John Bolton Chaired anti-Muslim Think Tank That Spread Fake News With Help of Russian Trolls
John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s new
national security adviser, was the head of a nonprofit organization that
“promotes misleading and false anti-Muslim news, some of which was
amplified by a Russian troll factory,” NBC News reported on Monday.
The
Gatestone Institute, a New York-based advocacy group, employs authors
who appeared on Russian state-run media, including Sputnik and RT News,
criticizing mainstream European leaders like French President Emmanuel
Macron
Bolton was chairman of the group from 2013 until
last month, and during that time the group warned of a looming “jihadist
takeover” of Europe leading to a “Great White Death.”
Bolton has long associated
with figures that the mainstream Jewish community views as anti-Muslim.
He wrote the foreword to “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama
Administration’s War on America,” by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.
The Anti-Defamation League lists Geller as an “anti-Muslim activist” who
“not only contradicts the Jewish-American values which she claims to
defend but also violates basic human decency.”
Gatestone
has been a significant promoter of the controversial idea of “no-go
zones” in the heart of major cities, where Muslims allegedly rule
by Sharia law - a claim which that pops up on Fox News and once caused
former British Prime Minister David Cameron to "choke on his porridge."
Bolton, who also served as UN ambassador under
President George W. Bush and was tapped in late March to become Donald
Trump's national security adviser, has a long history of tough rhetoric
against Iran and the Palestinians.
A vocal critic of the Obama administration,
Bolton is strongly opposed to the Iran nuclear deal and is a known
opponent of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Like Trump, he supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has also
sounded a tough line on negotiations with North Korea.
"The
Middle East peace process has long needed clarity and an injection of
reality, and Trump has provided it by making the decision to move the US
embassy in Israel to Jerusalem," Bolton tweeted after Trump announced
the landmark decision to recognize Jerusalem.
The
statement was only one of many on Israel and other international issues
that indicate the policies he may advance in his new role as Trump's
key adviser.
"Just
as a matter of empirical reality, the two-state solution is dead,”
Bolton told Breitbart during the Obama administration's attempt to
revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Bolton even
called for a "three-state solution" in which Gaza would be handed over
to Egypt and the West Bank returned to Jordan.
As long as Washington’s diplomatic objective is
the ‘two-state solution’ — Israel and ‘Palestine’ — the fundamental
contradiction between this aspiration and the reality on the ground will
ensure it never comes into being," he wrote, claiming that “the only
logic underlying the demand for a Palestinian state is the political
imperative of Israel’s opponents to weaken and encircle the Jewish
state.”
He
is also critical of claims Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential
election in Trump's favor, even suggesting it was a "false flag
operation."
But
he has also been critical of Russia, writing that "Washington and its
allies do not need more Russian adventurism in Middle East, especially
given the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis."
Haaretz
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