When a man plowed a 3.5-ton truck through a crowd of worshippers at a London mosque in the early hours of June 19, 2017, Alex Jones reported the details during a live special edition broadcast of his show. Of course, he couldn’t resist launching into an Islamophobic rant — something he’s infamous for.
During the attack at the Muslim Welfare House Mosque in Finsbury Park, London that killed 1 and injured 10 others, Media Matters for America reported, the van’s driver allegedly shouted he wanted to “kill all Muslims” prior to his arrest.
Jones’s broadcast coincided with Megyn Kelly’s interview with the InfoWars host for her short-lived Sunday NBC show. Frequent InfoWars guest Mike Cernovich, who was co-hosting the show brought up the attack, which was breaking at the time. He said:
“Looks like some kind of van attack in London, so there might be more breaking news.”
Of course, this was Jones’ cue to jump in with sarcasm. He was completely wrong, but that’s never stopped him before.
“Well, that’s not Muslims. Muslims never do anything wrong.”
Then Cernovich jumped in with an update.
“Breaking news: Man arrested after van ploughs into people outside of a London mosque.”
Jones whipped out his sarcasm gun and shot himself in the foot once again.
“But it has nothing to do with Islam, right Cernovich? Then they say we’re anti-Islam. Yeah, I’m anti-stone age insanity, women wearing beekeeper suits.”
With that, the two conspiracy theorists launched into a hateful diatribe against Muslims, with Jones adding this gem that insults women at the same time:
“Muslims are allowed to rape because it’s their culture, but then if a woman gets drunk and has sex, ‘oh you date-raped her.'”
But Jones and Cernovich are so completely wrong that this would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
Court proceedings show that Darren Osbourne, the alleged truck driver, became a major fan of Tommy Robinson, the former leader of English Defence League, which is a violent anti-Muslim hate group. Writing for RebelMedia, Robinson spreads anti-Muslim propaganda.
Did I mention that Robinson is also a frequent guest on Jones’s show? Consider it mentioned.
Here’s what English law enforcement had to say about Osbourne’s infatuation with Robinson, per MMFA:
“Osbourne ‘became radicalized in just three to four weeks, as evidence from devices he used show him reading posts by the former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, far-right group Britain First and other extremists.’ Osbourne’s partner testified that Osbourne was ‘brainwashed’ by Robinson and others and said, ‘Darren has been watching a lot of Tommy Robinson stuff on the internet. I have pleaded with Darren to stop watching this sort of thing, but he just wouldn’t stop.”
The Independent reports Osbourne avidly read anti-Muslim tracts from numerous sources in the weeks prior to the attack before homing in on Robinson and subscribing to his email list.
“‘After picking up the van, Osbourne started an intense bout of online activity, repeatedly searching Mr. Robinson’s name and viewing his tweets alongside derogatory tweets about Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn for more than two hours.’ During testimony at the trial, Osbourne admitted that he hoped to kill Khan, London’s mayor, and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party.”
In the hours after the vicious attack, Jones and crew were in damage control mode. He and InfoWars Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson downplayed the attack and defended Robinson in the video below.
Watson predicted (incorrectly) that leftists would “go after” Robinson in response to the terror attack. Jones’ response?
“We should get Tommy Robinnson on. He’s never done anything violent, he’s done nothing wrong.”
Jones is way off base with this. No, Robinson wasn’t directly involved with Osbourne’s hateful act, but he sure has quite obviously fanned the flames of Islamophobia. He’s even been refused entry into the U.S. after trying to use a friend’s passport. That’s the kind of person he is.
On his InfoWars YouTube channel, Jones has resorted to hysterics in order to promote Robinson’s fear-mongering, using titles like Tommy Robinson’s Desperate Emergency Warning of Impending Islamic Takeover and Tommy Robinson: After Manchester Bombing, Muslims Claim They Have Nothing To Be Sorry For.
True, people have to be stupid to believe this, but that’s the problem. They do. Then someone like Darren Osbourne, who allegedly did this, takes action and innocent people are killed.
The video below is from Media Matters for America. If you want a little comic relief, the video following that shows Jones at his most ridiculous moments. And ridiculous is really the best way to describe him.
Featured image via YouTube video.
