TIMELINE: Nine months of the right’s anti-Muslim bigotry | Media Matters for America
TIMELINE: Nine months of the right’s anti-Muslim bigotry | Media Matters for America
Cheered on by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media, conservative activists spent the past year engaged in an anti-Muslim campaign that included efforts to block the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan and demonize the imam spearheading the project. The bigotry has culminated in a Florida pastor’s now-“suspended” plans to burn Qurans on September 11 — plans that the pastor has explicitly linked to the controversy over the Islamic center.
Summary:
December 2009
NY Times first reports on the Islamic cultural center.
Geller writes first Atlas Shrugs post on the center.
Ingraham tells Daisy Khan, “I like what you’re trying to do.”
Geller attacks Islamic center as “Islamic domination and expansionism.
January 2010-April 2010
The story goes into hiding.
May 2010
Geller resumes attack on Islamic center.
New York Post: “Mosque Madness at Ground Zero.”
Islamic Center of Northeast Florida was firebombed.
Fox & Friends runs first of many segments on the center, hosting Rauf and 9-11 firefighter.
Geller focuses attacks on Rauf.
Geller appears on Fox News’ Huckabee.
Geller appears on Fox & Friends.
Radio host Michael Berry: “I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up.”
June 2010
Geller holds June 6 protest against Islamic center.
Mark Davis compares Islamic center to a “Japanese plan to build a cultural center at Pearl Harbor.”
Geller appears on CNN to call Islamic center a “kick in the head” to Americans.
Geller: “Islamic supremacists want to build a monster mosque … on the cherished site of land they think they conquered.”
July 2010
Palin asks Muslims to “refudiate” the Islamic center.
Florida church announces plans to burn Quran on 9/11 anniversary.
Gingrich: “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”
Geller continues anti-Islam media tour.
Anti-Defamation League released statement opposing Islamic center.
National Republican Trust makes anti-mosque TV ad; NBC and CBS refuse to air it.
Anti-Islam graffiti found at Texas mosque, and is reportedly thought to be related to Park51 protests.
August 2010
Fox News guests opposing Islamic center outnumber supporters 35 to 11.
Ingraham flip-flops on Park51.
Kuhner smears Rauf as an “unrepentant militant Muslim.”
Right-wing media attack Rauf over State Department trip.
AP: “Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer.”
Geller falsely claims Rauf made comment blaming “the Jews” for 9-11.
Fox, NY Post invent controversy over Rauf’s 9-11 comments.
Right-wing media blast Obama for supporting freedom of religion.
Gingrich compares Islamic center to “Nazis” putting a “sign next to the Holocaust museum.”
Morris: Park51 would be a “command center for terrorism.”
Wash. Times: “If the mosque is constructed, the terrorists win.”
Anti-Park51 protests full of right-wing hate.
Beck responds to “good Muslim” Rauf interview with mockery and lies.
Beck falsely claims Rauf’s wife said “all Americans hate Muslims.”
Vandalism at California mosque reportedly investigated as a hate crime; vandalism made reference to “Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero.”
September 2010
Right-wing media criticize Petraeus’ condemnation of pastor’s plan to burn Qurans.
Right-wing equates burning Qurans with building Park51.
Geller calls Imam Rauf quote “disgusting” and claims that “anti-semitism is a basic tenet of Islam.
Imam Rauf warns of “the danger from the radicals in the Muslim world to our national security.”
Media distort Rauf remarks to claim he “threaten[ed] America.”
Obama, Clinton, Gates urge pastor not to go through with Quran burning.
Pastor agrees to “suspend” Quran burning, which he explicitly links to Park51 controversy.
Others threaten to burn the Quran.
Randall Terry, Tea Party group plans to tear pages out of Quran at White House on 9/11.