The Jerusalem Post has a report applauding the role of Geert Wilders’ party, the PVV, in encouraging the Dutch government to adopt an aggressive policy towards Iran.
The paper hails Wim Kortenoeven [pictured], the PVV MP who apparently played a leading role in drawing up a resolution calling for tougher sanctions against Iran, as “one of Europe’s most prominent advocates for Israel’s security”, and portrays Wilders’ party as an important ally of Israel:
The endless refrain of the English Defence League is they can’t be racist, because Islam is not a race. EDL leader Stephen Lennon has even stated that he supports a multicultural Britain, and he recently assured his local paper that if racists are ever found in the ranks of the EDL they are kicked out.
Evidently, not all of the EDL’s leading members are on message. Here is a comment that was posted earlier today on the EDL’s Facebook page. It expresses views on race, national identity and multiculturalism that could easily have appeared on a white supremacist forum like Stormfront:
Police arrested 179 members of the English Defence League after reports of repeated threats to attack Occupy protesters camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Armistice Day.
Scotland Yard said they believed a breach of the peace was about to take place after they got intelligence that the EDL were planning the Armistice Day attack. The law states officers can arrest if they believe the breach of the peace to be “imminent.”
A member of the tented community outside the cathedral expressed gratitude to the police for preventing any violence. “It is fantastic if they are using their resources to try and stop people getting on to this site,” said Bryn Phillips, a member of the Occupy LSX community. “If this has prevented violence then I am pleased.”
English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon’s latest address to the masses, “Tommy’s November video diary“, was posted on the EDL website yesterday.
It’s little more than an extended self-pitying whinge about his personal problems and how he’s being persecuted for his beliefs. He’s been charged with tax evasion, his sunbed business is closing down because he’s behind with his rent, his wife is stressed, his mother’s ill. And all as a result of Tommy’s selfless commitment to leading the EDL in their heroic struggle against the Islamification of Britain.
As evidence of his supposed persecution Lennon produces an email sent by James Brokenshire – who holds the junior ministerial position of parliamentary under secretary of state for crime and security at the Home Office – to the Labour MP for Newcastle North, Catherine McKinnell. Lennon quotes Brokenshire as stating that “we are working with a range of partners to address the driver of the EDL”. Lennon claims this is proof that the Home Office is colluding with “the police, the tax office, the VAT” in an attempt to destroy him and the movement he leads.
Writing the Guardian, of all places, Patrick Sookhdeo once again declares that he’s not an Islamophobe. If you’re inclined to swallow that claim have a quick look through the entries under “Sookhdeo” on Islamophobia Watch.
Or check out the list of publications on the Barnabas Fund’s website. In addition to Sookhdeo’s own works, including Slippery Slope: The Islamisation of the UK, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam and The Challenge of Islam to the Church and its Mission, we find such booklets as Islam and Truth (which examines “the growing challenge which Islam poses to Western society, culture and Church”), Islam and Slavery (which “shows that slavery is accepted uncritically in the Qur’an and sharia and is supported by the example of Muhammad”) and Islam in Britain (which exposes “the way in which the UK is becoming subtly islamised”).
Over at National Review Online (of all places) there’s an excellent article by Matt Duss, co-author of the Center for American Progress’s report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. It is written in reply to David Horowitz and Robert Spencer’s recent piece denouncing what they claim is an “ugly campaign” to depict them as Islamophobes.
The Jewish Chronicle has issued the following retraction:
“On 13 May 2011 we published articles which suggested that Tafazal Mohammed was a Jihadist who may have supported violent extremism. We accept that this is not the case and that Mr Mohammed unequivocally condemns acts of violence, including the 7/7 bombings. We are happy to put this right and apologise to him for any distress caused.”
The articles in question were a front page report and a comment piece by the JC‘s political editor Martin Bright. Both articles have now been removed from the paper’s website (see here and here). As we pointed out at the time, the evidence presented to the 7/7 inquest provided no basis for Bright’s “jihadist” claims and consequently “the JC‘s accusations against Tafazal Mohammad fall apart”.
Here. If the attacks on Egypt’s Copts are the responsibility of Islam, it’s difficult to understand why leading representives of that faith have appealed for unity between the Muslim and Coptic communities. This was the call issued by Yusuf al-Qaradawi when he addressed a mass rally in Tahrir Square in February. Violence against the Coptic community in Egypt is clearly not the responsibility of an entire faith but of a minority of its adherents. Would the Telegraph report attacks by right-wing bigots on abortion clinics in the United States under the heading “Christianity’s war on healthcare workers”?
Evil Islamists gather in Tunisia: An Nahda election campaign rally
Perhaps it’s just the “Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be” syndrome that affects us all in old age but I can’t help feeling that the competence of Islamophobic witch-hunting over at Harry’s Place – never exactly impressive anyway – is in sharp decline. I mean, there used to be a time when they would at least make some kind of effort to dig up dirt on opponents of the Iraq war or Israeli state terrorism in order to try and discredit them. But standards are slipping.
A recent example is a post headed “Guardian appoints Engage employee as stand in religious affairs columnist”, written by one “Lucy Lips”, who qualifies as the most frothing-at-the-mouth Zionist on a website where she faces stiff competition for that title. Her article is an attack on Nadiya Takolia, who works as a researcher at ENGAGE and last week was responsible for compiling the Guardian‘s Divine Dispatches religion news roundup in the absence of its usual author, the paper’s religious affairs correspondent Riazat Butt. Lips’ attack isn’t even original – it’s lifted from an even more demented Zionist site called CiF Watch – and as an attempt to smear Nadiya Takolia it really is quite pathetic.
Lucy Lips even finds it highly sinister that Takolia provided a link to an item at Islamophobia Watch in her Divine Dispatches article. This was a short piece we posted warning that the English Defence League was intending to establish a political party, which you might have thought was a fairly uncontroversial point to make, even by the standards of Harry’s Place. Furthermore, the previous week’s edition of Divine Dispatches, which was written by Riazat Butt, also linked to our website. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that Islamophobia Watch actually includes material that is relevant to the subject of that particular Guardian column.
The English Defence League Angels’ London protest today must have been a major disappointment for them. As you can see from the photo (courtesy of Tom Griffin) barely a hundred EDL turned up and most of them were men. Considering that the event was a national mobilisation and had been publicised for weeks in advance, this was little short of a disaster for the EDL.
Socialist Worker reports that the Infidels’ demonstration in Leeds was even smaller, as this photo (via Expose) confirms.
All in all, not a good day for the Islamophobic far right.