User:Carabinieri/Al-Manar

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Al-Manar (المنار; Arabic for Beacon) is the official television station of the Shi'a Islamist group Hezbollah. It is based in Beirut. It originally described itself as the "station of resistance" (qanat al-muqawama), although recently it has also used the slogan "the station of the Arabs and the Muslims" (qanat al-'Arab wa'l-Muslimin). The station attracts approximately 10-15 million viewers a day worldwide.^[1] It is one of the 5 most-watched TV stations in the Middle East and one of the 2 most popular channels in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.^[2] Al-Manar was launched in 1991 as a small terrestrial station. At the time the station's content focused primarily on events inside Lebanon, especially the Islamist restance against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which included Hezbollah. After the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in May 2005, the station hailed Hezbollah's succesful military campaign. However, the withdrawal left a vacuum in programming, which was soon to be filled by the outbreak of the Second Intifada on September 29. On May 25, 2000, the al-Manar satellite station was launched this enabled the station to reach the entire Arab world and the rest of the globe through seven major satellite providers.^[3] In February 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced he would seek to pass legisaltion to ban anti-Semitic content in general from being broadcast in France, but he likely meant al-Manar, as the Israeli government had just asked France to stop this channel from broadcasting a day before. .^[4]

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Jorisch, Avi (2004a). "Terrorist Television: Hezbollah has a worldwide reach." National Review Online. December 22, 2004 Retrieved March 27, 2006.
2. ^ Jorisch, Avi (2004b). "Al-Manar: Hizbullah TV, 24/7". Middle East Quarterly. Winter 2004. Retrieved March 27, 2006.
3. ^ Executive Summary of "Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah's al-Manar Television" by Avi Jorisch
4. ^ "Prime Minister says France will ban anti-Semitic programming". Haaretz Online. February 1, 2004. Retrieved March 27, 2006.

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