On November 29, Al-Manar TV hosted and covered a live symposium at Lebanon’s largest and only government-run university, Universite Libanaise. A student of political science, Hisham Sham’as, said, “Just like Hitler fought the Jews, we are a great Islamic nation of jihad, and we too should fight the Jews and burn them.” When another student, Mahmoud Fakhri, called for Israel “to be wiped off the map,” he asked the Al-Manar moderator if his statement was “too inciting.” He answered, “Go ahead and incite. This is what we’re looking for.”

The French ban on Al-Manar for incitement against Jews in December 2004 enraged the Arab world. A spokesman for the Committee for Solidarity with Al-Manar, Ghaleb Qandil, said, “All the talk about anti-Semitism is meaningless nonsense … we Arabs are Semites, the offspring of the ‘Khazar’ Jews will not be the ones to judge how Semitic we are.” The Lebanese Foreign Ministry issued a statement explaining Al-Manar is “anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic,” while President Lahoud of Lebanon called the charges of “anti-Semitism” an attempt “to mislead international public opinion.” As Lebanese government officials made such claims, Al-Manar aired a program about Jews spreading AIDS throughout the world.

Al-Manar’s anti-Semitic outlook is derived from Hezbollah’s interpretation of the Koran. The group’s one-time spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussain Fadlallah, said in 1994 that the literal text of the Koran detailing “the negative aspects of the Jews … both in history and in the future,” serves as a guide for Muslims.

A 1997 book on Hezbollah by a Reuters correspondent based in the Middle East, Hala Jaber, detailed how the terror organization’s TV channel Al-Manar, regularly broadcasted excerpts from the groups original manifesto. Citing Surat al-Ma’idah, Verse 82 of the Koran, the manifesto said Hezbollah’s “jihad” is a “religious obligation” and that “the animosity between Muslims and Jews goes back to the early days of Islam.”

Al-Manar children’s programming also includes anti-Semitic themes taken from Islamic teachings. For example, a claymation special from December 7 was titled “Stories from the Koran.” The program was based on a famous Hadith from Islamic history in which the Jews became apes and pigs.

The head of Radio Islam in Sweden and one of Europe’s most notorious anti-Semitic Muslims, Ahmad Rami, appeared on Al-Manar on September 30 to explain that his beliefs are based on what “the Koran says, that our battle is with the Jews” and that “Judaism is a criminal and dangerous mafia.”

Anti-Semitic incitement on Al-Manar is not drawn solely from interpretations of the Koran, but from classic anti-Semitic subject matter including the blood libel; Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Nazi forgeries, and attacks on Judaism.

Explaining how the Jews have “distorted the Torah,” the Mufti of Tripoli, Sheikh Taha Al-Sabonji appeared on Al-Manar on April 22, 2004, saying: “Those responsible for all civil strife … throughout history were the Jews. This is verified by anyone who has read Jewish literature and … the Koran.” On the same show, the secretary-general of the Islamic Universities Association, Dr. Ja’far Abd Al-Salim responded: “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion clearly refer to this.”

The president of the Middle East Center for Studies and Public Relations, Hisham Jaber appeared on Al-Manar on July 11 to discuss the vileness of the Jews claiming they were behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. He also said, “We know that since the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Zionism has forged the New Testament. … 60 million in the U.S. alone have left Christianity to become believers in the Torah. Global Zionism has tried to forge the Holy Koran.”

A Lebanese journalist, Arafat Nizam Al-Din, quoted Nazi propaganda during a November 11, 2004, interviewed on Al-Manar. He added his on twist on American history and Jews with fictional anti-Semitic quotes from President Washington, President Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Similarly, Al-Manar aired a discussion by Dr. Ghazi Rabab’a, Professor of Political Science at Jordan University, on May 27, 2004: “President Jefferson told the American people in an official speech, ‘If you do not expel the Jews from your land, they will enslave you. … If we open the Talmud, the Jews’ false book, we see that.”

Another one of the countless examples of such anti-Semitism on Al-Manar (which can be viewed at www.memritv.org) comes from the deputy head of the Palestinian Clerics Association, Sheik Muhammad Ali, who appeared on August 19 and spoke of wiping out the Jews, how the Zionists have forged the Torah and Talmud, and quoted directly from the Koran to justify killing Jews.

Next week’s column will explore the Iranian connection to Al-Manar.

Mr.Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.