As the mainstream media fall into increasing disrepute, new information sources are rising up across the Internet. None is greater to my mind than MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which began by surveying the Arab written press, but now provides verbatim television clips from their video outlets as well with simultaneous translation. Usually there is also a transcription and, like CSPAN, rarely do the MEMRI people comment – of if so, only briefly. Instead we are treated like adults, allowed to draw our own conclusions. Of course, selection itself is a comment, but no system is perfect, obviously. Still, I trust MEMRI more than almost all newspapers, television networks or websites.
Today their televison monitor project has a fascinating clip of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Research Center Expert Dhiaa Rashwan telling an interviewer that Israel carried out the recent Sinai bombings (thus deliberately murdering its own citizens):
Interviewer: Let me understand what you are saying, Dr. Dhiaa. Do you claim that this operation bears Israeli fingerprints and that Israel is behind it? What would lead Israel to carry such an operation?
Dr. Rashwan: Such operations realize higher Israeli goals. We must note that not only did Israel announce from the outset that Al-Qa’ida was responsible for the operation, but the top security authorities, and even the Israeli Defense Minister, announced that they exclude the possibility of Palestinian involvement in the operation, while Israel’s natural reaction in such cases would be to claim Palestinian involvement.
The main goals of this operation are as follows: First, to convince the world that Egypt is not a stable country, thus opening the door for external involvement, specifically Israeli and American, for the so-called preservation of security and eradication of terrorism in the region.
Second, [the attack] gives Sharon a green light not only to strike the Palestinians in the occupied territories under the pretext of fighting terrorism, but also a legitimate justification for striking the Palestinians abroad because Israeli citizens were attacked abroad.
When I see/read material likes this, I ask myself whether people like Dr. Dhiaa believe the insanity they are spouting or whether it is just propaganda. Either conclusion is quite scary. And whatever it is, you can be sure projection is a heavy component.
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