Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro fired back at a Washington Post writer for claiming he was evoking “the specter of war” between Islam and the West.
In a piece published Tuesday, Talia Lavin cited how Shapiro called Notre Dame, which was badly damaged in a fire on Monday, a “monument to Western civilization.”
“This, from @chick_in_kiev, in The Washington Post, is the sheerest form of disgusting bulls***. I blamed no one for the Notre Dame fire, since it was an accident by all available evidence, and imputing malicious intent to me is simply gross,” Shapiro said on Twitter.
This, from @chick_in_kiev, in The Washington Post, is the sheerest form of disgusting bulls***. I blamed no one for the Notre Dame fire, since it was an accident by all available evidence, and imputing malicious intent to me is simply gross. https://t.co/e5gvQqQc2G pic.twitter.com/T98E2JWJXe
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 16, 2019
“Hey, @washingtonpost, any interest in fixing this nonsense? I noted that Notre Dame is a monument to Western civilization because it is. That has nothing to do with blaming Muslims, and to suggest it does is simply a lie,” Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, added.
Hey, @washingtonpost, any interest in fixing this nonsense? I noted that Notre Dame is a monument to Western civilization because it is. That has nothing to do with blaming Muslims, and to suggest it does is simply a lie.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 16, 2019
In the piece titled, “How the far right spread politically convenient lies about the Notre Dame fire,” Lavin accused Shapiro of racism over his praise of Notre Dame.
“Ben Shapiro called Notre Dame a ‘monument to Western civilization’ and ‘Judeo-Christian heritage.’ Given the already-raging rumors about potential Muslim involvement, these tweets evoked the specter of a war between Islam and the West that is already part of numerous far-right narratives; it was also a central thread in the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the alleged Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter,” Lavin wrote.
“It is past time that those who stoke inflammatory rhetoric, knowing its potential to catalyze racist violence, were made to stop playing with fire — before it’s too late to control the inferno,” Lavin added in the closing line of her piece.
Large parts of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was destroyed in a fire Monday, including the spire.
The Economist was forced to backtrack on a title of an interview they ran last month in which they referred to Shapiro as “alt-right.” Shapiro called himself the “leading critic” of the alt-right in response to the label being attached to him.
Lavin resigned from her job as a fact-checker at the New Yorker last year after she falsely claimed an Immigration Customs Enforcement officer had a Nazi tattoo.
Lavin called Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, “captain shithead” on Twitter after he criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar over comments on the Sept. 11 attacks.
[Opinion: The heartbreaking fire at Notre Dame]
