Press TV Airs Anti-Semitic Interviews to Mark U.S.S. Liberty Anniversary

Press TV, Iran’s English-language propaganda television station, marked the 45th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Liberty by interviewing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists Alison Weir, Michael Santomauro, and J. Bruce Campbell.

During the interview, which was held on June 8, the trio accused Israel of purposefully targeting the U.S. warship during the height of the 1967 Six-Day War. (The circumstances surrounding the U.S.S. Liberty, an American ship that was unintentionally fired on by Israeli forces, has been regular fodder for anti-Israel conspiracy theorists.) The interview also included several anti-Semitic statements and conspiratorial accusations of Jewish control over the U.S. government.

Michael Santomauro, an anti-Israel blogger and Holocaust denier, alleged that the USS Liberty is a cover-up maintained by U.S.-based Jewish support for Israel and the disproportionate influence Jews hold over the U.S. government. Jewish interest groups, whom Santomauro claimed provide over the overwhelming amount of funding to U.S. political parties, wield their power through what he termed “Jewish PAC money.”

J. Bruce Campbell, a contributing writer for the anti-Semitic website, Veterans Today, claimed that the attack on the Liberty was part of a conspiratorial U.S-Israeli plan he called Operation Cyanide, a secret military operation that Campbell alleges purposefully sent the Liberty to get sunk by the Israelis in order to place blame on Egypt. The desired result, Campbell claims, would have been for the U.S. to retaliate against Egypt and to “drop nuclear bombs on Cairo and Alexandria.” Campbell asserted that this was ordered by the U.S. to assist Israel in creating “great [sic] Israel stretching from the Nile to Euphrates rivers.”

When asked by the host whether he agrees that Israel controls the U.S. government, Campbell responded, “I would say the Jews in America [run the United States]. Israel is a euphemism … It is really American Jews who are behind this [the Iraq and Afghanistan wars] just as it was during 1967…” Campbell also claimed that American Jews want to kill “millions of Muslims” and “thousands of Americans. This is what American Jews want, this is what they make happen through Washington D.C.”

Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI), an anti-Israel organization that opposes U.S. aid to Israel, added to Santomauro’s comment about the pro-Israel lobby and characterized the U.S-Israel relationship as an “extremely unhealthy situation.” Weir also said that large sums of donations from pro-Israel groups are the cause of “tragedy, misery, violence and war after war after war.” Weir’s comments are consistent with her record of using anti-Semitic imagery and portraying Israel and its agents as powerful forces that control American policy through intimidation and deception.

Press TV, which is based in Tehran, is used by the clerical regime to provide a platform for extreme elements and activists to air their views and opinions. Many of Press TV’s U.S.-based guests are frequently invited by the station specifically for their conspiratorial anti-Israel views. Earlier this year, Weir appeared as a guest on the station to discuss the 2012 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, calling the pro-Israel lobby “very dangerous to the world” and “for Americans.”

Anti-Semite Dieudonne’s Tour Cancelled in Montreal

Update: Dieudonne’s film, L’Antisémite, has been banned from the Cannes film festival for violating the festival’s policy of not “threatening public order or insulting religious beliefs.”

Four scheduled shows in Montreal by French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, whose act routinely includes Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, Nazi salutes, slurs against the Talmud and other anti-Semitic language, were cancelled last week by Quebec’s largest concert promoter.

The cancelled shows were part of Dieudonne’s first attempt to seriously promote his first feature film L’Antisémite, released earlier this year, in North America. The film, reportedly funded in part by the Iranian government, makes no attempt to conceal its message. The film’s trailer shows Dieudonne declaring, “It’s clear the Jews control everything — media, finance, politics. We no longer have a choice,” before arriving to the apparent punch line, “we must exterminate them.” Another short clip from the film mocks the discovery of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, suggesting that they were a fabrication.



Dieudonne has been the subject of much controversy in Europe where he has been convicted of inciting hatred in France and is under investigation in Belgium for “inciting racial hatred and xenophobia” during a performance earlier this year. Additionally, Belgian authorities recently forced Dieudonne to cancel two shows in Brussels, and French police stopped Dieudonne mid-performance on May 9 for breaking local defamation laws.

In addition to his performances, Dieudonne makes his views known outside the context of his supposed comedy, including running for the European Parliament in 2009 with the Parti Anti Sioniste (the Anti-Zionist Party), which received 1.3% of the vote. According to the party’s website, its primary goals are to remove the “Zionist intervention” from the public affairs of France, denounce all politicians who advocate for Zionism, and to eradicate all forms of Zionism from France.

In April 2010, Dieudonne was interviewed on Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV, where he claimed that Zionism has organized “all the wars and disorders on the planet.” He also argued that the stock market and the unemployment that resulted from its crash are part of the “Zionist project” and that Zionists manipulate the film industry using movies as Jewish propaganda.

Dieudonne, the son of a French mother and a Cameroonian father, is also notorious for a grotesque provocation in 2008 in which he had his assistant, dressed as a Jew in a concentration camp, present an award to Robert Faurisson, a serially convicted Holocaust denier, at a show at the Zenith Theater in Paris. Dieudonne was fined €10,000 for the incident, which was considered a “public insult of people of Jewish faith or origin.”

American “Global March to Jerusalem” Activist Interviewed by Hezbollah

During an interview last week with Hezbollah’s satellite television station Al-Manar, Sarah Ann Marusek, an American organizer of the upcoming “Global March to Jerusalem” (GMJ), discussed the goals of the campaign.    

Marusek told Al-Manar that her participation in the GMJ is intended to “not only to provoke the American government, but to provoke those Americans who claim to support the Palestinians while at the same time support a solution that eliminates the right of refugees to return.”

Marusek added, “Decision makers in the U.S. are living in fear because of the Zionist lobby; if they made a decision that supports the Palestinians, they will be condemned and lose their jobs and the support they have.”

The interview with Al-Manar followed a press conference at the Journalists Union in Beirut, Lebanon, which was attended by various Palestinian militant factions in Lebanon. Hassan Zaidan, head of the Committee to Support the Resistance in Palestine, a group closely associated with Hezbollah, spoke before Marusek, stating that “to count on Western and American intentions in order to free Jerusalem and achieve the return of refugees is pathetic.”  

Marusek is currently a PhD candidate Syracuse University and a political analyst for Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV. She maintains a website that offers English translation of Hassan Nasrallah speeches.

Marusek also works with the Right to Return Committee in Lebanon, which co-organized a July 2011 rally with Hezbollah in Mar Ilias refugee camp in Lebanon to honor wounded Palestinians who participated in the May 2011 “Nakba day” march. The march was organized in part on social networking sites calling for a “Third Palestinian Intifada,” or violent uprising against the State of Israel.

Iran’s Press TV Gives Voice to Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theorists

Mark Glenn, a contributor to the anti-Semitic, conspiracy-oriented publication American Free Press, was interviewed on March 11 by Iran’s English-language propaganda television station, Press TV. During the interview, Glenn claimed that the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians by Israel is greater than the atrocities Jews faced during the Holocaust.

Glenn, who subscribes to and promotes numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, also said that “Israel’s existence is totally dependent upon keeping the people around her divided, squabbling,” and that “sympathy [for the Holocaust] has now extended itself way beyond its shelf life.”

Press TV, headquartered in Tehran, has long embraced extremist elements and activists and provided a platform for them to air their views and opinions, many of which reflect Iran’s worldview. Like Glenn. many of the guests interviewed by the station are known for their conspiratorial anti-Israel views.

For example, Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI) and If Americans Knew, two anti-Israel organization that opposes U.S. aid and support to Israel, was interviewed by Press TV regarding the 2012 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference. “AIPAC is very dangerous to the world and it’s especially dangerous for Americans,” Weir said in the exclusive interview.

Another frequent guest on Press TV and ally of the Iranian regime is Imam Abdul Musa, the head of the Masjid Al Islam Mosque in Washington D.C. and founder of Sabiqun, an anti-Semitic Muslim group advocating for a global Islamic state. In a 2010 interview, Alim Musa claimed that the Israeli Mossad and the U.S. government were behind most acts of terrorism, and has frequently called the U.S. government “Zionist occupied.”