Hollywood’s anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda
Screengrab from American Sniper
By Noura Mansour | MEMO | January 29, 2015
The media plays a significant role in shaping public opinion and narratives. Over the years, it has become a force to be reckoned with in all aspect of life, culture, education, society, language, economy and, especially, politics. Visual media such as movies and TV shows are probably the most popular as there is a wide and diverse audience. Films and programmes target the hearts and minds of viewers, who tend to sympathise with characters and get caught up in the emotion of what they watch. The effect doesn’t end when the credits roll, as people internalise the sights and sounds they have witnessed. Some studies have shown that this not only affects viewers’ perceptions but also their behaviour, especially in the younger age groups.
Hollywood, the movie capital of the world, is as an efficient and powerful tool for mainstreaming American culture and values. However, with great power goes great responsibility. When it comes to films involving Arab and Muslim characters, Hollywood has proved repeatedly to be irresponsible, manipulative, misleading and biased. It has been presenting and reinforcing stereotypical images, which line up with belligerent and orientalist American policies towards Arabs and Muslims; the industry has seldom challenged that image or made an effort to reflect a more objective version.
“The Wind and the Lion” (1975); “Under Siege” (1986); “Wanted: dead or alive” (1987); “True Lies” (1994); “Homeland” (2011-2013); “World War Z” (2013); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (2014); and “American Sniper” (2014), are all examples of films and TV programmes which contribute, directly or indirectly, to the constant vilification of Arabs and Muslims in the mainstream media. Some, such as “True Lies” and, most recently, “American Sniper” have done so openly by presenting uncivilised, violent and merciless Arab characters, which end up being killed as a part of the “happy” ending. Others have done it in a more subtle way, like “World War Z” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, for example.
In “World War Z”, the Israeli army and “security” agencies are portrayed as the guardians of Jerusalem, who built the Apartheid Wall in order to keep zombies locked-in behind it. In real life, the Wall functions as a racist barrier, a key component of Israel’s occupation policies which strip almost 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank of their rights and freedoms. That very same wall is presented in the film as a positive and necessary tool for the salvation of humanity. Israeli soldiers are the heroes and protectors, misleading viewers and distorting reality. By creating sympathy and positive feelings towards militant oppressors and a brutal colonial occupation whilst demonising those living behind the wall, the film provides a degree of legitimacy to Israel’s occupation and, indeed, to the state itself. It is worth remembering that Israel has, since 1948, committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity as it carries out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
If you don’t think anything is wrong with this let’s change a few variables and then consider whether you still think nothing is wrong. Instead of the Apartheid Wall, let’s use concentration camps to control the zombies and instead of Israeli soldiers the security is provided by those in Nazi uniforms. For the sake of objectivity, let’s add that ridiculous scene where Arabs and Israelis are singing together aimlessly about peace in Jerusalem; only let’s have Nazis and Jews singing together about peace instead. See what I mean?
Such a film would, rightfully, have caused outrage around the world for diminishing the suffering of European Jews during World War Two. It should have created a similar reaction for diminishing the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people, but it didn’t.
Similarly, in “American Sniper”, US soldiers are glorified and Arabs are demonised. Saying that the movie is one-sided and biased is an understatement. American soldiers are presented as heroes, protectors and even at times victims in Iraq, whereas the Arabs are all presented as militants, including women and children, who are also engaged in fighting. There are no civilian Iraqis in this movie, except for one family, whose members are killed by Iraqi militants, of course, and not American soldiers.
The movie sends out a pernicious message at the very beginning that killing women and children is inevitable and is a part of a soldier’s duty to “protect”. The moral dilemma about such issues is absent. The sniper shoots to kill and not to disarm, even when the targets are women and children.
Furthermore, there is a clear objectification of Iraqi militants versus the humanisation of American militants. When an American soldier is killed, we get to see a close up of his face so that we can absorb his feelings and his wounds. However, when an Iraqi militant is killed, we only see his body falling down from afar; there’s no blood, no facial expressions and thus no feelings. In addition, American soldiers are more than just soldiers; they are husbands, fathers, sons and daughters, whereas Iraqi militants are one-dimensional.
The “hero” is a man admired for holding the record for the highest number of kills in Iraq and whose fellow soldiers call a “legend”; he shows no remorse over those whom he has killed. The only thing he regrets is not having the chance to kill more Arabs. It is no surprise that such a movie has evoked massive anti-Arab and anti-Muslim responses among cinema audiences in the United States; social media outlets are alive with people expressing enthusiasm for killing Arabs and Muslims.
Even when the plot has nothing to do with Arabs or Palestinians, Hollywood inserts completely irrelevant Arabic/Muslim cultural indicators, often planted on the bad guy, creating a false link between evil and Arabs or Muslims. In “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” it is deemed appropriate, relevant and logical to use the Palestinian Keffiyeh scarf as a part of the Foot Clans’ (Shredder’s army) uniform even though the characters couldn’t be any further from the Arab/Muslim world geographically, culturally, socially and politically; they were originally meant to be Japanese.
Screengrab from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Hollywood promotes anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda, by creating a false association between evil and Arabs and Muslims, regardless of the context of the plot, or by portraying them as the ultimate bad guys in all contexts and providing justification for illegal, immoral and inhumane practices against them. There is a long history of this, even in apparently innocent films.
This incitement against Arabs and Muslims could have disastrous outcomes. Feelings of hate and animosity towards Arabs are translated into actions in many places around the world, not only on a political level but also socially and physically. Whether cinema reflects life or vice versa, the powerful effect it has on us is undeniable. It is pertinent to ponder the words of Malcolm X in this respect: “If you are not careful, newspapers [media] will have you hating the oppressed and loving the oppressors.” The evidence for the truth of his words can be found without too much effort. Hollywood has a lot to answer for.
Dash Cam Video Shows Seattle Cop Falsified Charge Against Elderly Man Walking Down Street
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | January 28, 2015
Seattle police officer Cynthia Whitlatch was cruising down the street in her patrol car when she came across an elderly man standing on the corner using a golf club as a cane, prompting her to stop her car and order him to place the club down, claiming it could be a weapon.
William Wingate, a retired bus driver and Air Force veteran who was 69 at the time, said he’s been using that golf club as a cane for 20 years and refused to set it down.
So Whitlatch escalated the lying.
“You just swang that golf club at me …. It was on audio and videotape, put it down,” she said.
The incident took place last July, but Whitlach’s dash cam video was just released after a public records request by The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly.
The video, posted below, shows Wingate remained professional but defiant, insisting she call another officer.
But when she did, the second officer took her side, arresting him on harassment and obstruction charges when it was clear from the video she was the only one harassing and obstructing his freedom to move freely in the city.
After spending a night in jail, King County prosecutors switched the charge against him to unlawful use of a weapon, obviously not bothering to watch the video.
Wingate, represented by a public defender who also didn’t watch the video, was told to sign an agreement stating the case would be dropped in two years if he complied with certain stipulations.
Fortunately, a former politician learned of the case and got involved, and eventually persuaded the judge to dismiss the case. But police never admitted wrongdoing, even after watching the video.
And Whitlach is still on the force, a protected liar who should be behind bars.
Because Wingate is black and Whitlach is white, she was accused of racial profiling, but police balk at that notion, insisting she would have falsified records to arrest him even if he had been white.
According to The Stranger :
In the police report filed by Officer Coles about the incident, Whitlach said “she observed him look at her and aggressively swing his golf club in the direction of her patrol car.”
“Because Wingate was still in possession of the golf club,” Coles wrote in the report, “and she was fearful of being assaulted by him, she said that she kept her distance from him upon exiting her patrol car.”
“It’s like, c’mon lady. You were lying,” Mason told me. “She wasn’t afraid of him at all.”
But the police commanders, including Metz and Davis, didn’t see it that way. Mason said they “tried to convince me nothing was wrong.”
Metz, in particular, “kept trying to convince us nothing was wrong here. He defended the officer.”
Nothing came out of that meeting, Mason said. But weeks later, she received a call from Deputy Chief Carmen Best, who, like Wingate, is black.
“The solution we came up with,” she said, “was actually good on the part of the [police] chief”—who’d assigned Best to look into the case. “It became African American and white women coming together to work on a solution.”
Weeks later, city prosecutors, after conferring with Best, recommended dismissing both the case against him and the two-year stipulation.
“They know that had this been a white man,” said Mason, “we wouldn’t be here.”
But, in fact, it appears they don’t know that. The Seattle Police Department insists racial bias played no role in the incident.
“If this person had been white,” said SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb, speaking by phone on Tuesday, “I would imagine it would have been the same outcome. We don’t believe this was a biased policing incident. We don’t believe the officer acted out of malice or targeted this man because of his race.”
Whitlatch enjoys playing the victim having been one of 126 Seattle police officers last year who sued the Department of Justice, claiming the agency was infringing on their Constitutional rights by requiring them to be less violent towards citizens.
Her conversation with Wingate begins at the 1:40 mark.
UPDATE: The Stranger posted another story today, revealing some comments apparently made by Whitlach on Facebook regarding her disdain for black people who blame white people for their problems.
Israel-Egypt cooperation surpasses expectation
MEMO | January 28, 2015
Cooperation between the Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence apparatuses exceeds all expectations, Israel’s Channel 10 stressed on Monday, noting that Cairo agrees with Tel Aviv’s requests pertaining to confronting “radical” Islamic movements in Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
In a report the channel’s military affairs broadcaster Alon Ben-David said that cooperation between the Egyptian and Israeli armies does not depend only on the coordination and sharing of intelligence information, but goes beyond this to field cooperation, in reference to the parties’ joint operations against those who are considered sources of danger for Israel and Egypt in Sinai.
Last year the Israeli TV station revealed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued instructions to carry out operations in the heart of Sinai.
Meanwhile, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which is close to Netanyahu, asserted on 12 June 2014 that the Egyptian army depends on intelligence information provided by Israel in its operations against jihadists in Sinai.
General Amos Yadlin, former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, said the confluence of interests between Israel and the “moderate Sunni” governments represents an unprecedented opportunity for Israel to strengthen cooperation with them so as to enhance Israel’s strategic environment and help it cope with the significant challenges it faces.
In an article published by the Makor Rishon newspaper on Monday, Yadlin stressed that Israel has greatly benefited from cooperation with Egypt, Jordan and some countries in the Gulf, calling on Netanyahu’s government to take advantage of this opportunity.
However, Yadlin said that what could undermine such opportunity is the unstable situation in some Arab countries, as well as the deliberate embarrassment that Israel is causing the Arab ruling elites by rejecting the peace initiative that was launched by the late Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz.
Minister: State saboteurs don’t deserve Egyptian nationality
Mada Masr | January 28, 2015
Endowments Minister Mokhtar Gomaa is reiterating his demand to strip citizens of their Egyptian nationality if they are found to promote acts of violence against national security.
Gomaa made these comments on Tuesday to the “Hunna al-Asema” program on the privately owned CBC channel, and again to the “Ala Masou’ouleyati” show on the privately-owned Sada al-Balad channel.
Terror groups are instigating and promoting violence against Egypt’s security forces from abroad, while funneling funds for terrorist operations across the country, Gomaa insisted while speaking to pro-regime television presenter Ahmed Moussa on Tuesday on his “Ala Masou’ouleyati” program.
The Muslim Brotherhood is at the forefront of these terror groups, Gomaa claimed.
The Cabinet officially classified the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization on December 25, 2013.
“We are calling for, and continue to call for, the stripping of citizenship from such criminals. This is an honor that they do not deserve,” Gomaa said. “Such individuals are traitors and agents, and they do not deserve the honor of belonging to this country.”
Gomaa’s comments may be buttressed by constitutional Article 86, which stipulates: “Maintaining national security is a duty, and citizens’ commitment to it is a national responsibility, guaranteed by the law. Defense of the nation and the homeland are an honor and sacred duty.”
However, Gomaa’s comments also directly contravene the rights of citizenship enshrined in the 2014 Constitution.
Article 6 stipulates that “citizenship is a right to anyone born to an Egyptian father or an Egyptian mother. Citizens have the right to legal recognition and official documentation that proves their personal information, as regulated by the law.”
Furthermore, Article 62 holds that “no citizen may be deported from or prevented from returning to the country.”
Moussa described this year’s commemorations of the January 25 revolution anniversary as an attempt to destabilize the country. Moussa referred to participants in these protest rallies as “members of the terrorist Brotherhood society,” along with “the terrorists of the April 6 Youth Movement” and “the saboteurs of the Revolutionary Socialists Movement.”
“I have no problem with the killing of two, three or four hundred terrorists,” Moussa commented during his January 25 broadcast.
While speaking on the “Hunna al-Asema” show on Tuesday, Gomaa insisted that “the Ministry of Endowments stands beside all the state’s institutions in combating terrorism and in confronting terrorist elements.”
Gomaa added that any individual ministry employee who is found to be involved in promoting or instigating violence against the state would immediately be dismissed from his or her post.
US government lawyers told Gitmo authorities that force feeding is ‘never acceptable’ under medical ethical standards
Reprieve | January 29, 2015
US government lawyers advised Guantanamo authorities that force-feeding is ‘never acceptable’ under medical ethical standards, at the same time as dozens of military nurses were being sent to the prison to force-feed detainees, it has been revealed.
An internal memo, obtained by Vice News through FOIA and written on June 21st, 2013 – at the height of the prison’s mass hunger-strike – states that ‘international law and certain medical ethical standards hold that the “forced feeding” of a mentally competent person capable of making an informed decision is never acceptable.’
This previously-secret legal advice proves that the Department of Defense knew it was placing military nurses and doctors at risk of professional sanction by conscripting them into an unethical medical procedure.
The advice appears to have been drafted in the same period that dozens of fresh military medics were rushed to Guantánamo in response to the prison’s escalating hunger strike. At that time, prisoners reported that the new personnel exhibited considerable stress because they were participating, for the first time in their careers, in a forcible medical procedure. Former detainee Ahmed Belbacha recounted to lawyers at Reprieve, for example, that “Some of the newer medical staff they sent down… are afraid during feeding and it shows… when one of the new nurses, she was perhaps 40, started to feed me, I saw that her hands were shaking. I asked whether it was her first time ever to force feed someone. ‘Yes it is,’ she responded.”
It is unclear whether Guantánamo ever permits medical staff who have ethical qualms about force-feeding not to participate. One former head of nursing at the prison, Commander Jane French, had previously indicated that medical personnel who objected to force-feeding would be excused without sanction. Yet the Department of Defense is currently weighing disciplinary proceedings against one military nurse who refused to participate in force-feeding on ethical grounds.
Last year, hunger striker Abu Wa’el Dhiab – who has since been released from Guantanamo – revealed to his lawyers at Reprieve that a nurse, witnessing the suffering force-feeding caused detainees, determined he could no longer force-feed, saying “I have come to the decision that I refuse to participate in this criminal act.” The nurse, who has served 18 years in the military and is two years away from retirement, now faces the risk of being forced out of the armed services and forfeiting his pension and potentially his veterans’ benefits.
Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve and counsel to a number of detainees who are force-fed, said: “It’s disturbing to see that the Defense Department knew full well it was exposing its young nurses and doctors to a risk of professional censure and chose to plough ahead with abusive force-feeding anyway. Now the DOD has elected to stamp on the one nurse we know of who consulted his conscience and came to the right conclusion – that force-feeding, especially in the way it is done at Gitmo today, is just wrong. Our military medics shouldn’t be punished for exercising their professional judgment; that is their role, even when they wear a uniform. The DOD needs to drop its misguided effort to ‘make an example’ of this nurse. And the simplest way to keep these nurses out of harm’s way is for President Obama to end the conundrum and shut the prison.”
Seattle faces $500k suit for pepper-spraying school teacher
RT | January 29, 2015
A Seattle, Washington high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by police moments after speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally is suing the city for $500,000.
Attorneys for Jesse Hagopian filed the claim against Seattle on Wednesday, nine days after the incident unfolded during, ironically, an anti-police brutality protest held in tandem with similar rallies across the United States on the holiday named for the slain civil rights leader.
Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High School who is known throughout the region for his activism, had just finished speaking during the January 19 event and was on the phone with his mother when a female police officer began discharging her pepper spray, striking multiple people.
An eyewitness was filming only a few feet away from where that officer and others had formed a barricade along a city intersection as law enforcement tried to control the crowd. A separate video filmed from above suggests that an officer had been knocked off their bicycle down the street, prompting the police to try and clear the area.
The ground-level footage appears to show Hagopian on the phone, walking towards the sidewalk, when he is blasted across the face with a stream of pepper spray.
“Ah, f**k. They just sprayed,”a voice on the video is heard saying as the officer barks to the crowd while attempting to clear the intersection.
Hagopian later got online and explained what happened in his own words:
“I was marching for Martin Luther King day today – amazing march! At one point after the big main march, group of bike cops set up a line to keep us from marching. Some people walked through the line, but I didn’t. When my phone rang, I turned away from the cops and began walking away to answer the phone. A cop then ran up in my face and pepper sprayed me right in the face.”
The close-up video recording of the incident has since been acquired by James Bible, the former president of the Seattle chapter of the NAACP, who in turn posted it to YouTube on Wednesday in concert with the announcement concerning the court filing. Bible is also serving as Hagopian’s attorney.
According to the Seattle Times, the suit alleges that Hagopian “instantly felt a burning sensation in his eyes and had some difficulty breathing.” The teacher later posted a photograph online showing him trying to tame the effects of the spray by dousing his face with milk.
“The main thing I’m upset about is that [I was on] the sidewalk when I was pepper sprayed so there’s really no reason at all they can use to justify what they did,” Hagopian told The Skanner News. … Full article
French Child Interrogated by Police for ‘Apology for Terrorism’
teleSUR | January 29, 2015
French police interrogated an eight year old child because he said that “[he was] not Charlie” in class, in the southern city of Nice on Wednesday.
The professor had begun a discussion with his students the day following the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine that left 12 dead – 10 journalists and two police. The child justified his refusal to identify with Charlie as “they [the journalists] caricatured the prophet. I am with the terrorists.” The school director, alerted by the teacher, decided to file a complaint for the French crime of “apology of terrorism” -similar to inciting terrorism- last week, against his father, confirmed the education ministry.
One week later, the child was interrogated for two hours in the police station of Nice, informed his lawyer, Sefen Guez Guez.
To the question “What does the word terrorism mean to you?” the child replied, “I do not know,” the lawyer tweeted. “Did you say that the journalists deserved to die?” “Wrong, I have never said that,” he said.
Guez denounced the “current state of collective hysteria that surrounds this notion of apology of terrorism.”
“In this kind of case, pedagogy is what we need,” he asserted, saying he intended to sue the director, which he accused of having abusively punished the boy. The boy claimed he was deprived of playtime, had to stand in the corner, and was even told the following while playing in the sand pit, “Stop digging, you will not find any Tommy gun to shoot us all.” As a diabetic, he was also deprived of his insulin shots, claimed his lawyer.
During the two weeks that have followed the Charlie Hebdo attack, over 70 people have been put on trial for “apology of terrorism,” sometimes just for shouting “Allahu Akbar” to municipal police. In Corsica 30 people were found guilty, including people with mental issues.
Stand-up comedian Dieudonne will be heard in a Parisian court on February 4 for having posted on Facebook “I am Charlie Coulibaly,” a combining the slogan “I am Charlie” and the name of the attacker of a Kosher supermarket, a few days after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.
‘Kidnapping attempt’ in Silwan
Ma’an – 28/01/2015
JERUSALEM – An Israeli settler on Wednesday morning assaulted a teenage Palestinian boy from the al-Thuri neighborhood near Silwan in Jerusalem while the boy was walking to school, the boy’s father says.
Jamil Gheith told Ma’an that the settler attempted to kidnap his son Ibrahim, 14, but he managed to run away.
Gheith explained that a group of settlers from one of the illegal outposts in al-Thuri stopped their private car and one of them stepped out and brutally attacked Ibrahim. The settler then tried to drag the boy forcibly into the car, but the boy started to scream for help and managed to run away, the father added.
Family members and other residents in the nearby houses heard the boy screaming and rushed to help him. At that point the attacker ran to the outpost and his escorts sped away, the father added.
Locals called Israeli police who arrived and instead of looking for the attacker they started to beat the Palestinian residents who were at the site, including family members of the assaulted boy.
The victim was then taken to Shaare Zedek medical center in West Jerusalem for treatment and his father filed a complaint at an Israeli police station.
An Israeli police spokesman said he was looking into the report.
Spain Blames ’Israel’ for Peacekeeper’s Death
Al-Manar | January 29, 2015
Spain has held the Tel Aviv regime accountable for the death of a Spanish peacekeeper serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) during an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.
“It was because of this escalation of violence, and it came from the Israeli side,” Spanish Ambassador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi told reporters in New York on Wednesday.
Marchesi further noted that his country demands full investigation into the killing.
The Spanish defense ministry said in a statement that 36-year-old Corporal Francisco Javier Soria Toledo “died this [Wednesday] morning during incidents between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in the area of responsibility of the Spanish contingent.”
Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressed on Twitter his “great sadness at the death of a Spanish soldier in Lebanon.”
The Security Council also condemned the peacekeeper’s death in its strongest terms, and extended its sincere sympathies.
See also :
Israel blames Hezbollah for Spanish peacekeeper’s death on Lebanese border
RT | January 28, 2015
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has blamed Hezbollah for the death of a Spanish UN peacekeeper killed in retaliatory Israeli mortar fire in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
After a series of cross-border strikes that left two IDF soldiers and a Spanish peacekeeper from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) dead on Wednesday, Lieberman called Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo to express his condolences.
He also claimed that the Lebanese government was responsible for any attacks that come from its territory.
Lieberman called on Israel to respond to the attack in a “forceful and disproportionate manner.”
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned that Israel could retaliate harshly.
“To those who are challenging us in the north, I suggest you look at what happened in the Gaza Strip,” he said. … Full article