THE FIGHT AGAINST AL MANAR

In December 2003, the German media group "Axel Springer" invited me to come to a conference in Berlin, together with several ministers; Yoshka Fisher for Germany, Mrs. Palacio for Spain, and Mr. Sharansky from Israel.

During the conference Mr. Sharansky showed us a video tape recording from Al Manar, the TV channel of the Lebanese Hezbollah. The program, in Arabic, had been broadcast via satellite during the Muslim month of Ramadan to millions of dish-equipped households, 2.5 millions of which are in France. The program shows alleged rabbis forcing a young Jew, suspected of wanting to marry a non-Jewish girl, to swallow molten lead just before they tear off one of his ears. The "rabbis" then slit a Christian child's throat and collect his blood in a pan in order to prepare Matzoth for Pesach.

When I returned to Paris I sent a copy of the video to various public figures, including French Prime Minister Raffarin. On January 31, 2004, at CRIF's annual dinner, the Prime Minister told us: "These images are unbearable to the eyes; they burn one's heart and are an insult to reason and intelligence".

Legal proceedings were initiated and an official complaint was submitted to the CSA, the French Broadcasting Authority. I asked the President of the Authority if the CSA had an appropriate antenna to monitor Al Manar's programs. He said that he did not; moreover, he said, such a device would be useless since the CSA did not have any Arab-speaking employee. This lack has only recently been remedied.

In July 2004 a law was voted in the French National Assembly, empowering the CSA to prohibit the broadcasting in France of any channel that might disturb public order, save if it was allowed by the Conseil d'Etat – the French Supreme Court. Immediately afterwards the CSA asked the Conseil d'Etat to prohibit Al Manar.

On October 4, 2004, I met with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier. I asked whether, due to requests made by other countries, the French Foreign Ministry put pressure on the CSA in order to approve Al Manar's request to be officially broadcast in France and in Europe. The minister denied.

In the end of October 2004 a delegation from the CRIF visited the CSA and I was subsequently informed that the CSA has decided to grant Al Manar's request for approval. I could not believe it and I immediately asked for an appointment with Dominique Baudis, Chairman of the CSA.

On November 3, 2004, Mr. Baudis confirmed that it was indeed his understanding that the Conseil d'Etat was in fact forcing him to approve Al Manar. He said that if the CSA refused, Al Manar would appeal to the Conseil d'Etat and win. I reminded Mr. Baudis that he had recently turned down a Kurd channel, which was much less dangerous than Hezbollah. I stressed that requests for approval had to be assessed based on facts and not on promises. Otherwise, a group of pedophiles, for instance, could receive the approval to broadcast by promising to behave in the future. I also underlined that no political party, all the more a terrorist one, had ever obtained the approval of the CSA. I stressed that this approval would be interpreted as surrender to Hezbollah's pressure, to no avail.

On the next day, November 4, I notified French President Jacques Chirac's office and the PM's office. I underlined the turmoil which was about to be triggered by this decision, which so blatantly contradicted the French Government's actions against anti-Semitism. My efforts were in vain.

Having been informed that the CSA's decision was imminent, we set a press conference in the morning of Friday, November 19, 2004, during which we showed the tape. Our protest was broadcast in the evening, on the main French TV channels, which in the same breath informed the viewers of the CSA's decision, released that evening, to allow Al Manar.

We then started a petition over the Internet against this decision. Many public figures joined our opposition to the CSA'a decision, including Mr. Sarkozy and the leaders of the main French democratic political parties. We published in the national press a list of thirty leading public figures supporting us. We chartered a bus to drive throughout Paris with images from Al Manar projected on three different screens. In only a few days we managed to collect more than 27,000 signatures on our petition.

On November 24, 2004, "Proche Orient.Info", a news website, informed us that only four days after its approval, Al Manar was already violating and breaching the terms of its authorization: "May Allah make the mothers' wombs sterile, may He dry the fathers' sperm out so that the non-believers disappear… The enemy is exporting, along with its goods, epidemics such as AIDS". Not waiting to receive my new official protest, the CSA submitted a cancellation of its previous authorization to the Conseil d'Etat; Al Manar's final interdiction was eventually obtained on December 17, 2004.

The American Jewish Committee, the Anti Defamation League and the European Jewish Congress have expressed their feelings to the highest authorities of our country.
The American Jewish Committee has in parallel asked and obtained from the American Government the interdiction of Al Manar on American soil. This is an indirect and most positive repercussion of the French case.

The happy ending of this affair, however, must not lull us into forgetting that, for the first time in sixty years, a stamp of approval has in fact been given for a whole month to an anti-Semitic medium. Furthermore, we were shocked by our leaders' silence, which was only broken after the Prime Minister's speech in the French Senate, on December 2, 2004, in which he declared his wish to ban Al Manar as well as any of its like-minded clones and allies.

We must not forget that France has accepted pressure from the Hezbollah, which is considered by nearly all the countries in the world as a terrorist organization. We must recognize that France's foreign policy has interfered with its internal policy of fighting against anti-Semitism.

For these reasons, we must all, in France, remain vigilant.