Friday, March 18, 2005
This story is alread old in blog years (meaning hours) I guess, but I did want to mention it. Hizbollah's TV station is now banned Europe-wide, which ought-to, but probably won't, cause extreme cognitive-dissonance in European capitals as they continue to deride America's unnuanced insistence on resisting separating Hizbollah the terror group from Hizbollah the political entity - while at the same time they admit that the group's main communications channel is too hateful and dangerous to be broadcast.
"Ah, but they run social services!" Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Somehow the Italians managed without him.
[Update: Heh. I have been informed by a reader that Mussolini did not actually make the trains run on time, which is fitting, as Hizbollah does not actually contribute to a healthy Lebanese civil society, either.]
Watchdogs Take Hizbollah TV Off European Satellites
It was part of a package of different TV channel networks being offered to viewers by Globesat -- a unit of France Telecom's Globecast -- which leases space on an NSS satellite that transmits to Africa and the Middle East.
Last week, the Transatlantic Institute, a Brussels-based think-tank set up by the American Jewish Committee, said the French ban on al-Manar was a "wake-up call that the values of radical Islam" were being transmitted to Europe.
It said programs broadcast by Arab channels available in Europe via satellite projected views which were anti-Western, misogynist, threatening to Jews and which promoted violence.
But Lebanon's parliament has criticized the French ban on al-Manar, saying the ruling showed the reach of "Zionist pressure" on France.
