"Obsession,' the fear-mongering movie produced by a Canadian-Israeli that suggests that Islam is trying to defeat the west and it's 1938 all over again, costs $14.95 from its website. But it is being distributed free in copies of the New York Times, as an insert paid for by the Clarion Fund, ye olde shadowy front. Says the Charlotte News and Observer, which has also distributed the film:
The DVD has already been inserted into copies of The New York Times
distributed in midwestern states. This weekend and next, it is slated
to be distributed in many newspapers in Ohio, Michigan, Florida,
Pennsylvania and Colorado, in addition to North Carolina.
Some have wondered if the distribution is intended to influence voters in swing states for this year's presidential election.
The
Clarion Fund refused to disclose its board of directors or donors. New
York state documents list Eli David Greenberg, a 49-year-old lawyer
with the firm of Freeman and Hertz, as the registered agent for the
Clarion Fund.
Greenberg is a registered Democrat and has donated
money to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He did not return
phone calls.
Alan Dershowitz is in the film, so are Steven Emerson and Walid Shoebat. And as in all these efforts, the film and its backers conflate Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel with the U.S. problem with Muslim terrorists. Dailykos says the giveaway is a scare tactic aimed at the swing voters. It is remarkably similar to this effort by the Republican Jewish Coalition saying that voting for Obama is like voting for the next holocaust. Where is Obama? He is incapable of attacking the neoconservatives. (And here's the Times coverage of Obsession from a year back, suggesting that the film fails to distinguish between radical Islam and Islam generally, and saying it was being distributed by a pro-Israel network.)
I would like Phil, or anyone else who has actually seen this to point out where it lies. You can't because it doesn't. On another note, why not distribute it. Unless your advocating censorship. Jimmy Carter, and Walt and Mearsheimer get their chance to be champions of Arab terrorists. Why not the other side?
For once, a reasonable question from La Espada de Gedeón: "Why not distribute it?"
The Slimes, unlike the telephone system or the internet, is not a public access network. It exercises discretion over what it publishes, and regularly refuses to run ads with certain content for certain groups.
That the Slimes is willing to distribute this rather tendentious DVD, while refusing other content which takes an opposing view, reveals its bias.
Of course, under the First Amendment, a newspaper publisher has the right to be biased. But don't pose as an objective "newspaper of record" when you're anything but. The Forward is pretty honest about being a newspaper for the Jewish community (although moreso when it was called the Jewish Daily Forward). Why can't the Slimes emulate the Forward's example? Time for another reader contest, to reflag the Old Grey Lady, after she sheds her red trollop rags!
"Obsession" fell out of my subscription copy of The Chronicle of Higher Education!
Bill, I have "actually" seen it. And it surely will satisfy your voyeuristic male gaze, even if the naked lady under the transparent veils is supposedly a Muslim lady, beaten by her evil Muslim man.
The better aesthetic ideas of the film like the Koran verses on her body are NOT the invention of the author. The idea is stolen from: Shirin Neshat. The only difference is, that Shirin would hardly ever be as tasteless and crude.
So the equivalent would be NYT distributing a free DVD of Walt and Mearsheimer talking about the Israel lobby trying to get the US into a war with Iran?
sorry I mixed it up, as you may have realized.
But this one, I have seen too:
Obsession
I mixed up "Obsession" and Submission. For Ayaan Hirsi Ali the entrance ticket into the neocon universe.
I remember reading an article wherein Sheldon Adelson was pressuring someone to produce a movie/video of this type. They told him that they could not do so, because it contained inaccuracies/untruths. Adelson replied that he would do it on his own.
I used the term produce above, but upon further reflection it may have been a matter of distribution.
An organizer for Taglit told Haaretz that Adelson shares his “clearly hawkish” views with program participants. “He talks with the participants about the dangers that Israel has to deal with and the risks from radical Islam.
“He passed out copies of a documentary on how Islam is spreading in the West.”
Without doubt, the Taglit staffer is speaking about the notoriously anti-Muslim “documentary” Obsession which has been exposed for its hard-right ideological views by no less a source than the New York Times.
SOURCE- link to richardsilverstein.com
The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET):
On March 25, 2008, EMET sponsored a luncheon and a showing of the award winning film, “Obsession” to a packed room of more than seventy house and staffers on Capitol Hill. “Obsession” is a riveting film that documents the constant incitement to hate and to kill the Jew, the Christian, the Israeli and the American, that is part of the fabric of Palestinian society today. It draws the chilling parallels between the propaganda that much of the Arab world, and particularly the Palestinians, are currently receiving and what the German population had received prior to World War II.
SOURCE- link to emetonline.org
Where's Richard Witty? Is he not permitted to polemicize and propagandize on the sabbath????
” rel=”nofollow”>FILM ON "RADICAL ISLAM" TIED TO PRO-ISRAEL GROUPS
Khody Akhavi, Inter Press Service News Agency, Mar 26, 2007
Do these Jewish groups think Americans aren't noticing who is behind all this Islamophobia?
From the IPS report:
Its production credits include the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, a translation service founded in 1998 by Col. Yigal Carmon, who spent more than 20 years in Israeli intelligence and later advised two Israeli prime ministers; and the Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group founded by Marcus, that monitors Palestinian news organisations for alleged anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
(Marcus is the settler movement leader who was behind the Palestinian textbook story that Hilary so liked.)
Now that the NYT is involved, do you think we could drop the charade of calling this type of thing "rightwing" or "hard-right"? It has nothing to do with left or right philosophies of the state. Trying to turn everything into part of the silly blue/red game is a distraction from what's really going on.
Is it more rightwing than, say, Haim Saban? Anyone noticed a lot of "leftists" like Dennis Ross speaking out against these Islamophobic efforts? Any peep from the "progressives" in APN? How about our own resident leftist, Richard Witty. Any sentiment in Obsession that Richard hasn't sneakily promoted in his own slimy way?
In what way is it "right" or "left"? The proper word for it is Zionist.
I'd make a bet with you Gideon that I could find lies in the propaganda piece you refer to without much difficulty.
Is it online anywhere?
(cause I'm SAS not going out to buy the damned DVD)
lol, cheers to Leander
Jeez that didn't take long.
Caroline Glick is the queen of bullshit("every conflict on the earth involves Islam")
She's also, on a more positive note, an excellent counter-example for the stereotype of superior jewish intelligence.
Krauthammer, Glick, Pipes, Stormin' Norman and now Benny Morris – complete sewer-dogs posing as journalists…..
I shouldn't really call Poderhertz or Morris journalists(come to think of it neither should I the other two).
But apparently the views of these two extremely sick people are valued by a large number of people to find their way onto the editorial page of America's Newspaper of Record….
FROM "EDITOR & PUBLISHER':
Newspapers Deliver Millions of 'Terror' DVDs to Subscribers — In 'Swing States'
By Greg Mitchell and Joe Strupp
Published: September 13, 2008 2:00 PM ET
NEW YORK The arrival of tens of millions of DVDs of a controversial DVD on doorsteps around the nation — but almost exclusively in election "swing states" — via newspaper home delivery continues this weekend, with explanatory articles and subscriber feedback appearing on some of the papers' Web sites………
ENTIRE ARTICLE- link to editorandpublisher.com
FROM "RAW STORY":
Swing-State newspapers distribute 'terror' videos
Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday September 13, 2008
A 60-minute DVD, titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is being distributed in millions of newspapers across the country this week primarily in swing states through an advertising purchase by a shadowy group called the Clarion Fund……..
ENTIRE ARTICLE- link to rawstory.com
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Actually, pretty much every conflict in the world does involve Islam, does it not?
the video is a sad example of the worst of propaganda, but what makes my stomach turn even more is the fact that the american population is primed to fall for this type of mass produced hysteria…the press is solely responsible because they spew lies under the guise of a free press, presenting itself to the american nation as an arbiter of fairness…
when they know full well that ther are the ministry of propaganda.
the pied piper will lead the u.s into the valley of megido.
the press has sold its soul to the elites for a few shekels and an invitation to a washington party…to hobnob with the kingmakers is more important to them than to tell america some truth.
you can blame adelson or some other ideologue zionist or christian armagedonite but ill blame the lame press in america.
How is it propaganda. It simply allows Moslems to speak the truth has they see it. Tell me where is lies. Have you seen it?
Cherry picking truths to support a desired outcome is dishonest.
The best response is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/junaid09132008.html
It shoudl be read, and passed around.
Re Haygoods contest I suggest NY Looney Tunes.
NYT is schizophrenic. There is clearly a lot of tension betwen the Publisher and his satanic minyons, and the news department. I think this hidden conflict is a wonderful opportunity for some investigative reporter. Sy Hersch please take note.
SOG wrote: ""Actually, pretty much every conflict in the world does involve Islam, does it not?"
Well that's what Mel Gibson said, but everybody got mad at him.
Oh wait, …
Nevermind.
A very good response is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/junaid09132008.html
Hoping to see the naked Arab lady I watched the first few minutes of Obsession. Outside of the fact that I didnt see her I didnt see anything to complain about.
The titles at the beginning say something like "Most Moslims are peaceful. This is about the other ones." It goes on to show documentary footage of angry clerics and their followers. Who could complain about the truth? Though maybe it gets more deceptive later.
Moreover, I could see little to object to in the views of the angry clerics and nationalists that were presented. Who can deny that the Zionist and American nations and the Jews as a people are the enemies of the Arab people? Who could argue with the little girl who wishes she could shoot Sharon. Not God. Apparently Heshe pulled the trigger.
The Arabs are the enemies of the Zionists and the Zionists are the enemies of the Arabs. One could argue that this is only in their minds, but in the frame of worldly discourse (relative truth) it is all too true.
NYT dining out on anti-Islamic, clash-o'-civ adverts?
Well, you have to pay the salaries of Kristol and Brooks some way.
the folks at John Dickerson's EMET site seem to have seen a different film from Paul Easton.
Link please?
But of course the purpose of the film is to stir up peoples fears, and it is certainly reprehensible for the NY Looney Tunes to distribute it, considering their record of censoring ads.
So we see that while the news and editorial departments support Obama, the Right Wing Sulzberger ownership supports McCain.
As I said there is certainly a hell of a story here. I wish Phil could take it on. I would send him money to do it, if I had any.
"Actually, pretty much every conflict in the world does involve Islam, does it not?"
Pretty much every conflict in the Middle East involves Israel, does it not?
And pretty much every lame-assed anti-Muslim comment in this site involves Bill Pearlman aka Sword of Gideon, no?
JewsOnFirst has the original story on this, how the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) used CUFI's tax-free postal permit to send Obsession out during the primaries to slime Obama, and drum up support for bombing Iran.
link to jewsonfirst.org
Note that Danny Ayalon, former Israel Ambassador to the US, wrote a letter that accompanied it.
Sheldon Adelson bankrolls the RJC; its largest donor. He also bankrolls the organization the producer of this film, Raphael Shore, runs in Israel. Raphael Shore is Rabbi Raphael Shore, a Canadian-Israeli who lives in Israel, not Canada.
This is a foreign-made political film being used to influence US elections, according to Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher yesterday:
Ah the bard of Seattle is heard from. Taking a break from championing the Rosenbergs and Al-Arian are we. Maybe Samir Kuntar needs to pay a visit to your house and you can discuss the merits of Islam with him
How I wish that it was this film NYT subscribers had received as a free DVD:
Kill the Messenger – The True Story of Sibel Edmonds
Vikash
"Actually, pretty much every conflict in the world does involve Islam, does it not?"
Yes, all those wicked Muslim terrorists in Colombia, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kandhamal (India), Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Georgia, Ireland, etc.
"Maybe Samir Kuntar needs to pay a visit to your house and you can discuss the merits of Islam with him"
Samir Quntar is not a Muslim, and never has been. He is a Druze and was a member of a Communist group. You seem like a very uninformed fellow.
From dailykos.com:
“Dr House” Asks, Who Is Behind The Mass-Mailing of Obsession?
by Robie
Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 03:21:06 PM PDT
The following is research done delving in to who is behind the 26 million household mass distribution of the so called documentary “Obsession”
While news outlets as well as bloggers are trying to get to the bottom of who financed this endeavor, the below information pertains to the film’s producer as well as founder of the Clarion Fund who claims responsibility for raising the funds……..
SOURCE- link to dailykos.com
/>
From forward.com:
"In all this work, Adelson has not kept his ideological leanings secret. He came to Israel this week with a delegation of Republican congressmen from the United States. And an organizer for Birthright told Ha’aretz that Adelson shares his views with program participants and that he recently passed out copies of a documentary on how Islam is spreading in the West."
SOURCE- link to forward.com