Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Jihad Watch backs WPI

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer returns to the protest against the establishment of Islamic family arbitration bodies in Ontario. He approvingly quotes Homa Armojand of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, the co-ordinator of the protest, who claims that the lobby to allow faith-based arbitration for Muslims is “not a coincidence, but part of a global move pushed by leaders of political Islam who need validation from the government of the West”. Spencer also endorses Arjomand’s attack on Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty: “McGuinty flirting with political Islam is playing a dangerous game. He is putting the lives of women and children in jeopardy. Shame.”

Dhimmi Watch, 11 September 2005

This is not the first time that the WPI has received Spencer’s backing. A couple of months ago, he gave his seal of approval to a speech by Maryam Namazie. It is clear that the hysterical Islamophobia of the WPI, just like that of Outrage! in Britain, dovetails neatly with the right-wing anti-Muslim bigotry of Jihad Watch.

Australian Muslims condemn terror, anti-Islam hysteria

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian Muslims condemned on Sunday, September 11, terrorist attacks against civilians and pledged loyalty to the country, while accusing new anti-terror measures of fueling anti-Muslim hysteria.

“These were warriors from an Islamic background that hijacked Islam,” Keysar Trad, the president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, told the National Security and Harmony Summit in Sydney University Sunday, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).

“They hijacked our lifestyle and our freedoms. And the spin machine of Western governments is exploiting these hijackers of Islam, these murderers.”

Australian Muslim leaders gathering for the meeting observed a minute of silence to remember the victims of 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which claimed almost 3,000 lives.

Islam Online, 11 September 2005

See also ABC News, 11 September 2005

Mad Mel discovers ‘The monster in Britain’s midst’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“No fewer than three separate and deeply disturbing stories in today’s newspapers serve to confirm that Britain’s core values are not only now under sustained and entrenched assault from a section of its Muslim minority but that its governing and intellectual class remains unable or unwilling even to grasp the nature and extent of the threat.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 11 September 2005

Double standards against Muslims and Islam in Canada

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The polemic on the possible introduction of the so-called sharia law in Ontario … highlights the double standards against Muslims and Islam. It exposes the polarizing methodologies of our media. It tests the Dalton McGuinty government’s commitment to the core liberal-democratic principle of the equality of all citizens. The dominant theme of the news coverage is clear: Medieval Muslims want to import the misogynistic Islamic penal code to Canada. And Queen’s Park is crazy to even consider it. There are sub-themes: Muslims have been plotting for long to supplant our secular laws with Allah’s. They are using multiculturalism to undermine it. Why would we let them, given what they do to women in Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, etc.?”

Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star, 11 September 2005

Siddiqui asks: “why are journalists drawn to the same handful of critics? … Is it that the critics are media savvy? If so, it only confirms our vulnerability to manipulation. Or, is it that the critics are saying what the journalists want to hear? It seems so. Is it an accident that the only Muslims the media idolize are those who attack Islam or the broader Muslim community?”

Of course, some of the most prominent “Muslim” opponents of the Ontario proposal, who have been boosted by the Canadian media, are not Muslims at all, but members of the Islamophobic sect, the Worker Communist Party of Iran.

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Jihad Watch applauds Peter Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A UK supporter of Jihad Watch reports on a protest in London against the proposed introduction of Islamic arbitration bodies in Ontario: “there were only about 15-16 people, mostly men, including a reporter from Canadian television”.

Dhimmi Watch, 10 September 2005

Not to worry, though – they took turns to address each other on the iniquities of the Ontario proposal: “representatives from Sharia.com, the International Committee against Stoning, the British Humanist Association, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and Peter Tatchell made speeches. There was also a guy from a gay and lesbian association there. They basically made the same objections to Sharia law that we’ve all seen here at Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch”.

Perhaps Outrage, GALHA and their co-thinkers might consider organising a UK visit for Robert Spencer? After all, they have so much in common.

FCO agrees with Ken, Ken agrees with FCO shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“On September 4th, I posted on how an Islamic adviser to the Foreign and Colonial Office in a confidential memo had virtually quoted verbatim Ken Livingstone’s specious attempt to defend Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi by attacking the MEMRI translations of his speeches as suspect on the grounds that this organization was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer. Now here’s a thing. Ken Livingstone has a letter in today’s Guardian which recycles this so that he presents the Foreign and Colonial Office as a reliable source which supports his view of MEMRI.”

The cheek of it!

Adloyada blog, 10 September 2005

Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak

By Ken Livingstone

Morning Star, 10 September 2005

Last weekend the Observer reported the leak of a document from a Foreign and Commonwealth Office adviser who had advised ministers not to ban the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi from Britain.

The leaked document contradicted the widespread advice of the majority of the British tabloids, which have waged a campaign against Qaradawi as an extremist.

Qaradawi was most recently wrongly reported to have called for the stoning to death of an Arab prince who was alleged to have been seen in a gay nightclub in London – although it has now emerged that the comments were in fact made by a Saudi named Muhammed Saleh Al-Munajjid.

The leaked document shows that the approach taken by the progressive left – of refusing to accept the “Clash of Civilisations” cold war being waged against Islam – is not only morally the right one, but also the best way to defeat al-Qaeda.

The document sets out that whilst the Foreign Office “certainly do not agree with Qaradawi’s views on Israel and Iraq … we have to recognise that they are not unusual or even exceptional among Muslims.”

It says that Qaradawi “was one of the first international Muslim scholars to issue a clear statement of condemnation” of the July London bombings, and states that “to act against Qaradawi would alienate significant and influential members of the global Muslim community.”

It describes him as “the leading mainstream and influential Islamic authority in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe.”

Most significantly, it argues that “excluding Qaradawi [from Britain] would give grist to al-Qaida propaganda of a western vendetta against Muslims and would undermine Qaradawi’s counter-terrorism messages.”

It adds that “we could not engage with Qaradawi on counter-terrorism or Iraq should there be a decision to exclude him from the UK.”

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MEMRI is made of this

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Leon Collins (Letters, September 7) suggests the Middle East Media Research Institute provides an impartial selection of what is being said and published in Arabic. Many reliable sources would dispute this. A recent Foreign Office memo, leaked to the Observer, stated: “The founding president of Memri is retired Colonel Yigal Carmon, who served for 22 years in Israel’s military intelligence service. Memri is regularly criticised for selective translation.” Using Memri as the source for information on Islamic leaders is like using the Conservative press office as the only source for information on Labour. At the very least, the nature of the source should be made clear. Better, journalists should have their material translated independently.

Ken Livingstone
Mayor of London

Letter in the Guardian, 10 September 2005