Writing at the Middle East Monitor, Bob Lambert draws the lessons from Mohammad Sawalha’s successful libel action against the Spectator and Melanie Phillips.

Over at Think Progress Tanya Somanader draws our attention to Pamela Geller’s speech last weekend when she received an award from the David Horowitz Freedom Center for “her efforts in defense of Judeo-Christian civilization”, as Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch put it in his adulatory introduction.

Geller used her acceptance speech to describe the misnamed “Ground Zero Mosque” as “the second wave of the 9/11 attack”:

You have to understand that we’re in a war. We are at war now. It’s not coming. It’s not around the corner. It’s now. The Ground Zero Mosque is the second wave of the 9/11 attack…. We are under attack. Obviously, the violent jihad, the academic jihad, the sociological jihad, the cultural jihad, the academic jihad, we have been infiltrated at the senior level of the Department of Defense…. This is not a conventional war. Each one of you must fight this war … you are each activated…. We have not yet recovered the bodies from 9/11 and we’re under attack with the Ground Zero mega-mosque. And make no mistake, Cordoba, iconic of Islam’s conquering of the West, it’s quite deliberate…. It is a triumphal mosque. Because one shmuck in New York says “it’s a mosque of healing” doesn’t make it so. It’s ridiculous, it’s insulting.

Somander observes that “this thoughtless comparison appears to be a new rallying cry for Geller”. Indeed, in response to news that the developers of Park51 have applied for funding from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Geller has written:

“Imagine the gall of these Islamic supremacists. The very idea that the infidels should finance the second wave of 911 attacks on the American people again exhibits the contempt Rauf and his gang have for the filthy kuffar.”

Mohammad Sawalha –v– The Spectator (1828) Publishing Limited and Melanie Phillips

The Spectator and Melanie Phillips have apologized to Mohammad Sawalha and paid him substantial compensation for damages and all legal costs over an article falsely alleging that he made an anti-Semitic remark.

On 2 July 2008, the Spectator website published an article by Melanie Phillips entitled “Just Look What Came Crawling Out” (“the Article”). The Article falsely stated that Mohammad Sawalha had referred to Jews in Britain as “evil/noxious”. Mohammad Sawalha has worked hard to build strong relations between communities of different faiths and no faith both in Britain and internationally, and was therefore shocked and outraged to read such a false and offensive accusation. It was immediately pointed out to the Spectator and Ms Phillips that this was a mistranslation of a transcript of an interview, which contained a typographical error, rendering the relevant phrase meaningless. It was also pointed out that the publisher of the original transcript of the interview had corrected the quotation already, making clear that Mr Sawalha had made no such anti-Semitic comment.

Rather than carrying out the reasonable and obvious course of action of amending the Article, Melanie Phillips instead chose to go on and publish a further article, entitled “Taking the Airbrush to Evil”, repeating the highly insulting false allegation made in the Article and casting doubt on the suggestion that there had been a typographical error.

Continue reading →

Mehdi Hasan replies to Gilligan’s attack on his interview with Lutfur Rahman.

ENGAGE takes up tonight’s Panorama programme British Schools, Islamic Rules.

For more on John Ware, see here.

Surprise, surprise – the Press Complaints Commission has rejected complaints about a Daily Mail report that a cafe in Stockport would have to remove its extractor fan because the smell of frying bacon offended Muslims.

See Tabloid Watch and Greenslade Blog.

Update:  See also Sunny Hundal’s comments at Pickled Politics.