Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Sharia – the paranoid Islamophobic fantasies of ‘Left’ and Right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Homa Arjomand (2)Brett Lock of Outrage has woken from his blogging slumbers and posted a response to this item on Islamophobia Watch, which linked to a BNP article reporting Patrick Sookhdeo’s “shocking conclusion that Islamic (Sharia) law will filter into the existing British legal system”. We suggested that the fascists and Sookhdeo might consider launching a joint campaign against the “Sharia threat” with Outrage and the Worker Communist Party of Iran.

Lock demands: “How can they expect a gay human rights group NOT to oppose sharia law – a law which criminalises, menaces and – too often – kills our kind? And if they understand this, why the snide and slanderous suggestion that we’re in league with the BNP or other right wing fascists?”

Lock & Load, 11 December 2005

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Terrorism and its supporters

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MassacreJeff Barak of the Jewish Chronicle resumes the apparently endless campaign against the Mayor of London for welcoming Yusuf al-Qaradawi to City Hall.

Yes, we have the usual reliance on Peter Tatchell and his spurious claim that “2,500 leading Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries who signed a petition to the United Nations naming Qaradawi as one of ‘the theologians of terror’ and accusing him of ‘providing a religious cover for terrorism’.”

Livingstone’s entirely accurate observation that a dossier attacking Qaradawi relied heavily on misinformation from the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organisation headed by a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, is characterised by Barak as an encouragement to “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.

Aren’t people getting a bit tired of this repetitive nonsense by now?

Independent on Sunday, 11 December 2005

While Barak waxes indignant that the Mayor should welcome a supporter of suicide bombing to London, he denies with equal indignation the accusation that Ariel Sharon is a war criminal (“Sharon is strong enough to brush off the shrill comments of a die-hard anti-Zionist like Livingstone”). Given that the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982, for which Sharon was responsible as Israeli defence minister, have been characterised as war crimes by Human Rights Watch and other organisations, it would therefore be reasonable to describe Barak as an apologist for terrorism. According to his own criterion, he too should be banned from City Hall.

Nazis warn of Sharia threat to Britain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Another plug from the British National Party for Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, whose warnings about the “threat of Sharia law” in Britain they repeat. (Rather belatedly – the original report was in the Church of England Newspaper back in September.)

BNP new article, 7 December 2005

We look forward to the BNP, Sookhdeo, Outrage and the Worker Communist Party of Iran launching a joint campaign on this issue.

Mad Mel denounces ‘racist hate-mongers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmelRemember this conference, reported in the Times under the headline “Muslim peace rally attracts thousands”? Well, Melanie Phillips has got round to offering us her take on the proceedings: “The people participating in this hate-fest need to be exposed for the racist hate-mongers that they are.” And of course we’re all familiar with Mel’s firm stand against racist hate-mongering, aren’t we?

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 7 December 2005

Was Phillips actually at the conference, then? No, of course not. She relies for her information on Carol Gould, a US rightwinger temporarily resident in London who recently wrote warmly about meeting a BNP-sympathising taxi-driver and expressed anxiety that the Mayor wants better representation for minority ethnic communities in the capital’s taxi fleet (see here).

For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 7 December 2005

Mockbul Ali exposé – a damp squib

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Martin Bright (1)Rumours have circulated for some time that journalist Martin Bright was researching an exposé of Mockbul Ali, the foreign office’s adviser on Muslim Affairs. Ali’s sin was to have prepared an accurate briefing on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, which underlined the latter’s role as a force of moderation in the Muslim world – see (pdf) here. Clearly, from Bright’s perspective – he was the author of the Observer article boosting Panorama’s witch-hunt of the MCB – Ali was someone who needed to be discredited.

This week’s New Statesman (5 December 2005) contains the results of Bright’s labours – and a pretty damp squib it turns out to be. Ali’s unit at the foreign office apparently co-authored a PowerPoint presentation in which the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami were described (entirely accurately) as “reformist” organisations. We are also informed that “Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, has told the NS she intends to investigate Ali’s role in drawing up government policy towards British Muslims”.

Yes, well you can see why Ellman might not be too happy about Ali’s role. It was she who headed the witch-hunt of Dr al-Qaradawi during his visit to London in July 2004 and called on the home secretary to ban him. In 2003 she took advantage of parliamentary privilege (see here) to attack MAB:

“It is time that the spotlight fell on the Muslim Association of Britain, particularly the key figures, such as Azzam Tamimi, Kamal el Helbawy, Anas Al-Tikriti and Mohammed Sawalha. All of them are connected to the terrorist organisation Hamas. The Muslim Association of Britain itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – an extremist fundamentalist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928, and the spiritual ideologue of all Islamic terror organisations. It is militantly anti-Semitic and always has been.”

Yup, that’s the same Anas Altikriti who’s currently in Iraq on behalf of MAB fighting for the release of hostages held by terrorists.

For Yusuf Smith’s comments on the NS piece, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 5 December 2005

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 6 December 2005

US Muslim group urges release of Iraq hostages

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The leading US Muslim civil liberties group has called for the immediate release of four Christian peace activists kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with murder.

“Those who left the comfort of their homes to advocate for the rights of others that do not share their faith, ethnicity or language should be celebrated and honored by Muslims, not humiliated by being made captives or, God forbid, killed,” Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told a news conference Sunday, December 4.

“As a leader of the American Muslim community and the head of America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, I make a personal appeal to the captors of the four members of the Christian Peacemakers Teams – release our brothers in humanity immediately and unconditionally,” he said in a statement posted on CAIR’s Web site.

Islam Online, 5 December 2005

Over at Jihad Watch that well-known scholar of all things Islamic, Robert Spencer, asks: “Has CAIR ever protested against the kidnapping of anyone else in Iraq? … this protest of the kidnapping of the collaborators is the first one I personally can recall ever seeing from them.”

Jihad Watch, 5 December 2005

Well, I claim no expert knowledge of CAIR myself, but a quick google reveals several examples of the organisation condemning hostage taking in Iraq. For example here, here, here and here.

‘Islamofascist’ on mission to Iraq

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Hopes for the release of a British hostage seized in Iraq last month were given a boost last night as prominent Sunni Muslim groups condemned the kidnapping. Five Sunni organisations announced they opposed the kidnapping of peace activist Norman Kember. The move followed the arrival in Baghdad yesterday of Anas Altikriti, a prominent member of the British anti-war movement [and the Muslim Association of Britain] who is leading talks to free Kember. Despite fears for his safety, Altrikiti’s initial attempts to persuade Kember’s kidnappers to release him appeared to produce immediate results. Sunni organisations were persuaded to issue a statement condemning the kidnappings and calling for the hostages’ release.”

Observer, 4 December 2005

Yes, like Dr al-Qaradawi before him, we have a leading representative of so-called “Islamofascism” campaigning for the release of western hostages in Iraq.

Muslim plan for world conquest exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

And Yusuf al-Qaradawi is behind it!

Daily Ablution, 1 December 2004

Predictably this nonsense receives the backing of Melanie Phillips, who is developing something of a taste for wacko conspiracy theories (cf. her support for Bat Ye’or’s “Eurabia” fantasy).

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 1 December 2005

Odd that, because in the past Phillips has been quick to identify and condemn such theories. A couple of years ago, when novelist John le Carré accused neocons in the Bush administration of pursuing a pro-Israel foreign policy, she denounced this as a “demented Jewish global conspiracy theory” and an “obscene display of racist bigotry and irrationality”.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 2 December 2003

More on the GALHA dispute

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Update on the story of Gay and Lesbian Humanist magazine’s “Sick Face of Islam” issue and the resignation of its editor, Andy Armitage. (For previous coverage see here, here, here, here and here.) Armitage and his supporters have issued a dossier documenting the dispute within the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, which is available here [update: link to 2nd edition]. We are pleased to see that the role of Islamophobia Watch is given full recognition. (“It seems that nothing, but nothing other than complete abasement to Islam will ever succeed in satisfying this load of extremists.”)

Fallaci rails against Muslim immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fallaci in NYOriana Fallaci told a Manhattan audience on Monday that she hates Islam and fears that Muslim immigration poses a greater danger to the West than Islamic terrorism.

The Italian journalist and author, who came out of retirement after September 11, 2001, to sound the tocsin on what she viewed was a clash of civilizations, said in a lengthy speech that she doesn’t believe in the existence of moderate Islam. “There is no such thing as good Islam,” she said.

She compared the Koran, the Islamic holy book, to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and said she opposed the notion of dialogue between followers of Islam and other religions.

New York Sun, 30 November 2005

Even Daniel Pipes thought Fallaci’s speech was a teensy bit over the top. Not so Robert Spencer, who wholeheartedly endorsed this racist diatribe: “Fallaci’s a voice of rare courage…. When she is gone, we may hope – for all our sakes – that many others will be ready to step into the breach and speak the truth as she did, whatever the cost, as she did. As Oriana Fallaci so memorably demonstrated in her address on receiving the Annie Taylor Award, nothing less than our civilization itself is at stake.”

Front Page Magazine, 30 November 2005

It’s worth recalling that not so long ago Nick Cohen published a defence of this revolting bigot in the Observer. See here.