Anonymous campaigns play to fears of voters

NEW YORK // Middle Eastern tensions were brought into the homes of US voters in two different campaigns last week and both were denounced by Muslim and Jewish activists as fear-mongering ahead of November's presidential elections. American Muslims were angered by the mass mailing of a controversial DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. The Clarion Fund, a non-profit group, said it was "educating the public about national security threats" but it has not revealed who funded or backed the distribution of 28 million copies of the DVD or any other details.

Meanwhile, people who claimed to be pollsters telephoned voters and asked if they were Jewish before telling them that Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, was close to the Palestine Liberation Organisation as well as other untruths. "We're going to see a lot more of these obfuscation tactics over the next few weeks where people resort to character assassination," said Ari Wallach, co-executive director of the Jewish Council for Education and Research's JewsVote.org initiative, which backs Mr Obama.

"People whose views date back to a couple of centuries ago are using 21st century technology to disseminate their biased opinions," he said in reference to both campaigns. Ibrahim Hooper, communications director at the Council for American-Islamic Relations (Cair), said the DVD was distributed to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks and reached "a new level of propaganda".

"The campaign must have cost at least $50 million [Dh184m] and the group behind it says it's a non-profit but where did they get the money from? Was their backing domestic or from overseas?" he said. "The DVDS have gone out in key swing states but there's a law preventing non-profits from impacting candidates and another one on foreign donations. We probably won't find out who's behind this until long after the elections and when the damage's already done."

The DVD shows scenes of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers between shots of Nazi rallies. Schoolchildren are seen reciting the chant: "When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I'll turn into a suicide bomber." The film has been distributed via direct mailings or with newspapers such as The New York Times and Miami Herald in key election states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and Florida.

Newspapers defended taking payment to distribute the DVD after accusations they would not have done so if the film had been about African-Americans, Jews or Hispanics. "Some people say this is an advertisement with a political agenda," wrote Jesse H McKenzie, executive assistant to the publisher at the Tallahassee Democrat, in defence of the newspaper. "What isn't these days? We are bombarded every day, in every way, with advertisements from the Republicans and from the Democrats ? It's the responsibility of responsible people to read it all, to listen to it all, and then make informed decisions."

However, the DVD has made many American Muslims fearful that they will all be marked with an "extremist" label. "I've received a lot of calls from Muslims who are registered as independent and received the DVD at home. They feel frustrated at this unprecedented move of using the mass distribution of a video to instil fear against a specific minority," said Ahmed Bedier, a radio disc jockey and president of the Tampa-Hillsborough Human Rights Council in Florida.

The film was made a couple of years ago and originally shown on college campuses across the United States. It was produced by Raphael Shore, a Canadian who lives in Israel, and was directed by Wayne Kopping of South Africa. Mr Bedier said Mr Shore and others behind the film had links to Honest Reporting, a media monitoring group with a hawkish, pro-Israeli bias. The group did not respond to a request for comment from The National.

Neither Mr Obama nor John McCain, the Republican candidate, or their camps have made any comment. "It will be interesting to see if Mr McCain does repudiate the DVD as anti-Muslim," said Cair's Mr Hooper. Mr Wallach of JewsVote.org said the telephone calls were an example of "push polling" in which a group uses the pretence of conducting an opinion poll to attack other candidates. The technique became synonymous with Karl Rove, who helped George W Bush, the US president, win two national elections.

Some of the people who received the telephone calls were so angered by them they alerted Mr Wallach's group, which then publicised them. The recipients were told Mr Obama had met leaders of Hamas, his church had made anti-Semitic statements and other falsehoods relating to the candidate's alleged ties with the PLO. "They went through every smear against Obama and turned it into a question," said Mr Wallach, who accused a Republican Jewish group of conducting the telephone campaign. "Our feeling is those behind them should not be considered a reputable group and no longer have a legitimate right to put their feet under the Jewish table."

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