22. He caused a disturbance by demanding a waiver of a service charge for changing his plane ticket, Ruschky said. If convicted, Werth faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
I can imagine why Clarion might've given Werth a false identity in fear that his past would damage the credibility (if it ever had any) of the film. I also find it ironic that Werth was arrested for assuming a false identity and Clarion did precisely the same thing in shielding Werth from scrutiny.
All of this skullduggery becomes all the more confusing given that the new Clarion documentary Third Jihad DOES list Werth as producer. I guess Clarion decided that they were no longer embarrassed by having someone accused of a federal crime connected to their project.
Maybe Hank Scheinkopf, Clarion's new PR flack will have a ready explanation for this to journalists who call him asking for one. And to anyone in the Jewish community either contemplating hosting a screening of this film or attending one, I'd urge you to factor this little bit of sleaziness into your calculations.
If someone is sleazy enough to believe they can abuse their former role in the U.S. government's national security apparatus in order to weasel out of an airline ticket fee, who knows what they wouldn't do to smear Muslims in pursuit of a juicy story.
To any intrepid researcher who can confirm how this case was disposed I'd be grateful.
'Third Jihad' has been released this week in individual showings at theaters in California, New York, Illinois, Arizona, Texas, Utah and Florida.
Rudy Guiliani is prominently featured in the new movie. Remember Rudy Guiliani? The guy who said in a 1994 speech as New York City Mayor that,
"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
In addition to being the most unabashedly fascist, Guiliani's campaign for the presidency was also the most virulently Islamophobic. Here's John Deady, who ran Guiliani's campaign in New Hampshire, declaring the need to "Chase Muslims back into their caves or get rid of them."
'The Third Jihad,' is the next anti-Muslim agitprop movie produced by Aish Hatorah and The Clarion Fund and it debuted this week. It turns out that the PR firm that is marketing 'The Third Jihad' is owned by Brett Doster, who also ran Guiliani's California campaign.
Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam writes: Clarion Fund, the non-profit anti-Muslim group which created Obsession and Third Jihad, claims that its "educational" efforts to make the world aware of the menace of radical Islam are non-partisan. It has to do so to maintain its 501c3. But everything this outfit does is partisan.
Reader Robin McLaren notes that a Phoenix newspaper said this about a local screening of the film:
Brent Lowder, a partner in Frontline Strategies LLC, represented the nonprofit Clarion Fund, which produced the film...
The Clarion Fund describes itself as a nonpartisan organization aimed at educating Americans about national security issues, particularly about the threat of radical Islam.
So who, you ask, is Front Line Strategies (the reporter likely spelled the company name wrong), which "represented" Clarion? Take a gander at their website:
Front Line Strategies was founded by Brett Doster following his widely successful performance as Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Re-election campaign in Florida in 2004.
Ah yes, the PR firm of the guy that brought you the Florida hanging chad debacle is now marketing Third Jihad. Nothing partisan about that.
Guest of honor at the Third Jihad shindig was none other than token Muslim-Republican-free marketeer-libertarian Zuhdi Jasser, who is incidentally the star attraction of the film (aside from Rudy Giuliani, who is also featured prominently).
Apparently, some of his local co-religionists don't take kindly to Jasser's views:
Jasser is not without his detractors. In 2005, the Arizona Muslim Voice newspaper published an editorial cartoon depicting Jasser as a dog dismembering and devouring another Muslim. His views have been criticized by members of his own mosque.
[End Tikun Olam excerpt]
I wonder if Jasser has reflected on some of the other comments made by high officials in Guiliani's campaign and whether it would affect his willingness to appear in a movie with him, such as this comment from Deady that was made to a journalist when asked if he would apologize for the "chasing Muslims" remark:
"I don't subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims," Deady told me by phone from his home in New Hampshire. "They're all Muslims."
Deady also said, "When I say get rid of them, I wasn't necessarily referring to genocide. What I was referring to is, stand up to them every time they stick up their heads and attack us."
To be clear, Deady seems to be saying that it might not be necessary to engage in genocide against all Muslims, but that all options are on the table. The supporters of political leaders who create and inflame attitudes like this are the people who created the 'Obsession,' 'Third Jihad' campaign.
Ah, secret, recently uncovered documents. A "goal of destroying Western civilization from within." A grand conspiracy organized by a globally networked religious minority. Sound familiar yet?
Eli Clifton writing at Lobelog.com (link after excerpt): The film, The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America seems, perhaps even more explicitly than Obsession, designed to stir up a climate of fear in the United States in the weeks before the presidential election.
So what is The Third Jihad about exactly? The trailer on its websites says very little, but the brief synopsis tells us more than the film makers may have hoped.
On October 3rd the synopsis reads as follows:
"After the FBI releases a radical Islamist manifesto describing how to weaken America from within, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim American and former physician to the US Congress, decides to investigate. The Third Jihad is about what he discovered.
How is radical Islam operating inside the West? Is a subversive "cultural jihad" underway? How does radical Islam plan to bring America to its knees? What is the endgame?"
And a couple of weeks ago the synopsis mentioned an "infiltration", a "dominating of North America" and "destroying Western civilization."
On September 21st the synopsis read:
"The Third Jihad focuses on an FBI-discovered secret document-the manifesto of the American Muslim Brotherhood. It describes the 'grand jihad' goal of destroying Western civilization from within by infiltrating and dominating North America.
The film reveals the agenda of the radical Muslim leaders in America and provides viewers with an impressively crafted look at the immediate dangers posed."
Ah, secret, recently uncovered documents. A "goal of destroying Western civilization from within." A grand conspiracy organized by a globally networked religious minority. Sound familiar yet? Could be because it's echoing one of the most influential and persistent conspiracy theories of all time. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
....
It looks as if The Third Jihad has taken a lesson from one of the most influential pieces of anti-Semitic propaganda ever produced. Clarion seeks to tell us that a secret document, authored by Muslims, details the systematic way in which Muslims plan to "infiltrate" and "dominate" Western civilization and destroy it from within.
One hundred and five years after the Protocols of the Elders of Zion first appeared, it is amazing to see the same ideas, paranoia, conspiracy-mongering, distrust and racism manifest themselves in such a blatant manner.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 PRNewswire -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group announced today that Howard Gordon, the executive producer of Fox's drama "24," has withdrawn his endorsement of the anti-Muslim film "Obsession" currently being distributed to some 28 million households in presidential election swing states by a shadowy non-profit organization called the Clarion Fund.
"After being contacted by a number of people whose opinions I respect and after reviewing Obsession with their criticisms and concerns in mind, I have asked the film makers to remove my endorsement from the Obsession website and from any future promotional materials. While I remain committed to the film's essential message -- that the hate-mongering promoted by radical Islamism presents a real threat to western values of tolerance and pluralism -- I also appreciate that the goal of co-existence and tolerance is not being served by films like Obsession."
The film's chief claim is that 2008 is like 1938. Inflammatory images of Muslim extremists and terrorist violence are interspersed with footage of Nazi rallies and Hitler's speeches.
Aish Hatorah media production calling card: Every perceived opponent is Hitler. A rash of videos is hitting the web right now like the one above titled, "Fuhrer Obama Hitler Youth - Sing for Change," that superimposes sights and sounds of the Obama campaign with Nazi-era sound and video. Haven't these guys ever heard of Godwin's Law?
Adam Shatz writes: If you live in an American swing state you may have received a copy of 'Obsession' in your Sunday paper. 'Obsession' isn't a perfume: it's a documentary about 'radical Islam's war against the West'. In the last two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. 'The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,' the sleeve announces. 'It's our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed vote in November.' The Clarion Fund, the supplement's sponsor, doesn't explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just happened to coincide with Obama's leap in the polls.
The Clarion Fund is a front for neoconservative and Israeli pressure groups. It has an office, or at least an address, in Manhattan at Grace Corporate Park Executive Suites, which rents out 'virtual office identity packages' for $75 a month. Its website, clarionfund.org, provides neither a list of staff nor a board of directors, and the group still hasn't disclosed where it gets its money, as required by the IRS. Who paid to make 'Obsession' isn't clear - it cost $400,000. According to Rabbi Raphael Shore, the film's Canadian-Israeli producer, 80 per cent of the money came from the executive producer 'Peter Mier', but that's just an alias, as is the name of the film's production manager, 'Brett Halperin'. Shore claims 'Mier' and 'Halperin', whoever they are, are simply taking precautions, though it isn't clear against what. The danger (whatever it is) hasn't stopped Shore - or the director, Wayne Kopping, a South African neocon - from going on television to promote their work.
The 60-minute film was first released in 2006 and shown during the mid-term elections on Fox News. Since then it has received top billing at 'Islamo-Fascism Awareness' week on American campuses, at Christian-Zionist conferences and at events organised by Republican politicians in Florida. It has found a powerful backer in the real estate magnate Sheldon Adelson, who describes himself as 'the world's richest Jew'. The Endowment for Middle East Truth, a neoconservative think tank in Washington DC which recently hosted a series of seminars named after Adelson and his wife, arranged distribution of 'Obsession', at a cost in the tens of millions.
The makers of the film, like their subjects, are soldiers of God. Almost everyone associated with it or with Clarion has worked for Aish HaTorah, an 'education' group with offices in East Jerusalem and strong links to the settler movement. Clarion was incorporated in Delaware to the New York offices of Aish HaTorah and Rabbi Shore was the director, as well as the founder of its media organisation, Honest Reporting, which campaigns against a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. It's illegal in the US for nonprofit organisations, or for foreign nationals, to try to influence the outcome of an election.
The film's chief claim is that 2008 is like 1938, only worse, since there are more Muslims than Germans and they're more spread out geographically: 'They're not outside our borders, they are here.' Violent raptures and spectacular carnage unfold in slick montages set to throbbing Middle Eastern music: Pakistanis deliriously burning the American flag, Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks, Hizbullah chanting 'death to America', clerics praising the 'magnificent 19' and the murder of unbelievers, children training to become suicide bombers, the planes crashing into the towers. These images are interspersed with footage of Nazi rallies and Hitler's speeches. A chapter - narrated by Martin Gilbert, Churchill's biographer - is devoted to the Mufti's collaboration with Hitler.
The 'Obsession' movie was about the Muslim menace 'over there.' 'The Third Jihad' (trailer above) will be about the invisible Muslim juggernaut here in the US, right now, crawling up your back porch and slipping in through the downstairs window you left open, bwahahahaha...
Richard Silverstein writes at Tikun Olam: Radical Islam wants you...and America
Yes, you read me right. Those crazy imams and ayatollahs want to destroy our American way of life and institute Sharia here in the U.S. of A. They plan on dismantling the Constitution and creating an Islamic state in place of our beloved republic. How do I know? Third Jihad tells me so. What's Third Jihad? Brought to you by the Clarion Fund, the same folks who brought you Obsession. Their new film debuts October 5th. And not a moment too soon I might add, since those radical jihadis are burrowing into the American heartland as I write these words.
As reader Robin wrote, Third Jihad is "Obsession on steroids." Right from the opening scene displaying the World Trade Center in ruins as ominous Arabic sounding music plays on the soundtrack, this film hammers you with one message and one message alone: radical Islam wants what you love and will do anything to get it.
For those of us who lived through the 1950s and remember the horrible TV shows and movies (i.e. I Married a Communist, I Was a Communist for the FBI, etc.) depicting American Communists insinuating themselves into the very fabric of American life in order to subvert and destroy it-Third Jihad will give you a sense of deja vu all over again (to quote Yogi Berra allegedly). Something there is in a human being which loves a bogeyman, someone to fear, someone who represents almost pure evil. I don't quite understand this primeval urge that lurks within us. But it is there.
One of the MOs of the producers of Obsession and Third Jihad is to feature a "good," moderate Muslim informant to "educate" their audience about the evils of radical Islam. In Obsession, those roles are played by faux PLO-terrorist Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish and Kahleel Mohammed (who has angrily disavowed the film and his participation in it).
In the new film, the "good" Muslim is played to the hilt by its "star," one M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He is a "devout practicing Muslim" (and he won't let you forget that to distinguish himself from Christian-Arab Muslim haters, Shoebat and Darwish), former Navy Lieutenant Colonel, physician, and wannabe political thinker. He seems to have no special qualifications for taking on the role of analyst of political Islam, but assume it he does and with a vengeance.
To put it plain and simple, Jasser is a Muslim neocon. It's a strange animal considering how hostile the Republican right is to Islam and Muslims. But if Jasser didn't exist then the neocons would have to invent him (which is pretty much what they did in the case of Shoebat-or I should say that the latter re-invented himself to ingratiate himself with his neocon sponsors).
If you read Jasser carefully, he reminds me of the Log Cabin Republicans, American gays who believe that a Republican Party with no gay members is a Party that will treat gay interests even more shabbily than it does already. In other words, Jasser seems to have chosen to become a staunch Republican in order to, in his eyes, advance the Muslim agenda through the ranks of the Republican Party.
Salaam writes: There is no list of how many and which newspapers in Oregon distributed the 'Obsession' video, so I'm posting them when I find them. The Bend Bulletin is the newspaper here. The Oregonian is the other known Oregon newspaper to have distributed it.
The Eye found a surprise when we opened up our copy of The Bulletin on Sunday - an insert containing a DVD of a documentary called "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West."
Turns out we weren't the only ones who got a surprise - some 28 million copies of the DVD were shipped out last week in newspapers around the country, most of them in what are considered "swing states" in the presidential election.
To say the documentary is controversial is an understatement akin to saying that investing in the stock market contains a particle of risk. Editor & Publisher reports that at least one paper - the Greensboro (NC) News & Record - refused to distribute it. According to John Robinson, the paper's editor, the publisher "said it was divisive and plays on people's fears and served no educational purpose."
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 PRNewswire-USNewswire -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today said it has asked the IRS to investigate whether the non-profit organization behind distribution of ananti-Muslim film to 28 million homes in presidential election swing states has violated laws governing its tax-exempt status.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the IRS to find out if the Clarion Fund, a shadowy non-profit group distributing DVDs of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is being "operated exclusively for the exempt purpose of educating 'Americans about issues of national security'" as it claims.
In a letter to Steven T. Miller, commissioner of the IRS's Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, CAIR wrote in part:
"[I]ndependent observers have suggested that the distribution of the DVD was an obvious attempt by the Clarion Fund toparticipate in campaign activities and intervene in the 2008 presidential election."
The letter quoted the editorial page editor of the Palm Beach Post, who wrote: "Last week, an ad for John McCain came with The Post. But it wasn't labeled as an ad for John McCain...
Distribution of the DVD, whose producers say it will 'change the way you look at the world,' was timed with the post-Labor Day start of presidential election season. About 95 percent of the papers that contained the DVD are in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire..."
CAIR asked the IRS, if evidence of wrongdoing is uncovered, to consider stripping the Clarion Fund of its tax-exempt status, tax funds it spent on prohibited activities and impose an injunction on further political expenditures.
"A non-profit group's tax-exempt status should not be misused to promote political candidates or to influence the outcome of an election," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.
Awad noted that even those involved in the production and promotion of "Obsession" are now having second thoughts about backing what the vast majority of commentators are calling anti-Muslim "propaganda."
The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a pro-Israel think tank, pulled out of "The Obsession Project" after CAIR filed an FEC complaint seeking an investigation of the Clarion Fund's possible violations of election laws.
A pro-Israel think tank has pulled out of involvement with "The Obsession Project," just a few days after a Muslim advocacy group filed a complaint about the effort.
The Washington, D.C.-based Endowment for Middle East Truth had agreed to write a policy paper and lead an educational outreach effort subsequent to the distribution of 28 million DVDs of the film "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." The DVD distribution was funded and arranged by the Clarion Fund, and EMET was not involved with that portion of the project.
EMET founder and president Sarah Stern initially told JTA on Friday that she had been taken advantage of by the group and had never spoken with Ari Morgenstern, who was quoted in press reports as speaking for EMET and the Obsession Project.
But the communications strategists for the project, Baron Communications LLC and 30 Point Strategies, shared e-mails and phone records that showed Stern had at least four telephone conversations earlier in the week with Morgenstern. In addition, they produced an e-mail from Sept. 22 which showed Stern approving of a press release and other materials announcing EMET's participation. Another e-mail a day later from Stern included a lengthy note backing the project's mission and the sign-off "Soldier On!"
Stern now does acknowledge having spoken to Morgenstern and approving involvement with the project, but now says she "made a mistake" in not getting approval from EMET's board before agreeing to became a partner. She said she still supports efforts to encourage Americans to watch "Obsession."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Federal Election Commission on Sept. 23 to investigate the distribution of the DVDs and whether it was intended to influence the election - even though the film includes no partisan political content. The DVD were inserted into dozens of newspapers in swing states. The Muslim group claims that Aish HaTorah International is behind the project. A spokesman for Aish HaTorah denied the organization was involved, but said employees of the group may be involved in their free time.
Salaam writes: An article in the Dayton Daily News yesterday reported the police chief saying definitively that the gas attack was not a hate crime. That report must have been an error or the chief backtracked because in this article he is only implied to have said 'there is no evidence of a hate crime.'
DAYTON - A can of pepper spray was found Tuesday, Sept. 30, near a local Islamic mosque evacuated Friday after a girl inside was sprayed with a chemical irritant.
Someone found the black can of pepper spray in a white and red bag near the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., and called police, Lt. John Huber said.
Detectives are trying to lift fingerprints off the bag and can, Huber said.
He echoed police Chief Richard Biehl's comments that there is no evidence the 10-year-old girl was the victim of a hate crime.
"You have to have evidence of bias and right now we have none," Huber said.
The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the mosque to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., she told police.
One of the men then sprayed her through the open window, she said. The girl said her face was burning and she felt nauseous.
Another woman in the room felt nauseous and the mosque was evacuated.
HAZMAT crews called to the scene found no traces of chemicals in the mosque or on the girl.
A few of the 300 people celebrating the last 10 days of Ramadan with dinner and a prayer session were treated for eye irritation at the scene.
Islamic Society of Greater Dayton President Dr. Tarek Sabagh issued a written statement Tuesday that said the organization was cooperating with police.
"We ask the community to be patient and to refrain from speculation in this case while the investigation is being completed," Sabagh said. "We need to focus on the facts of this case and not let rumor and speculation take over."
He said he will not talk about the incident again until the investigation is completed.
Several group leaders today, including someone from the Ohio Council of Churches, the NAACP and the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church, denounced what they say is hate speech spread by the DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.
The intent was to show a united front in condemning the producers of the DVD and the newspapers that distributed it. The film is also now being mailed directly to people's homes.
The press conference took an odd turn when reporters from Citizens USA Newspaper, based in Dayton, turned the topic away from the DVD and started quizzing the Muslim leaders about other things. A woman asked them about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, and why there weren't quick to denounce him. She implied that U.S. law would somehow be superseded some day by sharia law, a faith-based law Muslims follow. The woman next to her, who was filming the press conference, said the message spread by the DVD was something people should hear, and be concerned about, including the speakers at the press conference.
To her credit, Asma Mobin-Uddin, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Ohio, thanked the woman for her questions and answered them politely. So did Bishop Bruce R. Ough of the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. But then he pointed out that the questions were exactly the sort of stereotyping the hurts Muslims, and what they are afraid the DVD perpetuates.
The DVD, whose producers say is about radical Islam - which does not include most Muslims - shows images of terrorist attacks, a terrorist training center, and Nazi youth. The Council on American-Islamic Relations immediately criticzed the movie, which has been out since 2005, as a political attack on all Muslims.
John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro News and Record writes: One thing has bothered me about the discussion of the distribution of the "Radical Islam" DVD. Some of those papers explaining their decisions to distribute the DVD to readers suggest that not doing so is censorship. And that they are erring on the side of free speech.
Of course, it's not free speech. It's a paid advertisement making the case for one side of a complicated, controversial issue. The papers will distribute the other sides, presumably, if they can come up with the money to pay for it. But most likely, the papers will not publish their information because the other sides won't take out ads.
As for censorship, not distributing a paid advertisement is not censorship. Newspapers decide not to publish information every day. Most of the time we call it news judgment. Other times we call it lack of space. We never call it censorship...particularly when the information is readily available elsewhere, as it is in this case (on YouTube).
Many readers have called or written to me about the DVD 'Obsession' that was inserted as a paid advertisement in The Blade on Sunday, Sept. 14. The reaction that I received was all harshly negative.
'You are a disgrace,' one anonymous woman yelled on my voice mail. 'Why didn't you, as an ombudsman, stop this from running in the paper?'
There were several other responses on the same theme. So I think I need to clarify my role. First of all, my job isn't to stop anything from appearing in The Blade. Most of the time, I don't have any more idea what is going to be in the newspaper than any reader.
Occasionally I am asked for advice by reporters or editors about things I know a lot about, primarily Michigan affairs.
But I do not make policy. I merely discuss reader complaints or concerns, try to get you answers when I can, and, occasionally, share my own thoughts, which are not the policy of the newspaper.
Technically, 'Obsession' is not even something I would normally discuss because it wasn't part of the editorial product of the newspaper - what reporters and editors produce.
It was a paid advertisement. In fact, The Blade appropriately explained all of this in a news story that ran in the paper on Sept. 20, under the headline, 'Ad worries members of Muslim community.'
Mark Zaborney, who wrote the story, quoted the man who made the decision, Joseph H. Zerbey IV, vice president and general manager of The Blade, as saying that the DVD 'is not a news product and its content is not a reflection of the views or opinion Of The Blade, its owners, or its employees.'
Nevertheless, many people were outraged.
Another reader, when I explained this to him, said, 'You just have no guts and are trying to avoid giving your opinion.'
For what it's worth, here's my opinion, which is likely to satisfy nobody.
While I recognize the newspaper's need for revenue, I wish The Blade had rejected this advertisement. I saw the fuller version of Obsession at a theater in a synagogue when it was released in 2006.
The two people I watched it with were both Jewish, and they both thought the film was over the top. While it was factual, and the dialogue noted that many Muslims are not extremist, that wasn't the impression it conveyed. It also juxtaposed images of Nazis with Islamic leaders, which is bound to be
offensive.
My sense was that its distribution was designed by those who laced the ad (not The Blade) to inflame tensions during an election year.
Incidentally, I received a number of queries (or accusations) as to whether
the editors and owners approved this because they are Jewish. The fact is that none of them is. Nor does anyone in management at The Blade want to inflame tensions with Jews or Muslims.
I was also asked about my own background, so in the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of no church but was raised a member of a Christian Protestant denomination. None of my blood relatives are Muslims or Jews, but I have close friends who are Jewish and Muslim.
And that, as Forrest Gump said, is all I have to say about that.
Demonstrators gathered this morning - homemade signs in tow - to protest the Oregonian 's decision to distribute a DVD called "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West " as a paid ad insert in the paper's Sunday editions.
The group of about 75 protesters congregated in front of the Oregonian 's offices on Southwest Jefferson Street and Broadway, waving white flags displaying doves and bobbing signs that read "Hate-Not in Our Town" in the direction of cars that drove by, many of whom waved and honked their approval.
Spokespeople from various organizations and faiths took turns behind a podium on the sidewalk and denounced The Oregonian 's connection to the 60-minute DVD, which they described as trying to incite fear of Muslims by assuming an educational tone and proceeding to all-too-hazily differentiate between Islam and terrorist organizations.
"It is the moral obligation of a newspaper to inform, not to misinform," said United Methodist minister Rev. Chuck Cooper to applause and shouted agreement. "The Oregonian gets a well deserved 'F' for citizenship." He called for a written apology from the newspaper, and suggested that it donate the advertising revenue it received for "Obsession" to a Muslim educational trust in the community.
Hala Gores , American-Palestinian attorney and president of the Arab American Cultural Center of Oregon, led the crowd in chanting "say no to hatred, Fred," directed toward O publisher Fred Stickel (who appears to be playing the free speech card. He is quoted in an article about the controversy in Sunday's Oregonian as saying, "I've always felt we have an obligation to keep our advertising columns as open as possible... Our acceptance of anything-our acceptance or rejection-does not depend on whether or not we agree with the content.").
"It is time to tell the media - the Oregonian specifically - to stop the use of sophisticated propaganda," Gores said.
Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, co-chair of the Interfaith Council of Greater Portland, struck a note of optimism as he leaned over the podium and made eye contact with members of the surrounding crowd: "My prayer is that this is a positive moment, where we can see what work is to be done," he said.
