BBG Watch Commentary
BBG Watch has found more evidence of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) repeating anti-Israel propaganda emanating from Iran’s autocratic religious leaders without any balance, context, or counter provided by the U.S. taxpayer-funded media entity (Annual Budget: $102.1 million). RFE/RL is overseen from Washington by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. federal agency with an annual budget of $777.8 million, including RFE/RL.
In yet another one-sided report posted on February 21, 2017, RFE/RL says that “Iran’s supreme leader has labelled Israel a ‘fake entity’ and has called its creation ‘one of the dirty chapters of history that will be closed, with the grace of God’.”
The RFE/RL report continues: “Khamenei added that he saw ‘the emergence of signs of the collapse of the Zionist regime,’ meaning Israel, and of ‘the weakness that has dominated its main allies — in particular, the United States of America’.”
Further in the RFE/RL report, there is this sentence: “‘The illegitimate entity of the Zionist regime will continue to exist only if it is founded on the ruins of Palestine’s identity and entity,’ he added.”
There is not one word of balance in this RFE/RL report, which RFE/RL says is combined with “reporting by AP and Xinhua.” Xinhua is communist China’s news agency.
Thomas Kent, a former AP journalist, is RFE/RL president and chief executive. According to his BBG bio entry, Kent was most recently AP’s standards editor, “responsible for the fairness and accuracy of the news agency’s content in text, photos, video, audio, interactives and on social networks.” He was appointed by BBG’s interim chief executive John F. Lansing, an Obama administration holdover who does not have any significant international news reporting experience or prior public diplomacy, foreign policy and U.S. government service. President Trump has the authority to appoint a new BBG CEO who would be subject to vetting and confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
RFE/RL posted another one-sided report with Iran’s hate propaganda against Israel on March 5, 2017. RFE/RL even noted that its report was based on reporting by IRNA, the Islamic Republic News Agency; the Mehr News Agency (MNA), an Iranian news agency headquartered in Tehran, owned by the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization (IIDO); and Press TV (stylised PRESSTV) is a 24-hour English language news and documentary network, affiliated with Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
BBG Watch has learned that anti-Israel sentiments are so strong among some of the longtime managers, editors and reporters at RFE/RL that most other RFE/RL reporters who are appalled by these one-sided Iran-propaganda items posted online by RFE/RL at U.S. taxpayers’ expense are afraid to voice their protests publicly because they fear losing their jobs.
SEE: U.S. tax-funded RFE/RL helps spread Iran’s hate propaganda against Israel, needs reforms, BBG Watch, March 6, 2017.
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DISCLAIMER: We repost this one-sided Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) report as a public service to show what BBG media entities should not be doing, not because we agree with anything that RFE/RL has reported in this text.
RFE/RL
Iran’s Supreme Leader Lashes Out At ‘Fake Entity’ Israel
February 21, 2017
RFE/RL
[AFP Photo Used By RFE/RL – Not Reposted Here. Caption: “Iranian President Hassan Rohani (left to right), Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, parliament speaker Ali Larijani, and judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani attend an international conference in support of the Palestinian intifada in Tehran on February 21.”]
Iran’s supreme leader has labelled Israel a “fake entity” and has called its creation “one of the dirty chapters of history that will be closed, with the grace of God.”
Speaking on February 21 in Tehran at the Sixth International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the plight of the Palestinian people should be “the pivot of unity” for all Islamic countries.
Khamenei added that he saw “the emergence of signs of the collapse of the Zionist regime,” meaning Israel, and of “the weakness that has dominated its main allies — in particular, the United States of America.”
He also spoke out against what he called “compromise proposals” and argued that Israel’s “entity and identity are dependent on the gradual destruction of the identity and entity of Palestine.”
“The illegitimate entity of the Zionist regime will continue to exist only if it is founded on the ruins of Palestine’s identity and entity,” he added.
Khamenei was speaking at one of several annual events Tehran arranges to demonstrate support for the Palestinians. Following Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Tehran severed all relations with Israel, and it refuses to recognize Israel’s legitimacy.
With reporting by AP and Xinhua
END OF RFE/RL REPORT