ABSTRACT
The current US administration has identifi ed the Lebanese Islamist group Hizbullah as a key threat, and the group’s media as a source of increasing anti-Americanism. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed Al Jazeera, the leading Arabic language news station, for encouraging Islamism by broadcasting beheadings of hostages in Iraq, a charge the station denies (Smallman 2005). In President George Bush’s State of the Union address in 2004, he focused on Arab television stations he claimed are responsible for ‘hateful propaganda’ against the US, distorting news and showing explicit images producing anti-Americanism (Cochrane 2004b). Al Manar, a satellite television service launched by the Lebanese Hizbullah, is one of those stations. The US maintains that al Manar is anti-Semitic and promotes hatred, and lists its sponsor Hizbullah as a terrorist group.
