New York City Suffers an Outbreak of ‘Islamophobia’

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New York politicians have gotten a chance to display righteous indignation, and there is nothing that politicians love more than a chance to display righteous indignation. “New York,” wrote far-left New York state Senator Liz Krueger, “is no place for anti-Muslim hate or any other kind of prejudice. We don’t need out-of-state provocateurs sowing fear, division, and violence in our city.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-Out to Lunch) agreed: “This is pure, blatant Islamophobia. This sort of hateful violence must be universally condemned, and those responsible should be apprehended and prosecuted. I’m glad the Mayor and his family are safe.”

Krueger and Goldman were referring to an incident that took place in New York City on Saturday. Never to be outdone in the righteous indignation sweepstakes, New York City’s Comrade Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani described what happened this way: “Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are. What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”

Wow. Those evil right-wing Islamophobes, eh? So they came from another state in order to commit some act of violence outside Gracie Mansion, eh? And apparently they even targeted Mamdani himself, along with his blushing bride, eh?

That’s certainly what the establishment media wants you to think. The CBS News story about what happened carries the headline “Improvised explosive found at protests near Manhattan’s Gracie Mansion, Mamdani’s official residence, NYPD says.” Then it leads off by talking about “anti-Islam” protesters, giving the impression that they targeted Mamdani.

Only six paragraphs down does CBS note that “a counter-protester, identified as 18-year-old Emir Balat of Pennsylvania, lit and threw an ignited device toward the protesters.” Then in the next paragraph, we learn that “in videos depicting the chaos, a man appears to yell ‘Allahu Akbar’ just as Balat throws the device that Tisch described as ‘a jar wrapped in tape, importantly with nuts, bolts, and screws along with a hobby fuse.’”

That’s an Improvised Explosive Device, or IED, but clearly CBS doesn’t want you to add two and two together. And other media outlets were just as bad or worse. NBC New York’s headline was “Mayor Mamdani was home when protesters lit device outside Gracie Mansion,” as if he had been the target. While it named Jake Lang, it identified the two Muslims who actually threw the IED, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, only as “two young men from Pennsylvania,” once again giving the impression that they were part of Lang’s group.

In the same vein, the New York Daily News went into full passive-voice mode to avoid naming the perpetrators: “An Upper East Side anti-Muslim rally led by Jan. 6 rioter and far-right influencer Jake Lang erupted into chaos as Lang and his cronies were confronted by scores of counter-protesters outside of Gracie Mansion on Saturday — the home of Mayor Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor — and a smoking improvised device was thrown, sending demonstrators scrambling for cover.”

The device “was thrown.” We don’t get to hear anything about who threw it until the fourth paragraph, when we learn that the perpetrator was “a man.” We only get the actual names of the bombers in the eighth and ninth paragraphs.

ABC News’ headline on its home page on Saturday afternoon was “Police say improvised explosive device was thrown at NYC mayor’s home,” which is stating directly that Mamdani was the target. The story itself adjusts the headline to say “outside” his home rather than “at” his home, which is a bit better, and actually begins with information about Balat and Kayumi saying they watched ISIS videos before deciding to target the protest. That does not, however, erase the misleading headline.

The Daily Mail went with the headline “Man arrested after throwing ‘nail bombs’ at home of NYC mayor,” once again misleading readers into thinking that evil “Islamophobes” targeted the poor Muslim mayor.

CBS is almost alone in mentioning the highly salient fact that Balat and Kayumi were screaming “Allahu akbar.” None of the coverage discusses Islamic jihad violence, and yet that is the most important part of the story. The establishment media and New York’s leftist political elites, including Mamdani, want you to ignore all that. There will be more jihad attacks, but the more ignorant and complacent the public is, the less pushback there will be. That’s the idea.