Category Archives: Right wing

Mad Mel and the Norway terrorist attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainThe Guardian reports that Melanie Phillips is outraged at the post by Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy which noted that her writings were cited by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik in his now notorious 2083 manifesto. “There are only two references to me or my work in its 1500 pages”, an indignant Phillips complains.

In reality, an entire article by Phillips is reproduced by Breivik. It takes up nearly three pages of his document. Now, bearing in mind that Breivik justified his massacre of young Labour Party members on the grounds that their party’s immigration policies and support for multiculturalism had opened the door to the “Islamisation” of Norway, what do you suppose was the subject of the article by Phillips that so impressed Breivik?

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Toronto: protesters oppose Muslim prayer in state schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Toronto District School Board protest

They waved signs that warned of “creeping jihad” and proclaimed “Islam must be reformed or banned”. They chanted – “No Islam in our schools”; “No Mohamed in our schools”; “No Sharia law in our country”.

About 100 protesters, many from groups such as the Jewish Defense League, the Christian Heritage Party and Canadian Hindu Advocacy, came to the Toronto District School Board Monday evening to protest its approval of formal Friday prayer services for Muslim students at Valley Park Middle School.

Standing at the back of the crowds, far from the megaphone-wielding speakers, York University students Mariam Hamaoui and Sarah Zubaira had their own signs espousing their right to pray in school. They came to thank the school board for providing a place for the Valley Park students to pray. Previously those students had left their school to attend prayers at a nearby mosque on Fridays.

Bringing an imam into the school was a means of preventing some of the approximately 300 Muslim students from failing to return to classes after those prayers, said school board director Chris Spence. It also meant they don’t have to cross a busy street. Valley Park has been holding the prayers in the cafeteria for three years and there have been no complaints within the school community of about 1,200, he said.

Hamaoui, 18, said she had to go to the basement to pray when she attended Etobicoke Collegiate Institute because “there was no other place”. “I think people should be open minded. I don’t see the problem to go pray. Praying is helping everybody,” she told reporters and the protesters who aggressively confronted her. “Universities let anybody pray. I don’t see the problem with having middle schools,” she told one woman.

“It’s our constitutional right,” said Zubaira, who wore a hijab for the first time on Monday.

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Killings in Norway spotlight anti-Muslim thought in U.S.

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them….

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

Scott Shane, in the New York Times, 24 July 2011

The quotes from Spencer in Breivik’s manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence are taken from the transcript of a 2006 film, Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which so impressed Breivik that he reproduces it in its entirety.

Another prominent Islamophobe who featured in that film, and is therefore also cited numerous times in Breivik’s document, is Walid Shoebat. Recently exposed by CNN as a fraud, Shoebat has been making a good living advising police and security services in the US on counterterrorism.

The message that Shoebat has been delivering to his audiences has been the same message that so appealed to Breivik – that Islam is an inherently violent faith that provides justification for the actions of Al-Qaeda. (See here, here, here and here.)

Spencer himself has been invited to address the FBI. So we’re not talking here about some fringe subculture restricted to right-wing cranks in the blogosphere. The anti-Muslim propagandists who provided Breivik with the ideology that led him to carry out his atrocities receive official recognition in the US and are regarded as legitimate figures who can provide important insights into Islam.

Hopefully the terrible events in Norway have revealed Spencer, Shoebat and their co-thinkers as the malevolent violence-inspiring hatemongers that they really are, and in future they will be treated accordingly.

Update:  Spencer has posted a statement by SIOA and SIOE on Jihad Watch denouncing Breivik as a “disgusting neo-Nazi”. But this completely misrepresents the ideology that inspired Breivik’s terrorist acts. He quite clearly dissociates himself from neo-Nazism in his manifesto and declares himself to be a “cultural conservative” – a category in which he includes the Islamophobic bloggers and websites of the counter-jihad movement. Indeed, for Breivik, political violence is only one element in the cultural conservative strategy – he sees non-violent anti-Muslim propaganda as playing a no less vital role.

Norway: how the ‘experts’ at Quilliam helped to stoke fears of Islamist terrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sun wasn’t alone in jumping to the immediate conclusion that “Islamist fanatics” were behind the terror attacks in Norway.

A piece by Jerome Taylor in the Independent, headed “Analysis: Jihadist networks have long singled out Norway”, stated:

Jihadist networks have long singled out Norway as a legitimate – if low priority – target. As early as 2003 al-Qa’ida’s then number two and now leader Ayman al-Zawahiri specifically called on militants to attack the country in an audiotape condemning the invasion of Iraq. Norway also continues to have a small contingent of troops in northern Afghanistan.

The source given to back up this speculation, which had no basis in any actual evidence that had emerged regarding the events in Norway, was Quilliam’s James Brandon, who was quoted as saying:

Norway is part of Nato’s mission in Afghanistan and as far as jihadists are concerned, any country involved in what they see as an illegal occupation of Muslim territory is a legitimate target.

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Harry’s Place and the English Defence League

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In response to comments by the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik that he both admired and had given advice to the English Defence League, Socialist Unity has pointed out that “the Islamophobia preached by this far right organisation is in tune with much of the Islamophobic propaganda that appears on Harry’s Place” and has reposted a screenshot of the EDL’s LGBT division recommending HP:

EDL and Harry's Place (1)

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Suspect in Norway terrorist attacks is Geert Wilders admirer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anders Behring Breivik2As theories abounded early Saturday as to the group or person behind the deadly twin attacks in Norway a day earlier, investigators began to face the fact that they were likely dealing with a home-grown terrorist.

Key suspect Anders Behring Breivik – a blond, 6ft, 32-year-old Norwegian – was arrested after a gunman opened fire on a summer camp of students who had met to spend a long weekend discussing politics, playing football and enjoying music. The camp was organized by the Workers’ Youth League and was a meeting for young socialists.

Breivik was also believed to be linked to the explosions that ripped through Oslo earlier in the afternoon.

As police began searching the flat that he shares with his mother in a wealthy area of western Oslo a picture began to emerge of a loner with links to right-wing extremists and who had been well-educated and enjoyed hunting.

Breivik appeared to come from an affluent background, attending a middle-class secondary school in the city. Apart from a traffic conviction ten years ago he has no criminal record, according to a Norwegian newspaper. He completed a year of national service in the army.

Breivik had set up his own business, Breivik Geofarm, and a month ago had started to run an organic farm in Hedmark in eastern Norway. There he reportedly produced and stored fertilizers that he was able to use in explosives.

He was known to be active on the internet, expressing extremist Islamophobic views on forums and criticizing immigration policies.

He recently claimed that politics today was not about socialism vs. capitalism but nationalism vs. internationalism. He argued on a Swedish news website that the media were not critical enough about Islam and claimed that Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands was the only “true” party of conservatives.

Newscore, 22 July 2011

A commenter at little green footballs has pointed out that Breivik is also a fan of Pamela Geller, whose blog Atlas Shrugs he has cited.

Update:  Breivik recommended other sites associated with the so-called counter-jihad movement, notably Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna and the Brussels Journal. In December 2009 he wrote that he was working full time to promote the ideas of Islamophobes like Robert Spencer and Bat Ye’or.

He also wrote of his contacts with the English Defence League and Stop Islamisation of Europe and claimed to have given them advice on strategy. He attached importance to building “a Norwegian version” of the EDL to fight against anti-fascists and anti-racists.

Attempts to set up a Norwegian Defence League have been beset by problems, including accusations that the organisation had been “taken over by neo-Nazis“. It would be interesting to know what role if any Breivik had in this.

It was the Muslims wot done it – Sun’s knee-jerk response to terrorist atrocities in Norway

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sun Norway's 9-11 headline“NORWAY’s 9/11” – that was the headline in the first edition of today’s Sun, with the strap “‘AL-QAEDA’ MASSACRE”.

As we now know, far from being a member of Al-Qaeda, the individual charged with carrying out the terrorist attacks is an extreme right-wing Islamophobe, and his hatred of the governments and political parties whose immigration policies he holds responsible for allowing the “Islamisation” of Europe was evidently inspired by the “counter-jihad” movement promoted by Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and their European counterparts.

However, even a physical description of Anders Behring Breivik could not shake the Sun‘s initial conviction that Muslims were behind the atrocities. The paper reported: “Cops fear Islamist fanatics were out to kill PM Jens Stoltenberg, who was due to visit his political party’s youth camp on Utoeya Island – where a man was arrested. Witnesses claimed the gun maniac was blond with blue eyes and spoke Norwegian – raising fears that he was a homegrown Al-Qaeda convert.”

Fox News links terror attacks in Norway to Park51

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Friday night on The O’Reilly Factor, guest host Laura Ingraham did a brief report on the terrorist attacks that killed dozens of people in Norway. She began by saying, “In the ‘Back of the Book’ segment tonight, two deadly terror attacks in Norway, in what appears to be the work, once again, of Muslim extremists.” She went on to describe the attacks, which involved a bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting.

Ingraham then immediately transitioned into a segment on Park51, the planned Islamic community center near the World Trade Center, by saying, “In the meantime, in New York City, the Muslims who want to build the mosque at Ground Zero scored a huge legal victory. A Manhattan judge dismissed a lawsuit by former New York City firefighter Timothy Brown, who was trying to stop construction of the mosque. Bill O’Reilly spoke with a lawyer for the Muslim developers yesterday.”

Friday’s edition of The O’Reilly Factor was recorded, so, despite the fact that several outlets were already reporting at the time the show aired that the suspect in the attacks was not linked to any Islamist groups, Fox News viewers were left with that impression anyway.

Logistical constraints aside, it’s totally inappropriate to juxtapose news of a terrorist attack with a discussion of Park51 because they both purportedly have something to do with Muslims. This is an attempt to reanimate Fox’s failed strategy from last year of smearing Park51 by baselessly associating it with terrorism.

Media Matters for America, 23 July 2011

Tory MPs packed APPG on Islamophobia meeting to remove ENGAGE

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle Martin Bright provides an insight into how ENGAGE was removed as the secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia earlier this week. It was accomplished by “a highly organised phalanx of 50 backbench Conservatives” who packed the meeting that took the decision to remove ENGAGE.

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Group plans on spreading fear about Islam to high school students

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Defend Christians is an organization headed by Gary Cass, a minister who says that Christians are being attacked and losing their religious freedom in America. During the week of September 11, Cass’ organization, together with Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment and The Way TV, plan on handing out flyers condemning Islam.

According to Cass’ press release, “Christians across the US will be outside strategic high schools located near mosques with known links to terrorism. They will be handing out literature that tells students the truth about Islam and Mohammad and their violent, and oppressive policies towards non-Muslims, especially women and blacks.” His release does not reveal the basis for “known links to terrorism.”

In January, the Citizens for the First Amendment held a similar demonstration at a high school in Fallbrook, California. [And again in May at Murrieta Valley High School.]

“Like all patriotic Americans we cherish our liberties and our God-given rights and are committed to defending these principles,” said Steve Klein of Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment. “Fourteen hundred violent years of history prove that Islam is incompatible with America. Muslims believe they are superior and arrogantly reject our Christian principles of equality, minority rights and equal justice. We are going to the schools to protect students, and especially our young women, from the oppression Islam threatens to impose.”

“We are fed up with political correctness that refuses warn the next generation of Americans about the clear and present danger of Islam in America. It’s cultural suicide to stay silent,” said Dr. Gary Cass of Defend Christians.Org. “Muslims are trying to convert and radicalize our young people. By telling them the truth about the dangerous doctrines of Islam and the and wicked practices of Mohammad we are protecting our children.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center notes in its Summer 2011 Intelligence Report:

Rarely has the United States seen a more reckless and bare-knuckled campaign to vilify a distinct class of people and compromise their fundamental civil and human rights than the recent rhetoric against Muslims.

It would also be hard to imagine a more successful campaign. In the span of the two years since the start of Barack Obama’s presidency in early 2009, an astonishing number of people have turned into a kind of political wolf pack, convinced that 0.6% of the U.S. population is on the verge of trampling the Constitution and imposing an Islamic, Shariah-guided caliphate in its place. Like the communists that an earlier generation believed to be hiding behind every rock, infiltrated “Islamist” operatives today are said to be diabolically preparing for a forcible takeover.

Ironically, the Constitution seems more threatened by certain Americans who, prodded into paranoia by clever activists, opportunistic politicians and guileful media players, seem downright eager to deny Muslims the guarantees of religious freedom and the presumption of innocence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked a spike in hate crimes against Muslim Americans.

God Discussion, 19 July 2011