A complete version of this piece appeared on CommonDreams yesterday. And it is on Barnabe Geisweiller’s site. We’re excerpting key portions below.
In July of last year, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group, organized a mass wedding celebration for hundreds of couples in the Gaza Strip. The happy adult grooms, immaculately dressed in black suits and colorful ties, received $500 each from Hamas, no small sum in the besieged territory.
It might have been a joyous event if not for the fact that the brides were "pre-pubescent girls, dressed in white gowns and adorned with garish make-up," according to the article written by author and journalist Paul L. Williams, and republished by rightwing pundit David Horowitz’s Frontpage Magazine, who regularly appears on mainstream news networks such as Fox and CNN.
The photos show young girls holding hands with the grooms, and the article goes on to explain how pedophilia is inherent to Islam.
It would have been a sordid tale were it not for the fact that the article is a hoax. The married couples were, in fact, consenting adults, but this did not stop the story from being widely disseminated via a vast network of Web-based publications, blogs and mailing lists, and hundreds of readers left online comments.
The Internet is considered by many to be an information Wild West, where anyone can publish stories, often anonymously, and no matter how derogatory their opinions may be. False stories and hateful opinions about Muslims abound on the Internet and have begun to appear prominently in the mainstream discourse, say American Muslims and groups that monitor the media. Many worry that what one sociologist has termed "respectable racism" is having a corrosive effect on American society, and that hate expressed online has real-world implications. Rightwing extremist ideology is now the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
"Islamaphobia has moved to the mainstream in the years following the 9/11 attacks," said Ibrahim Hooper, the National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), based in Washington, D.C. "Things that would have been completely outside the pale, like a letter to the editor saying that Islam is intrinsically evil, that would have never been published before 9/11. Now it’s published almost on a daily basis."…
The article alleging mass pedophile weddings took place in the Gaza Strip, "Hamas Plays Host to Pedophilia," was first published on Williams’ website "thelastcrusade.org" on Aug. 7, 2009, and generated nearly 500 reader comments. It was republished in Frontpage Magazine, the online publication of conservative activist David Horowitz.
Williams, an American Christian minister and author… lifted the first few paragraphs and quotes of his article from an Agence France-Presse (AFP) article he did not write, "Hamas sponsors mass wedding in Gaza," published a week earlier on July 30, 2009. But he stopped plagiarizing when he reached the following phrase: "The 450 brides shared none of the glamour, taking seats among the audience of around 1,000 party guests: most couples had already taken part in religious ceremonies elsewhere, with more marriages planned for the next few days."
In his own article, Williams went on to explain how pedophilia is commonplace in Islam, basing his analysis on the traditions of the middle ages and apparently unaware that marrying young, and what would be considered child abuse by modern standards, was a normal occurrence at the time in the ancient world of East and West.
The children holding the hands of the grooms at the celebration in Gaza were not their brides, as he alleged, but their relatives. This was confirmed by other news sources such as Sky News, a sister channel of Fox News. It was also not the first mass wedding to be organized by Hamas in Gaza, where the legal marrying age is 18 or 16 with parental permission if Egyptian Sharia law is followed.
Taghreed El-Khodary, who writes for the New York Times, covered a similar wedding for the paper on Oct. 30, 2008.
"These kids on the stage are the nieces or sisters of the grooms," she said in an email, referring to the young girls in white dresses. "It is a mass wedding in conservative Gaza; hence brides are sitting with their families. It’s a symbolic party to give credit to Hamas or whatever institution is funding it."
Williams and Horowitz did not respond to emailed inquiries about the article and requests for interviews.
Muslim groups and media watchdogs say that this is not a simple question of free speech, noting that people with radical views about Christianity, Judaism or Israel are not given prominent platforms on mainstream networks as is Horowitz.
"It’s a double standard," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "The media wouldn’t bring on anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, overt racists, but they will bring on these Muslim-bashers or anti-Arab individuals. They shouldn’t bring on anti-Semites or neo-Nazis, and I don’t think they should have on these Muslim-haters either."
Norman Finkelstein, an American political scientist and author, has written extensively on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is fiercely critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, and his books have generated controversy as well as received praise from prominent historians and public intellectuals. Yet he has never been invited to appear on a mainstream American network.
"I have never been on American television (not even the cable networks) and the only national radio program I have been on is Democracy Now!" he wrote in an email. "To my mind, the interesting fact is that not even liberal radio programs and moderators would have me on. It is for example unthinkable that I would be on a National Public Radio program. It’s the usual stuff: career and funding."
Conservative groups are waging a war of ideas online with players such as David Horowitz’ "Frontpage Magazine" and Williams’ "The Last Crusade" supplementing rightwing materials that are widely diffused via blogs, chat rooms, mailing lists and other Web publications. This network has facilitated the free flow of ideas, and created virtual havens in which people vent their collective disillusionment or rage. But the connections made there have shifted from the virtual to the real world.
Elements of white nationalism are fusing with rightwing ideology, as supremacist groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens and the National Socialist Movement have made inroads into mainstream culture by exploiting contentious issues such as the economy and immigration. The tea-party movement may now be, by some accounts, one of the most potent political forces in America. What that will translate to in the future remains to be seen. But many Muslims and other minority groups are fearful.
"It has a very corrosive effect on our society," said Hooper of CAIR. "Whenever you legitimize, even through your silence, attacks on a religious or ethnic minority, we are all hurt by that. It’s not something that helps our society in any way."
In America, we don’t have barbaric customs like this, oh no! We follow the much more enlightened path of simply turning our daughters over to the local swains at pubescence without even the merest framework of legal obligation, let alone parental or guardian control and just to make it more fair, (for the boys) a complete lack of any correct information on sex or birth control for the girls. Have at ‘em, fellas!
And we’ve replaced polygamy with a strange and tortured form of serial monogamy.
Or maybe we are all just “partners”. Damned if I know. I do know my wife still has the gun she shot her first husband with, and that’s all I need to know. Lay that pistol down, babe!
You got it Mooser. Beyond the fact that the story itself is a hoax, the self-righteousness with which westerners approach the issue of women in the “third world” (and particularly in Arab and Muslim societies) is incredible. Some of the most vocal crusaders for the rights of women and girls in those horrid countries and horrid communities in our very midst, don’t give a damn about the alarming levels of domestic violence (including child abuse, rape and murder) in all western societies. You’d think these champions of women’s rights might have a somewhat less noble ulterior motive or something.
You know it, Shmuel! I sometimes feel like a one-man seraglio.
umm … and men.
well said guys! not to forget about the prostitution in the west!
But then rock n’ roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis married his first cousin once removed when she was 13 years old.
I predict that Witty, yonira and wondering jew will have nothing relevant to contribute to this topic that doesn’t serve to reinforce the headline.
My favorite example is recycled WWI era cartoons of Eastern European Jewish men with swarthy complexions, angry snarling expressions, ragged beards, and big noses and ears wearing yarmulkes and Stars of David to make sure we know what we are looking at. These cartoons are everywhere in our media today, who knows how many drawn by Jewish cartoonists, but now they are dressed as Middle Eastern mullahs. Such is progress.
I have been to a few weddings in Palestinian villages. It’s common practice for everyone in the couple’s family to dress up. Boys wear tuxedos for kids, girls wear gowns for kids. There is dress code where the white wedding gown is reserved for the bride only.
It’s quite astonishing to see the depths of hatred to which these pundits and commentators have sunk. Just imagine if someone lied like that about Jewish customs.
Videos like these, by Al-Jazeera no less did little to help this explain where the bride’s were:
link to youtube.com
Watch what your saying here Avi, I am sure you aren’t trying to further this hoax are you? All of these little girls are wearing white gowns, but they are not the brides.
I can see how hate sites could jump on this opportunity like it was gold, I wish that Al-Jazeera would have explained that these were in fact not brides and the brides were sitting the audience. (what does that say for woman’s rights in Gaza?)
Yeah, that was a big mistake on al-Jazeera’s part, not getting out the sock puppets in order to prevent idiots like you from having fodder for hate speech.
Bonus points for holding off sinking your teeth into Avi until half way through your post. It makes the obligatory personal attack in every post you make slightly less odious.
I was correcting Avi so others who read his post, then watched the Al-Jazeera video weren’t further confused by it. You don’t get that huh?
Did you watch the video? Can you at least admit that it was unproductive to show little girls leaving cars w/ the grooms, to show only little girls? with no explanation of where the brides were? I am being silly to think that you’d agree with me on this, or anyone else on here. But that’s what made it so easy for these hate sites to use it to further there nonsense.
See, the difference between you and me, yonira, is I’m not an idiot. That’s like saying it’s “unproductive” to show a woman in child birth because people might be offended about seeing her hoo-haw. Normal adults can make healthy sexual associations where they are appropriate, yonira, and don’t need sock puppets for “the sex talk.”
You seem to know an awful lot about these hate sites and how they process information. Why does that not surprise me in the slightest?
Whatever you say Chaos, you are kind of a lost cause.
CHAOS, AVI Guys, I have to agree with yonira on this one. The Al-Jazeera video visually suggested that the little girls may have been the brides. There should have been some explanation on the English language version for those not familiar with the situation/customs.
Actually, the problem seems to on the receiver side rather than the transmitter side. Pictures of young children as flower girls at a Western wedding wouldn’t be interpreted in the same way. The reasons for the different interpretation in this case probably are:
a) The nigh-hysterical attitudes in our society when it comes to alleged pedophilia.
b) The tendency to attribute any deviancy to the “Other”.
c) Unwillingness to check one’s own prejudices.
KOSHIRO- When was the last time you saw a flower girl get into a car with the bridegroom and drive off with the bride nowhere to be seen? These images are striking and can easily be misinterpreted and/or misrepresented. Part of Al-Jazeera’s journalistic responsibility is to provide sufficient explanation of the images to enable understanding of the Arabic culture it supposedly represents. This is particularly true for Al-Jazeera since I’m sure Al-Jazeera is aware of the extent that Israel mines the Arab media looking for anything that they can use to misrepresent the Arabs and promote a “clash of civilizations.” Israel has, until recently, been spectacularly successful in its public relations, to which it devotes massive resources. It may well be their most potent weapon. One ignores the power of images and of cross-cultural communication at ones own peril.
Yonira: the brides were sitting the audience. (what does that say for woman’s rights in Gaza?)
What does it say, yonira? Women are currently suffering even more than men in Gaza, as any Palestinian human rights group will tell you, but I don’t think sitting with their families rather being up on stage with their husbands during a mass wedding celebration says very much at all.
How are woman suffering more than men from the siege??
You mean besides the fact that the IDF deliberately targeted women during Operation Cast Lead? Or maybe because Israel routinely arrests all the male members of Palestinian families from the age of 14 up and herds them into prison camps, leaving only the women to handle family survival?
Don’t pretend like you haven’t seen the IDF’s “one shot, two kills” t-shirts. We know you’ve seen them. Pretending like you haven’t only makes you out to be stupid.
Yonira: How are woman suffering more than men from the siege??
Have a look at this report, by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, entitled Through Women’s Eyes: A PCHR Report on the Gender-Specific Impact and Consequences of Operation Cast Lead.
No dice, Shmuel. Yonira doesn’t read. I’ve tried.
A short excerpt from the introduction to the PCHR Report:
everyone one of your ‘points of evidence’ above were ridiculous.
Can you show me where in the Goldstone report he says that women were targeted specifically by the IDF?
Israel hasn’t arrested any Gazans, in Gaza since 2005.
The shirts are of poor taste and those who made them should have to relinquished their roles as snipers and put behind a desk somewhere, along with their COs.
Shmuel was talking about Gaza and that is what I was inquiring about, you know the West Bank and Gaza are two separate entities right? Controlled by different factions of Palestinians?
Thanks Shmuel! I just wanted to see what you were talking about.
oh yeah yonira because you read the Goldstone report?
Wrong again, as usual, yonira. The IDF arrested hundreds of Gazans, in Gaza, during the most recent massacre.
And before that, as well. link to ynet.co.il
They haven’t been heard from since.
I really wonder how you can keep posting here and exposing your ignorance. Aren’t you embarrassed? Don’t you feel like the guy wearing the “MORAN” sign?
Yeah I am a huge Moran.
And again, yonira, you win the “unintentionally funny” award. If you watched anything other than Fox News, you might have been in on the joke, rather than cementing your place at the butt of it.
Silly yonira because in some eastern traditions the brides meet the grooms after the celebrations.
The other point which contradicts your odious allegations, how come some men were marching alone in Aljazeera video?
You know I said it was a hoax? I know they weren’t the brides, I understand eastern traditions. I guess I don’t know what you are arguing about?
My argument was Al-Jazeera should have explained to the rednecks who make these hate sites, that this is their tradition.
I’m pretty sure rednecks, and other intellectually enfeebled individuals such as yourself, don’t watch al-Jazeera. Incidentally, could you tell us what hate site you got that YouTube link from, yourself? Granted, it’s probably the same one you got those discredited MEMRI videos that you keep spamming us with, and your memory isn’t dependable that far back.
Chaos, dude back up, are you saying Al-Jazeera isn’t credible? I don’t get what you are saying anymore. Google Hamas Wedding once.
link to google.com
(just in case you can’t google)
Oh the MEMRI video where someone on this blog actually said the translation was pretty much right now?
A crappy-ass straw man argument followed up by a blatant lie. Seriously, yonira, it’s like your brain metabolizes stupidity instead of oxygen. You’ve been skulking around this blog how long and you haven’t demonstrated even a single iota of refinement? Seriously? Ouch.
This is your brain. Yonira, is your brain on Fox News. Any questions?
yikes Chaos, way to defend yourself.
From what? I never bad mouthed al-Jazeera. What am I supposed to defend myself from, you punching yourself in your own ‘nads and saying, “A hit! A very palpable hit!”
yonira what are you trying to do here? we got your message! give us peace yonira!!!!!!!!
I seem to have omitted a word in my earlier post by mistake. It should have read:
There is no dress code where the white wedding gown is reserved for the bride only.
Unfortunately, the hatred towards Arabs and Muslims is growing all over the west it increased after 9/11 but also due to the important presence of Muslims in the west. In Europe hostility to Muslims became natural and normal, France after banning the veil in schools, now thinking to ban it in public places, deleting Islamic contribution to our civilisation from school books, discriminating openly towards Muslims at work, suing private restaurants when they provide Halal diary and guess the reason? ‘discrimination against non muslims’. I found all these very sad because comparing to the Arab world we know that this happened in the past and the consequences were devastating.
Zionists are partially to blame, i see them in the media using the Muslims clichés in order to advance their political agenda, if you go to JIDF you will read some of the content that media is exposing non stop.
It’s almost comically when you think about it. The way the French are treating Muslims now is very much the way they used to treat Jews.
yes comically is the word. Because at the same time they are giving other countries lessons on human rights and ant-semitism and at the same time they are practising it towards the minority
Well, at least France has honorable people like you who are fighting for what’s right. And I’ll tell you right now, as bad as things are in France in that regard, I have a lot more faith that people like you will successfully set things right over there, then I do that people like me can set things right over here in the US.
During the war many people here have hidden Jews from Nazis, the same type of people are fighting for justice in Palestine today and in the whole world. Believe me chaos its universal, it has nothing to do with us!