The Mail on Sunday has published an attack on Joel Hayward, dean of the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell (“Ayatollah of the RAF: Academic ‘university’ head is Muslim convert who claims Nazi gas chambers were British propaganda and criticises Libya air strikes”). The story has since been taken up by the Daily Star, under the bizarre headline “RAF pilot converts to Islam”.
The main source for the Mail‘s witch-hunt is a letter headed “The Air Force Ayatollah”, which was sent to the paper by anonymous RAF officers who would obviously rather have Robert Spencer running the college. Apparently students at Cranwell “are in fear” of expressing anti-Muslim sentiments in front of Hayward. Worst of all: “Anyone who fails to follow the line that Islam is a peace-loving religion is hauled into his office for re-education”.
The Mail concurs in finding it sinister that Hayward “has frequently challenged claims of Islamic aggressiveness”. In fact, his views on that subject are so off-the-wall that one of his articles, “The Qur’an and war: Observations on Islamic just war”, was published in the RAF’s own academic journal, Air Power Review.