Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Bush backs off ‘Islamic fascists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bush legion speech“President Bush has toned down his war rhetoric after Muslim-rights groups complained his description of the enemy as ‘Islamic fascists’ unfairly equates Islam with terrorism. In his speech to the American Legion Thursday, Bush backed away from the term, defining the enemy simply as ‘fascists’ and ‘totalitarians’.

“He said the war on terror was an ‘ideological struggle’ with terrorists who ‘kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology,’ but he did not identify the source of the ideology. His only reference to Islam during the speech was in noting that the Muslim terrorists are distorting the tenets of the religion. ‘Free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam,’ he said….

“While the White House declined to comment officially about the dropping of the term ‘Islamic fascists,’ a White House insider explained that the president is sensitive to concerns raised by Muslim leaders. ‘The president never meant to imply we’re at war with Islam, but some took it that way,’ the official said. ‘It’s not a climb-down as much as a recognition of the concerns of the Muslim community.’ …  Washington officials have been careful during the war on terror to distinguish between Islam and the terrorists so as not to offend Muslims. The distinction has rankled many conservatives who see little difference.”

World Net Daily, 1 September 2006

Though it may have pissed off the neocons, it seems to me that Bush’s American Legion speech represented only a marginal shift in his rhetoric. True, he avoided using the precise phrase “Islamic fascists”, but the thrust of his argment was the same. He outlined the familiar claim that the US is not engaged in wars of imperialist conquest but rather in a global battle to defend freedom against Muslim totalitarians. According to Bush’s paranoid fantasy, groups as different as Hezbollah and al-Qaida form “a single movement – a worldwide network of radicals who use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology”. This is, Bush opined, “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”.

‘Piggybacking on terror in Britain’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes 9-11“Two days after British authorities broke up an alleged plot to blow up multiple aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean, the ‘moderate’ Muslim establishment in Britain published an aggressive open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“It suggested that Mr. Blair could better fight terrorism if he recognized that the current British government policy, especially on ‘the debacle of Iraq’, provides ‘ammunition to extremists’. The letter writers demanded that the prime minister change his foreign policy to ‘make us all safer’. One prominent signatory, the Labour member of Parliament Sadiq Khan, added that Mr. Blair’s reluctance to criticize Israel increased the pool of people whom terrorists can recruit.

“In other words, Islamists working within the system exploited the thwarted Islamist terror plot to pressure the British government to implement their joint wishes and reverse British policy in the Middle East. Lawful Islamists shamelessly leveraged the near death of thousands to forward their agenda.”

Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun, 29 August 2006

It’s only a few weeks since Pipes wrote, in response to the adoption of the term “Islamic fascists” by George W. Bush: “The use of Islamic fascists should be seen as part of a decades-long search for the right term to name a form of Islam that is recognizably political, extreme, and often violent…. While Islamic fascists beats terrorists, let’s hope that a better consensus term soon emerges. My vote is for Islamists.”

Front Page Magazine, 14 August 2006

So, according to Pipes’ warped reasoning, Sadiq Khan MP and the alleged plotters of terrorist atrocities are all proponents of “a form of Islam that is recognizably political, extreme, and often violent” – it’s just that Sadiq Khan pursues his objectives “within the system”.

MCB ‘not doing enough to stamp out extremism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s leading Muslim organisation is not doing enough to root out anti-Western extremism, eight out of ten people believe. A new opinion poll day suggests an overwhelming majority think the Muslim Council of Britain should do more to tackle dangerous radicalism in young Muslims. The survey, carried out for PR Week magazine, found 78 per cent of people overall, rising to nearly 90 per cent of over-55s, strongly agreed the organisation was not doing enough.

Daily Mail, 31 August 2006

Considering that most respondents have probably never even heard of the MCB, still less have any knowledge of its activities, it would be difficult to come up with a more stupid opinion poll. All the poll succeeds in registering is a high degree of ignorant anti-Muslim prejudice among the general population.

This hasn’t prevented mindless right-wing Islamophobes from seizing on the poll’s “findings” to attack the MCB. See, for example, Western Resistance, 31 August 2006

Muslim groups in the UK – the New York Times investigates

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The groups have drawn renewed attention since the arrests and charges this month in what the British police contend was a plot by Muslims, all of them British citizens, to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel University Center for Intelligence and Security Studies in London, said: ‘These groups are essentially Islamist cults, hidden communities, open only to “believers” who exist within open communities.’ … Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, along with successor groups to Al Muhajiroun (an organization in London that was ostensibly disbanded in 2004) and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, are engaged in some of the most aggressive activities to recruit followers, British terrorism experts said.”

The “British terrorism experts” include Anthony Glees and Shiraz Maher – who are exactly the people you’d talk to if you wanted to blur the distinctions between Muslim groups with completely different politics and associate them all with terrorism.

New York Times, 29 August 2006

Close ‘extremist’ schools – Kelly

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic schools that promote “isolationism” and extremism should be closed, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly has said. She said the government had to “stamp out” Muslim schools which were trying to change British society to fit Islamic values. “They should be shut down,” she said. “Different institutions are open to abuse and where we find abuse we have got to stamp it out and prevent that happening.”

BBC News, 27 August 2006

No doubt schools whose objective is to change British society to fit Catholic values will also be threatened with closure. Or, then again, perhaps not.

Another case of secular bigotry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

wafThere was an interesting programme on Radio 4 last night, broadcast in the “Hecklers” slot, in which Gita Sahgal of Women Against Fundamentalisms (who is an atheist of Hindu origin) debated Tahmina Saleem, Tariq Ramadan, Lord Ahmed, Moazzam Begg and Daud Abdullah.

She was arguing, à la Martin Bright and John Ware, that by consulting with organisations like the MCB the government was merely encouraging “fundamentalism”. As is often the case these days, it was the self-proclaimed secular rationalist Gita Sahgal who came over as the ignorant dogmatic bigot.

‘British Muslim leaders’ and ‘sharia law’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shahid_MalikAfter some thirty Muslim representatives met with Ruth Kelly on 14 August, the media spin on the discussion was that “Muslim leaders” had proposed that holidays should be introduced to mark Muslim festivals and that Muslim communities should be allowed to operate Islamic legal codes for marriage and family life.

This was reported in the Daily Mail  under the headline “Muslims call for special bank holidays“, while the Daily Mirror headlined their report “We must not give in to Muslim blackmail“. The Daily Star informed its readers that “British Muslims have demanded special bank holidays for religious festivals…. They also called for the UK to have Sharia law, which in the Middle East includes penalties such as stonings and amputations”, and the fascists of the British National Party echoed the Mirror with “Labour ministers threatened with Islamic blackmail“.

Ever eager to grasp the opportunity for a spot of self-promotion, Labour MP Shahid Malik contributed an article to yesterday’s Sunday Times, headlined “If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi“, in which he wrote that he had been “asked by the media whether I agreed that what British Muslims needed were Islamic holidays and sharia (Islamic law). I thought I had walked into some parallel universe. Sadly this was not a joke. These issues had apparently formed part of the discussion the day before between Prescott, Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, and a selection of ‘Muslim leaders’. I realised then that it wasn’t me and the media who were living in a parallel universe – although certain ‘Muslim leaders’ might well be…. When Lord Ahmed, the Muslim Labour peer, heard my comments – I said essentially that if Muslims wanted sharia they should go and live somewhere where they have it – he accused me of doing the BNP’s work.”

Continue reading →

Johann Hari – correct on Bat Ye’or, wrong about Islamophobia Watch!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

johann hari 2Johann Hari has a go at Melanie Phillips et al in today’s Independent:

“There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye’or, a ‘scholar’ who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called ‘Eurabia’.

“In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of ‘dhimmis’ – second-class citizens forced to ‘walk in the gutter’. This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and ‘occult’ plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci – one of the best-selling writers in Italy – has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye’or, ‘Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats.’

“Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers such as Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye’or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) ‘political correctness’. Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It’s interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?”

Great stuff. And who could disagree? Unfortunately, having made these excellent points, Hari goes on to denounce Islamophobia Watch.

Continue reading →

‘British Muslims told: it’s right to fight Israel’ shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Jewish groups were furious last night after a firebrand Islamic academic told an 8,000-strong Muslim rally that martyrdom in Israel was ‘just’.” Daily Express, 21 August 2006

“A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was ‘just’. Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the ‘greatest act of martyrdom’.” Daily Mail, 21 August 2006

The right-wing press reports on Dr Azzam Tamimi’s speech at the ExpoIslamia convention in Manchester.

Yet it is only a couple of weeks since the Times published an article glorifying a young British Jew who went to Israel to fight with the IDF: “despite his Leeds accent, Ben is an Israeli soldier. He is also cradling an Israeli-army issue Colt AR15 semi-automatic rifle stamped ‘Property of US Govt’. Ben, 26, who arrived in Israel last year, is one of thousands of those serving in the Israeli military either as newly arrived citizens or on army programmes for Zionists who want to defend Israel”.

Talk about double standards.

US neocon ignorance about British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

helle dale“Thirty percent of Britain’s Muslim population is under 15; 92 percent is under 50. About half are of Pakistani origin, and about half of the younger population does not feel allegiance to Britain as their native country. Instead many dream of the coming of the Muslim caliphate, which they expect will transform Europe, and introduce Shariah law.”

Helle Dale explains the background to the alleged terror plot.

Washington Times, 16 August 2006

Note the reference to the prominent Muslim Labour MP “Shahid Malouf”! But then, according to Ms Dale, Muslims are only “technically speaking” British citizens, so why bother getting their funny foreign names right?