Bill O’Reilly Provides Affirmation And Validation For Dutch Islamophobe
Reported by Priscilla - March 2, 2009 -
Geert Wilders is a member of a far right Dutch political party which advocates that Judeo Christian values be enshrined in the Dutch constitution, immigration from non Western countries be stopped, the construction of mosques and preaching in languages other than Dutch be banned, and that education standards be restored with an emphasis on the family. He told the British Guardian that Islam "is not a religion, it's the ideology of a retarded culture". The German Der Speigel has referred to his anti Islamic commentary as “hate filled tirades.” He is being prosecuted by the Dutch government for hate crimes and was recently banned from the United Kingdom for his extremism. His “tour de force” is a short movie on Islam that is considered, even by the Jewish community in the Netherlands, to be viruntly Islamophobic as it portrays Islam as a terrorist religion. So it was no surprise to see Mr. Wilders being given a platfrom for his views from Fox News Bill O’Reilly, whose views on religion and culture would seem to dovetail nicely with Wilders.
Mr. Wilders has come to the US to show his controversial film, Fitna, to a congressional delegation lead by Arizona Republican John Kyle. He also appeared at last week’s CPAC, where his movie was also shown. But he took time out of his busy schedule to interview with fellow traveller Bill O’Reilly. Bill informed us that Wilders has produced a movie that claims that the Koran incites violence and “that hypothesis itself is inciting violence as Wilders has been threatened and denied entry into Great Britain.” O’Reilly didn’t explain why the British Home Office took this action. To get the pitchfork gang salivating, clips from the movie, showing Muslim extremists, were shown. O’Reilly declared to Wilders that the US is much more “open minded” than Britian because Wilders didn’t “get hassled.” O’Reilly ramped up the discussion by saying that the Brits are afraid. Wilders responded that they are afraid of 10,000 Muslims to which the tolerant O’Reilly said, “of course.” O’Reilly emphasized how Wilders is being “threatened.” He then brought up Bill Mahr’s movie “Religulous,” which O’Reilly titled “Ridiculous Religion” and asked if you could do a movie showing crazies from any religion. Wilders said no, because if not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslims. (a phrase popular in American right wing “jihad watch” circles). Meanwhile, as the conversation proceeded, images from the movie were played. Wilders said that it would be impossible to make that kind of movie about Christianity. (Actually, Geert, Christiane Amanpour did an excellent piece on “God’s Warriors” which included Christians as well as Jewish and Islamic fanatics). Wilders said that he didn’t have anything against individual Muslims; but Islam is a “totally terrorist ideology.” O’Reilly seemed to exonerate Wilders when he said that Wilders didn’t spend the whole movie on the Koran because like the Bible you can pick out “inflammatory stuff” and that wouldn’t be an accurate picture of the religion . He mused “what good is this” and said “most people in the free world, not in the Muslim world, in the free world, most clear thinking people know that worldwide terrorism is driven by Islamic fascism. (Memo to Bill: The Bush administration stopped using this term because it was considered inflammatory – but it’s a nice shout out to the rabid rightwingers who hate Islam!) O’Reilly, on cue, asked Wilders “what good is your telling people that.” Wilders claimed that most people don’t know. (Oh, thank you for enlightening us Geert) and they are “dhimmis” (another word popular with the right wing Islamophobic community.) Wilders claimed that Sharia is functioning in Britain. (Of course, Wilders didn’t explain that it is involved in only a small segment of mostly domestic court cases involving Muslims) O’Reilly recited a litany of Muslim terrorist acts in Europe while exclaiming that “Europeans don’t know” and accused them of “being cowards.” Wilders talked about stopping immigration because if it continues Europeans will lose their freedom. O’Reilly asked if Wilders was called a racist “like me.” While Wilders went on a rant about “appeasing,” Bill said “absolutely” and said “all you have to see is how many troops Europe sent to Afghanistan and it’s very small.” (Comment, Actually, Bill, it’s about 32,000)
Comment: It’s not surprising that Fox would give a sympathetic platform to a “crass, crude, and vulgar” movie done by a man who likes to be seen as a “martyr to political correctness.” As a “persecuted populist” he has a lot in common with O’Reilly. While there are free speech arguments to be made, what is not arguable is that Wilders is a hate monger. Not suprising that he appeared on the Bill O’Reilly show!
