We all fell for it. This weekend there was a story circulating in the news about a Muslim “ring of peace” that was formed to “protect” Jews at an Oslo synagogue. According to an eyewitness report, local officials and photos of the event, it turned out to be a fabrication by the mainstream media.
According to an eyewitness, there were only about 20 or so Muslims. Photos from various angles show that there were not enough people to form a ring, so instead a horizontal line in front of the synagogue was formed.
A local news outlet explained how the media extrapolated the number of Muslims to be 1,300. “According to police, there were 1300 persons present in the event. Very many of them ethnic Norwegians,” read a translated report from Osloby.no.
Demonstrators also reportedly chanted, “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” combining fear and criticism of Islam and hatred of Jews.
Many news outlets, including wire services (such as the Associated Press and the Agence France-Presse) for hundreds of news sites, ran the false story that 1,000 or more people (some saying all of them Muslim) formed a “ring of peace” outside of the Oslo synagogue.
The AFP has no excuse for the false report, as it had a photographer on the scene. One of their photos shows a man at the end of the line of people holding hands with his left hand in his pocket.
The far-left Think Progress site published a story titled, “More Than A Thousand Muslims Form Human Shield Around Norewegian Synagogue After Copenhagen Attacks.”
Even Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, “More than 1,000 Muslims formed a human shield around an Oslo synagogue on February 21, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark the previous weekend.”
To add yet another stain on this event, it appears that the organizer of the Muslim “peace ring” is a vicious anti-Semite, 9/11 conpiracy theorist who believes the Jews knew about it, a gay-basher, and an Israel-hater.
In 2008, Ali Chishti, the event orgainzer said, “I hate Jews and how they operate… it is a fact that during the attacks on the Twin Towers [World Trade Center] 1600 Jews were absent from work. OK, OK, what’s even more suspicious, is how unusually many Jews there were present in Mumbai on the day that Pakistani terrorists struck. How come?”
In March, 2008 at a meeting in Oslo promoting his 9/11 conspiracy theory that the Jews were responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, Chishti gave over his speech titled, “Therefore I Hate Jews And Gays,” Haaretz reports.
More than 1,000 Muslims form ‘peace ring’ around Oslo synagogue http://t.co/K14QXWPELy pic.twitter.com/lU5hfmnXRR
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) February 21, 2015
In reality, there were actually 40 times more Northern European Muslims in attendance at the funeral of a Copenhagen Muslim terrorist than those who came to form the so-called “ring of peace” around an Oslo synagogue.
The question is what is the incentive for news outlets to embellish the story? Increasing readership? Denial of Anti-Semitism? Attempting to paint Muslims in a positive light? A combination of the three? Or something else altogether?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
