Thursday, September 20, 2012

HuffPost shills for proven US-based front group for Iran's mullahs

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Summary:
  • On Sept 19, HuffPost --- the world's most-read online "newspaper" --- ran an inflammatory front-page editorial that claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying about Iran's nuclear weapons program. (This comes four days after we documented HuffPost published a demonstrable, inflammatory lie --- disguised as a "news" story --- about a Netanyahu statement re Iran's nuclear program.)
  • HuffPost knew or should have known that five days earlier, the group employing one of the editorial's co-authors was ruled in federal district court to be a propaganda arm of the Iranian mullahs.
  • HuffPost did not disclose this fact --- and either failed or refused to fact-check the editorial's inflammatory claims against credible recent reports of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
  • UPDATE: Iran now admits lying to the IAEA about its nuclear program.  HuffPost completely ignored the story, choosing to post "news" items like this, this and this instead.

Sept. 14: A federal district court ruled that the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is a propaganda arm of the Iranian mullahs

On September 14, a major victory was announced against Islamist "lawfare," the practice of radical Islamists and terror front organizations using Western legal systems to silence and intimidate anyone who exposes the reality of who they are, and what they do.  For background, see Rachel's Law and The Lawfare Project.

In this press release, The Legal Project announced (emphasis added):
PHILADELPHIA, September 14, 2012 – Federal District Court Judge John B. Bates for the District of Columbia yesterday granted summary judgment for Seid Hassan Daioleslam, editor of the English Iranian Lobby website "In Search of Truth: Reports on Mullahs's lobby in US," the defendant in a defamation suit brought by Trita Parsi and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
Judge Bates also ordered sanctions against Parsi for failure to comply with the discovery phase of the litigation. The Legal Project coordinated and financed the defense of Mr. Dai; Sidley Austin LLP represented him pro bono.
Trita Parsi sued Seid Hassan Daioleslam for defamation in April, 2008 after Mr. Dai's investigative reporting exposed Parsi's and NIAC's deep and incontrovertible ties to high-level agents of the Iranian regime. The suit went through 53 months of litigation that included 24 months of discovery and over 30 court motions. These ultimately confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Dai's investigative reports.
The case reached national prominence when Parsi's e-mails (produced during discovery) not only confirmed his ties to the mullahs but also that he has delivered lectures to the CIA, briefed Secretary Hilary Clinton and visited the Obama White House starting in 2009. As recently as this past July, he was hosted by Senior Adviser to the President Valerie Jarrett.
Continue reading.



Five days later, on Sept. 19, HuffPost chose to publish an inflammatory anti-Israel screed near the top its front page --- which was co-authored by a senior NIAC official

The authors of this screed were the National Iranian American Council's Policy Director, Jamal Abdi, and Islamist terror apologist Robert Naiman:
This past Sunday when Netanyahu presented his own absolute certainties to Americans. He told us that Iran "is racing to develop nuclear bombs" and said if the U.S. does not set a redline for war to block Iran's enrichment program, Iran would "proceed to the bomb."
Bibi's assertions contradict the very clear assessments of U.S. and Israeli intelligence. They agree that Iran has not made an actual decision to build a nuclear weapon and the U.S. intelligence community's assessment from 2007 still stands--Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program and is far from "racing" to develop a nuclear bomb. [...]
Meet the Press gave Netanyahu the same free pass they gave Cheney.
So we are launching a new project, IranFact.org, to educate the media and the public about the facts and empower the grassroots to hold the media and public officials accountable so we do not have an Iraq rerun.  
Our first order of business is to call on Meet the Press to correct the record from this past Sunday.
Is Abdi's and Naiman's screed based in fact?  Of course not. 



HuffPost chose to ignore recently-published indications of why Israel is so fearful of what's transpiring in Iran --- and failed (or refused) to fact-check the Abdi-Naiman screed against that data:
Just a few examples:
  • September 11, 2012, AP, "AP Exclusive: New intelligence on Iran nuke work":
    The U.N. atomic agency has received new and significant intelligence over the past month that Iran has moved further toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
  • August 30, 2012, Wall St. Journal, "Iran's Nuclear-Arms Guru Resurfaces":
    The Iranian scientist considered Tehran's atomic-weapons guru until he was apparently sidelined several years ago is back at work,
    according to United Nations investigators and U.S. and Israeli officials, sparking fresh concerns about the status of Iran's nuclear program. [...] The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, believes Mr. Fakhrizadeh has opened a research facility in Tehran's northern suburbs involved in studies relevant to developing nuclear weapons. The offices include some of the same scientists and military staff active in Iran's previous nuclear-weapons research, said intelligence officials who have seen intelligence on the facility.
  • August 31, 2012, CNN, "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned hostile remarks toward Israel and the denial of the Holocaust in Iran Thursday":
    Speaking at the Non-Aligned Summit in Tehran, the U.N. leader didn't mention the Iranian regime, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a string of incendiary remarks in recent years about Israel's existence and the Nazi Germany extermination of Jews last century.
    "I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts, such as the Holocaust,"
    he [Ban Ki-moon] said, speaking in Ahmadinejad's home turf. "Claiming that another U.N. member state, Israel, does not have the right to exist, or describing it in racist terms, is not only utterly wrong but undermines the very principles we have all pledged to uphold."



Is it possible that HuffPost could have simply missed all the data about the reality of Iran's nuclear weapons program?  No.
Arianna Huffington has claimed her core principles are "to ferret out the truth, consequences be damned," and "to produce great journalism."   So, judge for yourself: do you really think the world's largest, most-read online "newspaper," which has the ability to "ferret out" articles such as those listed below --- and plaster them on its front page (or World page) --- could possibly miss the tidal wave of credible data that backs up Israel's fears of Iran's nuclear weapons program?
How about these stories, that HuffPost has published on its World page?



This is no anomaly; it's the continuation of HuffPost's four-year pattern of incitement and bias against Israel and Jews, and shilling for Iran and Islamist terror groups
See our vast archive of evidence that supports this allegation. More: 
   


ACTION ITEMS

If you believe HuffPost should stop inciting hatred against Israel and Jews, and shilling for terror states and groups, we urge you to do three things:
(1) Make your voice known to HuffPost's senior management here.

(2) Consider writing or calling one or more of HuffPost's top advertisers, to let them know your thoughts on what their ad dollars are enabling.
An easy way to approach this is to scan our easy-to-use directory and find one or two corporations that you are a customer of, or have stock in. Your concerns will automatically be given considerably more weight. Also, request a follow-up after they've had a chance to review the evidence; don't let them off the hook, or sweep this under the rug.

(3) Forward the link to this story along to others who support Jews and Israel --- particularly journalists!!!



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