In the grand sanctuary of Manhattan’s Congregation Shearith Israel last Thursday, a group of more than 200 people gathered to hear from the leaders of Mimouna, a group of Moroccan Muslims dedicated to preserving Jewish Moroccan culture. This particular Jewish experience began with, of course, the food; a wide array of Moroccan kosher delicacies, including fig liqueur.
Afterwards, the crowd headed upstairs for remarks and a panel discussion. Moroccan Counsel General Mohammed Benabdeljalil kicked off the event by wishing everyone a belated “Shana Tova” and highlighted Moroccan efforts to preserve national Jewish landmarks.
Mimouna is an organization founded seven years ago by Elmehdi Boudra with the purpose of teaching young Muslim college students about the rich history of unity between Jewish and Muslim Moroccans. The organization, which has grown to include chapters on four college campuses in Morocco, is named after the holiday celebrated by Moroccan Jews the day after Passover, in which many families would invite their Muslim neighbors for a feast signifying the end of the holiday. The group now offers Hebrew classes on campuses, fosters interfaith dialogue amongst students, and holds a Moroccan Jewish day with authentic kosher cuisine, music, and a mini-museum of artifacts.
The evening served a dual purpose: attendees were able to learn about Mimouna and hear from its leaders, but the event was also a way to introduce Ashkenazi Jews to the history of the Sephardi community. Jason Guberman, the executive director of the American Sefardi Federation (and the project coordinator for Diarna, a group dedicated to documenting Jewish cultural sites throughout North Africa) said he hoped the event would “celebrate the beauty, complexity, and diversity of Sephardi history and culture, which is an often overlooked but integral part of the Jewish experience.”
The representatives from Mimouna spoke about why they’ve dedicated so much of their time to this particular cause. Vice president Laziza Dalil recounted the time was was the victim of verbal anti-Semitism, having been mistaken for a Sephardi Jew while traveling in Paris. “This place was much cleaner when the Germans were here,” she was told.
Boudra said he was inspired by the happy memories his grandmother shared with him about her childhood growing up in a Jewish neighborhood. Houda Ougaddoum, the group’s general secretary, said that though she had never met a Jew before joining Mimouna, she connected to Judaism through music.
Andrew Marcus, a Sephardi Jew, was inspired by the evening. “I knew of the rich heritage of Moroccan Jewry,” he said. “But I had no idea that there were Muslim groups working to educate the broader community about the unique history of Muslim-Jewish cooperation.”
For quite some time now Loonwatch has noted the prominent and intentional use of the Israeli flag by Islamophobes, mostly, but not limited to the Far-Right wing. From the EDL, Geert Wilders, to rowdy anti-Muslim Texans and Germany’s Pegida, the Israeli flag has become an ubiquitous feature of many anti-Muslim/Islam rallies.
Addressing a recent rally in Frankfurt, a self-identified Israeli man equated Muslims with Nazis, murderers and rapists, and implored the crowd to “never feel ashamed” of Germany’s past.
The rally was called by Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, a far-right organization founded last October in Dresden. Its demonstrations initially attracted hundreds of people protesting what they believe is Islam’s takeover of Germany. More recently, the number of people to attend has been in the thousands.
An assortment of rightwing groups, including neo-Nazis, have been taking part. Following the attacks on the paper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris last month, a 12 January rally drew more than 25,000 people.
A video, which was posted to YouTube by Journal Frankfurt last week, shows a man, wrapped in a German flag, describing himself as an Israeli with German heritage during a Pegida rally.
“I come from Israel. Germany is yours!” he tells the crowd, to thunderous cheers.
He continues: “Germany’s not Nazis. I am Jewish. My family lived here in Germany for 700 years. And I can tell you that I see here no Nazis. The Nazis are in the left.
“Right here I see only patriots who love their country and want to save Germany from the Islam that wants to take over, to take your traditions, to take your beliefs, to take all of you down. But we will not let it.”
After naming Muslims as the true Nazis, the man goes on to forgive Germany for the Nazi-led genocide of European Jews during the Second World War.
“We will stand together and we will face the real Nazis. The Nazis are inside the Islam mentality and those who want to sell Germany for votes,” he says, adding, “Israel is with Germany. We respect you, we forgive, we love you. You are the best country in the world. Save it.”
“All the world is looking at you now and we are proud. You are the true spirit of Germany,” he snarls. “Islam wants to take you and to drink from the milk of Germany.”
As the hate sermon continues, the man implores the crowd to “Never feel ashamed of yourselves, not even because of the past.”
He then declares himself a proud Islamophobe while advancing a blood libel against Muslims, characterizing them as rapists and murderers who must be feared.
“The Muslims say that we are Islamophobes. Yes, I am Islamophobe because phobia is fear and I am afraid of murder. I am afraid to be raped,” he roars.
“So they can call you Islamophobes, they can call you Nazis and racists. But we are not. We are Germans. We are patriots. We love this country.”
“Antifa [German slang for anti-fascists], fuck you! We are stronger! We will win!”
Mosque defaced with swastikas
As smaller Pegida offshoots spread to other parts of the country, they have sometimes been met with even larger anti-racist counter-demonstrations.
Yet Pegida’s reach is growing as the group held its first demonstration in Austria, on Monday night. In the lead-up to the march, vandals defaced a Vienna mosque with swastikas. This was just the latest in a string of anti-Islam attacks across Austria. “In December unknown culprits left a pig’s head and intestines in front of the door of another mosque in the capital. A street sign was changed to read ‘Sharia Street’ in September,” the news agency AFP reported.
Not a surprise that some supporters of the right-winged Pegida movement (here in Munich) appeared w/an Israeli flag. pic.twitter.com/NLdhhODKVp
(Ismael Mohamad / United Press International)
Video: Israeli man describes Muslims as Nazis at far-right rally in Frankfurt
Submitted by Rania Khalek on Tue, 02/03/2015 – 11:09
Ein Israeli spricht bzw. brüllt für Pegida Frankfurt
Addressing a recent rally in Frankfurt, a self-identified Israeli man equated Muslims with Nazis, murderers and rapists, and implored the crowd to “never feel ashamed” of Germany’s past.
The rally was called by Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, a far-right organization founded last October in Dresden. Its demonstrations initially attracted hundreds of people protesting what they believe is Islam’s takeover of Germany. More recently, the number of people to attend has been in the thousands.
An assortment of rightwing groups, including neo-Nazis, have been taking part. Following the attacks on the paper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris last month, a 12 January rally drew more than 25,000 people.
A video, which was posted to YouTube by Journal Frankfurt last week, shows a man, wrapped in a German flag, describing himself as an Israeli with German heritage during a Pegida rally.
“I come from Israel. Germany is yours!” he tells the crowd, to thunderous cheers.
He continues: “Germany’s not Nazis. I am Jewish. My family lived here in Germany for 700 years. And I can tell you that I see here no Nazis. The Nazis are in the left.
“Right here I see only patriots who love their country and want to save Germany from the Islam that wants to take over, to take your traditions, to take your beliefs, to take all of you down. But we will not let it.”
After naming Muslims as the true Nazis, the man goes on to forgive Germany for the Nazi-led genocide of European Jews during the Second World War.
“We will stand together and we will face the real Nazis. The Nazis are inside the Islam mentality and those who want to sell Germany for votes,” he says, adding, “Israel is with Germany. We respect you, we forgive, we love you. You are the best country in the world. Save it.”
“All the world is looking at you now and we are proud. You are the true spirit of Germany,” he snarls. “Islam wants to take you and to drink from the milk of Germany.”
As the hate sermon continues, the man implores the crowd to “Never feel ashamed of yourselves, not even because of the past.”
He then declares himself a proud Islamophobe while advancing a blood libel against Muslims, characterizing them as rapists and murderers who must be feared.
“The Muslims say that we are Islamophobes. Yes, I am Islamophobe because phobia is fear and I am afraid of murder. I am afraid to be raped,” he roars.
“So they can call you Islamophobes, they can call you Nazis and racists. But we are not. We are Germans. We are patriots. We love this country.”
“Antifa [German slang for anti-fascists], fuck you! We are stronger! We will win!”
Mosque defaced with swastikas
As smaller Pegida offshoots spread to other parts of the country, they have sometimes been met with even larger anti-racist counter-demonstrations.
Yet Pegida’s reach is growing as the group held its first demonstration in Austria, on Monday night. In the lead-up to the march, vandals defaced a Vienna mosque with swastikas. This was just the latest in a string of anti-Islam attacks across Austria. “In December unknown culprits left a pig’s head and intestines in front of the door of another mosque in the capital. A street sign was changed to read ‘Sharia Street’ in September,” the news agency AFP reported.
pic.twitter.com/NLdhhODKVp
In recent years, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant incitement has become a rallying cry of the increasingly popular rightwing elements undergoing a resurgence across Europe. Although many right-wing European parties have neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic roots, they identify deeply with Israel and Zionism, which are often used as vehicles to promote hatred for Islam and multiculturalism in Europe as well as the United States.
halalpork’s halfhearted attempt to regain position as Loonwatch’s mascot troll.
mindy1
Seriously?!
Trimmercastle42
I don’t think these two groups really like each other, both extremist Israelis and Pig-ida support each other on what they see as a common enemy: The muslim populations of Europe, remove the muslims from the equation and both groups will be at each others neck.
cmyfe .
I see a Zio-Nazi alliance, nothing new.
Laurent Weppe
So let me get this strait: The Nazis weren’t they real Nazis, but Muslims are the real Nazis. Do these people know how to operate a toilet?
They know: projecting their own vice onto the people they intend to hurt has been part of every and all would-be autocrats’ MO since Humanity started to sedentarize.
Trimmercastle42
Don’t worry, I was joking, mocking some of the more insane conspiracy theories to come out of the “Counter Jihad” movement like the whole “Stealth-Jihad” and “Halal Turkey” nonsense.
That fact that someone actually believes what I wrote should speak wonders about the intelligence of the people who troll here.
NotAMuslamic
I know you think you’re joking and you probably needed a while to make that story up but there was one troll here (someone truly deserving the title of Loon) who actually believed that.
Tanveer ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Khan
A bit like that lawyer on Muslim Capitol Day or whatever it was called.
Trimmercastle42
>”So let me get this strait: The Nazis weren’t they real Nazis, but Muslims are the real Nazis. Do these people know how to operate a toilet?”
According to the Pigida, Hitler was possessed by Muslims using their Muslamic magic of Taqqyia to start WW2 and kill Jews and Christians to distract them from their real enemy….THE MOOOOOOOOSLIMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
moraka
So let me get this strait: The Nazis weren’t they real Nazis, but Muslims are the real Nazis. Do these people know how to operate a toilet?
Yes, and unfortunately a dumbbell who likely firmly believes what he speaks – because he knows no better (cannot introspect) – because he’s a dumbbell.
Reynardine
Your average dumbbell in the mob, yes, but I think there are truly Machiavellian puppeteers behind the marionettes dancing on their bigot-strings.
HSkol the Redundant
Great assessment. When haters use the symbols of those that they hate less against those that they hate more – pure propaganda – a sign of “support” enemy-to-enemy versus the newest common enemy. These people are more shallow than I am.
Just_Stopping_By
Actually, I think the flaunting of Israeli flags is similar to putting bacon or pigs’ heads on mosques or bringing dogs to Muslim events: an attempt to antagonize Muslims with objects that they think will offend or scandalize them.
Reynardine
He probably isn’t even as Jewish as I am, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this outfit’s flaunting of Israeli flags and cultivation of certain pet Jewish Islamophobes isn’t just a case of priming ril Your a-peein’s for an anti-Jewish campaign down the line
mindy1
Considering what happend in Europe that lead(in part) to the founding of Israel, that person is ignorant of his own history.
Sharia Watch UK and the Metamorphosis of Anne Marie Waters
Spinwatch, which investigates and campaigns on PR, propaganda and lobbying in politics, is currently investigating the counterjihad movement. If we want to empower and inform the anti-racist movement to build a stronger counter-narrative challenging the increasingly mainstream nature of anti-Muslim bigotry, we need to know about the counterjihad ‘intellectuals’ spreading Islamophobic ideas. This article is part of that investigation.
Following the indefensible massacres in Paris there have been equally unjustifiable attacks on Muslim communities in France, including the murder of a Moroccan man near Avignon. Meanwhile Germany has been startled by the rapid rise of ‘PEGIDA’, a movement which claims to oppose ‘the Islamisation of the West’ and may be linked to the murder of an Eritrean man in Dresden, where the protests began. Islamophobic politics across Europe is marching into the mainstream. The UK is far from immune.
The far-right English Defence League (EDL) – which emerged in 2009 just as rapidly as PEGIDA did in late 2014 – did not disappear with the departure of former leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson). It has, however, been complemented by emerging, ostensibly more respectable groups. One such group is Sharia Watch UK, led by a woman called Anne Marie Waters.
Since then she appears to have been de-selected as a UKIP candidate. This might be because her lurch to the right did not stop there. She founded the organisation Sharia Watch UK, and has begun to appear in public alongside prominent European figures involved in the ‘counterjihad’ movement, a network of groups and individuals specifically hostile to Muslims and Islam but also strongly anti-immigrant. Recently, she even appears to have attracted the admiration of the man who used to fund the EDL, suggesting that Sharia Watch – despite being deemed legitimate enough to be a source for stories in the Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph – has similar politics to the EDL itself.
Counterjihad connections: Lars Hedegaard and Alan Ayling
In her speech, Waters linked Islam to child abuse, saying (16:08) ‘it’s all linked to Islam’, which she characterised as a dangerous ‘ideology’ being ‘appeased’, adding (17:45): ‘it is exactly the same appeasement that is allowing young girls to be raped in Britain, it’s got nothing to do with race, it’s got to do with the fact that we will not confront the misogyny at the very, very heart of this religion’.
In a series of videos taken in October 2014 at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park, which show Waters and others delivering diatribes against Islam, Ayling (wearing a black jacket and black t-shirt with yellow writing) can be seen in the group that appears to be supporting her between 1:08 and 1:19 in this video and from 4.40 in this clip.
Ayling may have showed up uninvited or coincidentally. Though Waters’ various online links to the EDL have been documented, there is no definitive evidence of any offline connection. Ayling, in fact, is believed to have parted ways with the EDL, though his views have not changed. He now runs the website ‘Four Freedoms’ and has links to the far-right Sweden Democrats party. Waters did not respond to repeated requests to clarify her relationship with Ayling or to comment on other matters raised in this article.
Sharia Watch UK and Baroness Caroline Cox
Waters also failed to respond to repeated questions about who funds the organisation Sharia Watch UK – and whether Hedegaard or Ayling were among its donors.
Sharia Watch states that it works ‘to document the advancement of sharia law in Britain’. But much of its output attacks Islam in its entirety. Its articles range from the absurd (a conspiracy theory suggesting that halal meat is funding terrorism) to the deeply offensive, such as a piece entitled ‘Shariah and child abuse – is there a connection?‘, claiming that sharia law ‘stems from the justification of acts of physical and sexual violence of one man some 1,400 years ago.’
Founded in April 2014, Sharia Watch UK was launched in the heart of the British establishment at the House of Lords. It was able to hold its launch in this prestigious venue thanks to having friends in high places, one powerful ally in particular: Baroness Caroline Cox. Cox is the peer who previously twice attempted (once successfully in 2010) to host the increasingly influential anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders in parliament. (There, he showed his incendiary film Fitna, which spliced images of violence together with passages from the Koran, implying an inextricable connection. Prosecutors in the Netherlands decided not to charge him with inciting racial hatred over the film, but recently announced they would do so over a public promise to followers that his Party for Freedom could arrange for there to be ‘fewer Moroccans’ in the country.)
Baroness Cox was a major figure of the New Right in the 1980s[1] and has a long history at the forefront of Christian Zionism in the UK. Her championing of right-wing causes has included advocating a Cold War counter-subversion approach to the ‘war on terror’, and more recently she has appeared on a list of governors for the New York-based think tank the Gatestone Institute, which publishes work by Wilders and other anti-Islam ideologues. Cox did not respond to repeated requests for information about her relationship with Sharia Watch UK or for comments for this article. In a recent interview in the Telegraph about her efforts to stop the use of sharia law in divorce settlements, Cox denied that she was ‘Islamophobic’ and said she believed in ‘freedom of speech’.
Muslim ‘infiltration’ or creeping Islamophobia?
Though deselected, under unclear circumstances, as a parliamentary candidate, Waters is still a UKIP member. Her anti-Islam radicalisation provides supporting evidence for the claim that UKIP is ‘a party of Islamophobes’ (an allegation made by one Labour MP after former UKIP leader Lord Pearson, who co-hosted the screening of Fitna with Cox, said that Muslims needed to ‘address the violence in the Qur’an’). Other top party personnel including Gerard Batten and Magnus Nielsen have counterjihad links too, and in the days after the Paris attacks Nigel Farage himself used rhetoric reminiscent of the far-right movement, talking of ‘fifth columns’, ‘Judeo-Christian heritage’ and Muslim ‘no go areas’. It is clear that UKIP, like PEGIDA, contains deep wellsprings of anti-Muslim, as well as anti-immigrant hostility.
One factor that helps to explain how these types of actors have nonetheless managed to attract thousands of citizens to their cause is the platform they are given in the media. According to the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA), journalists from The Times and the Daily Telegraph were present at the launch event for Sharia Watch UK. Adopting the counterjihad movement’s favoured pose of being undemocratically ignored by an establishment cowed by ‘political correctness’, ICLA’s writer stated: ‘It will be interesting to see whether those news outlets actually report anything about the event or whether [it] will be conveniently ignored’.
Though these papers did not report on the launch, it appears, there are major media outlets which are all too happy to enable conspiratorial counterjihad discourses about Muslim ‘infiltration’ to enter the mainstream. The Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph have both used Sharia Watch as a source for stories about ‘Islamic extremists’ allegedly ‘infiltrating’ schools, universities and ‘even Scout groups’. Sharia Watch’s only other attentive audience for these assertions were the likes of the EDL and Britain First.
After Spinwatch complained about a planned launch for Sharia Watch’s report, due to take place at a London university, which – along with students’ complaints – caused the event to be cancelled, the Daily Telegraph was outraged. But the real outrage is the platform given to a non-transparent hard-right group by supposedly respectable newspapers.
This is just one example of the alarming mainstreaming of Islamophobia which is helping the counterjihad movement’s influence to grow. It’s not ‘creeping Sharia’ but creeping Islamophobia that ought to worry us.
what’s your fascination with cows? I know where that came from but come on, give it a break bro.
Friend of Bosnia
True, but there have been other murders of foreigners and acts of xenophobia (btw. not all of them targeted at Muslims) in the region. So watch out over there.
Reynardine
I suspect you of being somewhere on the schizophrenia spectrum.
Trimmercastle42
Could be a breakout at the local insane asylum, or the ingestion of several narcotics and hallucinogens…or maybe a combination of both.
downwithpants
Oh fack dude that bitch crazy…there’s a website I sometimes go to for an uncomfortable eye rolling laugh Freedom outpost …on the crazy scale of 10 it’s an 8 or 9
Yausari
Or she could just be an overfed troll…
HSkol
Me too. Is Waters saying that it is wrong to submit to one’s god and be who we might be? Or, is she saying that one’s personal lifestyle is wrong where another’s is right – just because she says so? Hmm. I think she’s hit the deep end. That’s just me.
mindy1
I am just wondering where this is coming from…….
HSkol
This is just one example of the alarming mainstreaming of Islamophobia which is helping the counterjihad movement’s influence to grow. It’s not ‘creeping Sharia’ but creeping Islamophobia that ought to worry us.
It does seem that a small, fearful subset of society all too often influences media (Fox, et alia), and that media itself has become fearful enough to accommodate that fearful few. Now, when media accommodates and feeds the masses that have not yet succumbed to such irrational thought, the seed of Islamophobia (in this instance) has been planted – and, unfortunately, a great many viewers of media can simply not see through bull$hi+ – hence, more Islamophobes have “been born”. Whatever happened to research, investigation, and ethics in journalism?
There has been an upsurge in violent threats against American Muslims since the release of Clint Eastwood’s “Sniper” movie. As for Chris Kyle himself, he was a genocidal maniac whose glorification is about as appropriate as Reinhardt Heydrich’s would be.
I cannot help but feel that this is being orchestrated. Creation of an outgroup is one of the first steps of fascism — the dictatorship of the corporate state.
John Kiser: Abd el-Kader’s Jihad of Compassion and Courage
With radical Islam once again dominating the news, this time in France, it is important more than ever to know about the Islam of a great human being who was a Muslim and an Arab: Emir Abd el-Kader al Jazairy, the 19th-century military leader, peacemaker, reconciler, holy man, philosopher and statesman whose conduct, on and off the battlefield, remains an ever more relevant model of courage, compassion and chivalry.
Abd el-Kader el-Jazairi
Abd el-Kader was born in 1808 in the Ottoman province of Oran, today’s western Algeria. His tribe, the Hachem, was dedicated to the study of the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed and the settlement of disputes among the tribes. In the decades that followed, Abd el-Kader became admired from the Great Plains to Moscow and Mecca, not as a scholar but as a chivalrous David who united tribes under his leadership to resist the French Goliath who invaded Algiers in 1830. Algerians consider him to be their George Washington.
Like his contemporary, Robert E. Lee, he also knew when further resistance was a futile waste of life. Yet he won honor in France as an uncompromisingly stoic prisoner who forced its government to keep a pledge to grant him passage to the Middle East after he surrendered voluntarily in 1847.
During these years Abd el-Kader’s name would be given to a settlement in the Midwest (today Elkader, Iowa), to a champion race horse (Little Ab) in Ireland and a ship built in Newburyport, Mass. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised him as a model of reconciliation, Britain’s William Thackeray would dedicate poetry to him and his name would be placed on the presidential ballot by citizens of Bordeaux even as he remained a prisoner of the French government.
Liberated by Napoleon III in 1852 and living in Damascus under a benevolent French patronage, Abd el-Kader protected thousands of Christians during a Turkish-inspired pogrom intended to punish them for not paying the head tax. Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln were among the many heads of state to honor the emir’s humanitarian intervention. Upon his death in 1883, the New York Times eulogized, “. . . The nobility of his character won him the admiration of the world. . . . He was one of the few great men of the century.”
His life reminds Muslims that true jihad, or “holy exertion,” lies not in the zeal of bitterness to fight at whatever the cost, but in living righteously in accordance with Divine Law.
Unlike ISIS and al-Qaeda, Abd el-Kader treated his French prisoners respectfully, according to Islamic rules of warfare. These prohibit the destruction of nature, shooting someone in the face, mutilation of dead bodies, killing of women and children, priests and monks, rape and the mistreatment of prisoners. The emir ended the centuries-old desert custom of decapitating prisoners after they surrender. Accustomed to having the plunder distributed according their enemy headcount, the emir countered the angry protests of his soldiers by offering bounty payments for prisoners brought in unharmed. A soldier guilty of mistreating prisoners received a “reward” of 25 strokes with a cane on the soles of his feet.
During a life of struggle against French occupation, despair in prison and exile in foreign land, he never allowed the demons of hatred and revenge to trump compassion and forgiveness. The emir’s life story offers an alternative narrative about Islam, one that has been embraced by mainstream scholars today from New York to London, Lebanon and Turkey to Pakistan and Malaysia.
I jumped to conclusions without knowing the full story, I’m sorry.
HSkol
I kinda meant that in a different way: If voting folks, those that define popular sentiment, are so taken in by an “art”, perhaps the “art” itself should be held accountable, in part, for inciting its own viewers actions. An “art”, of course, cannot truly incite; but, an “art” should understand that its own statement just might push the intellectually retarded. We are all so polarized these days – why feed it further? I am a firm believer in free speech; but, I can smell shit when I step in it – others cannot, and nor will they wash their feet.
Media Matters: Bill O’Reilly Lies About His Role Pushing Debunked “No-Go Zones” Myth
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly falsely claimed that he had no role in hyping the myth that Muslim “no-go zones” exist throughout France, just days after Fox News apologized for spreading the fiction. In fact, O’Reilly previously cited the so called “no-go zones” as one of the contributing causes of the Paris terror attacks.
On January 17, Fox correspondent Julie Banderas apologized for the network’s coverage “regarding the Muslim population in Europe” in the days following the terrorist attacks in Paris, explaining that there is no credible evidence to support the existence of Muslim “no-go zones.” Several other Fox hosts offered additional apologies throughout the day.
On the January 20 edition of The O’Reilly Factor, during a discussion about the Parisian mayor Anne Hildalgo’s announcement that she intends to sue Fox News for its “prejudiced” coverage following the attacks, O’Reilly denied that the Fox apology was about the Muslim “no-go zone” myth in France. He insisted that it was only about Steve Emerson’s ludicrous claim that the entire English city of Birmingham was Muslim-only and nobody else went to the city. O’Reilly also denied that he had anything to do with the “no-go zones” claim (emphasis added):
O’REILLY: All right, we got a minute. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said she’s going to sue Fox News for reporting on so-called no-go zones in Paris. They’re dominated by Muslims and police hesitate to go in there — at least that has been the reportage in some places. I didn’t have anything to do with this. But I will point out that the mayor is a socialist.
But on January 9, O’Reilly cited Muslim “no-go zones” in France as a cause behind the terror attacks in Paris (emphasis added):
O’REILLY: France brought a lot of this terrorism on itself. We just talked about the no-go zones that they allow. They allow, 10 percent of the population is Muslim. They are all in there, they’re radicalized, they don’t assimilate.
UPDATE: O’Reilly also claimed that Fox News “isn’t even seen in France, because they block it.” But The Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple reports that a Fox spokesperson confirmed that the network reaches 13,680 homes in France but has a limited reach because it is only available in English and broadcasts on a U.S.-based schedule.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s whole career path has been predicated on how much he can suck up to the racist White establishment/privilege elements of the GOP. He is, as Hamid Dabashi notes about the neo-colonized, a Brown guy with a White mask on; for the GOP he’s the token Brown politico.
This point was made by Arsalan Iftikhar who called out Jindal for championing the laughable and debunked conspiracy theory perpetuated by Islamophobes about “No-Go Zones.”
Not surprisingly, Jindal gave his anti-Muslim speech at the British Neoconservative think tank founded by Douglas Murray, The Henry Jackson Society, a hotbed of Islamophobia. When Jindal was pressed to name any so-called “No-Go Zones,” he deflected (blaming the “radical Left”), highlighting not only that this is a subject he is ill-prepared to discuss but that these are talking points fed to him by the likes of now discredited “Fox News terrorism experts” such as Steven Emerson.
For calling Jindal out and not apologizing for his remarks, (Iftikhar said he’d only “apologize to Bobby Jindal when he apologizes to seven million American Muslims for advancing the debunked ‘Muslim no-go zones’ myth”) Iftikhar has been banned by MSNBC.
PEGIDA marched against immigrants, foreigners, and anyone a shade darker.
marched with banners claiming your city is overcrowded with Muslims.
Sure they are doing nothing wrong same as Der Stürmer was doing nothing
wrong when it blamed all jews for the problems of Germany and i am
sure PEGIDA is going out of it was to make sure they tell everyone they
are talking only about the radicals
Rajano
“Accusing people of orchestrating the deaths of 3,000 people is a serious matter.”
Yes, it is a serious matter – but this does not mean it should not be investigated.
“It is NOT certain that they “let it happen.” That’s absurd. It sounds like something you’d hear at a Ron Paul hootenanny or on the Alex Jones show…”
Do you have any argument other than an ad hominem attack? Or poisoning of the well?
Islamophobia kills brain cells, just ask Fox News “counterterrorism expert” Steven Emerson.
A regular over the years on Fox News, Steven Emerson, is a well known tool in the American Zionist establishment, beloved by AIPAC and other such lobby/advocacy organizations. Before his most recent idiocy, Emerson’s most famous gaffe was blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on Muslims, saying things like, “Oklahoma City, I can tell you, is probably considered one of the largest centres of Islamic radical activity outside the Middle East.”
In this context it becomes understandable why Emerson would make a complete and utter ass out of himself by claiming that the English city of Birmingham was “totally Muslim,” and that there are “no-go areas” all over the place. This got all of England (and the world) laughing at him, with the satirical Twitter hashtag #FoxNewsFacts trending:
I really do hope its the end of a sad career and he can go and find something useful to do with his life . McDonalds has vacancies I am told .
Sir David
wjshelton
You notice that Emerson said something to the effect that he’s never made that type of mistake before. Has he forgotten that he blamed (and still blames) the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City ultimately upon “Islamists”, despite ALL evidence to the contrary, including admissions by those directly responsible for the attack, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols? And that is just one of many of those mistakes that he “hasn’t made” that I am aware of.
Murdoch owns CNN? Hmm, I knew he was planning on buying Time Warner (Cnns parent company) but last I heard he lost out on the bid. Nonetheless, the network mind as well be, it’s disgusting how low it has went to pander to the illiterate, backwater tea party crowd, and when they’re not doing that, hours of news time is spent on some celebrity’s death or an affair.
Iekyll
He’s a pretty good rapper though…
Hate_the_haterz
The best part is, you don’t even need any qualifications… Or education… Or brains… In fact, those things may actually get in the way of making money! Err, I mean, “exposing them evil moozlums.”
The greenmantle
but although these are dark days in many ways remember we can be happy its a way of defeating evil
Is it not said that a smile is a blessing ?
I never thought our own Elmer Fudd of the American political class, Rep. Louie Gohmert, would have something in common with those oh so wise and erudite snoots in the British Home Office! But apparently both class of politicians are freaking out, granted in a slightly different way, over — terrorist babies.
“Mamma, dadda, ga ga…where’s my bomb..goo goo?”
The UK’s most recent act of stupidity in regards to the Prevent program to counter terrorism is a newly proposed law, CST 2014, that would hold British educators responsible for the ideologies of their students, and yes, that includes pre-schoolers.
The suggestion, which is part of the Counter-terrorism and Security Bill currently before the U.K. parliament, has sparked a firestorm of outrage — and has sent the satirical #ToddlerTerror trending on Twitter — since it was reported over the weekend by the Telegraph.
The bill would call on school administrators to “make sure that staff have training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimize terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups.”
“They should know where and how to refer children and young people for further help,” the document said.
This is all being done to promote something called “British values,” which I think is a great idea but what is it exactly? Is the UK government going to start force feeding babies gin and tonic in their baby bottles?
“We are not expecting teachers and nursery workers to carry out unnecessary intrusion into family life, but we do expect them to take action when they observe behavior of concern. It is important that children are taught fundamental British values in an age-appropriate way,” a government spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
(Emphasis mine)
Infants are sometimes known to be terrors in their own right, but this diabolical plan involves terrorists sending pregnant women into the US to birth their America-hating spawns. The mothers and their kids then return home where, the congressman says, the children “could be raised and coddled as future terrorists”— and later, “twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”
In all seriousness, the proposed CTS 2014 law is highly problematic as it opens up the possibility of taking away people’s children. The rights organization CAGE “has released an advisory document that attempts to educate public bodies on the problems inherent within the draft legislation,”
Key to the draft Bill is the ability for the government to use multiple public bodies to make decisions about the lives of everyday people, based on spurious grounds. Of key concern is where Prevent officials cannot gain consent of parents, they will have the ability to use health and social services to potentially remove children from their homes in order to implement their strategies of ‘deradicalisation’.
This CTS bill is utter rubbish and a joke just as the UK’s whole Prevent policy has been from the start.
It’s interesting how you reflexively presume that merely because I’m critical of the notion that ‘Western values’ are little more than a smoke screen to justify bigotry by some, you make the assumption that I must be in favor of the dissolution between church and state. I am not; I have contempt for theocracy the same as many other forms of -ocracy in general. But that’s rather irrelevant. Never mind the fact that the Reformation only occurred in several parts of Europe – and if we’re talking Christianity collectively, it never really hit places like Russia (where the tsar was still using caesaropapism as a ruling tool up until the Romanovs got offed) or other Orthodox nations.
Nor was it really applicable to nations that were Catholicism was still alive and well; the Counter-Reformation was a thing. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the complex history of the Catholic Church with many nations, such as Mexico, that found themselves effectively ruled by many clergymen or gave them special privileges. Even the Protestants themselves had to grapple with this notion. After all, many settlements thought that those who were actively partook in church gatherings should lead. You correctly point out it was a long birthing process but the difference between you and myself seems to be in the presumption that Islam could not undergo something similar. Never mind the fact that it is not monolithic (come to think of it, just like Western values), but it too has changed throughout the centuries to meet local conditions.
The West has had much of the world’s wealth throughout world history. It can afford to have liberal interpretations of its theology in the form we have today. If one is to use examples from the Muslim world, see the lavish parties that Saudi princes throw; alcohol flows freely, as do drugs, and women are freely present. It goes without saying that poverty breeds conservative interpretations of religious thought; even though the poor of the United States might, comparatively speaking, be better off than many of their brethren in other countries, it’s still noticeable even in places like this country. Stability is comforting, even if the ideas that might be found therein might be awful to some. Many Muslim nations are poor – the wealth they have going into the pockets of their local tinpot military man or spoiled monarchs.
But I obviously support stoning gay people or female genital mutilation for having the temerity to suggest that the West might be hypocritical occasionally. You got me.
GaribaldiOfLoonwatch
I never thought sophisticated analysis would be so daftly ignored for simpelton-ism… Why do you attempt to muddle that as a “justification”??? Is it so hard to understand why they would be targeted? Whether you like it or not, CH was seen as part of a war on Islam/Muslims by these militants…as part of the PR wing of an arrogant conspiracy to destroy Islam and butcher Muslims…they knew this threat themselves and if you want a connection, how about the fact that CH would still be alive if it weren’t for Bush’s war:
Paris Terrorist was Radicalized by Bush’s Iraq War, Abu Ghraib Torture
Immigrants brought to Europe came almost exclusively for economic reasons and were drawn and used for that purpose, you know very well that European nations face a demographic crises and for their economies to grow they brought immigrants. Once they came they were told you are not wanted anymore, you are not one of us–unless you can kick a soccer ball well.
An honest look into these perpetrators background and history should be done in a scientific way, just as Robert Pape, Sageman, and Atran have done. The evidence is there and socio-political reasons trump ideological simplistic causation that is forwarded by ideologues of the counter-terrorism establishment.
GaribaldiOfLoonwatch
I can understand your perspective, since youseem to be speaking from experience. The measures however put in place to detect ‘radicalisation’ have been shown to be often quite arbitrary, at least when it comes to Muslims. Arun Kundnani’s work “The Muslims are coming!” details this very well and he also provides some harrowing cases of harassment as result by British authorities.
Capt. JB Hennessy
Dershowitz is already designing an enhanced interrogation program for toddlers.
The greenmantle
As I said its not perfect BUT I can speak from Personal experiance not second hand but me that we were not just looking at Islam extreamism where I worked
Sir David
eslaporte
I have read reports of this type of discriminatory “counter-terrorism” nonsense going on in the Netherlands (the place where this crap comes from) of turning in Muslim youth who appear to be “radicalized.” The serious problem with this is that it does not involve violent conduct or engaging in violence, but ideas and expressions. “Radicalization” has now been extended into religious and social conduct of Muslims that has nothing to do with violence, but is just discriminatory.
We also have the “personal disruption measures” in the Netherlands, which involves the police following and harassing a “terrorist suspect” at all hours of the day and night, in public and at home, usually with harassing telephone calls. This also includes harassing children of the “terrorist suspect.”
I think it serves to further demonize Muslims to the public as “a special danger” that others do not present. It works to Other Muslims and their communities and exclude them from the mainstream. Much of Dutch “counter-terrorism” is driven by fear of Muslims and foreigners, and this type of discriminatory nonsense serves only to stoke fear of Muslims in the larger community. There is a human rights argument that must be made here with these policies in that they are discriminatory in that they treat members of a religious faith differently.
I don’t know about it being an “affront to Muslim sensibilities,” most Muslims while likely being disgusted by this act and seeing how uncivilized and hatefilled it is likely find the perpetrators pitiful and ignorant.
In a barbaric affront to Muslim sensibilities, part of a pig’s head and some pork tripe was attached to the door of a mosque in Vienna’s 21st district on Christmas day.
The imam of the Kocatepe mosque spoke to the Andadolu press agency about the incident, condemning the vandalism as an “unacceptable” act.
The head of the Turkish-Islamist Union in Vienna (ATIB), Fatih Karadaş, condemned the attack saying that “this is not an attack against Muslims but the whole of humanity. We, as Muslims, will preserve our calm and collective attitude.”
This is not the first incident of its type, as Austria’s Muslim community has been attacked several times this year in similar hate crimes. An Imam Hatip school in Vienna that concentrates on religious education was also vandalized. A pig’s head was left in front of the school’s door during Ramadan in early October.
And in August, a pig’s head was impaled on a fence at a construction site for a new islamic school. It’s not known who left the pig’s head at the centre, but even if someone confesses there is little the police can do as nothing was damaged and therefore there are no criminal charges.
The Islamic Federation could make a complaint within civil jurisdiction. Muslims are forbidden from eating pork or touching pig carcasses, as they are considered unclean.
The planned school has been unpopular in Austria, with Foreign and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz saying the idea “is completely the wrong approach”.
Another mosque called Eyüp Sultan, located in the town of Telfs, was repeatedly vandalized with graffiti.
In August two elderly Muslim ladies wearing headscarves were attacked in Favoritenstraße. Police were reportedly slow to respond to this incident, and only began questioning suspects days after.
Austria’s Islamic Religious Community Association said that Muslims often experience discrimination in Austria but that “it is not well documented”.
Spokeswoman Carla Amina Baghajati said that the association plans to start collecting data on all religiously motivated incidents. However, she said she did not believe that the police lacked sensitivity to the issue.
Yes, that’s what they did in Bosnia months and years before teh war: tell the people how horrible Muslims are. Conflate the Bosniaks of today with alleged or pretended atroctities the Bosniaks did against Serbs in decades and centuries past. Throw in more asssociations with the Nazis and the Ottoman Empire. And then declare open season on the Bosniaks.
I do blame every single one of them who for whatever reason has Bosniak blood on his (or her) hands. They all are guilty as sin.
And what Bosniaks of times past, or even during the war of 1992-95 could possibly have done to Serbs, horrible as it may be (if such things can be proven) does not mitigate nor exonerate the guilty Serbs, not a bit.
Those idiots always believe that if they say “But your people did this and that to us” their guilt will somehow disappear, as if by magic.
Friend of Bosnia
Yes, I know only too well.
And when the legal authorities go along, not just acts of violence but genocide.
Trimmercastle42
Is there anything significant with UPN9?
rookie
Another attack on a mosque in Sweden
“A mosque in Uppsala was attacked in the early hours of New Years Day. A
witness saw a person throw a burning object onto the premises. The fire
had gone out by the time the rescue services arrived”.
I know right, when people call others they don’t agree with cows and stupid for no reason…
Jekyll
oooo…UPN9…..
Laurent Weppe
The problem is not the “affront to sensibilities“: the problem is that such acts are similar in their intent to micro-aggression: they serve both as a message, meaning “We can’t afford to cut down your heads… yet. So until comes the day when we’re in charge and allowed to let our bloodlust run unchecked, we’ll use pigs as ersatz“, and as a way to test society, and more importantly legal institutions’ resistance: if the blatant expression of murderous intent remains unpunished, its authors, as well as those among the bystanders who agree with the authors’ intent will see it as a sign that society is weak/accommodating/sympathetic enough to allow them to increase the violence of their deeds: from hostile rhetoric to harassment done under the cover of the night to open harassment and eventually to direct acts of bloody violence.
More than 200 Muslim youth volunteers are part of those protecting Christians during church services to celebrate this year’s Christmas in Kaduna, says Pastor Yohanna Buru.
Buru, a cleric of Christ Evangelical Church, Sabon Tasha, Kaduna South, disclosed this in an interview with pressmen in Kaduna.
He confirmed that over 200 Muslims were at his church to help protect the faithful from any attack during the church service.
According to him, the feat is the first of its kind after the series of crises that rocked the state in recent past.
“I really appreciate their love and care,’’ said the cleric.
Buru said the essence of that was to protect the Christian worshippers as part of effort to strengthen peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians in the state.
The pastor expressed happiness over the protection given to them by the Muslim brothers.
He noted the initiative was an indication that peace has come to stay in the state, saying the measure will strengthen a lasting peace between the two religions.
He also prayed God to continue to bring about peace in the country the country, praying that other citizens would emulate the gesture.
He urged Nigerians to learn to live in peace with one another irrespective of ethnic or religious differences.
The cleric said that peace was a major panacea to the positive development of any nation. (NAN)
I think you hit the nail on the head, I doubt this guy even lives in Nigeria.
Joseph Essien-Obot
I guess that sound all nice and neat to you then.
MEND is not a religious movement. Akhwat Akwop is a response directed specifically at self defense from Boko Haram and is actually non-functional. The Lord’s Resistance Army has no replication anywhere else in the world and has no local support indicating its innovative basis. Boko Haram is a copy of a world-wide religious movement. How you see all these as one and the same beats me.
What do you expect from thoroughly corrupt and poor system in the Nigerian army, I do not know, but they are not the initiators of the brutality and cannot be placed under the same motivations as Boko Haram.
As to the issue of injustice I wonder if you have ever asked yourself by Christians or some other religious communities are not blowing themselves and others up all over the world because of the persecutions that they are going through whether in poor or rich nations particularly originating from their religious affiliation. Why is it that a Muslim will do so in the name of Muslims living in Chechnya, Pakistan, indeed in Europe or the US against innocent citizens that have nothing to do with such perceived injustice. Are other faiths not suffering this injustice if not more so at the same Muslim hands where they hold sway? Muslim hate is often woven around the issue of justice even against their fellow Muslim sects.
In Jos, Nigeria, a couple years back a suicide bomber attacked a church and the crowds that rushed to the scene and enraged by the destruction and loss of life they saw attacked Muslims running fruit stalls nearby. In the same instant a survivor very close to the car bomb wreck was lynched to death having been mistaken for one of two suicide bombers due to his proximity to the explosions epicenter. This played straight into the crafted idea of justice of Islamic preachers who immediately instigated their faithful into believing that the suicide bombing was carried out by Christians themselves and that it was used as a pretext to attack Muslims in the area. Believing such insinuation who would blame Muslims who came out to retaliate the injustice that was aimed at them? You know, the normal ‘take justice into your hands since government won’t’ life of poorly governed nations. These Muslims came out straight from their mosques in murderous rage for what they believed was an injustice against them, but was it? For something that their fellow Muslim did in the name of Islam. This scenario plays itself the world over again and again in Muslim communities and even in the West. I know of riots that have erupted in Germany for instance because a couple of guys resisted the aggression of a couple of Muslims. If Islam with universal justice, recognizing that other communities and faiths undergo injustice too and often at their very hands they would be more understanding much like other faiths have come to appreciate.
If you choose to be blind to the fact that Islam is churning out terrorists and terrorism within an Islamic awakening, well that is yours to choose but for this very same reason I choose to fear a religion that generates murderers at an ever increasing rate from its ranks. Islam is not feared for no reason and it would do you a world of good if you began to realize that we are dealing here with no mere perception.
Guess – BDS
Boko Haram are serious Muslims
Boko Haram are as “serious Muslims” and their criminal behavior “part of the faith” as much as terror groups like Akhwat Akwop, MEND, or Lord of Resistance Army are serious Christians and their criminal behaviors part of their faith. Beside the Nigeria regime (cashing in on the predatory so-called “war on terror”) is as brutal, if not even more so, as its soldiers kills, rape and pillages as much as those faceless groups.
A constant topic in mosques here is that of injustice, not universal injustice but injustice against the Muslim umma.
So what! I’m not sure what are exactly your accusations here. Why wouldn’t Muslims (just like any other religious communities ) prioritize and focus on their own community’s problems in their religious gatherings? … Beside, “universal injustice” ??
As for the rest of your paragraph, is filled conspiracy theory as much as overt generalization.
Boko Haram may appear criminal to you and so many other people but it certainly is not criminal to the pious Muslim.
Boko Haram activities are criminal and condemned by many Muslim organisations worldwide. That you claim practicing Islam is somehow synonymous with condoning criminal behavior or perhaps even committing “Boko Haram are serious Muslims”, is basically implying that Islam = terrorism, the very standard of Islamophobia.
JS
I am pretty sure people value their lives more than their ancestral homelands.
Anyways, onto paragraph 2. I am pretty sure there are Muslims who silently fund groups like Boko Haram. But until you can provide a reliable statistic that there is a wide=spread Moooslum conspiracy in Nigeria to fund Boko Haram, then your point is void of all significance. Plus, Boko Haram is biting the hands that feed them by killing Muslims if your nonsensical theory about Muslims funding Boko Hamas is true.
Your third paragraph has nothing to do with the argument and is a vain attempt to attack a strawman. I will address it if you really want, but I will ignore your blatant red herrings for now.
Have a fun day.
Iekyll
What about the Yeti? Don’t forget the Yeti ._.
mindy1
mindy1
Peace during this season love it :’)
golden izanagi
I get the feeling there is a better chance of a person getting a clear recording of a unicorn debating politics with the loch ness monster then anything like that ever happening.
Yausari
Ha ha ha, you’re funny BigBoss.
HSkol
Uh-oh, I blinked and missed all of the fabulous coverage. Well, at least we have it here. Though I’ve not got many Twitter followers at all, I shall Tweet this story to the few who know me.
Hoxtygen
How come this haven’t appear in my timeline? Oh wait, it didn’t show Muslim as violent. Dammit!
Trimmercastle42
The same could be said of all terrorist organisations.
Mehdi
Heart warming, God bless these people
Razainc_aka_BigBoss
I expect to see this all over Fox, CNN and the rest of the Canadian & European media that are quick to show Muslim as violent fanatics
JS
Boko Haram kills more Muslims than Non-Muslims. That is proof enough that Boko Haram is no more than a criminal group, who uses religion as a pretext for whatever crimes they want to commit.
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