A U.S. lawmaker introduced a resolution condemning media controls and anti-Semitic expression in the Arab world.
The non-binding resolution introduced last week by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) “strongly condemns the endemic restrictions on freedom of the press and expression in the Arab world and the concurrent and widespread presence of anti-Semitic material, Holocaust denial and incitement to violence in the Arab media and press.”
The resolution urges U.S. officials to highlight the link between governments that repress free expression while encouraging anti-Semitic libels.
“Many of the same Arab governments to which the United States has turned for assistance in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are themselves responsible for using their government-owned, government-sanctioned, or government-controlled publishing houses and media to promulgate insidious, incendiary and poisonous speech regarding Israel and the Jewish people that makes United States’ efforts to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict all the more difficult,” says the resolution.
Six other congressmen joined Ackerman, the Jewish chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Middle East subcommittee, in sponsoring the legislation.
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