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Muslims Decry Portrayal On "24"
by Superhawk
Originally posted to BNN 3/10/2005
Is the Fox TV show "24" unfair in their portrayal of Muslims?
"It's disgusting," [Yosry] Bekhiet said after watching an episode with an Associated Press reporter. "My own kids, if they see this show, they might hate me." "It seems like on television, everybody has their turn as the bad guys: It happened to the Italians, the Russians. Now it's our turn," he said.
Is there justification for this criticism?
Mr. Bekhiet was complaining about the portrayal of the Araz family who were part of a terrorist cell that tried to meltdown dozens of nuclear power plants. The father, Navi was so dedicated to the plot that when his son wasn't measuring up, he tried to have him killed. When his wife Dina discovered this, she turned against him in an effort to save her son. She ended up being shot by her husband for her trouble.
Certainly not your typical family. But is it unfair? Here's Robert Spencer of Frontpage Magazine:
24 is a drama about terrorism. Episodes have featured Bosnian terrorists, German terrorists, South American terrorists, and terrorists from a Halliburton-like conglomerate. And, most famously, 24 has featured Muslim terrorists -or at least terrorists with a vaguely Middle Eastern aspect. But while no Bosnians, Germans, South Americans or Halliburton execs contacted the network to complain about the way they were portrayed on the show, when Fox ventured into Islamic terror territory, the network immediately aroused the ire of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Mohamed Heva, a computer network administrator also watched the episode at Bekhiet's home. He suspects this season's plot line was intended not only to entertain, but to validate the Bush administration's foreign policy.
"Sometimes I feel like it's being done on purpose, to instigate things and to let people know what the administration is doing is right," he said. "It makes people look at every Muslim as a terrorist. These guys want to melt down reactors and kill Americans. That makes people hate us even more."
Why this hypersenitivity? Clearly, there's no evidence that such portrayals make people look "at every Muslim as a terrorist." But by embracing victimhood, the American Muslims insulate themselves from criticism.
This is the doing of CAIR. There has been no greater advocate of Muslim victimhood in the United States than this shadowy so-called civil rights group who has consistently failed to condemn terrorist acts on Israel and even the United States.
As an example of what CAIR does, this is what happened in the immediate aftermath of 9/11:
In September of 2001, just following the worst terrorist attack ever suffered in modern history, CAIR placed on its website, under a picture of the World Trade Center in flames, a plea for donations. It read, "Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund."
Yet, when people clicked on the link, it did not take them to any NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund. No, it took them straight to the website of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an Islamic 'charity' that was soon to be shut down by the United States for "raising millions of dollars annually for HAMAS."
And there are other, more sinister connections between CAIR and terrorism. Three of its top officals have been charged with aiding terrorist organizations. And the Holy Land Foundation itself was finally shut down by the government and its assets seized in 2003.
Then, late last year CAIR met with Fox executives to air their complaints about the story line for "24." And Fox caved in shamelessly. They altered the story line and promised to run CAIR-made anti discrimination commercials around the country.
Was Fox aware of the CAIR-terrorist connections?
But why was Fox playing ball with CAIR in the first place? Were the execs who met with CAIR representatives aware that three of its officials have been arrested for various terrorist-related activities? Yes, said the source, that is a matter of public record. Are they aware that CAIR founder Nihad Awad helped establish CAIR after working at the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), where he was public relations director -and that former FBI counterterrorism official Oliver Revell has called the IAP "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants"? Did they know that Awad himself has declared: "I am in support of the Hamas movement"? Well, yes, said the source, they were aware of allegations that CAIR had some links, however tenuous, with Hamas, but they judged the organization's complaints on their merits. That's what Fox always does, he said: it considers not the source of a complaint, but the worthiness of the complaint itself.
So if the Ku Klux Klan called with a complaint, that complaint would be judged on its merits, not its source? That's a question that only Fox's cowed executives can answer, and they aren't talking.
The idea that the American people are too stupid to differentiate between a TV program and real life is ridiculous. All it proves is that CAIR and the American Muslim community in general have discovered that the best way to promote your agenda and deflect criticism of your positions is to play the victim card.
Liberal guilt will take care of the rest.
Superhawk blogs at Rightwing Nuthouse.
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