Well. Surprise, surprise. All is not as appears on the subject of Fox News and those Muslim “no go zones” in Europe.
To refresh? Steve Emerson, well-credentialed terrorist expert, was on Fox and made the mistake of saying Birmingham, England was a “no-go” zone. Emerson later corrected himself and apologized, Fox retracting as well. The subject of no-go zones in France was much discussed on Fox in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders.
All of this raised a fuss throughout the liberal media from the New York Times to the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, including a threat of a lawsuit against Fox by the offended Mayor of Paris. Over in The Atlantic, staff writer David Graham penned a missive headlined:
Why the Muslim 'No-Go-Zone' Myth Won't Die
There's no evidence of extremist takeover of areas in Europe or the United States. So why do the claims continue?
And he wasn’t alone, with Bloomberg headlining a similar story.
But not so fast. There is evidence aplenty that the real myth here is that the “Muslim ‘No-Go-Zone’ Myth” is itself a myth. I even have some personal evidence on this score, more of which in a moment. But let’s start with evidence supplied elsewhere, including some documented right here at NewsBusters.
Let’s start with this piece from NewsBusters’s Tom Blumer that lists stories alleging “no go zones” from those well-known right-wing outlets like the Associated Press, NBC, and The New York Times.
Here’s the AP, for example, writing this of “Muslim extremists” back in November of 2005 about riots in Paris, emphasis mine:
Some officials suspect the unrest that reached into Paris proper early Sunday has in part been instigated by gangs hoping to turn their neighborhoods into no-go zones for police so drug trafficking and racketeering can thrive.
Over at NBC is this link which in turn leads to several others discussing - as far back as 2002 - the “no go zones” not only of France but Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. A 2005 headline from The Brussels Journal reads: Ramadan Rioting in Europe's No-Go Areas. Among other things it links to a translation from the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten, the paper that famously published a cartoon of Mohammed, writing as follows of an incident in Denmark back in 2005, emphasis provided in bold:
The police has to stay away. This is our area. We decide what goes down here….We are tired of what we see happening with our prophet….
And here is that bastion of American right-wing yahoos, the New York Times, writing of Paris in 2002 (emphasis provided):
Yet Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.
NewsBusters’s Clay Waters also linked to a lengthy report from former UN Ambassador John Bolton’s Gatestone Institute that responded to all the politically correct denial of the no-go zones. Said the report:
The problem of no-go zones is well documented, but multiculturalists and their politically correct supporters vehemently deny that they exist. Some are now engaged in a concerted campaign to discredit and even silence those who draw attention to the issue.
Gatestone added, “Despite such politically correct denials, Muslim no-go zones are a well-known fact of life in many parts of Europe..” and then goes on to document in detail just some of the thousands of references in the French media over the years to “no go-zones.” It added that had Steve Emerson said “parts of Birmingham” instead of all of Birmingham he would have been correct.
Then there is America. And here’s a personal story.
The other night, Bill O’Reilly had Ryan Mauro of The Clarion Project on The O’Reilly Factor, as seen here. The subject was the “five top organizations linked to Islamic extremism.” Number one on the list - documented with a video clip Mauro had obtained from a law enforcement source was an Islamic enclave in Hancock, New York calling itself “Islamberg.” As seen in the clip, Mauro called it a “training” camp, replete with video of men marching with guns.
The personal part? “Islamberg” is located directly behind the rural Hancock home of a member of my own family, a home I have visited countless times since it was built by my uncle in the early 1960’s. I have known about “Islamberg” since the Muslims involved first appeared a couple decades ago. Hancock is a small, rural community, where everybody knows everybody else. The presence of a group of Muslims who purchased a large parcel of land behind this home was known instantly. While thought of at the time as somewhat odd - they kept very much to themselves - no one paid any particular attention to the place until after 9/11. Post 9/11 things changed. The place has armed guards, and is the subject of files with both the FBI (which the FBI will not discuss) and the New York State police. In fact, during a flood in the area several years ago residents from Islamberg emerged to help the locals cope, which brought some goodwill. But it is safe to say that many are wary of what goes on behind the armed guards, and the media has inevitably come calling to what arguably is an American “no go zone.”
Here is Brett Baier six years ago introducing a Fox News report on Islamberg by correspondent Rick Leventhal. And here is Dr. Zhudi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy discussing Islamberg, complete with clips from both ABC News and Fox. There’s more out there, of course.
But the larger point is well illustrated by all these liberal media denunciations and mockery of Fox, Emerson and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the latter of whom had the audacity to make a speech in London and discuss the world’s problem with Islam, in particular areas in Europe where “women don’t feel comfortable going in without veils” and “where police are less likely to go in.” There has been a scramble to denounce all of what is well-documented - even to the extent of reporting by liberal outlets themselves - as some sort of “myth” or yet another example of “Islamaphobia.”
Why this leftist fondness for Islam? A seemingly instinctive rush to the barricades to defend such flagrantly violent behavior as repeatedly evidenced in Europe? Or, as with Islamberg, questionable behavior at a minimum? So committed to denying repeatedly reported facts by liberal media outlets themselves?
I would suggest here that this is more than a simple desire to zap Fox News or Steve Emerson or presidential hopeful Jindal. And even more than any shared anti-western bias. Sadly, there is precedent.
Way back there in 1934, Harvard University was in the news. Why? As reported in the day by the New York Times some Jewish alumni were protesting an invitation to Harvard alum Ernst F. “Putzi” Hansftaengel. Mr. Hansftaengel, the son of an American mother and German father, had been happily invited “to play a prominent part in the Harvard commencement activities.” The school paper, the Crimson, was furious with the protests, saying that the paper strenuously opposed the idea that it was OK “to object to the presence of a Harvard man among other Harvard men in any capacity, on purely political grounds”, adding this was “an extremely childish thing to do.” So Mr. Hansftaengel came back to Cambridge. Decades later Boston Magazine wrote up the incident in a piece called The Harvard Nazi: noting that Harvard’s warm welcome in 1934 to Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl” came on the occasion of “Hanfstaengl's return for his 25th reunion. Hitler's leading international propagandist, Hanfstaengl was cheered by several admiring classmates when he gave the Nazi salute. He was also recommended for an honorary degree by the Harvard Crimson and invited to university president James Bryant Conant's house for tea.”
In other words? Harvard was going out of its way to deliberately ignore the reality of Hitler in 1934, making a point of honoring the Fuhrer’s famously close pal who was an active, deadly serious Nazi. Time after time this liberal politically correct reflex shows itself. Liberals glamorized New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, the Moscow correspondent for the paper. Duranty is now infamous for covering up Stalin’s mass murderers, but in the day he was not only celebrated by the left - he was given a Pulitzer.
A mere three years ago Vogue magazine’s oh-so-fashionable editor Anna Wintour featured a story titled Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.Who is Asma-al Assad? That’s right, she is Mrs. Bashir Assad, wife of Syria’s bloodthirsty dictator. She would later get another description after all hell broke loose in Syria as “the First Lady of Hell” - and the online versions of the glowing first story were suddenly hard to find. Journalist Roger Simon found this so amazing he promptly awarded Wintour and Vogue reporter Joan Juliet Buck a “Duranty Award.’
In doing the latter Simon made an excellent point. That liberals act this way out of a desire to be in the “political in-crowd.” Accepted, cheered, adored. It could be the Harvard Nazi “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, Stalin-lover Walter Duranty or the glamorous wife of Syria’s blood thirsty dictator. No matter.
Now the politically correct liberal “in-crowd” is at it again. So they mock Fox, Emerson, and Jindal. All the while ignoring much documented evidence of Islamic “no-go zones” even liberal media outlets have themselves reported.
There are two words for this. One is lunacy. The other is dangerous.
