Syrian MP Dr. Muhammad Al-Habash published an article in the Syrian government daily Teshreen titled "MEMRI: My Story with the Zionist Center for Monitoring Islamic Activities."
The following are excerpts from the article: [1]
"MEMRI Can Flood the Internet Within a Few Hours"
"MEMRI, www.memritv.org, is a Zionist research center whose job is to monitor the voice, the picture, the [written] page – everything the Arabs spout into the visual, audio, and written media on Arab political, social, and religious affairs.
"There are at least 100 Arab satellite channels, and 100 Arab TV stations. The number of radio stations is twice that, and the number of newspapers, five times that number. And all this is just an estimate. For when we want to count Arab media outlets, we have no authority [that can be relied on] let alone monitoring them and recording them.
"But the Zionist MEMRI center does not only count them, it even monitors them word by word and collects them, according to the principle of 'Not one uttered voice should be left without a monitor ready to translate it.' Then MEMRI brings up this information to decision makers, and distributes it, in a different version, to other readers and [all] those interested.
"'To be honest, I don't know how many people work at MEMRI, but it is capable of flooding the Internet within a few hours, and thus they turn the item that they want to spotlight into a scandal and an uproar that cannot be contained and whose consequences cannot be diminished."
"If We Were in France Now, We Might Well Have to Stand Trial, Just Like Roger Garaudy When He Cast Doubt on [the Truth About] the Holocaust"
"My first experience with MEMRI was late last year, the day that the American authorities prevented me from coming to Washington, and I was forced to return whence I came...
"I preferred to keep quiet about the incident, in the hope that this difficulty would be taken care of... [But] before I reached Damascus, MEMRI had already followed in detail what occurred at Dulles airport.
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"That same day, its editor wrote that a Syrian MP was denied entry to America, and [its] website reiterated the reasons for this – among them, a series of sermons I gave [at the mosque], and articles and TV interviews in which I spoke about the Jews – something that as far as MEMRI is concerned has only one explanation – antisemitism.
"Despite the fact that the official White House spokesman, Richard Boucher, publicly announced that the U.S. had no political stance towards Muhammad Habash, and that the problem was merely technical, - MEMRI continued to screech over the Internet, warning that Habash and his ilk from the moderate trend in Islam endanger you, the Americans, more than bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, and the reason for this is clear: They are capable of openly infiltrating our universities and institutes, whereas Al-Zarqawi and Al-Zawahiri are hiding out in Tora Bora.
"I was surprised when I read that MEMRI, and the sites that link to it such as the Israel Forum, monitored statements of mine from three years ago. The strangest of these was a Friday sermon at the Al-Zahra mosque, on October 15, 2002, in which I attacked the Israeli enterprise and called for resistance on Palestinian land.
"MEMRI wrote more than 15 pages that included various statements in this context, and instead of choosing the title 'Syrian MP Denied Entry to U.S.,' as reporting etiquette would require, MEMRI chose the title 'Syrian MP Attacks American Culture' [sic]! MEMRI cited a series of purely theoretical positions, which I expressed in the media, that deal with the contradiction between materialist culture and the Islamic faith's ideological interpretations of life.
"The surprising thing was that MEMRI succeeded, in less than a week, to cram these reports into more than 400 various websites, and, together with these sites, to repeat its accusations, like wailing women...
"Of course, the response to this was rapid. While packing my bags to travel to Australia and participate in a conference for Islamic-Christian-Jewish dialogue, I received a letter from the Supreme Islamic Council in Australia apologetically revoking the invitation because of fierce Jewish opposition to my participation in the conference.
"The pretext put forward by the Jewish organization was a few documents that MEMRI gave to the Australian government. These included my attack on the racist entity in ' Israel.' The Islamic Council's question was the very height of etiquette and propriety: 'Is what is being said about you true?' I answered: 'If the meaning is that I attacked 'Israel' three years ago, as MEMRI claims, then I am happy to tell you that I attack Israeli policy… every day, every morning, every evening, before eating and after eating, twice before sleep, three times during the news broadcast, and 70 times every time I surf the Internet.'
"Recently, MEMRI wrote a biased study on a statement of mine on Syrian TV, in which I spoke about the noble Prophet's efforts to cleanse Medina of the Jews' deceit and filth (http://memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/786.htm).
"We all know that in the settlements of Qurayza, Qaynuqa', and Al-Nadhir in Medina, refuse and filth filled the streets, and that a Jewish neighbor used to dump his refuse at the doorstep of the noble Prophet.
"But MEMRI's website thought that this was an antisemitic statement, and that it also contains racist nationalism. If we were in France now, we might well have to stand trial, just like Roger Garaudy when he cast doubt on [the truth about] the Holocaust."
My Statements That the Jews Murdered the Prophets Appear in the Torah, New Testament, and Koran
"Yesterday, MEMRI harshly attacked a statement of mine on the Al-Deera TV channel, in which I spoke about the Jews who murdered the prophets ( http://memritv.org/clip/en/797.htm). This is a fact about which we can read clearly in the Torah, in the New Testament, and in the Koran. No one can doubt this. But this is also considered [by MEMRI] to be antisemitism.
"Of course, MEMRI's statements will very rapidly snowball on the Internet, and dozens of Internet sites related in some way or another to the Zionist enterprise will accept them. In addition, [more items of this kind] will be added to them, [items at] which MEMRI's skilled analysts excel, as do the various other institutes [that participate] in the media competition.
"The question that arises now is: What have the Arabs prepared in order to deal with MEMRI? Is there, in the Arab media today, a research center that dedicates itself to monitoring everything that others say about us, whether negative or positive, in order to archive it, sort it, and afterwards to pass it on to decision makers and to give it to researchers under the title 'Know Your Enemy and Your Friend!'[?]"
[1] Teshreen (Syria), October 1, 2005.
