The Times of London - 5 August 2006: EVERY
night of this 25-day-old conflict, Israeli warplanes have tried to
destroy Hezbollah’s television station, al- Manar. Every night they
have failed.
Somehow the satellite network continues to pump out its potent
mix of news and propaganda from makeshift studios, its continued
survival a deepening embarrassment to Israel’s much-vaunted military,
and a growing inspiration to Hezbollah sympathisers.
The station’s five-storey headquarters in the southern suburbs
of Beirut was bombed in the first hours of the war, injuring five
staff. But the skeleton team working that night knew the evacuation
drill and the location of a back-up studio, so al-Manar was off the air
for only ten minutes.
For the next three nights the jets returned, pounding even the
rubble with 500lb bombs after rumours that al-Manar was broadcasting
from an underground bunker.
The station is now believed to be broadcasting from apartments
in some of Beirut’s most fashionable streets, empty office blocks and
basements, but the whereabouts of al-Manar’s newsreaders is shrouded in
as much secrecy and protection as the hiding place of Sheikh Hassan
Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader.
Its technicians move their satellite dishes around more
rapidly than Hezbollah fighters can shift their rocket launchers, and
the question being asked in Israel is why its military, backed by its
formidable intelligence services, cannot silence the voice of the Shia
militia.
Ibrahim Farhat, al-Manar’s public relations director, said:
“We knew this day was coming, so we took suitable precautions across
all of Lebanon.”
Mr Farhat said he had no idea how many studios were still
operating, and cannot or will not say how al-Manar manages to avoid
giving away its satellite signal, but insists: “We consider it our duty
to carry on, even if it costs us our lives.”
He said that several of the station’s installations had been hit, but that normal service always resumed within seconds.
Israel cannot destroy the international satellite al-Manar uses,
as it is shared by Western broadcasters, so it must find the station’s
own up-link satellite dish carried around on pick-up trucks, or target
its clandestine studios and staff.
Mr Farhat said that al-Manar’s 350 employees had been told
they did not need to come to work, but insisted that no one had stayed
away. Staff keep in touch through pay-as-you-go mobile phones that
cannot be traced, and a fleet of cars ferry them to that day’s studio.
The station’s message is crude and unrelenting: The “resistance” is winning, its enemies are hurting.
Aside from constant footage of its fighters charging through
fields and loading their Katyusha rockets, there are images of dead
Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah’s own “martyrs” slain on the
battlefield, all accompanied by stirring martial music. Every few
minutes images of Sheikh Nasrallah appear, being hugged by fighters, or
stroking the face of one of his men being lowered into a coffin.
Extracts of his speeches are repeated almost every hour. A weatherman
stands in front of a map. He points to where Hezbollah missiles have
landed, and zooms in on the latest damage done to Lebanon.
The station pirates Israeli TV pictures, supplying its own
insulting commentary in Hebrew. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime
Minister, is depicted wearing a Nazi armband and a Hitler-style
moustache. President Bush has blood dripping from his lips.
But it does not solely broadcast propaganda. Al-Manar was the
first to report the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers on July 12,
an hour after their abduction. It was the first to report that an
Israeli naval ship had been hit by a Hezbollah missile, and that
Israeli commandos had launched a raid on Baalbek this week. It
regularly reports the deaths of Israeli soldiers before they are
confirmed by Israel.
Sheikh Nasrallah’s latest broadcast on Thursday night was
filmed by his own cameraman, and al-Manar was given an hour’s notice
that the tape was on its way. When it appeared, householders turned up
the volume so that people in the street could listen. West Beirut came
to a virtual standstill during the 40-minute address.
But Mr Farhat denies that the station takes orders from
Hezbollah. “If we do not believe a story that Hezbollah gives us, we
won’t run it,” he said. Al-Manar first broadcast in 1990, has an annual
budget of $15 million (£8 million) and claims an audience of 200
million across the Muslim world.
But its success has as much to do with its televising of
Lebanon’s premier football league and Arab soap operas as for
mobilising support for Hezbollah.
US companies such as Pepsi-Cola and Procter & Gamble used
to advertise until al-Manar was blacklisted by the White House as the
world’s only terrorist TV station. The most damage Israel has been able
to inflict has been to interrupt its broadcasts by superimposing its
own message on the screen.
The past three weeks have turned al-Manar’s broadcasters into
local heroes. Fatma al-Birri, a newsreader, said: “When I’m on the air
I feel like I am battling the enemy alongside Hezbollah fighters,
though we sit on our armchairs while they fight battles.”
AN HOUR IN THE DAY OF AL-MANAR
Al-Manar’s normal schedules were scrapped on July 12 to provide round-the-clock coverage of the war. A typical hour:
14.00: News bulletin opens with a Hezbollah
song, a verse from the Koran and the slogan: “Lebanon we are your men
to liberate the land of the south.” Newsreader recites casualty figures
14.05: Video montage of attacks on Israeli units before withdrawal in 2000
14.10: A Hezbollah MP is interviewed,
followed by a 15-minute phone-in, with each caller praising Sheikh
Hassan Nasrallah. A parade of Hezbollah units through Beirut, which
includes boys carrying guns
14.25: Film of dead and wounded Israeli
troops and grieving relatives, apparently pirated from Israeli TV.
Slogans such as “Israelis, your leaders are dummies. They are tools in
the hands of the US”
14.30: News bulletin with footage from bombing of Beirut, damaged bridges and a raid on a local port
14.32: Extract of pirated Israeli film of an IDF spokesman recounting day’s fighting
14.35: Propaganda film shows line-up of trucks carrying Katyusha rockets, and caricatures of Ehud Olmert and George Bush
14.40: Extracts from Sheikh Nasrallah’s speech