Radio Islam

Radio Islam was a Swedish radio channel, now a website, which is dedicated to "the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel". The EU's racism monitoring organization has called it "one of the most radical right-wing antisemitic homepages on the net".[1]

Namesake Confusion

It bears no relationship to RadioIslam.com,[2] a website live streaming a daily Muslim talk radio program on public affairs. Radio Islam airs in Chicago on WCEV 1450 AM every day from 6-7 PM CST.[3] It is produced by Sound Vision Foundation.[4] It's executive producer is Abdul Malik Mujahid who also chairs the board of Parliament of the World's Religions

History

In September 1973 Ahmed Rami, a former Moroccan army officer, came to Sweden from Paris. He gained political asylum by claiming that he took part in the failed coup attempt against King Hassan II in August 1972. In 1987 Rami began using a public access Swedish radio station to broadcast "Radio Islam", ostensibly a public relations program for Sweden's Muslims. However, the content of the shows focused on Jews, and the station was accused of being a vehicle for anti-Semitism. In 1990 Rami was sentenced to 6 months in prison for "incitement against a group of people", and Radio Islam's transmission permit was revoked for a year. The station resumed broadcasting in 1991 under the direction of the Swedish Nazi David Janzon; however, in 1993 Janzon was convicted of the same crime. Radio Islam was off the air from 1993 to 1995, but the program returned in 1996 under Rami's direction, the same year that he established the Radio Islam website. Rami was again convicted and fined by the Swedish court in October 2000. Rami has been investigated for hate crimes in France and Sweden for his role in maintaining the Radio Islam website. The latest investigation ended in 2004 when the Swedish prosecutor was unable to prove that Rami was responsible for the content.

Mission

The Radio Islam website states that it "is working to promote better relations between the West and the Muslim World". It also states that it is "against racism of all forms, against all kinds of discrimination of people based on their colour of skin, faith or ethnical background". As a "consequence", Radio Islam states that it is "against Jewish racism towards non-Jews". It asserts that "World Jewish Zionism" constitutes "the last racist ideology still surviving" and that Israel is "the last outpost of Apartheid in the World", which, "by its mere existence" demonstrates "a complete defiance to all international laws, rules and principles". As well, it insists that "the open racism manifested in the Jewish State is a violation of all ethics and morals known to Man".

Contents

The focus of the Radio Islam website is the alleged influence of Jews and "Zionists" on society, and in particular on politics in Western countries and in the Middle East. It proposes that there are conspiracies of Jews/"Zionists" to control Western society and oppress and/or kill Muslims (among other groups), and that these actions are a historic feature of both Jews and Judaism (which it describes as the Jewish "Religion"). It considers the Holocaust to be a fraudulent "Zionist" attempt to turn attention away from "the ongoing Zionist war waged against the peoples of Palestine and the Middle East". Major topics of the website include "Zionist massacres", "Zionist terrorism", "Jewish Power", "Jewish racism", "Jewish racism against Blacks", Holocaust denial, "Jewish hypocrisy", "Jewish propaganda", "Jewish war against Iraq", and "Jewish war against Lebanon". Radio Islam's online library contains several complete works, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which Encyclopædia Britannica describes as a "fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for anti-Semitism in the early 20th century"), Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, Henry Ford's The International Jew, Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe, Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion, and Roger Garaudy's The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics.

Holocaust denial

Radio Islam denies the view of all scholars relating to the Holocaust, claiming that most of those who died were non-Jewish victims of typhus, and that many fewer people died than what mainstream scholars say.[5] Their website claims that "[m]ost people in the West generally accept the last Jewish/Zionist claim about the so-called "holocaust" without any challenge as if it were a "divine truth". This holocaust hoax has been bought and sold by educated and uneducated Westerners alike, whether they are from the far right (such as Christian fundamentalists), or from the so-called "moderates", or even from the far left (such as socialists and communists)."[5]

They criticize the general public for tolerating criticism of political mistakes of the President, but not of denying a Holocaust took place.[5] They claim the whole Holocaust was fabricated by Zionists, as a pretext for the establishment of an Israeli state.[5]

Radio Islam also attempts to downplay the Holocaust by claiming that Jews were not singled out for any sort of special punishment and that their deaths should therefore be regarded as equivalent to any other victim of the Nazis. It claims the number of people that died in the Holocaust was actually around 240,000. It also denies the existence of gas chambers, and claims that the Nazis only ever used cremation for the corpses of victims of typhus and other infections diseases, as a method of epidemic prevention.[5]

Radio Islam claims that its position is supported by "scholars and historians", citing Arthur Butz, a tenured professor of Electrical Engineering at Northwestern University who claims the Holocaust was a Zionist fabrication, as well as "father of Holocaust revisionism" Paul Rassinier, and former Lyon University professor Robert Faurisson, who has claimed The Diary of Anne Frank to be a hoax.

Criticism

A 2003 report commissioned by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia described Radio Islam as "one of the most radical right wing anti-Semitic homepages on the net with close links to radical Islam groups",[6] one of a number of "racist and xenophobic sites"[7] which "utilis[e] the denial of the Holocaust as a component of anti-Semitic agitation" and "make use of the entire spectrum of anti-Semitic stereotypes". The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Radio Islam as "a Stockholm-based neo-Nazi propaganda outfit" which "contains a treasure trove of antisemitica" and Ahmed Rami as a "key IHR (Institute for Historical Review) ally" and "a key promoter of anti-Semitism worldwide".[8] The Stephen Roth Institute lists it among a number of "Holocaust denial and/or neo-Nazi pages".[9] The Anti-Defamation League notes that the site "promotes a myriad of anti-Semitic works", and states that it "demonstrates the implicit connection between Holocaust denial and other forms of anti-Semitism". Per Ahlmark, co-founder of the Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism, has described Radio Islam as "the most vicious anti-Jewish campaign in Europe since the Third Reich."1

Footnotes

^1 "Reflections on Combating Anti-Semitism," in Yaffa Zilbershats, ed., The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, n.d.), pp. 59–66.

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ http://www.RadioIslam.com
  3. ↑ https://soundcloud.com/radioislam1450
  4. ↑ http://www.SoundVision.com
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 http://www.radioislam.net/sindi/typic.htm
  6. ↑ Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the European Union - Sweden by the Jewish Virtual Library
  7. ↑ Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002-2003 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
  8. ↑ Lying About the Holocaust: Inside the Denial Movement, by Kenneth S. Stern; Intelligence Report, Fall 2001, Issue Number: 103; Southern Poverty Law Center,
  9. ↑ BELGIUM 1999-2000; Stephen Roth Institute

External links