Jeff Sparrow, one of the contributors to the recently published collection of essays On Utøya: Anders Breivik, Right Terror, Racism and Europe, examines the role of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in promoting the ideology that inspired the Norwegian mass murderer.
All-American Muslim: Kayak executive Robert Birge issues world’s worst ‘apology’ ever
Robert Birge, chief marketing officer of KAYAK, the online travel company that withdrew its advertising from All-American Muslim following a right-wing campaign, has issued an apology. LoonWatch is not impressed.
British Freedom Party chairman interviewed
Paul Weston with Geert Wilders and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
There’s an interview with the British Freedom Party’s chairman Paul Weston at the European Son blog. It doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know but it’s of interest all the same.
A former member of UKIP, Weston states that he joined that party “because of Lord Pearson, who was the only person to speak about Islam”. He resigned after Nigel Farage replaced Pearson as leader of UKIP: “Mr. Farage has actually come out and said that he will not say anything about Islam because he will no longer be invited on to BBC television programs such Have I Got News for You. I think it’s terrible, so that’s really why I left UKIP.”
This is hardly an accurate summary of Farage’s position – he’s been quite happy to play the anti-Islam card on behalf of his party – but it’s probably true that the current UKIP leader doesn’t entirely share the raving anti-Muslim bigotry of his predecessor, at least as far as his public utterances are concerned. So you can see why Weston became disillusioned and saw the need for a more hardline party that placed Islamophobia at the centre of its programme.
Lowe’s pulls TV ads – and gives a Christmas gift to Target et al
Lowe’s decision to pull its advertising from All-American Muslim bows to the bigots and risks a huge commercial own goal, argues Wajahat Ali.
Jerusalem mosque set alight in another ‘price tag’ attack
Arsonists set fire to a deserted mosque in central Jerusalem during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.
There was no structural damage reported and the damage mainly consisted of the blackening of walls and graffiti reading “Price Tag,” and anti-Islamic phrases.
The Nebi Akasha mosque, apparently built under the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th century with additions made under the Mamluk dyanothernasty in the 13th century. It is believed that the mosque was founded on the burial site of combatants in Saladin’s army, though an ancient tradition designates the site as the place where Akasha, a friend of the Prophet Muhammad, was buried.
Graffiti spray painted on the historical site included inscriptions such as “Mohammad is Dead,” “Mohammad is a Pig,” and “Price Tag.”
Israel: school called ‘impure’ after Muslim wedding
Parents of students who attend the public-religious Ohel Meir school in Afula in northern Israel are demanding that it be spiritually purified following a Muslim wedding that took place there. They are up in arms that the wedding was allowed to happen in the hall where the school’s Torah scrolls are kept, and are threatening to keep their children out of the school synagogue until a purification ceremony is carried out.
“We’re talking about a serious event that should never have happened,” one parent told the Israeli news website Walla! “I am not prepared to let my child pray in a space in which a Muslim wedding took place … this was an impure act.” One father said that he thought a delegation of rabbis needed to enter the school synagogue and perform a special prayer service in order to purify it.
Resisting the Islamification of Witham
A local paper reports that the British Freedom Party has appointed a long-time EDL activist named Mark Dunbar as its organiser in the Essex town of Witham, which is of course currently under serious threat from the Muslim hordes.
It’s easy to laugh, but people living in places like this can be susceptible to the EDL/BFP’s Islamophobic propaganda precisely because they very rarely come into contact with an actual Muslim.
Postscript: I’ve failed to find figures for the number of Muslims living in Witham, but according to the last available census there were only 409 Muslims in the whole of Braintree, compared with 98,116 Christians. Clearly, if Muslims are intent on imposing Islam on Witham they have a long way to go.
Islamophobes try to pin Liege killings on Islam
See “Daily Telegraph, Washington Post and Huffington Post report Twitter lie as fact: Liege killer ‘Nordine Amrani was Muslim terrorist'”, Anorak, 13 December 2011
And “Robert Spencer attempts to falsely link Belgian attacker to Islam, based solely on his Muslamic sounding name”, LoonWatch, 13 December 2011
(Atlas Shrugs screenshot from Expose.)
Update: See also “Geller and Spencer turn another shooting tragedy into an Islamophobic hate fest”, The American Muslim, 14 December 2011
Controversy drives advertisers from ‘All-American Muslim’ – or does it?
At least two advertisers have withdrawn commercials from “All-American Muslim,” a new series on the TLC cable channel, since an activist organization called the Florida Family Association condemned the show. But others cited by the organization as pulling out as sponsors are disputing the claim.
The organization has attacked the series as propaganda that obscures “the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” The series, which has been on TLC at 10 p.m. Sunday since mid-November, follows the lives of five Muslim-American families in Dearborn, Mich., a Detroit suburb with a sizable Muslim population.
The organization says 65 companies have left the show since it began urging advertisers to withdraw their support. Among those that have were Kayak, the travel Web site, and Lowe’s, the home-improvement retailer.
However, at least three of the companies that the Florida Family Association included on its list of 65 say they have not followed the organization’s call to end their sponsorships.
“We didn’t pull” commercials from “All-American Muslim,” John W. Faulkner, a spokesman for the Campbell Soup Company in Camden, N.J., said on Tuesday. Other Campbell Soup commercials “could run in subsequent episodes,” he added.
Anti-Islam group fights Fribourg ban
The Swiss Movement against Islamisation (MOSC) has said it will appeal a Fribourg district court decision blocking it from setting up a stand in the western town.
In October 2009, a few weeks before Switzerland’s controversial vote on the banning of minarets, MOSCI asked the city of Fribourg for permission to erect a stand. The group said it wanted to present its ideas and ask citizens to vote against the Islamic spires.
After conferring with cantonal police and the prefecture of Gruyère, Fribrourg decided not to grant permission. The town said it wanted to avoid incidents like those in Lausanne several weeks earlier when clashes broke out around a similar stand.
MOSCI has angered many with its insistence that the Muslim prophet Muhammad was genocidal, as well as criticizing his union with Aisha, a very young girl. The organisation also considers Islam a “racist, warlike, and expansionist religion”.