Why does our media only see hate on the far right? Why are they blind to the even more vicious and depraved rhetoric coming from other quarters? Perhaps one explanation is that progressives in the media see the far-right as the political enemy and see campus leftists and Muslim imams as political allies.
Like a cancer, anti-semitic hatred has metastasized to sectors of our culture far beyond its traditional locus in the far-right.
In July 26th of 2017 I ran a post on VP titled Hate Speech in which I wrote this:
Imagine that a prominent Christian pastor, speaking from the pulpit, called for the annihilation of gays. Imagine, too, that he referred to them as filth, and that his sermon was put up on YouTube for all the world to see. What do you suppose would be the reaction? Is it unreasonable to think there'd be nationwide 24/7 condemnation of that pastor's bigotry and his hateful speech?
The pastor would become a pariah, and Christianity would be discredited, don't you think? The left, especially, would be marching outside that pastor's church, demanding that he be removed from the pulpit.
Well, recently that very thing happened, sort of, and there's been almost no reaction to the preacher's hatred and bigotry whatsoever. Perhaps, you'll understand why when you read the details. You see, it wasn't a Christian pastor calling for the annihilation of gays in a sermon, it was a Muslim imam calling for the annihilation of Jews in a lecture:
In a July 21 lecture ... Muslim preacher Ammar Shahin spoke in English and Arabic about how all Muslims, not only Palestinians or Syrians, will be called upon to kill all the Jews on "the last day."Shahin is an Egyptian who has been in the U.S. since 1999. His mosque isn't in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, it's in Davis, California.
In a video translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Shahin also stressed that the Hadith (oral tradition of sayings attributed to the prophet of Islam) does not say where the final battle will take place. "If it is in Palestine," for example, "or another place," hinting at the possibility that such a battle could happen in the United States or Europe as well.Here's the relevant clip: This sort of rhetoric would not be tolerated were it to be delivered by a representative of any other religion or political party. Why is it tolerated when it's delivered by Muslims? Why are Muslims excused from standards of behavior we expect of everyone else in a tolerant, civilized society?
He also prayed that the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem be liberated from "the filth of the Jews."
Shahin should be free to cite his beliefs, as repugnant as they are, but that doesn't mean that everyone else should just shrug and say, "Well, that's just what Islam teaches". Hatred of this sort, taking delight in the prospect of mass slaughter, should be exposed and roundly condemned, as it would be were it to come from any other source.
To the extent that Shahin accurately represents mainstream Islamic belief, and according to the article at the link he teaches Sunni Islam to Westerners, it sure makes it difficult to accept the notion that Islam is a religion of peace.
The situation among leftists on university campuses is in some ways worse because the virus of hate is reaching a much broader audience. The anti-semitism of students and faculty masquerades as a political critique of the state of Israel (anti-Zionism), but in fact, it results in a virulent hatred of Jews (anti-semitism) and anyone who supports them.
The following video explains what's going on. It's roughly 30 minutes long, but it offers a valuable perspective on how some university campuses in the New York area are cultivating the same sorts of poisonous hatreds that led a depraved individual to murder and maim last week in Pittsburgh.
Given what you'll see in this video you can be sure that similar crimes will happen again until we stop turning a blind eye to the cesspools of hate not only among neo-nazis but in our mosques and on our university campuses.