Part 2: Author of EU-Funded Islamophobia Report Writes for Anti-Semitic Pro-Hezbollah Media Outlet

A Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that UK aca­d­e­m­ic David Miller, the author of an EU-fund­ed report accus­ing the Euro­pean media of struc­tur­al islam­o­pho­bia, is list­ed as an author on the web­site of Al-Mayadeen, a pro-Hezbol­lah media oper­a­tion. Accord­ing to media reports, Al-Mayadeen was launched in 2012 by Ghas­san bin Jid­do, a well-known Tunisian jour­nal­ist who quit Al-Jazeera to protest what he saw as bias against Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad’s regime. As one report describes:

The Beirut-based sta­tion Al-Mayadeen, Ara­bic for The Squares, says it aims to counter the influ­ence of the pop­u­lar Al-Jazeera and Al-Ara­biya net­works, both fund­ed by oil-rich Sun­ni Gulf Arab coun­tries that have backed the upris­ing in Lebanon’s neigh­bor Syr­ia. It promis­es to sup­port the Pales­tin­ian cause and all forms of “resis­tance” — a term in Mideast par­lance usu­al­ly used to describe the pow­er­ful Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah and oth­er groups that fight Israel.

At the time of launch, Sau­di inter­na­tion­al media report­ed that Al-Mayadeen’s Gen­er­al Man­ag­er was to be Nayef Krayem, pre­vi­ous­ly Direc­tor of the Hezbol­lah-affil­i­at­ed Al-Man­ar TV. AP report­ed at the same time Al-Mayadeen head Bin Jid­do was the only jour­nal­ist who was grant­ed an inter­view by Hezbol­lah leader Has­san Nas­ral­lah dur­ing the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbol­lah. Israeli media describes Al-Mayadeen as “Hezbol­lah-sym­pa­thet­ic” and has called it “a tele­vi­sion chan­nel affil­i­at­ed with Hezbol­lah.” Accord­ing to the Jew­ish Chron­i­cle, Al-Mayadeen is known for its anti-Semit­ic content:

Launched in 2012, the news out­let has fre­quent­ly employed anti­se­mit­ic rhetoric in its opin­ion and analy­sis con­tent, as well as in its report­ing, accord­ing to CAMERA Ara­bic, a media watch­dog organ­i­sa­tion that mon­i­tors Ara­bic lan­guage news. An arti­cle pub­lished on Al-Mayadeen’s web­site refers to “Zion­ist lies about the Nazi Holo­caust”, ask­ing: “Why did Zion­ism spread the sto­ry of the ‘Holo­caust’? And what did accom­plish by this?” Among oth­er arti­cles on its web­site is one enti­tled in Ara­bic “The Holo­caust — that great decep­tion”. Oth­ers are head­lined: “Why do the Jews rejoice at the burn­ing of Notre Dame in Paris?”, “Jews and Freema­sons in the Arabs’ rev­o­lu­tions”, and “The Jews of ‘Israel’ — this is why their end is certain”.

Miller him­self pub­lished an arti­cle on Octo­ber 6 titled “Press­ing the “riot” but­ton in Iran: The US and Zion­ist role.” Accord­ing to the arti­cle, the CIA and the US gov­ern­ment are “one key actor” in the recent unrest in Iran sparked by the death of a young woman while in police cus­tody. Miller adds:

Unsur­pris­ing­ly both the Nation­al Endow­ment for Democ­ra­cy — known as the “CIA-side­kick” — and the Open Soci­ety Foun­da­tions of George Soros adver­tise that they are active in rela­tion to Iran.

George Soros, a wealthy Jew­ish phil­an­thropist, is often the sub­ject of var­i­ous anti-Semit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, and Miller writes lat­er in the arti­cle that “the most impor­tant actor involved, apart from the US, is the Zion­ist regime.” As has hap­pened before, Iran­ian state media picked up Miller’s claims on the unrest, report­ing:

David Miller told IRNA on Mon­day that some for­eign ele­ments who pur­sue their own geopo­lit­i­cal agen­das fanned the flame of the recent protests in Iran to pur­sue a regime change policy.

Oth­er arti­cles authored by Miller for Al-Mayadeen have includ­ed titles such as “Which Zion­ists are racist?” and “The Map­ping Project: How to make Zion­ists pay for their crimes.”

GIOR report­ed ear­li­er this week on the 56-page EU-fund­ed report authored by Miller titled “Islam­o­pho­bia and Euro­pean media. As described in our report, David Miller is a for­mer pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal soci­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol who, in 2021, was dis­missed after mak­ing com­ments such as say­ing Israel want­ed to “impose [its] will all over the world.” Miller, known for his harsh crit­i­cism of Zion­ism and the “Israel lob­by,” claimed that he was “entire­ly cleared of com­plaints of anti-Semi­tism” but was not allowed to men­tion it because of the report’s con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. How­ev­er, the UK All-Par­ty Par­lia­men­tary Group Against Anti-Semi­tism accused Miller of “incit­ing hatred against Jew­ish stu­dents.” Miller pro­duces Pales­tine Declas­si­fied, a show car­ried for Press TV, an Iran­ian state-fund­ed broad­cast­er and influ­ence oper­a­tion aimed at West­ern audi­ences. Jew­ish media report­ed last month that Jew­ish schools were giv­en urgent secu­ri­ty advice fol­low­ing claims by Miller on the show that Jew­ish schools in the UK were “indoc­tri­nat­ing: stu­dents to pro­mote Zion­ism.” Twit­ter has offi­cial­ly labeled Miller’s Twit­ter feed “Iran state-affil­i­at­ed media.”

GIOR also report­ed that Miller’s orga­ni­za­tion Spin­watch has a his­to­ry of anti-Israeli activism. In 2014, the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch, our pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion, said Spin­watch had received fund­ing from the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion, an orga­ni­za­tion head­ed by British GMB leader Anas Altkri­ti. Accord­ing to its web­site, Spin­watch also received financ­ing from addi­tion­al GMB and Hamas sup­port orga­ni­za­tions, including:

• Mus­lim Engage­ment and Devel­op­ment, a UK Islam­ic NGO close to the GMB in Britain

• Inter­pal, a Lon­don-based Islam­ic char­i­ty that the US and Israel have  des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist enti­ty in rela­tion to fundrais­ing for Hamas

• Friends of Al-Aqsa, a Leices­ter-based ‘human rights’ NGO tied to the GMB and Hamas.

• Mid­dle East Mon­i­tor, a UK-based Islamist news por­tal close to the GMB and Hamas

Many of these groups and their lead­ers are list­ed as sig­na­to­ries to a peti­tion  sub­ti­tled “Mus­lims sign open let­ter in sup­port of Pro­fes­sor David Miller’s teach­ing about Islam­o­pho­bia and Zion­ist ideology.”