The New York Times Erases Islam from Existence
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On May 3, 2013 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 48 Comments
The media coverage of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has one theme and one tack. Like 30 of the 31 men on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, they were terrorists who just happened to be Muslim.
While the New York Times dispatched its best and brightest lackeys to Boston to write sensitive pieces on how hard it was for the two Tsarnaevs to fit in, it fell to a UK tabloids like The Sun to conduct an interview with the ex-girlfriend of the lead terrorist and learn that he wanted her to hate America and beat her because she wouldn’t wear a Hijab.
There are all sorts of jobs that Americans won’t do. Like pick lettuce, bomb the Boston Marathon and report honestly on the motives of the bombers. The only news network that operates outside the media consensus is owned by an Australian mogul who also owns The Sun.
Americans like to think of their press as freer, but it’s only free in the sense that it voluntarily puts on its own muzzle. European tabloids get into bloody brawls with regulators. American newspapers have nothing to brawl about. They will gleefully report anything that undermines national security at the drop of a hat, knowing that they won’t be touched, but there is a long list of subjects that they won’t touch with a million-mile pole.
In Europe, editors risked their lives to publish the Mohammed cartoons. In America, on the rare occasion that they were depicted, they were usually censored. CNN, which could show Kathy Griffin trying to molest Anderson Cooper, without the benefit of pixelation or a suicide button, blurred out Mohammed’s face; assuming that Muslims would appreciate the sensitivity of treating their prophet’s face like an obscene object.
The American media does not need to be censored. It censors itself.
Did the New York Times really fail to come across Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s ex-girlfriend while they were busily interviewing every single person in Boston who ever ran into the future terrorists? The New York Times may be incompetent, but it isn’t that incompetent. If it could track down Tamerlan’s old coach, it could track down his old girlfriend. It chose not to.
So did every other paper.
Either The Sun is staffed with crack journalists who could do what no American newspaper, news channel and network news program could, or The Sun got the scoop on Nadine Ascencao because no newspaper on this side of the ocean wanted to touch it. And it’s easy to see why.
Nadine talks about being beaten in the name of Islam, forced to memorize Koran verses and being taught to hate America. Most journalists on this side of the ocean want quotes on what nice boys the two Tsarnaevs were and how, in true liberal fashion, no one could have expected them to do something like this.
Every background story on them is filled with the same pabulum, because the endless march of “We couldn’t have known” quotes provides the government-media complex with the plausible deniability it needs to continue doing the same thing all over again. If the people couldn’t have known, then it stands to reason that their government or their media couldn’t have known either.
The only newspaper besides The Sun to do an interview with Nadine Ascencao was the Wall Street Journal; which just happens to be owned by the same tabloid mogul. But there is an interesting difference between The Sun and the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ piece doesn’t mention Hijabs, Koran verses or hating America. It doesn’t mention Islam at all.
Co-written by a Pakistani journalist, it emphasizes only that Tamerlan was a bully of no particular religion. That reporter’s twitter feed features a retweet from another Muslim WSJ reporter who broadcasts that the plans of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to head to Times Square amounted to nothing. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Instead of wasting time on a dead end like Islam, the media has spent its time chasing down every other possible angle.
Did Tamerlan turn terrorist because he took too many blows to the head while boxing? Could the Boston Marathon bombing have been prevented if only we had let him win?
The New York Times assembled a touching story of an aspiring immigrant boxer radicalized by the petty restrictions of a government that wouldn’t let him apply for citizenship because of his history of domestic violence and appearance on a terrorist watch list. But how does that jibe with the Tamerlan from five years earlier who beat up a boy that his sister was dating because he wasn’t Muslim?
When the media must deal with Tamerlan’s theology, it keeps him in the category of the troubled man who turned to some wacky extremist version of Islam propounded by a YouTube convert. The man who beat his sister’s boyfriend because he wasn’t a Muslim and beat his ex-girlfriend because she wouldn’t wear a Hijab wasn’t some brainwashed drone who had his mind stolen by YouTube videos. He was a Muslim.
That angle is the most terrifying one that the media can think of. If they have to mention the “I” word, they will sandwich it between “extremist” and “radicalization.” But it’s not Tamerlan who was the radical extremist. Among Muslims, his views were mainstream. The Wahhabis are in ascendance in most parts of the world, including the United States. Islamist parties roundly won the Arab Spring.
What was the difference between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and any of the Syrian Jihadists held up by the media as the epitome of courage and bravery? What is the difference between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Hamas and Fatah terrorists that the media peevishly contends Israel must make peace with? What is the difference between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and any of the tens of thousands of Muslim terrorists fighting in conflicts around the world?
While the European media, for all its faults, occasionally grapples with the incompatibility of liberal values and Muslim values; on this side of the ocean the topic is all but untouchable.
A story about a future Muslim terrorist beating his girlfriend because she wouldn’t wear a Hijab creates a sneaking suspicion that Muslim multiculturalism is incompatible with liberal values. The incompatible Muslims, like Mohammed’s face, have been pixelated out of existence in the reports on terrorist attacks by disgruntled boxers, doctors and perfume salesmen who just happen to be Muslim.
These are the Muslims that the media doesn’t see. And it is doing everything possible to make sure that we don’t see them either.
About Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.
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+43
truebearing · 4 days ago
Excellent post. Excellent points, all, but what drives this ultimately self-destructive idiocy? What do they have to gain by covering for, and thereby empowering, a cult who would gladly kill them too? Radical Muslims aren't known for their respect for journalists -- and just this once I agree with the Islamists -- so why do these liberal poseurs continue to suppress the truth about Islam? Is Political Correctness so corrosive to the mind of the gullible that it annihilates even the survival instinct? Apparently.
This idea of a self-censoring media is insightful and disturbing. It is the journalistic equivalent of suicide bombing. Anyone in the media who goes along with self-censoring immediately dies as a journalist and is reincarnated as a goose stepping propagandist, complicit in every evil they hide or refuse to report..
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Reply8 replies · active 3 days ago
+31
hank rearden · 4 days ago
Jeff Bauman is the fellow in the wheelchair being helped by the guy in the cowboy hat. The picture that was published by AP and used by the media was cropped at the knee, where Bauman's legs are still intact. Take a look at the full picture:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/first-photo...
Scroll down to Picture 38. There is nothing but the exposed bone on his left leg. The image will stay with you and keep this atrocity in its full force. Bauman lost both legs and so far is also deafened. We can hope that his hearing, or some of it, will return over time but who knows at this point?
Look at that picture. These guys set out with malice aforethought to do as much damage in as grotesque a manner as possible. This reflects the value of militant Islam - to terrorize infidels into submission. Islam is not a religion of peace; it is a religion of war, moreover a religion that makes war on civilians, on women and children.
Not only should we visit retribution on the surviving brother for the maimed - "wounded" is not a sufficient word - but for our own self-respect. Do we have the stones to defend ourselves, our countrymen and our society, or have we become so "tolerant" that nothing is important, including our children?
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Reply4 replies · active 3 days ago
+21
AdinaK99p · 4 days ago
The left's media organs - fronted by the "paper of record" - are directly responsible for Boston's jihad, and all ensuing jihads to come. Why? Because they aid and abet Islamic jihad - http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/12/30/u-s-leftist-m...
So whether they act as the lapdogs to gut the Constitution, or to whitewash Islamic jihad, well, the results are the same - more dead Americans!
Adina kutnicki, Israel http://adinakutnicki.com/about/
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+25
Nanis · 4 days ago
I say it again.... They should condemn the wife and friends of the muslim terrorists for treason. Because they failed to help their country unless they were in the same page as the muslim terrorist....
The wife had to hate America, convert to muslim just so she could be the woman of the terrorist tamerlan it's no different than what he wanted Nadine to do.......
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+15
Michael Copeland · 4 days ago
The mainstream media are prolonging the " Religion-of-Peace-that-has-been-hi-jacked" narrative - you know, the deception supplied to George W. Bush by CAIR in the mosque after 9/11. Have reporters and editors been told "bad things will happen" if they stray from it?
See: "Moderate" Islam "Hi-jacked" - A Mistake and a Deception, www.LibertyGB.org.uk 2 May 2013
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+22
Mladen Andrijasevic · 4 days ago
I find it appalling that an average New Yorker today is less informed about what is transpiring in the world around than were Soviet citizens in 1970s under the Soviet regime. At least the Russians understood that the their press was garbage and sought to get vital info from the VOA, the BBC (at that time the BBC was not what it has become today), Radio Free Europe or Samizdat publications. We in Israel should start screaming about these ignorant fools in the US endangering not only their own lives, but endangering much our lives in Israel with their PC and in their refusal to face the problem of jihadism.
Bombs away! Caroline Glick vs. Alan Dershowitz on Iran http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/bombs...
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+4
Anamah · 4 days ago
And worst. Some time I think if the American naiveté is not already an addiction or even a handicap.
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+9
Jaladhi · 4 days ago
What else can you say the American media, press are all liars, cheats, dishonest, connivers, and anything else but a straight truth telling journalists. They are practicing taqiyya in true Islamic style. Maybe they have all converted to Islam and have become Muslims.
Truly despicable bunch of people they are who cannot and would not tell the truth. They go to great lengths to manufacure lies to hide the hide of Muslims/Islam. They are the lowest of the lows and I have no respect for them. But who will be able save the country when the media lies like the old Pravda and Izvestia in Soviet Union.
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+7
Hotdigittydog · 4 days ago
Now we know why the NYT is so preferred by pet shop owners, it already comes pretreated with the "stuff" they are trying to catch.
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Reply1 reply · active 3 days ago
+5
DPBF · 4 days ago
Truebearing: Wow! By far the most insightful and articulate comment I think I've seen on any news item anywhere -- and I'm a professional writer!
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+10
Michael Copeland · 4 days ago
“Radicalized” muslim or “ordinary” muslim? How are they to be distinguished?
The “RADICALIZED” muslim is one who is putting into effect the instructions in the Koran which the easy-going, “moderate”, muslims are NOT (yet).
The “Moderates-to-the-Rescue” camp assert that the individual muslim can “interpret” his religion in his own peaceful moderate way. This is not borne out by the mosques, none of which support Zuhdi Jasser, proponent of the Moderate Islam assertion. Hear Dr. Salah al-Sawy:
“the Ummah [muslim people] possesses no power except to acknowledge and obey”,
Dr. al-Sawy is the Secretary-General of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), 28 March 2011: www.translatingjihad.com 2011/03/30. His statement rests on Koran 33:36:
"It is not for a believer, man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision."
To deny any verse in the Koran is a capital offence (Manual of Islamic Law o8.7(7)). There are over a hundred verses of violence against non-muslims, like Koran 9: 5: “Kill unbelievers wherever you find them”. The muslim who is not doing so cannot argue that he has a choice. The duty awaits him. Jihad, “to war against non-Muslims” (Manual o9.0), is a “communal obligation” (o9.1). Failure to do the Jihad makes him eligible to be killed as a “hypocrite”, an apostate.
An individual who has been “radicalized” is one who has been made aware, through his own researches or with the help of others, of the root doctrines (Latin radix, “root”) of the ideology, and is setting about putting them into effect. The difference is as that between an explosive WITH a detonator fitted, and one WITHOUT.
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Reply1 reply · active 3 days ago
+4
Rahul · 3 days ago
Really shameful to realize. Very revealing post and an eye opener. Comparison with European Press only tells us how bad American press has been on this aspect.
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+9
Softly Bob · 3 days ago
THE NEW YORK TIMES ERASES ISLAM FROM EXISTENCE
The title of this article is misleading. I was disappointed when I found it wasn't true. I only wish they really had erased Islam from existence, as the World would be a much better place.
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Reply1 reply · active 3 days ago
+11
Alvaro · 3 days ago
I think it is about time with a new round of Mohammad drawings.
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+8
BigJulie · 3 days ago
The only "peaceful" Muslims are the ones who have not got their Jihad plans in action-ready order yet! For those of us who have uncovered what they are really about, and talk about it, we are branded as racist kooks who just hate brown people by Muslim mouthpiece organizations like the NYT and WaPo.
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+3
Beth88p · 3 days ago
"blurred out Mohammed’s face...... of treating their prophet’s face like an obscene object."
lols. I never looked at it that way before.
The truth is the truth is the truth is the truth is the...... Unless the words of the koran can be changed, the day will come when people will look back and just shake their heads in amazement at todays media. And I don't think that day is too far off. More and more people are waking up to the truth about the actual teachings of the koran. Enough people already hate them because they have seen the truth for themselves (no thanks to the media) - but those are the inquisitive ones, who are not spiteful and violent. For now, the spiteful ones love the media. And maybe that's a part of their problem. The media giants of yesterday have become cowards today. And by tomorrow - may be running for their lives - for deceiving the spiteful ones.
I am amused at the thought of that.
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+6
RiverFred · 3 days ago
THE WHITE HOUSE/OBAMA IS PROTECTING MUSLIM TERRORIST. ALL U.S. AGENCIES ARE FORBIDDEN TO RECOGNIZE ISLAMIC TERRORISM. ANY REFERENCE TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM WAS REMOVED FROM ALL MANUALS AND NO ONE IN U.S. AGENCIES ARE ALLOWED TO MENTION ISLAMIC TERRORIM. NO DISCUSSIONS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM ARE ALLOWED REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES.__Remember the Fort Hood Muslim terrorist – work place violence per the White House, an absolute outright lie.__ MUST WATCH VIDEO: http://youtu.be/VKuRBPY9TCo
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+4
Cathy · 3 days ago
Media Bias? Case Closed!
CBS political director urges Obama to 'go for the throat' of GOP to cement legacy
Published January 21, 2013
A column published on Slate.com over the weekend urged President Obama to "pulverize" and destroy his Republican opponents -- even "go for the throat" -- in order to "cement his legacy."
The words of advice, though, didn't come from a Democratic strategist or a former member of the president's inner circle.
The nearly 2,000-word playbook came from CBS News' political director John Dickerson.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/21/cbs-po...
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Reply1 reply · active 3 days ago
+3
Herb Benty · 3 days ago
WHY does the AMERICAN free press run cover for Islamic terrorism that kills AMERICANS???
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+3
Dave · 3 days ago
Well, according to Emily Kubler Ross, denial is the first stage. Let's hope the Lamestream Media gets to stage 5 before we're all forced to convert or die.
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+5
Jay · 3 days ago
Daniel
NYT does more than erase Islam. It categorically denies it even when the Muslim says they did it for Islam. They rejected Tsarnaev's own answer that he did it for Islam and came up with their own excuse that fits their politics and narrative.
"....Then, according to most accounts, Tamerlan found God and renounced boxing as an offense against Islam. But this leaves a puzzle: How can a man blow up innocent people in the name of a religion which, by his own reckoning, forbids punching them? [clueless MSM - anyone who understands what Islam is not what MSM pretends it is would not find this a puzzle]
This weekend’s stories point to two possible answers. One comes from the Los Angeles Times: In 2009, Tamerlan told his parents that the Quran “prohibits beating people in the face." That’s a more specific description of his objection than has previously been reported. Presumably he reached this conclusion sometime after slapping his girlfriend. It’s possible that Tamerlan interpreted this injunction quite literally: You mustn’t hit people in the face, but it’s OK to shred their legs with a bomb. [closer to the truth but not quite - boxing for commercial sport is haram, but killing and terrorizing infidels is halal.]
The New York Times suggests a different answer: Tamerlan’s explanation of why he quit boxing is false. He didn’t do it for Islam. He did it because his lack of U.S. citizenship blocked his eligibility to compete in tournaments and build a career in the sport. He just used Islam as an excuse, a story to tell others...." http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/f...
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-1
@cuagoducduong · 3 days ago
Truebearing: Wow! By far the most insightful and articulate comment I think I've seen on any news item anywhere -- and I'm a professional writer!
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+1
Mladen Andrijasevic · 3 days ago
The purpose of Newspeak: To make all other modes of thought impossible. http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/the-p...
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+5
Soloview · 2 days ago
See no Islam, hear no Islam !
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+4
Poverty · 2 days ago
Funny you never hear the old "poverty creates terrorists/extremism" excuse anymore.
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http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-new-york-times-erases-islam-from-existence/