Fox News to air ‘Obsession’

This weekend, Fox News will render perhaps its most important public service this election season: It will broadcast at five different times over Saturday and Sunday an extraordinary documentary – Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. There are few things more important to the future of the United States than having an electorate that understands the true nature of the danger we confront in the war being waged against the Free World. And there are few more effective and efficient means of obtaining such awareness on a wholesale basis than by having every American watch this hour-long program when it airs Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.

Obsession‘s subject matter could hardly be more topical and the timing of these broadcasts more providential. The film describes the nature, objectives and ideological roots of the totalitarian movement that currently poses the most immediate and a potentially catastrophic threat to America and the rest of the Free World: Islamofascism. It does so in a way that not only informs its viewers of the menace we face but compels them to reflect upon the risks associated with inaction – or, worse yet, appeasement of the sort being advocated by many partisans in the current election cycle.

The filmmakers combine three elements to make Obsession exceptionally compelling. First, an array of profoundly knowledgeable and articulate experts provide historical and strategic context to the phenomenon of this violent theo-ideology. They include: the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Mideast Fellow, Caroline Glick; historian Sir Martin Gilbert; former Hitler Youth Group Leader Alfons Heck; columnist and researcher Daniel Pipes; investigator Steven Emerson; former federal prosecutor John Loftus; journalist Brigitte Gabriel; and Professor Robert Wistrich.

Second, anti-Islamist Muslims and former Muslims provide powerful first-hand testimonials about the nature of Islamofascism as seen through the eyes of those most immediately at risk from its violence and repression: the Islamists’ peaceable, tolerant co-religionists. Among the incredibly powerful contributions from this group were comments by: Canadian professor and columnist Salim Mansur (a featured participant in the Center’s Muslim Speak Out program); Nonie Darwish, the daughter of a suicide-bomber; Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist; Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh; Pakistani expat and editor Tashbiy Sayyed; and California-based Professor Khaleel Mohammed.

Perhaps the most evocative material of all, however, is provided by the Islamofascists themselves, in the form of footage taken directly from various television broadcasts from around the Muslim world. These scenes have been compiled by two formidable organizations, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and Palestinian Media Watch, and feature various imams, talking heads and political figures exhorting their audiences to bring "Death to America" and legitimizing the destruction of Christians and Jews and their societies. The point is unmistakable: This sort of virulent propaganda is being broadcast incessantly on myriad official outlets such as Saudi, Iranian, Qatari and Palestinian television and Hezbollah’s TV network, al Manar. In the process, millions of viewers, particularly young audiences, are being inculcated with the most extreme sorts of jihadist sentiment – including the desirability of murderous self-sacrifice for Allah.

In a television advertisement aired in six states this Fall, the Center has urged every voter to cast his or her ballot as though their lives depend on it – for indeed they do. Viewing Obsession is a prerequisite to understanding just how literally that is the case, and to the evaluation of which candidates most clearly understand, and are best equipped to deal with, the danger posed by Islamofascism and its enablers.