The Jerusalem Post

Bolton back as chairman of Gatestone advocacy group

- • By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post Correspond­ent

WASHINGTON – John Bolton, a former national security adviser for the Trump administra­tion, has returned to serve as chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a conservati­ve US-based think tank he chaired before joining the National Security Council (NSC) in March 2018.

Bolton sent an email to subscriber­s on Sunday, asking them to contribute to the institutio­n and citing what he described as censorship in social media.

“At a time when Facebook censors, blocks, or removes Gatestone’s material, we refuse to be silenced; we continue to publish our carefully researched, accurate articles,” Bolton wrote. “We need to combat this censorship that at the end is meant for all of us,” he added. “To do this, Gatestone needs to strengthen its community of experts, to ensure their vital work continues to make its significan­t impact.”

“The Christian population of the Middle East, there for 2,000 years, is being subjected to relentless persecutio­n and forced conversion,” Bolton said in his email. “The response of the mainstream media and almost all Western government­s: Say nothing, do nothing.”

He also addressed criticism against Gatestone, writing: “During the past few years, we have seen many jihadist terror attacks across the West, killing hundreds of innocents in the US, France, Belgium, Germany, and Spain. And let us not forget the steady drip-drip of jihadi “lone-wolf” knife attacks in

Australia, Britain, Israel, Germany, France and the Netherland­s.”

“What is the response of the European leadership to our new reality? Denial, word games, and silence,” Bolton wrote. “And verbal attacks on citizens who insist on talking about the threats we face. They call us ‘Islamophob­ic’ or ‘racist’ to try to silence us.”

NBC reported in April 2018 that the advocacy group promoted misleading and false anti-Muslim news.

“Western government­s have been successful­ly working with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Microsoft to censor what they call ‘hate speech’ – meaning any criticism of extremist Islam and unvetted immigratio­n,” Bolton said in his email.

 ?? (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) ?? FORMER US national security advisor John Bolton: At a time when Facebook censors, blocks, or removes Gatestone’s material, we refuse to be silenced.
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) FORMER US national security advisor John Bolton: At a time when Facebook censors, blocks, or removes Gatestone’s material, we refuse to be silenced.

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