The NY Times has whitewashed the anti-Semitic aspects of the Arab Spring in Egypt since the beginning of the protests last January. NY Times’ columnists like Roger Cohen have sought to glamorize and glorify the so-called “Arab Street” and Nicholas Kristof has waxed poetic about Islamist forces in the Middle East.
So it is no surprise that in September The Times had an article portraying a new liberal Islamist movement, In Egypt, Islamists Reach Out to Wary Secularists. One of the featured moderate clerics was Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb
Egypt, a fecund breeding ground for Arab and Islamic ideologies, is witnessing the birth of yet another: Islamic liberalism….Less conservative Islamic players have entered the fray as well.Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al Azhar, the bastion of Sunni Islam scholarship that prides itself on a moderate form of Egyptian Islam, issued a document that seeks to marry secular attitudes with conservative theories.The Azhar Charter, drafted in August, declares that a civil state governed by law will not contradict Islam and that individual liberties should be guaranteed in the future constitution and laws….
There is a much darker side to Sheik el-Tayeb about which The Times did not tell its readers, as evidenced by a mass rally Sheik el-Tayeb held recently calling for the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews:
Spiritual leader Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb charged in his speech that to this day Jews everywhere in the world are seeking to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.”In order to build Egypt, we must be one. Politics is insufficient. Faith in Allah is the basis for everything,” he said. “The al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews…we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem.) We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there.”Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen, as well as Palestinian guest speakers, made explicit calls for Jihad and for liberating the whole of Palestine. Time and again, a Koran quote vowing that “one day we shall kill all the Jews” was uttered at the site. Meanwhile, businessmen in the crowd were urged to invest funds in Jerusalem in order to prevent the acquisition of land and homes by Jews.
This is not the first time The Times has sanitized anti-Semitic Egyptian clerics. When Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi returned to Egypt in February The Times portrayed him as a moderate when in fact he seeks the destruction of Israel and called on a million people who attended his homecoming rally to march on Jerusalem.
The NY Times cannot be trusted, once again.
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