Blog : Ragazou

By JANICE ARNOLD, Staff Reporter (CJN)

 

MONTREAL ? McGill University's radio station has found fault with a Palestinian community program that it carries for a report alleging Israeli involvement in the abuse of prisoners at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

 

Responding to a complaint filed by HonestReporting Canada, a pro-Israel media monitoring group, Radio CKUT 90.3FM issued a warning letter to Under the Olive Tree and told it to make an on-air retraction and clarification about the report, which aired Jan. 21.

 

HonestReporting charged that the report was not only ?outrageous and unsubstantiated,? but that its true source wasn't revealed.

 

On Jan. 21, the host of the show read a two-minute report that he said was from the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, quoting the commander of the prison, now retired U.S. Col. Janis Karpinski, who was demoted for her role in the scandal, as having broken her silence on the matter.

 

She is alleged to have said Israeli agents were recruited by the U.S. military as interrogators and that was one of the reasons torture and abuse were rampant at Abu Ghraib.

 

HonestReporting's executive director, Mike Fegelman, maintains that the true source was Press TV, Iran's state media. Press TV did, in fact, disseminate a similar story on Jan. 20 on the Internet, citing Al-Akhbar.

 

After an investigation, CKUT's programming committee responded to HonestReporting March 23 that it agreed that the host ?did not properly cite the source of the article that was read on air' and that the report was ambiguous about where and when Karpinski made the alleged comments. When questioned by the committee, the Under the Olive Tree host was unable to provide the source of the quotation.

 

CKUT told the show to retract ?statements made regarding' Karpinski and that Israeli involvement leading to increased sexual and physical violence in Abu Ghraib.?

 

It also had to ?explain to CKUT listeners that Press TV was the source' of the article.

 

Fegelman is pleased with the reprimand, but he feels Under the Olive Tree has not fulfilled the spirit of CKUT's order.

 

He described the clarification that was made March 25 as ?one of the most disingenuous and obfuscating ?clarifications' that we have ever heard.?

 

The host did state that the source was Press TV and provided its website address ? twice.

 

Concerning Karpinski, he said that ?she did not state explicitly that Israeli involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison is what resulted directly in the increased sexual and physical violence.?

 

Fegelman points out that he did not retract the original claim of Israeli involvement and essentially provided an advertisement for Press TV, inviting listeners to check it out.

 

Fegelman called Press TV an ?anti-Semitic propaganda tool' and that ?in insinuating that Israel was responsible for the physical torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, this program spewed a vicious libel against Israel and deserved to be strongly condemned.?

 

Fegelman is also irked that the host's reference to the ?hundreds' of e-mails the program received about the report implied that the response was positive, when, in fact, many of them came from HonestReporting's members.

 

He said that Under the Olive Tree should have made an unequivocal statement like the CBC News show the National did in 2004 that ?there is no evidence that Israel was involved in what happened in the Iraqi prison.?

 

Nevertheless, Fegelman said the show ?now has a documented anti-Israel track record with its host station.?

 

?Under the Olive Tree should now be more careful knowing that listeners are vigilantly monitoring what they're saying and are prepared to take action,? he said.