John Bolton (Rami Khoury/Al Bawaba)
- John Bolton is Trump's new national security adviser
- He runs a think tank called the Gatestone Institute
- Gatestone regularly publishes fake news articles
- One consistent claim is that Europe is being turned into a caliphate
John Bolton is U.S. President Donald Trump’s new pick to be national security advisor, an important position that imbues Bolton with newfound powers to direct U.S. foreign policy.
Beyond Bolton’s controversies surrounding his casual advocacy for more wars in the Middle East and pre-emptive strikes against North Korea, Bolton is the chairman of a think tank called the Gatestone Institute.
The Gatestone Institute is notable in its staunchly far-right values that occasionally espouse the virtues of white nationalism. Already, fears are emerging that Bolton may influence Donald Trump to harder stances on issues like immigration and diplomacy and war in the Middle East. To understand exactly the kind of values Bolton champions and will bring to the White House, Al Bawaba combed through the Gatestone Institute’s articles and found three key themes.
Although self-branded as a think tank, the Gatestone Institute functions more as a clearing house for short, punchy opinion pieces that are light on facts and heavy on weaving a conspiracy that Islam is slowing taking over the developed world.
Bolton's Think Tank Claims Europe is Becoming a Caliphate
Refugees in Europe protest widespread resentment against them in Europe (AFP/FILE)
The biggest issue Gatestone appears to be pushing is that Europe is slowly being turned into a caliphate, or an Islamic state. Most articles from Gatestone explicitly lay out the supposed evils of Islam and frame it less as a religion and more as a mobilizing political ideology that seeks to subvert Western values.
It frames the French government as an agent of Islamist values, saying, “the French government and the French justice system claim to treat all religions equally, but they treat Islam as if it were ‘more equal than others’ -- able to enjoy special privileges.”
Currently, the site’s most popular article is entitled, “UK: Islamization Full Speed Ahead.”
Its first line is: “The UK is accelerating its Islamization at an ever-increasing speed. The desire of the British establishment to submit to Islam appears to be overwhelming.” The article is entirely dedicated to dismissing the idea of combating “Islamophobia” as a wasteful witch hunt while claiming that authorities in the U.K. are acquiensent to an emerging ‘Islamism.’
Another article called“Is the United Kingdom an Islamist Colony?” relays actual fake news about the opening of sharia courts in the U.K.—a misleading claim that oversimplifies a grey area regarding local councils in the U.K.
The articles argues “these Sharia courts mean that the legal system of a foreign political ideology, Islam, has created a parallel legal system in which Sharia is placed above English common law. It is thought that some 30 to 85 Sharia courts are operating in England and Wales alone.”
It then cites former Prime Minister David Cameron in a 2014 speech decrying the Muslim Brotherhood saying, “ The Muslim Brotherhood's foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project."
In combining fake reports about sharia courts and claims that the Muslim Brotherhood wants a single, global caliphate, the articles stokes Western nativist fears that Europe is being engulfed in a political Islam that will purge society and replace it with a dystopian one under the banner of Islam.
It also faithfully publishes government officials rebuffing Islam, like Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister who said that "Islam does not belong to Germany. Germany is shaped by Christianity.”
Gatestone Thinks Refugees Are Predators
Demonstrators in London show support for refugees (AFP/FILE)
In responding to the massive humanitarian crisis within the Middle East and the massive influx of refugees fleeing war to Europe, the Gatestone Institute is unapologetically nativist. As an institute focused on shaping policy, it exclusively deals with refugees in Europe as potential criminals seeking to brutalize innocent Europeans, questions the legitimacy of their claims to be refugees.
The byline of an article titled “Germany: Migrant Rape Crisis Still Sowing Terror and Destruction” is the central claim that “women and children sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.”
Indeed, much of the migrant crisis is called the “Migrant Rape Crisis,” as the focus of Gatestone’s articles is on how sexually predatory the refugees are. It tirelessly releases articles on the rise in reports of sexual assault around Europe, and uses it as evidence that these refugees are actually predators opportunistically taking advantage of their window into Western society and using it as an invitation to conquer Europe, sexually and politically.
It collects reports of sexual assault that may or may not be committed by refugees or asylum seekers and uses them to construct a narrative that Muslims are simply incompatible with Western society.
Demonstrators in solidarity with refugees (AFP/FILE)
An excerpt of its collection of sexual assault documents shows how loosely they profile assailants, treating all non-Western European-seeming individuals as essentially foreign, sexual predators:
“Sulzbach, March 10. A "presumably Asian" man (vermutlich asiatischer Herkunft) sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl at an electronics store.
Weinheim, March 5. An "Eastern European" man (osteuropäisches Erscheinungsbild) sexually assaulted two 14-year-old girls at a public swimming pool. Seven children have been sexually assaulted at the facility during the past 12 months.
Konstanz, March 3. A "Black African" man (Schwarzafrikaner) sexually assaulted a woman at a park.
Hagen, February 17. A "southern-looking" man (südländisches Aussehen) exposed himself to a 68-year-old woman at a park.
Kitzingen, February 3. Three Afghan migrants sexually assaulted two girls at a public swimming pool.
Fellbach, January 10. A "dark-skinned" (dunklem Teint) man fondled himself in front of a 35-year-old woman at the city hall.”
Emphasis is always on their race or presumed nationality.
Gatestone also publishes articles claiming that denying this to be anything but a kind of non-white takeover of white countries exacerbates the problem.
Entitled The High Price of Denial,” the author claims that it is indeed “mass immigration from the developing world,” that is causing the upsurge of violence in Europe, and that denying this will make Europe host to more violence.
The Gatestone Institute has a clearly articulated stance: Muslims are dangerous, immigrants are Dangerous, and they should be welcomed into Western society.
This type of thinking could have been dismissed lightly before the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the U.S., but now with the promotion of Gatestone’s chairman, John Bolton, it is becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Add a new comment