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U.S.
Jewish Body Helps Parents Filter “Anti-Semitic” Web Content
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| The hate
filter will track “anti-semitic” websites
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NEW
YORK, June 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Continuing its
support for Israel, the U.S. Jewish Organization the Anti Defamation
League (ADL) has designed software as a gatekeeper filtering out
websites that are “anti-Semitic”.
The
ADL, which on May 6th, awarded hawkish Israeli
Prime-Minister Ariel Sharon a statesman of the year award, has called
its software the “hatefilter”.
“It
protects children by blocking access to World Wide Web sites of
individuals or groups that, in the judgment of the Anti-Defamation
League, advocate hatred, bigotry or even violence towards Jews or
other groups on the basis of their religion, race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation or other immutable characteristics,” the organization
said on its website.
It
added that it helps parents make informed judgments as to whether
their child is mature enough to be exposed to “hateful ideas.”
The
software lets people block access to a list of sites that the group
says espouse hatred, including those run by neo-Nazis, white
supre-macists and Holocaust deniers.
"The
filter is designed to help parents protect their children from hate
speech on the Internet," said Jordan Kessler, director of
Internet monitoring at the New York-based organization, reported Cnet.com.
"Sites
on the ADL list of hate sites are very dangerous; they encourage
people to hate others simply because they are black or Jewish and gay,
and we want to empower parents to protect their children from this
type of speech."
When
a hate site is blocked by the filter, the user will be redirected to
ADL's Web site, which features articles about prejudice and bigotry,
said Cnet.com.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), describing itself
as a civil rights organization, has been in the forefront of an
ongoing attempt to label legitimate American-Arab and American-Muslim
charitable, political, and informational organizations as fronts for
terrorism, said Radio Islam on its website.
This attempt is part of a long-standing ADL policy
of discrediting any individual or organization opposed to Israel or
supportive of Palestinian rights. The ADL's strong political loyalty
to Israel as well as its acknowledged ties to Israel's external
intelligence agency in addition to its past practices of spreading
disinformation and intimidating those who have spoken out against
Israeli policies should, however, serve as a warning about the ADL and
the nature of its claims.
When
the ADL was founded in 1913 it defined its mission as opposing the
defamation of the Jewish people. Over the years, the organization won
respect for its active support of civil rights and its opposition to
segregation and white supremacist groups.
However,
after the founding of the State of Israel and the 1967 Middle East
War, the ADL significantly altered the way it defined its mission. In
a 1974 ADL publication entitled "The New Anti-Semitism",
then-ADL National Director Benjamin Epstein argued that any
"criticism of Israel reflects insensitivity to American Jews and
constitutes a form of anti-Semitism", said Radio Islam.
This
change in the way it defined its mission meant that the ADL would no
longer be engaged in merely civil rights work, but would rather take
on a very strong political stance in defense of Israel. The main goal
of the ADL became to counteract any criticism of Israel and to promote
Israel's interests regardless of other considerations.
The
latest in their defense of Israel was attacking CNN’s founder Ted
Turner for his comments in an interview with U.K. newspaper, the
Guardian in which he said: “The rich and the powerful, they don’t
need to resort to terrorism… The Palestinians are fighting with
human suicide bombers, that’s all they have.”
“The
Israelis ... they’ve got one of the most powerful military machines
in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the
terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in
terrorism,” he said.
Turner
was forced to retract and sent a letter to ADL’s National Director
Abraham H. Foxman and said: “I hope you understand that I do not
morally equate Israel's right to defend itself with the intentional
killing of innocent civilians.
"While
I have questioned the policies of the Israeli government in the past,
that in no way should be interpreted as an absolution of Palestinian
tactics," Turner wrote.
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