Kenneth Bandler of the American Jewish Committee hails a recent court decision to punish a New York man for hooking up Hezbollah’s TV station stateside. He writes in the New York Post:
The case of "Hezbollah’s man in New York" offers a compelling glimpse into the expansive world of 21st-century terrorism, where democratic free-speech rights are exploited by terror groups as part of their war against the West.
Assistant US Attorney Eric Snyder pinned the Hezbollah label on Brooklyn businessman Javed Iqbal, who in December pleaded guilty to aiding terrorists through his activity in America. He was sentenced to six years in prison last week…
Satellite TV, unencumbered by Federal Communications Commission or other governmental monitoring and regulation, allows terrorists to deliver their messages directly to viewers. Governments have responded by blocking such transmissions, making it illegal for the companies that provide satellite TV to carry certain channels. Al-Manar broadcasts, in effect and sometimes intentionally, are recruitment tools for terror operations. Indeed, the TV station plays a similar role as those mosques that showcase extremist preachers.
What makes Al-Manar and stations like it even more dangerous than the mosques, though, is that it beams messages of hate and incitement to violence straight into people’s homes.
