Surely all terrorists are Muslims?

Red Eye ad“The plot: A terrorist corners a luxury resort hotel manager on a red-eye flight. He blackmails her into changing the hotel room of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, so that terrorists can launch a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) into his suite….

“Some comments by posters on this site predicted I would hate ‘Red Eye’ because the main terrorist, Jackson Ripner, played by Cillian Murphy (of Irish descent and with blue eyes), was not Islamic. But, are the terrorists, for whom Ripner works, Islamic? Perhaps. Before the missile is launched, you can hear those for whom Murphy is working speaking almost inaudibly. If you listen carefully and speak Russian, as I do, they are saying, ‘Adin, Dva, Tri, Chetiri’, which translates to ‘One, Two, Three, Four’. They could, therefore, be Chechnyan terrorists.

“And that’s my one criticism of the movie. To wit, that director Craven doesn’t tell or impress upon you whether the terrorists are Muslim, in another politically correct move, designed to dodge the criticisms of Islamist groups, like CAIR.”

Debbie Schlussel reviews the movie “Red Eye”.

Front Page Magazine, 22 August 2005

Come on Robert, speak up!

MP Stewart Jackson is to play a key role in fostering better relations with the country’s Muslim community, as a member of an Islamic Parliamentary Committee. Mr Jackson, who was elected as Conservative MP for Peterborough city this year, has been made secretary of the All Parliamentary Friends of Islam at a critical time for Muslim relations in the country and around the world. He now plans to play a key role in encouraging the nation to become more knowledgeable and understanding about the Islamic faith and reach out to Muslims in the community.

He said: “What this group is about is trying to improve understanding so that people are aware that Islam is essentially a peaceful and law-abiding religion. It is important that people are aware that the actions that have been carried out by some people in the name of Islam are not representative of the religion. They are only representative of a small, extremist group and it is important that the real face of Islam is put to the community at large.”

Peterborough Today, 22 August 2005

And so far Jihad Watch has failed to take a stand against this abject example of creeping dhimmitude. What is Robert Spencer playing at? Is he prepared to remain silent while members of the Tory party undermine the defence of western civilisation and facilitate Islam’s plans for world domination?

Anti-racism 1, Islamophobia 0

Yessss!! Radio talk-show host Michael Graham, who was suspended by station WMAL last month for describing Islam as a “terrorist organization” (see here), has now been sacked. Strange to relate, some people are not happy. See Front Page Magazine, 22 August 2005

See also Robert Spencer, who posts a link to this “shameful story” under the heading “WMAL fires Michael Graham, earns the opprobrium of all free people”! Dhimmi Watch, 22 August 2005

Further details of the sacking from Islam Online, 23 August 2005

A new era of McCarthyism

“A campaign is being orchestrated through the media to destroy the credibility of many of the most important Muslim institutions in Britain, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). The impact of this campaign – in the Observer and particularly in John Ware’s Panorama documentary last night – will be a powerful boost for the increasingly widespread view that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim: underneath, ‘they’ are all extremists who are racist, contemptuous of the west, and intent on a political agenda.

“A legitimate and much-needed debate among British Muslims about a distinctive expression of Islam in a non-Muslim country has been hijacked and poisonously distorted. Journalists need to be very careful: we are entering a new era of McCarthyism and, if we are not to be complicit, we need to be scrupulously responsible and conscientious in unravelling the complexity of Islam in its many spiritual and political interpretations in recent decades.”

A good, hard-hitting article by Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 22 August 2005

Mind you, Bunting is herself not entirely immune to conventional double standards. She criticises Iqbal Sacrani’s attendance on behalf of the MCB at a memorial service for Sheikh Yassin, the Hamas leader murdered by the Israeli government. Would she similarly criticise the Board of Deputies if they were to send a representative to, say, a future memorial service for Ariel Sharon? I rather doubt it. And, if she did, can you imagine the accusations of anti-semitism that would be screamed at her? Yet, in the course of the second Intifada, the state terrorist Sharon was responsible for killing 4,000 Palestinians, whereas the number of Israeli deaths resulting from the actions of Palestinian militants during the same period was a quarter of that figure.

Why multiculturalism has failed Britain (according to Gilles Kepel)

Gilles Kepel“France, ridiculed when Bernard Stasi and his commission first recommended a ban on all religious symbols in schools, has since excited the interest of those who note that this is, nevertheless, the country with the largest number of Muslims, with a population far greater than either Germany or the UK. The social control, they also remark, exerted by the combined results of secularism, conscious integration and a preventative security policy has led – according to the inverse terms of multiculturalism – to France being spared from terror attacks for the past decade.”

Gilles Kepel in the Independent, 22 August 2005.

Note the use of “the past decade” as the period of comparison. This has presumably been chosen so as to exclude the Paris Metro and other bombings of 1995. The “combined results of secularism, conscious integration and a preventative security policy” didn’t seem to have much effect then, did they? At that time, as I recall, the London Underground was, by contrast, spared any terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists, despite Britain’s commitment to multiculturalism.

Is it stating the obvious to point out that in both cases the bombings were provoked by the foreign policy of the country under attack – in 1995 by French support for the Algerian government’s brutal suppression of the FIS (which had been about to win a democratic election) and in 2005 by Blair’s participation in the bloody invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Continue reading

Complain to BBC regarding Islamophobic Panorama documentary – IHRC

IHRC is deeply concerned at Last night’s Panorama, “A Question of Leadership”. A combination of factual errors, distortions, broad stereotypes and glaring inaccuracies shown up in the programme questions the integrity of the programme makers.

A transcript of the programme can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4171950.stm

Whilst purporting to be an examination of the Muslim Council of Britain, the programme called into question several widely held Muslim beliefs and in particular demonised any aspiration of Muslims in whatever form if based on their religious faith. This extended from an aspiration for shariah to the wearing of jilbaab at school and integration of Muslims into mainstream society.

IHRC alert, 22 August 2005

Immoderate Islam

“Last month’s bombings seem to have changed so many attitudes – and yet still, it would seem, some of the most mainstream Muslim leaders refuse to face up to extremism. Last night’s Panorama documentary on the leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain and the views of leading British Muslims gave some indication of the distance the Muslim establishment still has to go.”

The Evening Standard takes up John Ware’s attack on the MCB.

Continue reading

Olympics bomber sentenced to life

US Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph has been sentenced to life in prison for the attack on the 1996 Atlanta games, which killed one person and injured 111. Rudolph, 38, received life terms for the Atlanta bombing and attacks on an abortion centre and a gay nightclub. In July he was sentenced to life for bombing an Alabama abortion centre. Rudolph, who is suspected of links with white supremacists and describes himself as a devout Christian, had used his trial to portray himself as a campaigner against an immoral government.

BBC News, 22 August 2005

We look forward to seeing numerous headlines reading “Christian terrorist sentenced”, while Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer will no doubt provide us with articles, backed up with relevant quotes from the Bible, explaining how Christianity is a religion that encourages its adherents to embrace political violence.

Muslim leaders accuse BBC of witch hunt

“The row between the Muslim Council of Britain and the BBC intensified last night as the corporation accused the MCB of putting pressure on interviewees on a controversial Panorama documentary to withdraw from the programme.”

Observer, 21 August 2005

For Iqbal Sacranie’s response to last week’s Observer attack on the MCB, see here.

The Observer also includes “a selection” of the responses they received to last week’s witch-hunt of the MCB. See here. Read it and ask yourself, does this selection reflect an earlier statement by Rafael Behr at the Observer blog that “the overwhelming balance of correspondence we have received has been towards defence of the MCB and anger at the tone and content of our story”? See here.