Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses the deleterious effects of the astoundingly poor media coverage of Islam and jihad, led by the New Duranty Times, in FrontPage this morning:
Needed more than ever after 9/11 is solid, probing, intelligent, honest reporting about Muslims and Islam. But not only has this not materialized; if anything, reporting has gotten worse. From the New York Times to the smallest local papers, with remarkably few exceptions, the mainstream media continues to publish misleading, incomplete, distorted material that leaves Americans ignorant of the true nature and dimensions of the terrorist threat. If the stakes weren’t so high, this would be just another instance of the media bias that has been exhaustively documented for decades; but in light of the continuing activity of the global jihadist movement, it becomes something much more urgent.The Times, in an unconscionable breach of journalistic ethics, revealed the real name of Bat Ye’or in a recent article. But perhaps even worse from the standpoint of their abysmally inadequate reporting on Islam was that they labeled her one “of the most extreme voices on the new Jewish right,” which is not only arrant nonsense, since Bat Ye’or is in no sense a figure of “the right,” but also Times-speak for “pay no attention to this person.” She “argues in her latest book, ‘Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis,’ that Europe has consciously allied itself with the Arab world at the expense of Jews and the trans-Atlantic alliance.” But she is of “the right,” you see, so the Times feels no need to examine the evidence for this that she marshals so relentlessly in Eurabia.
Incidentally, no sooner had the Times sniffed at Bat Ye’or that the Asia Times reported on a jihadist cell in France that with connections “throughout Western Europe in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom.” Could this be a function of Europe’s longstanding policy of allying itself with the Arab world? No, you can’t say that — that would be “right wing.”
Like a great garbage scow pulling in its wake the trash in the water, the Times carries along lesser papers. These two examples from this week are not significant for the influence of the papers themselves, but because they reflect the mainstream approach of reporters today: credulous and uninformed to an extent that they are not even able, much less willing, to challenge the disinformation that is coming in a steady stream from all too many Muslim spokesmen.
• The Montgomery Advertiser ran a story last Friday entitled “Entertainment media’s Muslims bear little resemblance to reality.” Reporter Darryn Simmons seems to have gone to the Masjid Qasim B El-Amin in Montgomery to ask about Fox’s 24, which committed the great faux pas of depicting terrorists who are Muslims. Credulously reporting as fact what he was told in the mosque, Simmons writes that “Muslims do not believe in converting people to their religion by force. In fact, the Qu’ran [sic] (or Koran) accepts religious pluralism and sees strength in diversity.”Note the language: the “Qu’ran” accepts “pluralism” and “diversity.” Whoever it was at the mosque who told Simmons this has mastered the art of pushing today’s most sensitive cultural hot buttons. Muslims believe in diversity, you see. Not like those nasty Christians. But Simmons apparently asked nothing about the humiliations and second-class status mandated for non-Muslims by Islamic law, and rooted in the Qur’an (9:29).
“Pluralism”? “Diversity”? Jews and Christians in societies governed by Islamic law, according to a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, are “subject peoples.” They must “pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)” and “are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar); are not greeted with ‘as-Salamu ‘alaykum’ [the traditional Muslim greeting, “Peace be with you”]; must keep to the side of the street; may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims’ buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed; are forbidden to openly display wine or pork . . . recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals or feastdays; and are forbidden to build new churches.” If they violate these terms, the law further stipulates that they can be killed or sold into slavery at the discretion of the Muslim leader. (‘Umdat al-Salik, o11.3, 5.)
That’s pluralism and diversity, all right. But in accord with the practice of the Times and virtually every other paper in the nation, Simmons apparently seems to have accepted what Muslims told him at face value.
• The illustrious Bogalusa (Louisiana) Daily News the same day reported on a talk on Islam by Imam Jehad Mahmoud of the Islamic Center of Baton Rouge. “If I talk about Islam,” Mahmoud declared, “I’ll be talking about Christianity, I’ll be talking about Judaism. We are all the same.” Really? Mahmoud doesn’t seem to have discussed Qur’anic verses stating that “the Religion before Allah is Islam” and that the “People of the Book” — that is, Jews and Christians — “dissent therefrom” (3:19) and are under “the curse of Allah” (9:30); nor, evidently, did reporter Eleanor Evans ask him about them. Probably she simply doesn’t know that such passages exist – but after 9/11, it is the business of reporters to know such things.
Mahmoud also dismissed the idea that suicide bombers were guaranteed Paradise in the Qur’an: “No one can be assured he is going to Heaven,” he said, and one who kills himself “will stay in Hellfire for eternity, committing suicide.” Here again, Evans didn’t ask him about the Qur’anic verse that promises a place in “the garden (of Paradise)” for those who “fight in His cause, and slay and are slain,” and calls this “a promise binding on Him in truth” (Qur’an 9:111). Nor did she stop him when he said that women pray in the back of the mosque, behind the men, “out of respect and protection,” although I expect that she would have stopped him if he had said that blacks should sit behind whites on the bus “out of respect and protection.” Evans doesn’t even seem to have summoned up even a murmur when Mahmoud’s remarks edged over into the wholly risible, as when he said that “the Muslim dress code is a choice, he said, adding that he’s even heard of Muslims who have attended nudist camps.” I’m sure nudist camps do a booming business in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
These two love-fests, along with the Times’ head-in-the-sand label-mongering, are typical of the state of inquiry on Islam and jihad terrorism in the American media over three years after 9/11. No doubt the media is anxious to build bridges to Muslims, to extend the right hand of fellowship, to show that we are ready to listen, to dialogue, to accommodate, to show once again that we are decent folks who don’t hate anybody. But what the Times and the papers that follow in its wake are really doing is leaving Americans less aware and prepared than they should be in the face of the jihad; dialogue on false pretenses is not dialogue at all; it is deception.
When the media prints innumerable bland whitewashes of known truths about Islam; when it smears those making legitimate inquiry into the inroads Islam, including violent jihadists, are making into Europe; when it declines even to ask the questions that need to be asked about what steps (if any) mosques in America are taking to curb enthusiasm for the Islamic jihad ideology among Muslims in America; when it consistently ignores evidence that that ideology is being taught in American mosques — then it is not strong enough to say simply that the American media has abdicated its responsibility. It has become an accomplice of the global jihad.
Today’s Jihad-related news and commentary. Some articles reflect Mr Spencer's writing in this article today.
Merchants of Despair:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200502250748.asp
Ripoff of islam:
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6600
Egypt and Syria play ball- no thanks to the Left
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17182
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/peterbrookes/pb20050228.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/mb20050228.shtml
Palestinian terrorism:
http://techcentralstation.com/022805A.html
The newspaper of Walter Duranty is at it again. Have they no shame?
The reporter Darryn Dimmons reports: Muslims do not believe in converting people to their religion by force. In fact, the Qu’ran [sic] (or Koran) accepts religious pluralism and sees strength in diversity.”
Islam really does have those liberal pacificists duped.
OT
Paolo:
I left a response to your message on the Feb. 23 "Valedictorian . . ." thread.
CGW
Ironically on last nights episode of law & order where a muslim lady killed a female former soldier for the treatment the muslims brother received at abu-graib prison(totally fiction????),anyhow at the end of the show as the D.A. Fred Thompson is flooded by reporters on the Courthouse steps where he says aloud I'll answer one question as he looks around and then asks a female reporter"and what would the N.Y. Times want to know?".
You will know that the West has completely vanquished Islamofascism when the NYT begins to alert its readership about the "approaching storm" of Islamic intolerance.
And if the attitude encouraged by The New Duranty Times is "What Jihad?" then its corollary logically follows: "What, Me Worry?"
It's a Mad-magazine world, my masters.
I never watch "Law and Order." I assume that the murder in the storyline (Muslim woman kills US female soldier in an act of revenge for her brother's treatment in the Iraqi prison) took place in the US. Did anyone else watch that program? How were the characters treated? Was the Muslim woman murderer treated as a sympathic character, like she was committing an honor killing to revenge her family? How was the female soldier portrayed (sterotyped)? Was she cast as a cold-blooded monster? I think the family members of military personnel might kick up some dust on this...and see if they get very far. After all, Fox has apologized many times and many ways for their story about the sleeper-cell Muslim family and the "offensive stereotyping" that took place in the episode. I am also appalled at the NY Times portrayal of Bat Ye'or, but not surprised. I was recently at one of her talks. She repeated a number of times that moderate voices in Islam in Europe must be strongly supported. She documents each one of her points with European agreements, treaties and press releases. She deals in facts...unlike "truth seekers" like Ward Churchill at the U. of Colorado who isn't fond of facts or the truth, but, nevertheless, gets a great big pass and lots of sympathy from the mainstream media...
The world's leading human rights organizations are no better.
Take a look at Human Rights Watch's "Global Issues" page:
http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/index.htm
Somehow Terrorism does not constitute a global issue for HRW, but "Repression in the Name of Anti-Terrorism" is a global issue.
As for Amnesty International USA, here is their campaigns page:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/activism/campaigns.html
Terrorism is not a human rights topic, but "The "War on Terror"" is a human rights topic.
The wreckless and irresponsible failure of these NGOs to even recognize Terrorism as a global human rights concern is indicative of the same ideological bias and ignorance that plagues much of the media in the US. It's high time AIUSA and HRW responded to the global human rights issues that concern the world, not just the ones that serve their own ideological interests and agendas.
Reporters and editors are a mirror of America, and of Islam America is woefully ignorant.
America has the assurance of President Bush that Islam is a Religion of Peace. You all remember that don't you, also his assurance that the war on terrorism is not a war against Islam.
There is a dire need to educate Americans about Islam, and our President and his administration are no help. Muslims chaplains in the military mujtahids and Imams in every governmental departments "Faith Based" offices.
Bush family is friends and business partners with the Saudis.
It is all too easy and tempting to whine about a "liberal" media, but from where I sit, America's Newspapers have nowhere near the effect that television does, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and frankly those media outlets serve more a public information voice for the administration than not.
And even a lone voice like the New York Times is watered down and ineffectual, as compared to say the Washington Post and other New York Papers.
I find this comment of the NYT about Bat Ye'or interesting: “of the most extreme voices on the new Jewish right,”
Considering that the NY Times is owned by a Jew, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, and has many jews on it's editorial and reporting staff.
There must be an some kind of family feud between "left wing" and "right wing" Jews.
Apparently true, because most of the advocacy and defense of Muslims (including HRW, and defense attorneys) seem to be Jewish. Are they oblivious to the hatred the Muslims have towards Jews?
How in the world do we educate people? Especially when those that can be doing the education, have their priorities screwed up, insist on making enemies out of allies (e.g. demonizing feminists and gays who are natural allies). Demonizing "liberals" and "leftists", putting them in the same stinking barrel with Islamists.
We need allies not enemies, and you don't make allies by shaking your fist in someone's face and calling them names.
You approach them patiently, with facts, coherent and rational arguments, in a non threatening manner, and be willing to look inside yourself at your own fears and needs the source of prejudice and hate.
I mention the latter because of Paolo, who has already posted his homophobia, but who evinces a distaste for racism.
Well homophobia is one thing the Muslims, Christians, blacks and Latino's have in common.
But are homosexuals or feminists a threat to your way of life and western civlization? Nope, they have more of a vested interest in protecting it from Islam than you do, yet you push them away, demonize and call them names. Pushing them to the "left", in reaction to the unreasonable attitudes and persecution of the right.
Keep attacking liberals, the left, homo's and feminists and all of the beloved self created enemies of the "right", and you will surely facilitate a Muslim conquest, as it will be you who divided so they could conquer.
We need all of the allies we can muster, and we don't win allies by threats, demonizing, name calling or supporting hostile actions.
We do it through reasoned discourse, communication, patience, most of all patience, something which humans seem to have little of.
'and frankly those media outlets serve more a public information voice for the administration than not.'~giaour
ABC~ bull
CBS~bull
Fox~ at least they have several liberal viewpoints in their coverage.
NBC~bull
MSNBC~bull
CNN~ MAJOR BULL.
If we don't keep up the criticism of coverage by these people- and of teaching by the academics- the islam is in much better position to win. I don't know Bush's reasons for keeping on that same line, but allowing these people to keep getting away with what they've been about for nearly 40 years is just plain bullshi'ite.
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said:
"Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda."
Oh and giaour:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/005163.php
The NYT, how many plagiarizing left wing reporters have resigned this week? Is Maureen Dowd the old grey (lies through her teeth) lady? Facts be damned, who needs the truth, we're the NYT damnit! The NYT will report about global warming based on "facts" from the movie Day after tommorow and idiots like Giaour believe it. Keep listening to air america and Frankin, between these two impeccable news sources how can we go wrong?
Cross, Gary: DOn't be too hard on Giaour. BTW, I do believe homosexuality and ***certain types*** of feminism (I do, after all, believe in female suffrage and equal pay for equal work) are unhealthy for our society. They've been big players in defining deviancy downwards and in creating a climate where you can't criticize anyone who whines about being a "victim of oppression"--even if he's bankrolling Hamas' suicide bombers as they go after teens in a pizza parlor.
As for the NYSLimes, it does need to be read with a big grain of salt. I believe them when they say a bomb went off in Baghdad; I doubt them when they say it proves that the terrorists represent all of Iraq.
Demonize the messenger and you invalidate the message , or rather you do not have to deal with its content.
this is the standard ploy of the NYT and many left wing mainstream media. Sad of course, sincewe are left with emotiveness and magical thinking to discredit academic research.
Had Bat Ye'or beem a muslim apostate, how would the NYT discredit the research?
The truth is that the NYT are devoid of knowledgeable academic researchers, so use these shameful tactics to discredit her painstaking research.