{"id":130334,"date":"2019-04-01T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=130334"},"modified":"2019-04-08T11:45:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T10:45:17","slug":"renouncing-violence-is-a-demand-made-almost-exclusively-of-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/04\/renouncing-violence-is-a-demand-made-almost-exclusively-of-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Renouncing Violence\u2019 Is a Demand Made Almost Exclusively of Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York Times depiction (5\/14\/18) of the Great Return March in Gaza, which the Times reported \u201cturned violent\u201d when Israeli forces killed 28 demonstrators.<\/p><\/div>\n

29 Mar 2019 – <\/em>A FAIR survey of the phrase \u201crenounce violence\u201d in the New York Times<\/strong> over the past 10 years shows that 95 percent of the time the demand is made of Muslim organizations, people or political parties, the most prominent being the Taliban and Hamas. There are zero instances of anyone in the Times<\/strong>\u2014whether reporters quoting officials or columnists\u2014from March 28, 2009, to March 28, 2019, insisting or suggesting that the United States, Israel or any white-majority country \u201crenounce violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost half\u201448 percent\u2014of the instances of \u201crenounce violence\u201d in the New York Times<\/strong> during the time period asserted that Palestinians \u201crefused\u201d to \u201crenounce violence.\u201d This was typically signaled with an umbrella label of \u201cHamas,\u201d with varying degrees of specificity. Roughly a third of those said to not \u201crenounce\u201d violence were either Afghan or Iraqi insurgency groups fighting American military occupation. Thus, roughly 80 percent of the time, the term was evoked to describe people under military control of Israel or the US.<\/p>\n

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As Israel was killing scores and maiming thousands of protesters in Gaza, rather than calling on Israel to \u201crenounce violence,\u201d the New York Times (5\/18\/18) published an op-ed arguing that \u201cguarding the border was more important than avoiding killing.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Of the 58 examples found of the phrase in the Times <\/strong>from 2009 to present day,<\/strong> only three instances expressed a demand that non-Muslims \u201crenounce violence\u201d: The Czech government (12\/22\/09<\/a>) threatening to ban the Communist Party; Turkish criticism (7\/29\/10<\/a>) of the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), a secular Communist party, though Kurds are mostly Muslim; and a report (2\/5\/17<\/a>) on Obama\u2019s commutation of Oscar L\u00f3pez Rivera that noted the longtime Puerto Rican independence advocate \u201crefused to renounce violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complete list can be viewed here<\/a>. The New York Times<\/strong> was selected as the focus of the study due to its position as the US\u2019s most influential newspaper.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear why no reporters, columnists or experts quoted ever felt the need to ask the White House or the Pentagon, or any of their friendly allies in Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, if they would \u201crenounce violence.\u201d The expectation that a party should refuse to engage in armed activity as a means of exerting political influence was almost exclusively reserved for those under military occupation from Western forces or their Middle Eastern allies.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn sharp contrast to Dr. King, Mr. Mandela continues to call for an \u2018armed struggle,’\u201d a 1990 New York Times op-ed (6\/21\/90) complained.<\/p><\/div>\n

Before the time frame of the survey, South African leader Nelson Mandela was often scolded in the Times<\/strong> opinion pages for refusing to unilaterally reject violence. \u201cWhy Won\u2019t Mandela Renounce Violence?\u201d asked<\/a> a June 21, 1990, op-ed by congressional aide David G. Sanders. There\u2019s no evidence in the Times<\/strong> archives that South Africa\u2019s apartheid government was ever asked the same question.<\/p>\n

For decades, Amnesty International infamously refused<\/a> to label Mandela a Prisoner of Conscience because he wouldn\u2019t formally pledge to refrain from violence\u2014a rather precious, morally boutique demand Amnesty requires of all of its Third World causes. In the Western liberal mind, we can name oppressors, but never support those actually fighting them, instead demanding the oppressed unilaterally refuse the single most ubiquitous political tool in history\u2014that of violence.<\/p>\n

There are also instances prior to the survey period of the phrase being applied to white people\u2014when they were also under Western occupation. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Times <\/strong>made several mentions<\/a> of Irish resistance fighters under the British occupation of Northern Ireland \u201crefusing to renounce violence.\u201d In this context, as well, there was no mention of Britain\u2019s refusal to do so.<\/p>\n

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Vows by Muslim and Sikh groups to \u201cfight\u00a0 back\u201d against anyone who threatened their neighborhoods prompted the New York Times (8\/10\/11) to highlight a call to \u201crenounce violence.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

During the 10-year survey period, other than Czech Communists and L\u00f3pez Rivera, the only people in the West needing to \u201crenounce violence\u201d were Muslims\u2014in a bit of editorializing during the 2011 London riots from Times<\/strong> reporters John Burns and Ravi Somaiya (8\/10\/11<\/a>), suggesting the father of a person who had died during the unrest was appealing \u201cfor all in the community to renounce violence.\u201d The community in question, according to the Times<\/strong>? London\u2019s \u201cMuslim populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamas is regularly said, almost like it\u2019s required by the Times<\/strong> style guide, to be failing this arbitrary moral test. Pro-Israel columnist Roger Cohen<\/a> has evoked the phrase three times since 2009. The \u201crefusal to denounce violence\u201d box-checking was especially popular with Times<\/strong> Jerusalem chief Jodi Rudoren<\/a>, who used the cliche five times in 2014 alone in reference to Hamas\u2014the same year Israel\u2019s violence killed 1,500 Palestinian civilians, including 523 children. During that same conflict, \u201cHamas violence\u201d claimed the lives of six Israeli civilians. At no point in her coverage during this time did Rudoren mention that the IDF had, like Hamas, refused to \u201crenounce violence\u201d\u2014and were exceedingly more efficient at carrying it out.<\/p>\n

Demanding Iraqi or Afghan insurgents or Hamas \u201crenounce violence\u201d is, of course, a defensible moral stance. One could argue that their religious-infused militancy is reactionary or counter-productive. (Just this month, thousands of Palestinians protested Hamas<\/a> in Gaza.)<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not really the issue here. The issue is the wholly selective and loaded manner in which this burden is applied. Why should only these groups\u2014Muslim 95 percent of the time\u2014\u201crenounce violence,\u201d but the US and its allies never have to? What makes the West\u2019s arbitrary, violent occupations per se justified, while less sophisticated counter-occupations who refuse to go full Gandhi are committing a profound moral transgression? There is no sense to it, other than serving a lazy, racist rhetorical tic. Ask Muslims to \u201crenounce violence,\u201d by all means, but maybe, at least every now and then, ask non-Muslim militants to do so as well.<\/p>\n

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Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for<\/em> FAIR.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em>campaign<\/em><\/strong><\/span> to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Mar 2019 – A FAIR survey of the phrase \u201crenounce violence\u201d in the New York Times over the past 10 years shows that 95 percent of the time the demand is made of Muslim organizations, people or political parties, the most prominent being the Taliban and Hamas. There are zero instances of anyone in the Times\u2014whether reporters quoting officials or columnists\u2014from March 28, 2009, to March 28, 2019, insisting or suggesting that the United States, Israel or any white-majority country \u201crenounce violence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,65,62,51,66,54,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-media","category-europe","category-middle-east-north-africa","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","category-religion-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}