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O’Reilly Demands a Statement From American Muslims, Misses with Catholic Priest Analogy

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by Zeke Turner | 11:21 am, September 26th, 2009

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O'Reilly_Lekovic To kick off his “Impact Segment” last night, Bill O’Reilly juxtaposed a clip of Friday’s Day of Islamic Unity, a peaceful prayer demonstration by American Muslims in front of the Capitol, and clips of various terror suspects being moved around in handcuffs across the country.

And because all Muslims must take responsibility for each other’s actions (right?), O’Reilly invited Edina Lekovic, communication director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, onto the show to ask her what American Muslims were doing to clear their name and improve their image.

J-school students, take notes: “I guess it must be painful,” O’Reilly began the interview, “for you and other law-abiding, good muslims to continue to see muslim men — not only in the United States but all over the world — involved in these alleged terror plots. Is that painful?”

To be fair, O’Reilly acknowledged that it might be a little far-reaching to call American Muslims to task for the actions of a extreme minority, invoking the catholic priest scandals and remarking that, as a catholic, he felt that the actions of a minority of priests reflected poorly on the entire religion. But still, isn’t there a difference between a few crazy, would-be terrorists who happen to be Muslim, and a rash of incidents across the country coming from the very practitioners, priests in this case, who are the public face of their religious institution?

O’Reilly ended the interview by criticizing the Day of Islamic Unity for not featuring an explicit statement condemning fundamentalist Muslims who support terrorism: “You’re not proactive enough! You’re not proactive enough in condemning worldwide Jihad! … You have to step up your PR activities.”

The Day of Islamic Unity, after all, was a show of majority Muslim practices — namely peaceful group prayer. Actions speak louder than words, but not on O’Reilly.

Bill O’Reilly’s Impact Segment with Edina Lekovic:

Bill O'Reilly, Day of Islamic Unity, Edina Lekovic, fox, fox news, Impact Segment, Islam, Muslims, O'Reilly Factor, Terrorism

ImNotBlue

“You’re not proactive enough! You’re not proactive enough in condemning worldwide Jihad! … You have to step up your PR activities.”

Wow… you’ve really missed the point. O’Reilly is talking about PR… Public Relations… sure, actions are great, but a speech would have provided the news networks with a nice soundbite to feature on the nightly program. It would have benefited these people to further distance themselves from the nut-jobs who do terrible things, while pretended to represent “their” religion. That’s the point!

These reads like an attack on O’Reilly, for the sake of attacking O’Reilly. He acknowledges that it’s not a problem with the Islamic faith… good. He states that these folks can’t really take responsibility for the bad guys who are kinda in their group… good. He states that a bold statement from them to the American people, would help them draw that distinction and serve as a good PR campaign for them… and you cry foul? Really? Methinks not.
ChuckfromTacoma

I can’t think of anything to enhance your analysis ImNotBlue. Very well put.
Rosepetals

America and Canada need to WAKE UP. Do they think that what is happening in Europe won’t happen in North America? North Americans study for yourself about the Islamization of Europe or Eurabia. You can start with this article : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994047/Muslim-Europe-the-demographic-time-bomb-transforming-our-continent.html Please read the entire article these are just a few quotes.
“The numbers are startling. … Europe’s Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015. In Brussels, the top seven baby boys’ names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza.
Europe’s low white birth rate, coupled with faster multiplying migrants, will change fundamentally what we take to mean by European culture and society. The altered population mix has far-reaching implications for education, housing, welfare, labour, the arts and everything in between. It could have a critical impact on foreign policy:”
Study what is happening in Holland, France and England and learn for yourself about the riots and problems that are happening there. The North American media will not tell you the truth about these things. Are you so silly to think that allowing people to move into your country will remove all hatred from them. Very few muslims speak out against the violence caused by other muslims even when it is against other muslims let alone non-muslims. Very few muslim women speak out against the horrible honor killing of muslim children and don’t think it happens only in muslim countries we have had several cases here in Canada. Please read : http://www.canada.com/Honour+killings+girls+women+rise+Canada+expert/1823895/story.html
http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-De-Rosa/503357744 Anthony De Rosa

Does the Catholic church take time out at Christmas mass to denounce widespread molestation cases by their clergy?

I agree that Muslims should do more to denounce extremists, just like any religion should do the same with their extremists, but there is a time and place for everything.
ChrisNH

American Muslims can’t have it both ways, remaining relatively mum on this subject while whining about being persecuted and ostracized by other Americans. That’s tantamount to having your cake and eating it, too. Some outward sign that these people vehemently distance themselves from the terrorist radicals would be nice, and not a tough thing for them to do. I side with O’Reilly here
ImNotBlue

Anthony Rosa says:
September 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm

Does the Catholic church take time out at Christmas mass to denounce widespread molestation cases by their clergy?

Well, I think they did when all those stories were in the news… although, I can’t say I’m 100% sure. But even O’Reilly has said he wanted more of a denouncing from the Catholic higher-ups… so I’m not sure it’s a defending comparison.
m

American Muslims can’t have it both ways, remaining relatively mum on this subject while whining about being persecuted and ostracized by other Americans.

If you don’t think a heavy majority of muslim Americans are opposed and condemn terrorism and violence, then you’re – quite frankly, stupid. Most of America’s muslim population is middle-class and highly educated. You’re just trying to find a reason to keep justifying your own and other’s bigotry towards them, which is sad because they’re just as American as you and me.
Pam1151

All religions have their share of fanatics. Why should the American Muslims be the only ones to speak out about the fanatics in their religion??
ImNotBlue

Because it’s the fanatics currently in their religion who are blowing things up. If one of “your guys” makes news, IN THE NAME OF YOUR RELIGION, you should do something about it… shouldn’t you?