View source for Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West

[[Image:Obsession.jpg|right|thumb|1000px|A promotional image for Obsession]]
Obsession is an anti-islamic film featuring interviews with a selection of 'counter-terror' activists, including controversial figures such as [[Daniel Pipes]], [[Steven Emerson]] and UK operative [[Glen Jenvey]]. The film was reissued by [[The Clarion Fund]], a front for the ultra-Zionist [[Aish HaTorah]] in 2008 to co-incide with the presidential elections to exploit the right-wing hysteria about Barack Obama's alleged Muslim roots.

==Zionist provenance==

An Interpress Service investigation revealed that: 

:"Obsession" features interviews with Harvard law professor [[Alan Dershowitz]], investigative journalist [[Steve Emerson]], [[Itimar Marcus]] of Israel-based [[Palestinian Media Watch]], and [[Daniel Pipes]], a controversial scholar of medieval Islamic history whose website [[campus-watch.org]] sparked criticism in 2002 for its alleged McCarthyesque attacks on Middle East studies professors.

:Its production credits include the [[Middle East Media Research Institute]], or MEMRI, a translation service founded in 1998 by Col. [[Yigal Carmon]], who spent more than 20 years in Israeli intelligence and later advised two Israeli prime ministers; and the Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group founded by Marcus, that monitors Palestinian news organizations for alleged anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda.<ref>Khody Akhavi, [http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/27/112 Film on "Radical Islam" Tied to Pro-Israel Groups], CommonDreams, 27 March 2007.</ref>

IPS also reported that:

:A group of hard-line United States neo-conservatives and former Israeli diplomats, among others, are behind the mass distribution, ahead of the November US presidential election, of a controversial DVD that critics have denounced as Islamophobic. The group, the [[Endowment for Middle East Truth]] (EMET), is working with another organization called the [[Clarion Fund]], which produced the 60-minute video and is itself tied closely to an Israeli organization called [[Aish Hatorah]]. <ref>Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9853.shtml Neo-cons, ex-Israeli diplomats push Islamophobic video], ''The Electronic Intifada'', 24 September 2008 </ref>

Other zionist groups including [[Honest Reporting]]<ref>Khody Akhavi, [http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/27/112 Film on "Radical Islam" Tied to Pro-Israel Groups], CommonDreams, 27 March 2007.</ref> supporting [[John McCain]] in his campaign for president in 2008 were involved in mass distribution reportedly of 28 million copies of the film in swing states.<ref>Amy Goodman, Isabel Macdonald, Ibrahim Hooper,  [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/17/smearcasting_how_islamophobes_spread_fear_bigotry Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation], Democracy Now, 17 October 2008.</ref>

==Islamophobia?==

According to an InterPress Service report:

:Critics allege that the movie Obsession is "hate propaganda" which paints Muslims as violent extremists and, among other things, explicitly compares the threat posed by radical Islam to that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

:At least two major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the paid advertisement into their product have refused to do so because of a perceived bias in the film.

:"Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to distribute the DVD of a film that for two years has troubled American Muslims," wrote Tim Townsend, a reporter at Missouri's most influential newspaper earlier this month after it rejected the ad. <ref>Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9853.shtml Neo-cons, ex-Israeli diplomats push Islamophobic video], ''The Electronic Intifada'', 24 September 2008 </ref>

==Republican campaign materials==
In September 2008, groups connected or sympathetic to the Republican campaign to elect John McCain initiated a mass distribution of Obsession in key US swing states.  A strong islamophobic message and "terrorist" fear mongering are the key message spread. 
On 13 September 2008 Erik Ose reported:
:This week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states. The 60-minute DVDs, titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the [[Clarion Fund]], a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear.<br>[...]<br>Here in North Carolina, another battleground state that John McCain must win to reach 270 electoral votes, 160,000 copies of the DVD are to be distributed tomorrow by the state's leading newspaper.  The Raleigh News &amp; Observer reported yesterday on its Under The Dome politics blog that the paper is preparing to bundle copies of the DVD with this Saturday's newspapers. Jim McClure, vice president of display advertising for the N&O, said the "ultimate decision" to distribute the DVDs had been made by publisher Orage Quarles, and compared the propaganda to harmless household samples.<ref>Erik Ose, [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/pro-mccain-group-dumping_b_125969.html Pro-McCain Group Dumping 28 Million Terror Scare DVDs in Swing States], Huffington Post, 12 September 2008.</ref>

''New York Times'' spokesperson Diane McNulty told Inter Press Services that the paper had  distributed about 145,000 copies of the DVD in American editions of the paper, and that it had been classified as opinion advertising.<ref>Ali Gharib, [http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1700 'Anti-Islam Film Targets 'Swing State' Voters'], Inter Press Services, 19 September 2008</ref>

==Featured Speakers and "experts"==

<table border="1" bgcolor="white" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" width="80%" align="center">

<tr><td>[[Nonie Darwish]]</td>
<td>[[Alan M. Dershowitz]]</td>
<td>[[Steven Emerson]]</td></tr>

<tr><td>[[Brigitte Gabriel]]</td>
<td>[[Martin John Gilbert]]</td>
<td>[[Martin Gilbert]]</td></tr>

<tr><td>[[Caroline Glick]]</td>
<td>[[Alfons Heck]]</td>
<td>[[Glen Jenvey]]</td></tr>

<tr><td>[[John Loftus]]</td>
<td>[[Salim Mansur]]</td>
<td>[[Itamar Marcus]]</td></tr>

<tr><td>[[Khaleel Mohammed]]</td>
<td>[[Daniel Pipes]]</td>
<td>[[Tashbih Sayyed]]</td></tr>

<tr><td>[[Walid Shoebat]]</td>
<td>[[Khaled Abu Toameh]]</td>
<td>[[Robert Wistrich]]</td></tr>
</table>

==Principals==
*[[Wayne Kopping]] &ndash; Director<ref name="as">Adam Shatz, [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n19/print/shtz01_.html Short Cuts], London Review of Books, 9 October 2008.</ref>
*Rabbi [[Raphael Shore]] &ndash; Producer <ref name="as"/>

==Connections==
*[[Endowment for Middle East Truth]]
*[[Hasbara Fellowship Speakers Bureau]]
*[[HonestReporting]]
*[[Aish HaTorah]]

==Contact, Resources, Notes==
===Contact===

:Website: [http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/ www.obsessionthemovie.com]

===External Resources===
*Khody Akhavi, [http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/27/112 Film on "Radical Islam" Tied to Pro-Israel Groups], CommonDreams, 27 March 2007.
*Amy Goodman, Isabel Macdonald, Ibrahim Hooper,  [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/17/smearcasting_how_islamophobes_spread_fear_bigotry Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation], Democracy Now, 17 October 2008.
*Official website of the film: [http://www.obsessionthemovie.com www.obsessionthemovie.com]
*[http://www.jewsonfirst.org/obsession/ Rebutting Obsession], Jews On First, accessed 9 January 2008.</ref>

===Notes===
<references/>

[[Category:Israel Lobby]]
[[Category:Middle East Watch]]