American-Palestinian Activist Osama Abu Irshaid: MEMRI Is Used to Infiltrate American Consciousness

Osama Abu Irshaid, the national director of the Chicago-based American Muslims for Palestine organization, said that the Zionist movement has managed to culturally infiltrate American consciousness by claiming that Israel and the United States share the circumstances of their establishment. Speaking at a symposium titled "Confronting the Zionist Myths," which was held in Istanbul as part of the second International Palestine Forum for Media and Communications, Abu Irshaid said that this claim has some truth to it, because both countries were involved in "ethnic cleansing." Abu Irshaid complained that while MEMRI exposes "flops" in the Arab media to American public opinion, the Arab rhetoric is always emotional. The Al-Jazeera network broadcast the event on May 18, 2016.

Osama Abu Irshaid: "As part of the Zionist movement's cultural infiltration (into American society), it has managed to convince a large part of American public opinion that the two countries share the circumstances of their establishment. In fact, there is some truth to it. (In both countries), it was a process of ethnic cleansing. I am not trying to correct my distinguished colleague, Munir, but even the term 'American Indians' is a racist and discriminating term, which has to do with annihilation. They were not really Indians. (The Westerners) though they had discovered Indians, so they called them 'American Indians,' but they were, in fact, tribes living there, the original inhabitants. (The Zionists) managed to convince the (Americans) of the following: 'We came to two undeveloped countries, and managed to establish two successful states.' This is one aspect of infiltrating American consciousness. The cultural infiltration also includes the Zionist influence in the media. They have a significant impact on the media, as well as on Hollywood. They have managed to endear Israeli and the Jews upon American public opinion.

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"American public opinion is sensitive to the issue of discrimination, but unfortunately, our rhetoric is mostly emotional, and does not focus on the facts. They use MEMRI, which is a channel or a website, specializing in picking out our 'flops' - when someone curses the Jews, for example - and it delivers them directly to the American media. Meanwhile, they rule that it is permissible to kill Palestinian children, because they are the descendants of Amalek, and none of us says anything."