Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it?---Blogger Jihad Watch responds

Jihad Watch ^ | Jan 16, 2006 | Robert Spencer

[Presbyterian Reporter]

And so we come to the illustrious S. I. Rosenbaum of the St. Pete rag, with whom I wasted thirty or 45 minutes of my life a few days ago, while if I had not been fool enough to think that she might be decent and fair I could have slavered a little and given her what she wanted in no more than twenty seconds. Rosenbaum called me looking for material for her story which appears today, "Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it?" (thanks to all who sent this in).

You can imagine which side she comes down on, but hold on. This story isn't actually about me at all. It is about Joe Kaufman of Americans Against Hate. Kaufman drew mainstream media attention not too long ago by sending out a press release and writing an article about a Muslim retreat in south Florida. The retreat featured one speaker, Mazen Mokhtar, who had been investigated by the Department of Homeland Security for operating a website soliciting support for the Taliban and Chechen jihadists, and another, Chantal Carnes, who had apparently made statements praising the Muslim Brotherhood, the first modern Islamic terrorist organization, and its founder, Hasan Al-Banna.

Kaufman's piece allegedly led to death threats against the Muslims in Florida, causing the retreat to be relocated. Rosenbaum wrote in an earlier article that Chantal Carnes "didn't recognize herself" in Kaufman's article, although our intrepid reporter doesn't seem to have asked Carnes whether or not she really made the statements. As for Mokhtar, Rosenbaum reported only that Kaufman "wrote that the retreat's other speaker, Mazen Mokhtar of New Jersey, was linked to al-Qaida," without bothering to tell her hapless Floridian victims that none other than the Bandar Beacon itself and the Department of Homeland Security had made the same link.

[indcons]

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