I sounded a warning about Bridges TV in December 2004. It looks as if there was every reason to do so. "One religious figure who appeared October 3 said Muslims have a duty to change America and to increase their numbers to 50% of the population from 2%. He recommended that Shariah, or Islamic law, be implemented in American courts."
The MEMRI Report by Steven Stalinsky, via the New York Sun, with thanks to A Girl Scout:
Bridges TV, an American-Islamic TV channel "seeking to improve the image of Muslims in the United States" and to "offer a unique perspective on the Middle East and the war on terrorism," has extended its availability into six states, creating a potential audience of nearly 2 million.The network's programming includes a mix of entertainment, sports, news, documentaries, and advertisements from companies like Ford, with an emphasis on religious programs.
The channel says it has been endorsed by "top American [Islamic] scholars and community leaders," whose representatives appear on many of its programs, including one called "Prominent Scholars."
Some speakers openly criticize Islamic extremists. An imam from Los Angeles, Sheik Tajuddin Bin Shuaib, appeared on the channel on October 8 and denounced Osama bin Laden and the September 11, 2001, hijackers.
Some guests, however, are extremists. One religious figure who appeared October 3 said Muslims have a duty to change America and to increase their numbers to 50% of the population from 2%. He recommended that Shariah, or Islamic law, be implemented in American courts.
During a roundtable discussion on the Arab-Israeli conflict on October 5, one participant offered a solution: "For the Jews to leave and return to Europe."
Bridges TV aired a speech by the influential Muslim scholar Jamal Badawi on October 4. Mr. Badawi, who teaches Islam throughout North America, gave an interview to the Saudi Gazette on June 24, 2005, in which he raised questions about who was behind the September 11 attacks and suggested that Americans could be behind the car bombings of Iraqi markets.
Every night, Bridges TV shows a news program, "Talking Points." Its guest on October 4 was Imam Mohammad Alo Elahi, whom it described as a leading "interfaith figure." According to his Web site, Imam Elahi was a spiritual leader in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian navy and also is the leader of "one of the largest mosques in the U.S.," in Dearborn, Mich....
Throughout the day, Bridges TV airs segments of Koranic verses, quite a few of which denounce "unbelievers." One notable verse that aired October 9 praised martyrdom.
Since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, the channel has been showing official, Saudi government-controlled Wahhabi sermons from Mecca's holiest mosque, Al-Haram. The sermons stream live via Saudi TV Channel one every day at 4 p.m., and Bridges TV adds its own English subtitles.
An anti-Jewish, anti-Christian sermon from October 5 included the call, "May God destroy them!"...
Bridges TV claims that its "major purpose" is "to build bridges between American Muslims and other Americans." After viewing the channel, I find this highly unlikely.
Yep.
This tv channel is certainly no bridge builder.
In addition to all of RS's books, get Mark Steyn's America Alone.
http://www.marksteyn.com/
He has been making appearances on TV lately.
I am becoming increasingly alarmed by our cicilizations unwillingness to save itself.
Duh, {civilization}
Bridges TV... so named for the "Bridge for Sale."
Sounds like sedition and promotion of violent civil unrest.
Charge the bastards, severely fine the ownership, and close the traitorous station down.
Unless the Dems win the Nov 7 election, in which case this station will be lauded and can go toe to toe with CNN.
From a posting three years ago,not on "Bridges TV" alone but on the larger problem of the Western world doing little or nothing to block the equivalent of Radio Tokyo and Radio Berlin. Al-Manar (the Hezbollah station) has in some places been blocked. But Al-Jazeera, which has come under the control of sympathizers with the Muslim Brotherhood (the Ikhwan for short, as the modifying adjective is unnecessary at this point), has not been blocked. And everywhere there are springing up local propaganda stations, whose presentation of the world to its Muslim subscribers always confirms their worst, most conspiratorial, and hostile views of Infidels. Why should such stations be permitted when their overall effect is to make life even more difficult and dangerous for the Infidels among whom those Muslims have come to settle, but not come to support with full-throated enthusiasm, indeed not come to support in any way at all, but rather to transform, and ultimately to dominate, those Infidel populations, and to change forever the legal and political institutions of the assorted, largely undifferentiated (to Muslims the important thing is that these lands are still places where Islaml does not yet dominate, and Muslims do not yet rule -- hence they are all to be regarded, whatever their trivial distinguishing features, as part of Dar al-Harb) Infidel nation-states.
Here is a past posting on the matter from Dec. 2004:
"These channels are the latest equivalent or avatar of Radio Tokyo and Radio Berlin Those Muslims in the West who receive Al-Manar or Al-Jazeera, and therefore accept the worldview they offer, a worldview which clearly threatens the lives and property and wellbeing and way of life of all Infidels (beginning but hardly ending with Americans and Israelis), should be regarded as a self-identified fifth column in the midst of the Bilad al-kufr, or Lands of the Infidels. Those who subscribe should be noted, and should be monitored, and become the permant object of close scrutiny, and even of pressure targetted to make them decide for themselves that they have no secure future in the Infidel lands, and may choose to remove themselves, before other options are considered.
That is what to do about the viewers. As to the satellite channels themselves, they have to be limited or eliminated. Pressure can be brought to bear on cable companies and satellite channel networks. Those who offer Al-Jazeera or Al-Manar as part of their "packages" to consumers may find that they are the sudden objects of boycott -- and that boycott should be relentless and endless. The other day there was a posting here about "Erie Cablesystems" in northern Ohio and southern Michigan, all set to offer "Bridges TV" which is a Muslim channel, designed to offer the "kindler, gentler" view (all family values and Ramadan observances, of course -- and perhaps a Karen-Armstrong potted biography of the "man who brought peace to the Arabian peninsula" and "improved the treatment of women and minorities" -- none other than Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets. Better living through boycotts -- if moral and intellectual appeals fail, withholding one's custom -- as in the case of Columbia and Georgetown, cutting off donations and making clear that everyone will suffer unless the Middle Eastern apologists are reigned in, or forced to leave, or in the case of Esposito, simply have their institutional connection severed (Esposito is well-supported by Arab interests and can survive without Georgetown, but Georgetown suffers greatly from its now-embarrassing connection to Esposito and Co.).
4) Al-Jazeera's programs have led directly to attacks on American soldiers and an increase in American deaths. Yet there are those who, as a recent movie made by an Egyptian-American sympathizer shows, Al-Jazeera's staff includes people who complacently assume, a bit too readily, that they can send their children to the United States for an education. That assumption must come to an end. Those who work for Al-Jazeera should understand that when they do so, their hope of living in the West, sending their children to be educated and live in the West -- which they realize, of course, is vastly superior to the world of Islam, even if they are doing their damnedest to destroy that same West and reinforce the power of the Jihad and of the Muslims. No, that mixture as before will not do.
And now here is a reposting (for the second time) which is not a blast from the recent past, not an oldie-but-goodie brought back for sentimental reasons, but because the points it made some months ago still stand:
“A recent article (April 2) by A. O. Scott in the New York Times, about a soi-disant documentary devoted to Al-Jazeera, writes sympathetically of a "balding, rumpled" Saleem Khader. And Mr. Khader, who is presented as a man of some complexity -- the evidence adduced for this implausible idea, given that he works not for a news organization, even a bad one, but for a propaganda network that is not a bit better than anything the Nazis produced, and is responsible for the deaths of many American soldiers, and civilians -- is that he berates another Al-Jazeera employee for carrying an interview with an American anti-war activist, berates him because the interviewee is, as Sameer Khader has it, unrepresentative. Great.
But the important part of the tale is this: Khadeer lets Ms. Noujaim (yes, the "Harvard-educated" Egyptian-born Ms. Noujaim -- the Ivy League touch is de rigueur here; shows she's one of us, inhabits the same intellectual climate, and so on) know that he, Sameer Khader, a collaborator of al-Jazeera, and hence a collaborator in an instrument of Jihad that has been directly responsible for American deaths (ask General Kimmitt, or Sanchez, or Abizaid, or any of the soldiers now in Iraq) complacently tells her that he is going to send his own children to university in the United States, so that they can taste the "American dream" and avoid the "Arab nightmare" (the very nightmare which he is helping to prolong).
Not so fast, buster. It would be absolutely outrageous to allow this man, who has participated in such an organization, to assume that when it comes time for him to arrange his children’s future, the little matter of his participation in a sinister organization like Al-Jazeera will not weigh heavily against him. If he, and all the other Muslim Arabs who think they can act and write as they do, whipping up hatred, and trafficking in lies (even if some of them are slightly less enthusiastic about it, or do it only 90% of the time, not 100%), and then go off to the West as a combination funhouse-and-brothel, and get medical care in Boston or the Mayo Clinic, and send their children to American or other Western universities -- well, it's time to put paid to that assumption. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that would get their attention more, and modify future behavior more, than condemning their own children to the prison of their own awful countries and societies. Yes, of course one can argue that, in the first place, the "sins of the fathers..." But there is no right to be allowed in to the United States, much less to be given a student visa. It is a way, an effective way that does not require the risking of American lives, and that will help save American lives, if those involved in such enterprises realize that they cannot visit the United States, cannot have their children take full advantage of what they, in their schizophrenia, secretly recognize to be superior to the dar al-Islam which they are doing their utmost, willy-nilly, to expand. And to the argument that one way to get people to change is "to let them experience the United States for themselves." Nonsense. Plenty of Arabs have experienced the United States, and are living here as immigrants right now -- and their experience has not changed one whit their attitude of hostility and menace.
By starting to deny the great privilege of living, even for a short period, in the United States, or the other countries of the advanced West, to the relatives of those implicated in the propaganda war, this will eventually have an enormous effect on the behavior and on the career choices, of those who in the future may be considering working for Al-Jazeera and similar organs of hate, hysteria, and lies. They will have to think twice, before putting their talents to work for the Jihad, spouting antisemitic and anti-American propaganda. There will be consequences--their children are going to have to remain, and live, in the world that they are helping to create. They will not be allowed, themselves, the escape-hatch of the West. That itself should cause them to behave a bit more responsibly, when their own children's future is at stake.
If they have talent, so much the worse for them, that they lent that talent to evil. Goebbels was extremely talented; was Leni Reifenstahl; so were a host of others who worked for the Nazis, or for the late Joseph Stalin.
Write your Congressmen. Call your local government officials. Do what you can. Make a fuss. If you are related to a soldier, use that fact. No one likes to make an enemy out of the families of soldiers, especially the Reserves and the National Guard. Al-Jazeera has American blood on its hands. It is akin to Nazi propaganda. It should not be shown in this country. But at the very least, political figures should make sure that no close relative of anyone working for Al-Jazeera ever gets an entry visa. And if any Republicans balk, do not hesitate to go to Democrats – and to point out the virtue of taking a strong position on Islam That will be one more useful anti-Jihad measure that costs nothing, and risks no American lives.
End of reprint.
In sum, no one associated with Al-Jazeera, nor family members, should be allowed into the United States, or for that matter into any Western country that still wants to be considered a member of the Western alliance -- or of NATO. Sanctions should be imposed on those states who help ease the way for those who work for a station that has American soldiers' blood -- and that of civilians, come to think of it -- all over its hands."
End of April posting.
Now, a short pause, then we resume our regular programming, specially written for today’s broadcast:
While it is absurd that Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar are permitted to continue their propaganda on behalf of the Jihad, it is equally absurd that the American government chooses to waste money attempting to “win Arab friends” by beaming into their countries not lectures on the meaning of the First Amendment, nor on the ways in which personal autonomy and freedom of conscience are protected and encouraged, nor anything about the “free marketplace of ideas,” nor all those quotations from Jefferson and Lincoln and Mark Twain – that, for example, the young Jose Figueres said helped him to transform Costa Rica. Instead, we are sending them images of what? Muslim families leading Muslim lives (why should we pander to them, or make it seem as if we have to assure them that Muslims can live safely in the United States? If anything, we should be showing them our schools, our hospitals – and make clear that we believe we have nothing to apologize for, and that they must look to the tenets and attitudes and atmospherics of Islam (this need not be said, but programs artfully crafted can artfully suggest) to find the source of their desarroi and sub-development. No more transmissions Arabia-wards of Britney Spears, please. We are not trying to entertain, nor even to win friends. We are trying to offer information, and to provoke thought, not about us, but about their own societies. And that thought will, if it is real thought and not the usual nonsense, inevitably lead to the “reform” – i.e. the constraining – of Islamic practice. One might even have programs on Ataturk – who’s afraid of mentioning everything he did in the 1920s and 1930s – or on the late Ali Dashti of Iran, or on others who wrote penetratingly of Islam, or perhaps a program on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – yes, there are several possible programs right there. And if American-government sponsored channels don’t carry this stuff, they should be closed down, for they are then nothing more than a jobs program for Arabic speakers, and that is entirely unnecessary. It is particularly important that, for example, Maronites and Copts and Arabic-speaking Jews and ex-Muslims monitor this material, to make sure that taxpayers’ money is not going to people who, while purportedly working for the government, present material that undercuts it, or Infidels in general, or delivers a message that may be interpreted as appeasing or otherwise deliver the wrong message. The personnel at the top of these new channels should be examined to make sure taxpayers are not inadvertently supporting the wrong people, who may simply be outwardly plausible. But it takes an Arabic-speaker to pick up, or to properly “place” through a whole series of delicate hints, someone. Native Americans just can’t do it; they lack the right antennae. They are innocents abroad, and when it comes to Islam and Muslims, they are innocents at home as well. Nice when it’s a story by Mark Twain, not so great when American lives depend on wariness and low cunning and high intelligence."
[Posted by: Hugh at December 16, 2004 11:12 PM]
Who do we contact to get this station shut down? FCC?
Geoff
Ooh look, Islam goes Disney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCPR37mbVvI
Look at all the cute fluffy little lambs (hopefully none were slaughtered in the making of this film)
I can't help but notice that they're forced to use a lot of 3rd-person exposition on the Prophet, since it's blasphemy to even show the guy. Note the all-important disclaimer at the start, stating they made sure not to depict the Prophet in any way.
I agree with Carolyn2: get Mark Steyn's book America Alone. I wonder if he'd run for Pres in 2008?
This is not going unnoticed, similiar article came to me from the Newsmax email l recieve. l think the US dept for what ever you call for airwaves should look into this. This constitutes as "hate speech" and surely there is a federal law against hate speech even when directed against Christians and Jews?
While The Mark Steyn book is a dire warning, and one I hope we can remedy, I want to state here that only if we let the jihadis take over, will they be able to rule over us. Take the book as a rallying point and fight this thing....it is not inevitable.
I have no interest in wearing a burqa.
Mr. Spencer, in which six states this is appearing?
Regular over the air or cable or satellite?
Reason for asking: I will boycott every advertiser. I will send each of them an e-mail that explains why. I will also share this information with all my friends and family, who will share it with theirs, and so on.
The FCC will probably do nothing about this especially if it's cable or satellite. Over-the-air will be fine unless swear words or nudity is broadcast.
The American public will have to fight this battle. I just wonder how many of us really care about being over-run by Islam? Our government appears to have its head buried so deep in the sand that only the tips of its toes are showing.
I believe that there may be no act of terrorism in the United States for awhile. It's too easy
to "terrorize" us without the bombs...too many of us are unaware that this country is being silently "terrorized". We need to wake up!
Great post Hugh.
At a recent U. of V. convocation in Victoria which we attended, noticed a Saudi picking up a science degree. Wanted to stand and protest.
Why are we allowing and funding our own demise ?
How foolish and short sighted.
Backwoods:
"I just wonder how many of us really care about being over-run by Islam?"
I don't believe the problem is that people don't care, they just don't know. They are too busy with sports, shopping, family that they have no clue. I was talking to my sister about islams goal to take over the world and she was surprised. We who are in the know must spread the word to those who don't pay attention to what is going on in the world.
2 percent of the US is Muslim? That's 3 percent too much. How about aiming a channel at them to give up the cult of death? The goal should be zero percent Muslims in the US. The last thing we need here is a potential fifth column should things in the Middle East heat up.
One of my colleagues is Egyptian, married to an American woman and has a green card. He doesnt make a secret of his hatred of Israel or America's leadership, foreign policy and armed forces. He always tells us of the latest news from AlJazeera, and all my very leftist colleagues fall over themselves sympathising with his 'cause' and beliefs.
And Hugh really believes that the authorities would ever go after people like that? Hah. It will never happen. Just consider the fact that the lawyers that run this country decided that Taliban funerals are off-limits.
Has anyone concluded that this could be used to send signals or hints to hostile muslims (perhaps all) in this country to attack? What states is it shown in now?
"Building bridges" reminds me of the animation on FOX's MadTV, in which the Pope built a bridge to the Muslims and the Muslims then crossed the bridge to kill all the Christians. It was a comedy bit, but the message was clear; Any "bridge" coming from Islam will allow in the violent, death worshipper mentality.
Assume that Islam is inherently bad; why build a bridge to tolerate "badness"? We must blow the bridges, flood the moats, and repel this scourge with all our might.
I don't understand how the station can legally air Saudi government-controlled sermons from the Mecca mosque. Doesn't this amount to government establishment of religion? If this would violate the Constitution if the U.S. government did it, why is a foreign government allowed to do it?
This tv channel is certainly no bridge builder.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106
It's a Bridge to Nowhere.
Yes, this and the variety of other means Muslims employ Islamic propaganda, such as US govenment subsidized web sites and student organizations, Korans to prisoners with empoyed mullahs etc., in my estimation presents an invasion that should be met with charges of sedition, treason and enemy infiltration.
It certainly seems the MSM, independent of our government's complicity in this nightmare, is bought off for the most part, at the very least, run by morons lost in utter delusions.
Intimidated some news organizations may be, but I think money and, who has it, runs their mouths.
The American people are hoodwinked, lulled and upbraided to accept such Islamic propaganda as inconsequential and are yet still are unaware that
Islam is the enemy.
We have more information on Bridges TV at RightLinx:
Muslims for Democrats
How about this for an Islamic sitcom series on BRIDGES TV:
"INFIDEL MEDICAL CENTER" wherein the star character Dr. Reza Al-Killhur specializes in giving lethal injections to non-Muslim patients and in his spare time performs female genital mutilations, once in awhile scalpel-carving his initials on his female surgical patients' abdomens (who he tells should have stayed home!).
Boy, that ought to pull in audiences and ratings I'll tell ya'!!
Let us burn THIS particular bridge and SOON!!!
Here's one 'bridge' we should definitely burn!!!
(But, I am surprised US audiences tuning in aren't vomiting in sheer horror).