New York Times Promotes Israel Haters as Sources for San Diego Mosque Stories

Clay Waters
May 19th, 2026 4:18 PM

Text to Speech

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The New York Times’ coverage of the fatal shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego got off to a bad start by using “New York activist” Linda Sarsour as the sole source to a story by Adeel Hassan that purported to inform readers “What to Know About San Diego’s Islamic Center.”

When Linda Sarsour, a New York activist, saw on social media that the Islamic Center of San Diego had been attacked on Monday, she immediately texted Imam Taha Hassane.

Ms. Sarsour, one of four national co-chairs of the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, has crisscrossed the country speaking at mosques and community centers. Shortly after the shooting, which killed three people, she said that the Islamic Center of San Diego was “a model for the rest of the country.”

….

Ms. Sarsour said the mosque’s diversity is its most striking aspect.

“People from African Americans to African immigrants to Arabs to white converts to Eastern Europeans to Latinos,” she said. “It’s literally the most diverse mosque that I’ve ever been to in my whole life.”

Ms. Sarsour has been a prominent advocate for Islamic causes, championing the rights of Palestinians. She gained prominence as a voice for the rights of Muslims after 9/11, and more recently has become a target for supporters of President Trump — and for Russian trolls.

Her activism has taken her across the country, including to San Diego. The Islamic Center there, she said, does a lot of community service and mobilizes parishioners to go to pro-immigrant rallies. It hosts open houses for the general public.

Just as it has in previous other favorable profiles, the Times omitted Sarsour’s radical and hateful past, like her disgusting social media attacks on Ayaan Hirsi Ali (author of Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now) and Sarsour’s support for Sharia law, her inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric, public appearances with convicted terrorists, conspiracy mongering about Islamist terrorist threats, and her support for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The Times prefers to present her as a cool “Brooklyn homegirl in a hijab.”  

More dubious sourcing appeared in “San Diego Mosque Shooting Comes Amid Rising Reports of Islamophobia in the U.S.” by Bernard Mokam, which found a pattern of so-called Islamophobia (from the same paper proudly spreading anti-Semitic tropes like “dog rape” of Palestinian prisoners). “San Diego Mosque Attack Comes Amid Rising Reports of Islamophobia -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations said complaints about bias against Muslims are at levels unseen in decades.”

The killings Monday at San Diego’s largest mosque are being investigated as a hate crime, touching off concerns about rising Islamophobia in the United States.

“Islamophobia endangers Muslim communities across this country,” Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, said in response to the shooting, which left three people dead, in addition to the two shooters. “We must confront it directly and stand together against the politics of fear and division.”

Islamophobia has been an intractable problem in the United States for decades. Hate crimes against Muslims surged following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to F.B.I. data.

More recently, the war in Gaza, which set off protests across American college campuses, has contributed to a steady increase in anti-Muslim sentiment and inspired violence against a range of religious institutions, including synagogues and churches. Antisemitic incidents also skyrocketed following the start of the conflict in 2023, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 8,683 civil rights complaints in 2025, the most the group has recorded since 1996, according to its most recent report.

CAIR has no business as a reputable source either, given its sordid anti-semitic history.

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