...there's something troubling about the coverage of this evil [in Norway] by the New York Times. The title of the news report says a lot, Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.
This is a key argument of the article:
Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”
The reporter, Soctt Shane got an expert to say (in sequence) 1) you can't tie the actions Breivik to the ideas in the anti-Islamist blogs but 2) if you use their own standards, then their writings did indeed encourage Breivik. In other words, in a rather roundabout way, Shane got his expert to confirm the thesis of the article.
Contrast that with how Isabel Kershner dealt with the subject of Palestinian incitement following the Fogel murders:
Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired Israeli general given responsibility by the Israeli government for monitoring Palestinian incitements to violence and to hatred of Israel, said in a telephone interview that while Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority prime minister, Salam Fayyad, had been careful in their words, “they too encourage an atmosphere of terrorism.”
He noted, for example, that a senior Abbas aide had paid a call to the families of three Fatah militants killed by the Israeli military, conveying condolences from Mr. Abbas. Israel held the three responsible for the fatal shooting of a rabbi in the West Bank in December 2009. In addition, Israeli officials note, streets, summer camps and youth tournaments in the Palestinian Authority have been named for people who committed terrorist attacks.
The new focus on incitement against Israel, together with Israeli dissatisfaction over the Palestinian response to the brutal attack, seemed to pose a question about the Israeli government’s readiness to deal with Mr. Abbas as a serious peace partner — even though Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad are widely considered moderates who have repeatedly said they would never resort to violence.
Instead of making the case that Palestinian incitement leads to terror, Kershner allows the Israelis to make the case. Then she inserts herself into the debate arguing that 1) incitement is a means Israel uses to avoid making a deal with the Palestinians and 2) even if it's it true Abbas has nothing to do with it. Of course, given that much of the Palestinian incitement takes place in the official media or official mosques of the PA, it really doesn't matter what Abbas utters when microphones are on, his government is promoting the incitement. Of course, unlike Shane this week, Kershner portrays the effects of Palestinian incitement as non-existent.
The other thing that's missing from Shane's report is any reason the anti-Jihadist bloggers might feel as they do. A quick search of the New York Times website, shows that since January 1, 2009, there has been precisely one article that contained both the words "Malmo" and the word "Jews" in it. And it was a letter to the editor written by Abraham Foxman of the ADL, Antisemitism in Sweden.
The Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism has also lamented that “prejudice against Jews is spreading under a very thin veneer” of anti-Israel activity. Riots greeted an Israeli tennis team at a Davis Cup match in Malmo, whose mayor said (on another occasion), “We accept neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism,” equating Jewish national self-determination with the oldest form of bigotry in the world.
Yet Malmo has been in the news, because the increased antisemitism has been pushing Jews to leave. And one of the driving forces of the antisemitism have been the Muslim immigrants
Great analysis.
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