The article by Martin Bright in last week’s Jewish Chronicle denouncing prominent figures in the Jewish community for failing to boycott London Citizens over its links with the East London Mosque has provoked a welcome backlash from the paper’s readers.
Category Archives: Right wing
Henry Jackson Society opposes ‘hate speakers’ – except when they’re leading members of the Henry Jackson Society, of course
Students’ unions should introduce tougher rules to keep “hate speakers” off campuses and stop the spread of Islamist extremism, MPs have heard.
Hannah Stuart, co-author of Islam on Campus: A Survey of UK Student Opinions and Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections, made the suggestion in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the roots of violent radicalisation.
The committee held a day-long session at De Montfort University last week, including a workshop titled “How can we best counter radicalisation in universities?”
Nabil Ahmed, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, rejected many of Ms Stuart’s arguments, countering from the audience that it was “upsetting and hurtful for Muslim students to be caricatured as potential extremists, potential radicals, when none of this is applicable to 99.9 per cent of not just Muslim students, but all students”.
In Islamic law, Gingrich sees a mortal threat to U.S.
Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism.
“I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it,” Mr. Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington in July 2010 devoted to what he suggested were the hidden dangers of Islamic radicalism. “I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”
Resist a burglary and you’re a hero to the Mail – unless you’re a Muslim, that is
The Daily Mail reports: “A courageous housewife stabbed a machete-wielding burglar when he threatened to cut off her son’s finger, a court was told yesterday. Gillian Wilson, 55, was praised by a judge after she rushed at violent burglar Nigel Greenwood, 29, and plunged a knife into his arm, causing him and his accomplices to flee.”
What a sharp contrast this report presents to the Mail‘s coverage of Inayat Bunglawala’s resistance to a violent intruder at his own home in 2009 (see here and here), for which the paper was subsequently obliged to issue an apology and pay damages.
Former UKIP parliamentary candidate criticises Farage over proposal to ditch veil ban policy
Yesterday’s Guardian interview with UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in which he stated that he intended to re-examine his party’s manifesto commitment to “tackle extremist Islam by banning the burqa or veiled niqab in public buildings and certain private buildings”, and didn’t personally support such a ban, hasn’t gone down too well with some people.
Over at the Mail‘s Right Minds blog (edited by Simon Heffer) we find former prominent UKIP member Abhijit Pandya upholding the view that a ban is justified because the veil is “a deliberate political statement whose meanings any free democratic society, least of all one that pretends to believe in women’s freedom, should consistently and unapologetically challenge”. Pandya continues:
That the one time UKIP leader Lord Pearson had the courage to recognise the political necessity of confronting this political issue, was a break from the normal political apathy towards protecting our culture. That Nigel Farage is considering abandoning this commitment ought to force us to ask whether there is any courage left amongst our politicians to fight for our cultural heritage and gender equality.
This criticism of Farage as having gone “soft on Islam” echoes recent comments by another ex-UKIP member, Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party.
UKIP leader says he’ll reassess call for veil ban
Martin Bright continues his campaign to poison relations between Jewish and Muslim communities
The current edition of the Jewish Chronicle has yet another piece by the paper’s political editor Martin Bright attacking the East London Mosque. Entitled “Jihad and Jews don’t go together”, this is just the latest installment in the JC‘s obsessive (and so far entirely futile) campaign to destroy the relationship between community organisers London Citizens and ELM (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). An outraged Bright relates the shocking news that Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of North London Synagogue “agreed to take part in a ‘multi-faith peace procession’ alongside the chairman of East London Mosque, Mohammed Abdul Bari”.
ConservativeHome withdraws Paul Goodman article, apologises to Sir Iqbal Sacranie
ConservativeHome has published the following apology:
Sir Iqbal Sacranie
In a Diary post by Paul Goodman (“Pickles and Warsi wrestle for control of Government strategy on anti-Muslim hatred”, 19 November) we repeated in good faith a statement wrongly reported elsewhere that Sir Iqbal Sacranie is a trustee of Union of Good, an organisation which has been listed by the US Treasury as a Special Designated Global Terrorist group. We also suggested (wrongly) that it was possible that, as a result of this association, the UK government had rejected Sir Iqbal as a possible candidate for membership of the Muslim Leadership Council (MLC).
We now understand that in fact Sir Iqbal is not, and never has been, a trustee of Union of Good. We also accept Sir Iqbal’s assurance that while he was approached with a view to participating in the MLC initiative, he declined to do so. He was not on the list of individuals that was put forward and was not rejected by the government as we had suggested.
We are sorry for any embarrassment caused to Sir Iqbal by our Diary post.
To be fair to Paul Goodman, he probably didn’t set out intentionally to libel Sir Iqbal. It’s just that when it comes to the Muslim community Goodman doesn’t know what he’s talking about and uncritically recycles second-hand right-wing smears.
Via Inayat’s Corner
A one-man war on American Muslims
“It would be upsetting enough if a well-financed, well-organized mass campaign had misrepresented a television show, insulted an entire religious community and intimidated a national corporation. What makes the attack on ‘All-American Muslim’ more disturbing – and very revealing – is that it was prosecuted by just one person, a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry.”
The New York Times examines the role of David Caton, executive director and only known activist of the Florida Family Association.
Interfaith opposition to Pennsylvania anti-sharia bill
Critics say a bill introduced by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker amounts to an attack on Shariah law, which is followed by many devout Muslims.
The House bill, introduced by Rep. Rosemarie Swanger, stipulates state courts when deciding cases shall not “consider a foreign legal code or system” lacking “the same fundamental liberties” as the Pennsylvania constitution and the U.S. Constitution.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday a rabbi, an interfaith leader and a Temple University professor had joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations in criticizing the bill.