REPORTER: Matthew Carney
It's promotional clips like this equating President Bush's Government with Nazi Germany that have earned Al-Manar television a place on America's terrorist list.
GEORGE BUSH: We will not blink, we will not yield. The state of our union has never been stronger.
Every hour it beams its propaganda via satellite and cable into at least 10 million Arab homes. Al-Manar is becoming as popular as the al-Jazeera network in the Arab world because of its bold and uncompromising stance against American foreign policy. It's also a hit with Arab communities in the West. To the supporters of America's war on terror, this is the most dangerous television in the world.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN, AUSTRALIAN ISRAEL JEWISH AFFAIRS COUNCIL: You've got the most crude anti-Semitism, you've got incitement of the worst type, you've got the legitimisation of terrorism, creating an environment in which suicide bombers are seen as martyrs as legitimate and as warranted. You've got the most extreme form of anti-American, anti-Australian and anti-Western propaganda.
Mohammad Haider is the general manager of Al-Manar and says the station is the voice of Arab resistance and liberation.
MOHAMMAD HAIDER, (Translation): This is part of the whole mission of Al-Manar, which is to relay the truth to the Arab people, and this is part of the truth. To focus light on the injustice against the suffering of the Palestinian people or the Iraqi people or any other oppressed people, not only Arabs.
Al-Manar is effectively owned and controlled by the radical Shi'ite group Hezbollah. They were the first guerrilla group in the world to realise the camera can be a powerful weapon. In its campaign to remove Israel from southern Lebanon in the 1990s, Hezbollah filmed all its operations and released videos to the media.
In the Arab world this gave Hezbollah celebrity status and provided the organisation with funds and recruits. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and soon after Al-Manar's satellite network was launched. The station operates out of Beirut and now spends much of its air time supporting the Palestinian uprising. Head of program development Ibrahim Mousawi says Israel is still enemy number one.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: We're covering what's really happening so if that is being considered inciting hatred, I would say that the Israeli occupation shouldn't do the massacres that they do on a daily basis against the Palestinian people, the children, the elderly, they shouldn't destroy houses, they shouldn't destroy the old carts and the trees and the fields and whatever and then we wouldn't have anything to show. We're not going to invent things that didn't happen and show them to the people.
According to a Jordanian survey, Al-Manar has the highest ratings in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. This group from Ramallah likes the fact that Al-Manar does not recognise the State of Israel. Hezbollah may be seen as terrorists in the West, but to Palestinians, they're heroes who defeated the Israelis in southern Lebanon. They looked to Al-Manar for hope and inspiration.
MAN, (Translation): It's communities with the emotions of the Palestinians. It shows films about the Palestinians. Even its songs are rousing for the Palestinians. It talks to the heart not the mind and most Palestinians respond to that.
Al-Manar is a multimillion-dollar operation with slickly produced news bulletins, drama, comedy and kids shows.
The quiz show 'The Mission', is the station's latest offering and it's causing a sensation across the Arab world. Each week contestants compete for cash and a chance to win a virtual trip to Jerusalem. American officials have dubbed the program "name your favourite terrorist".
SHOW HOST, (Translation): After 1970 he led the special operations from Beirut against the Zionist enemy. Martyred in 1979 by an explosive device. What's his name? He's very well known.
CONTESTANT, (Translation): Abu jihad, Khalil Al-Wazir? No, Taghrid.
SHOW HOST, (Translation): Not much difference between 8 and 10 steps. He is abu Hasan Salama. The question was easy. OK. Ten steps. We'll see Haitham on the map.
Each point won brings the contestant a step closer to Jerusalem. When the contestant wins and enters Jerusalem, Hezbollah's anthem rings out. Mohammad Majid one of the show's producers, says it keeps alive the dream that every Palestinian has of returning to Jerusalem.
MOHAMMAD MAJID, (Translation): Even if it takes a long time, the owners will return to their homes one day. There is no objection to us reminding people that there is a very big cause. Everyone seeks justice in the world should remember it.
Israeli and American observers say the show is just another way for Hezbollah to promote its core belief - that Israel should be destroyed and its land returned to the Palestinians. But it's Al-Manar's opposition to the occupation of Iraq that has got it into trouble with American authorities.
FILM CLIP, (Translation): America threatens in vain, an occupying army of invaders. Nothing remains but rifles and suicide bombers.
Propaganda clips like these forced the Americans to act and place Al-Manar on its terrorist list last December. This shut down the station's broadcast in the US. This clip in particular touched a raw nerve with Americans. It's an adapted film trailer from Mel Gibson's movie 'The Passion'. In it, Al-Manar compares the suffering of Jesus Christ with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: We want to make it close to the Western public opinion mind so they would really see what's really happening there. We didn't want to insult the Christians we didn't want to minimise or to be indifferent to the suffering of Jesus Christ.
Putting Al-Manar on its terrorist list was just the first step. Next the Americans are going to try and freeze the station's assets and to make it illegal for anyone to deal with them.
The Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, or AIJAC, wants the Australian Government to follow America's lead.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I think they're finally understood that the promotion of death and destruction, you know, trumps absolute unimpeded freedom of speech. There are sometimes limits to freedom of speech and I think the American authorities have now bought that argument and acting on that assumption.
Al-Manar says it's just reflecting popular anger at American occupation in Iraq. One of the network's star journalists Hussein Amali says they're just reporting the other side of the story. Hussein spent a lot of time embedded with the Iraqi resistance in Najaf and says trying to ban Al-Manar is censorship.
HUSSEIN AMALI, (Translation): The closing of TV station bureaux here and there is the biggest proof of what I'm saying. Also, the fact that American forces ban journalists from places where important incidents take place proves there's no freedom. If it wasn't for the few photos from Abu Ghraib prison, no-one would know what went on there. What's happening and is hidden, not only in Abu Ghraib prison, is much more than what has been known. Very little has surfaced about the atrocities that were committed and hidden.
America's other concern was that Al-Manar glorified violence. The station frequently runs memorials for Hezbollah fighters, praising and justifying their deeds.
MEMORIAL, (Translation): A jihad for the cause of God is the best trade we can undertake to earn a great place with God, the Great and Almighty. And we will achieve victory. When a believer feels that Islam is in danger and sees all the Satans of earth conspiring against it he does not stand with his arms folded. He will have to consecrate himself and offer his soul to God, leaving behind the world and its possessions.
What's proved most damaging to Al-Manar is charges of anti-Semitism. The station was banned in France after it broadcast the grossly anti-Semitic drama series 'Al Shattat'.
SCENE FROM AL SHATTAT, (Translation): Listen, we need the blood of a Christian child before Passover, for Matzahs (Unleavened bread).
It depicted Jews as power hungry and blood thirsty. The station's director of program development refused to concede that the show was racist, referring to it simply as a mistake.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: Let's admit one thing - when you work you make mistakes. I would say it openly. I mean it was not the right thing to do with what happened with 'Al Shattat'. I mean you're talking about a growing TV station, we are not settled yet. We're still in the making we're progressing.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I'd be sceptical in the first instance but we just have to look at the record. Just in December they gave those commitments to the French government and the French authorities that they'd tone down their anti-Semitism and their crudity of their transmission. It only took the French authorities a week to realise that they honoured that in the breach and they had no intention whatsoever of complying with those commitments.
In Australia, Al-Manar is off the air but it's not yet banned. While the Australian Broadcasting Authority was conducting an investigation into Al-Manar, the station's carrier went bankrupt and dumped its transmission. The investigation was never completed.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I would have thought the authorities should actually be going that extra step now, even though it's largely off the air, to say as a matter of principle, given that this war against terrorism and Islamist extremism is also a battle of ideas, they should be taking the extra step to say that a TV station of this nature is totally inconsistent with the values of a multicultural democratic Australian society and it should be banned in this country.
While Al-Manar might be silenced in the West, it's the Middle East where it's having the greatest impact to a growing audience. Its messages and images continue to shape the Arab perspective.
It's promotional clips like this equating President Bush's Government with Nazi Germany that have earned Al-Manar television a place on America's terrorist list.
GEORGE BUSH: We will not blink, we will not yield. The state of our union has never been stronger.
Every hour it beams its propaganda via satellite and cable into at least 10 million Arab homes. Al-Manar is becoming as popular as the al-Jazeera network in the Arab world because of its bold and uncompromising stance against American foreign policy. It's also a hit with Arab communities in the West. To the supporters of America's war on terror, this is the most dangerous television in the world.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN, AUSTRALIAN ISRAEL JEWISH AFFAIRS COUNCIL: You've got the most crude anti-Semitism, you've got incitement of the worst type, you've got the legitimisation of terrorism, creating an environment in which suicide bombers are seen as martyrs as legitimate and as warranted. You've got the most extreme form of anti-American, anti-Australian and anti-Western propaganda.
Mohammad Haider is the general manager of Al-Manar and says the station is the voice of Arab resistance and liberation.
MOHAMMAD HAIDER, (Translation): This is part of the whole mission of Al-Manar, which is to relay the truth to the Arab people, and this is part of the truth. To focus light on the injustice against the suffering of the Palestinian people or the Iraqi people or any other oppressed people, not only Arabs.
Al-Manar is effectively owned and controlled by the radical Shi'ite group Hezbollah. They were the first guerrilla group in the world to realise the camera can be a powerful weapon. In its campaign to remove Israel from southern Lebanon in the 1990s, Hezbollah filmed all its operations and released videos to the media.
In the Arab world this gave Hezbollah celebrity status and provided the organisation with funds and recruits. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and soon after Al-Manar's satellite network was launched. The station operates out of Beirut and now spends much of its air time supporting the Palestinian uprising. Head of program development Ibrahim Mousawi says Israel is still enemy number one.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: We're covering what's really happening so if that is being considered inciting hatred, I would say that the Israeli occupation shouldn't do the massacres that they do on a daily basis against the Palestinian people, the children, the elderly, they shouldn't destroy houses, they shouldn't destroy the old carts and the trees and the fields and whatever and then we wouldn't have anything to show. We're not going to invent things that didn't happen and show them to the people.
According to a Jordanian survey, Al-Manar has the highest ratings in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. This group from Ramallah likes the fact that Al-Manar does not recognise the State of Israel. Hezbollah may be seen as terrorists in the West, but to Palestinians, they're heroes who defeated the Israelis in southern Lebanon. They looked to Al-Manar for hope and inspiration.
MAN, (Translation): It's communities with the emotions of the Palestinians. It shows films about the Palestinians. Even its songs are rousing for the Palestinians. It talks to the heart not the mind and most Palestinians respond to that.
Al-Manar is a multimillion-dollar operation with slickly produced news bulletins, drama, comedy and kids shows.
The quiz show 'The Mission', is the station's latest offering and it's causing a sensation across the Arab world. Each week contestants compete for cash and a chance to win a virtual trip to Jerusalem. American officials have dubbed the program "name your favourite terrorist".
SHOW HOST, (Translation): After 1970 he led the special operations from Beirut against the Zionist enemy. Martyred in 1979 by an explosive device. What's his name? He's very well known.
CONTESTANT, (Translation): Abu jihad, Khalil Al-Wazir? No, Taghrid.
SHOW HOST, (Translation): Not much difference between 8 and 10 steps. He is abu Hasan Salama. The question was easy. OK. Ten steps. We'll see Haitham on the map.
Each point won brings the contestant a step closer to Jerusalem. When the contestant wins and enters Jerusalem, Hezbollah's anthem rings out. Mohammad Majid one of the show's producers, says it keeps alive the dream that every Palestinian has of returning to Jerusalem.
MOHAMMAD MAJID, (Translation): Even if it takes a long time, the owners will return to their homes one day. There is no objection to us reminding people that there is a very big cause. Everyone seeks justice in the world should remember it.
Israeli and American observers say the show is just another way for Hezbollah to promote its core belief - that Israel should be destroyed and its land returned to the Palestinians. But it's Al-Manar's opposition to the occupation of Iraq that has got it into trouble with American authorities.
FILM CLIP, (Translation): America threatens in vain, an occupying army of invaders. Nothing remains but rifles and suicide bombers.
Propaganda clips like these forced the Americans to act and place Al-Manar on its terrorist list last December. This shut down the station's broadcast in the US. This clip in particular touched a raw nerve with Americans. It's an adapted film trailer from Mel Gibson's movie 'The Passion'. In it, Al-Manar compares the suffering of Jesus Christ with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: We want to make it close to the Western public opinion mind so they would really see what's really happening there. We didn't want to insult the Christians we didn't want to minimise or to be indifferent to the suffering of Jesus Christ.
Putting Al-Manar on its terrorist list was just the first step. Next the Americans are going to try and freeze the station's assets and to make it illegal for anyone to deal with them.
The Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, or AIJAC, wants the Australian Government to follow America's lead.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I think they're finally understood that the promotion of death and destruction, you know, trumps absolute unimpeded freedom of speech. There are sometimes limits to freedom of speech and I think the American authorities have now bought that argument and acting on that assumption.
Al-Manar says it's just reflecting popular anger at American occupation in Iraq. One of the network's star journalists Hussein Amali says they're just reporting the other side of the story. Hussein spent a lot of time embedded with the Iraqi resistance in Najaf and says trying to ban Al-Manar is censorship.
HUSSEIN AMALI, (Translation): The closing of TV station bureaux here and there is the biggest proof of what I'm saying. Also, the fact that American forces ban journalists from places where important incidents take place proves there's no freedom. If it wasn't for the few photos from Abu Ghraib prison, no-one would know what went on there. What's happening and is hidden, not only in Abu Ghraib prison, is much more than what has been known. Very little has surfaced about the atrocities that were committed and hidden.
America's other concern was that Al-Manar glorified violence. The station frequently runs memorials for Hezbollah fighters, praising and justifying their deeds.
MEMORIAL, (Translation): A jihad for the cause of God is the best trade we can undertake to earn a great place with God, the Great and Almighty. And we will achieve victory. When a believer feels that Islam is in danger and sees all the Satans of earth conspiring against it he does not stand with his arms folded. He will have to consecrate himself and offer his soul to God, leaving behind the world and its possessions.
What's proved most damaging to Al-Manar is charges of anti-Semitism. The station was banned in France after it broadcast the grossly anti-Semitic drama series 'Al Shattat'.
SCENE FROM AL SHATTAT, (Translation): Listen, we need the blood of a Christian child before Passover, for Matzahs (Unleavened bread).
It depicted Jews as power hungry and blood thirsty. The station's director of program development refused to concede that the show was racist, referring to it simply as a mistake.
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI: Let's admit one thing - when you work you make mistakes. I would say it openly. I mean it was not the right thing to do with what happened with 'Al Shattat'. I mean you're talking about a growing TV station, we are not settled yet. We're still in the making we're progressing.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I'd be sceptical in the first instance but we just have to look at the record. Just in December they gave those commitments to the French government and the French authorities that they'd tone down their anti-Semitism and their crudity of their transmission. It only took the French authorities a week to realise that they honoured that in the breach and they had no intention whatsoever of complying with those commitments.
In Australia, Al-Manar is off the air but it's not yet banned. While the Australian Broadcasting Authority was conducting an investigation into Al-Manar, the station's carrier went bankrupt and dumped its transmission. The investigation was never completed.
DR COLIN RUBENSTEIN: I would have thought the authorities should actually be going that extra step now, even though it's largely off the air, to say as a matter of principle, given that this war against terrorism and Islamist extremism is also a battle of ideas, they should be taking the extra step to say that a TV station of this nature is totally inconsistent with the values of a multicultural democratic Australian society and it should be banned in this country.
While Al-Manar might be silenced in the West, it's the Middle East where it's having the greatest impact to a growing audience. Its messages and images continue to shape the Arab perspective.