Juan Cole: O’Reilly’s Muslim-Hatred and Christian Terrorists

[marmar]

O’Reilly’s Muslim-Hatred and Christian Terrorists
Posted on 07/27/2011 by Juan


Television commentator Bill O’Reilly lambasted the press for referring to Anders Breivik as a Christian terrorist, on the grounds that he is not a practicing Christian and on the grounds that no true Christian can be a terrorist and on the grounds that Christian fundamentalists are essentially different from Muslim fundamentalists (“those crazy jihadis”).

O’Reilly, who has engaged in hate speech toward Muslims of the sort that inspired Breivik’s violence, is in part trying to change the discussion so that his guilt in fostering an atmosphere of rancor is not brought up. The in-your-face pundit has insisted that “Muslims killed us on 9/11,” the kind of ‘shouting fire in a theater” discourse that could easily get people killed.

In fact, O’Reilly is a specialist in bullying, violent rhetoric. He wished that the Katrina hurricane hit the United Nations building and he “wouldn’t have rescued them,” a tasteless and callous way to refer to the deaths of over 4,000 persons in New Orleans and a transposition of that tragedy to New York city. Ironically, the UN building was one of five New York landmarks that al-Qaeda wanted to blow up. I’m not sure it is really a Christian sentiment that O’Reilly gives us here.

As for O’Reilly’s comments on the Norway massacre, Breivik is a “cultural Christian,” believing in a monocultural Christian Europe, and said he wants Protestants to return to the fold of Catholicism so as to present a united front. He also had a cult of the Knights Templar. I mean, it is not as if he is a Buddhist. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/oreillys-muslim-hatred-and-christian-terrorists.html