The Washington Post has branded Breitbart “far right” and suggested news items are feeding into a false narrative of “an Islamic or Arab takeover of Europe” by reporting on a Polish magazine which dedicated its latest issue to the problems in Europe currently being caused by mass migration.
In an article published by the Washington Post on Thursday, journalist Ishaan Tharoor links those reporting on magazines writing about Islamic migration into Europe to those peddling fascist and Nazi propaganda during the early 20th Century. He doesn’t mention how the news has been covered by the Guardian, Agence France Presse, Jerusalem Post, Newsweek, Deutsche Welle, the BBC, and the Mirror, all on the back of Breitbart’s coverage.
Mr. Tharoor’s article has also been syndicated by The Independent, which last week announced that it would be scrapping its print edition and going online only amid falling readership numbers. The publication has been an integral part of the UK’s “anti-Islamophobia” industry.
To make his case, Mr. Tharoor has zoomed in on Breitbart London’s coverage yesterday of the popular Polish magazine wSieci (The Network), whose latest edition focuses on the effects of mass Islamic immigration into Europe.
He quotes from the article, in which Breitbart explains:
Outlining the fundamental differences between eastern Islam and western Christianity — “culture, architecture, music, gastronomy, dress” — the editorial explains these two worlds have been at war “over the last 14 centuries” and the world is now witnessing a colossal “clash of two civilisations in the countries of old Europe”. This clash is brought by Muslims who come to Europe and “carry conflict with the Western world as part of the collective consciousness”, as the journalist marks the inevitability of conflict between native Europeans and their new guests.
As Breitbart noted, the magazine’s cover features “one of the most politically incorrect illustrations of the migrant crisis to date” – namely, a white ‘Europa’ draped in the flag of the European Union being mauled by dark-skinned hands.
This cover, Mr. Tharoor insists, can trace its heritage directly back to far left propaganda from the 1930s and ‘40s depicting Jews and colonial subjects as predatory, ready to pounce on Aryan girls.
Bizarrely, to his mind those who dare to report on major problems such as the migrant rape gangs which terrorised Cologne on New Year’s Eve are part of a “long and racist history” within Europe, seeking to unfairly target the migrants. Breitbart London was the first English news outlet to break the Cologne story, leaving the mainstream media scrambling to catch up.
Grassroots organisations such as the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) are also slammed as “xenophobic”, while any media outlets covering the migrant crisis are “fear-mongers” conjuring a “phantasm.”
Mr. Tharoor – the son of a well-known Indian politician – concedes that Muslim countries tend to have a problem with misogyny which he blames on “patriarchal and religious norms as well as the stifling legacy of authoritarian rule,” but then adds “perverse, misogynist behavior is not the province of just one culture or society,” as though misogyny in one country excuses that in another.
And to ‘prove’ that fears of a clash of cultures are entirely false, the author claims – falsely – that “very few of the identified culprits in the Cologne attacks were themselves refugees.”
In fact, Cologne’s prosecutor, Ulrich Bremer, has taken the extraordinary step of lambasting journalists making this claim, stating that claims of this sort are “total nonsense”. He added: “the overwhelming majority of [suspects] fall into the general category of refugees.”
The article is being mauled in the comments section, with readers of the Washington Post pointing out that the arrival of over a million migrants has been accompanied by a rape and crime wave, and arguing that to say so isn’t racist.
One, commenting under the name ‘IHaveAllTheAnswers’ said: “Using the racism label as an attack is losing it’s potency. These issues are not about racism but are based on nationalism and culture, so it’s use here seems desperate.
“And since much of the social engineering attempts from the media today, border on attacks and hate speech against white people, I suspect trying to use racism as support for illegal immigration will result in backlash and more resistance.”
Another focused on the labeling of Breitbart as “far right”, commenting: “Note how the so-called-reporter felt the need to label the paper “right-wing”. Does he do this for every publication he cites? Does he label WAPO [Washington Post] or NYT [New York Times] as “left-wing” when he cites them?
“When you see biased reporting like this in the very first sentence of an article you should usually just stop reading there, your time is too precious to waste on political propaganda.”
In reply, Mr. Tharoor took to Twitter to bemoan his own readers. “Never read the comments,” he said, before complaining about “European xenophobe Twitter.”
Mr. Tharoor, last year, seemed happy for his publication to splash a picture of a dead child – Aylan Kurdi – on its front page for the sake of newspaper sales. His article didn’t mention how at the time the number of migrants was, and still is, dominated by young, fit men abandoning their families in their home countries.
The photo changed the mainstream narrative on the crisis, changing ‘migrants’ to ‘refugees’ in the minds of many. One reader commented on that piece: “This tragic photo is being exploited shamefully by the hysterical, opportunistic media.”
Follow Donna Rachel Edmunds on Twitter: Follow @Donna_R_E or e-mail to: dedmunds@breitbart.com
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