How Fox News Has A Conversation About Islam
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 21st, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
How Fox News Has A Conversation About Islam
After speakers at a Heritage Foundation event mocked a Muslim student who pointed out the right’s overwhelmingly negative rhetoric on Islam, Fox News doubled down on anti-Islam vitriol and viciously attacked the student.
On June 16, the Heritage Foundation held an event to discuss the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Many of the panelists had a well-documented history of inflammatory rhetoric about Islam.
The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank detailed the event in a June 16 column, noting that the session quickly devolved into conspiratorial attacks on Islam. Milbank wrote that when Saba Ahmed, a Muslim law student, confronted the panelists about their attacks, she was mocked by panelists Brigitte Gabriel and Chris Plante.
Conservatives complained Milbank had mischaracterized the panel in order to smear the right as anti-Islam (Milbank responded to some of his critics in a June 18 column).
But in the days following the Heritage event, Fox News has proved the premise of Milbank’s argument correct by viciously attacking Ahmed and other Muslims.
Sean Hannity hosted Ahmed and Gabriel on the June 19 edition of his Fox News show. During the segment, Hannity and Gabriel criticized Ahmed for bringing up conservative treatment of Muslims during a panel about Benghazi, with Gabriel accusing her of trying to steal “the limelight.” Hannity claimed that he doesn’t “hear a lot of criticism about radicalism and the hijacking of a religion” from moderate Muslims, and asked Ahmed to denounce crimes against women and homosexuals that are justified by some Muslim sects.
