CAIR denounces Wilders’ hate speech at Florida synagogue

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders at Florida synagogueThe Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today call on members of the Jewish community to condemn the anti-Islam hate of a speaker who was recently given a standing ovation at a Florida synagogue.

CAIR said the speech by Dutch anti-Islam extremist politician Geert Wilders took place at a “large synagogue in Palm Beach.” In the speech, Wilders went through his usual laundry list of hate-filled views, including his claim that “Islam is not a religion” and “the right to religious freedom should not apply to this totalitarian ideology called Islam,” all to the applause of the audience. Wilders also called for stopping immigration from Muslim countries and urged “voluntary repatriation” to those countries.

“A synagogue should be the last place that Geert Wilders’ Nazi-like propaganda would find a warm reception,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Members of the Jewish community know all too well what happens when a religious minority is demonized by demagogues. Wilders uses the same scurrilous attacks on Muslims and Islam that the Nazis used against German Jews and Judaism in the 1930s.”

CAIR press release, 28 April 2009

Update:  See “ADL condemns anti-Islam remarks made by Dutch parliamentarian during appearances in S. Florida”, ADL Florida press release, 28 April 2009

Further update:  See “CAIR Commends Fla. Jewish group for condemning hate speech”, CAIR press release, 30 April 2009

For an alternative view, by the inimitable Pamela Geller, see “ADL stabs Israel’s staunchest ally, Geert Wilders, and Jews along with him again“, Atlas Shrugs, 30 April 2009

Thankfully, the ADL are a lot more representative of the US Jewish community than the lunatic Geller.

‘Islamified Labour Party becomes anti-Jewish’, claim fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Islamification of Britain which is the direct result of mass Third World immigration has now started to directly affect the Labour Party as well, after a Jewish would-be councillor was told by a senior party official that she was ‘too Jewish and too white’ to stand in a Birmingham ward dominated by Afro-Caribbean and Muslim residents.

“Ms Elaina Cohen was told by Labour’s former Lord Mayor councillor Mahmood Hussain that he could not support her application for an inner-city ward because ‘my Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish’….

“The development is the inevitable result of the Islamification of Britain, and the resultant importation of Middle East conflicts to these shores. As increasing numbers of Muslims settle and take over Britain, anti-Jewish events will steadily increase.

“This has been the case in all European countries where Islamic immigration has been high. France in particular has seen dramatically increased anti-Jewish attacks which have all been Islamist in origin.”

BNP news article, 28 April 2009

The article is lifted without acknowledgement from the Daily Mail. The BNP of course omits to quote Mahmood Hussain’s statement: “I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.”

Given its long history of antisemitism, the spectacle of the BNP presenting itself as a friend of the Jewish community may appear bizarre, but its attempt to win Jewish support on an anti-Muslim programme is part of a general development on the European far right. However, while parties like Vlaams Belang in Belgium have met with some success in applying this tactic, the BNP’s efforts have so far attracted almost no support at all within the Jewish community.

While the BNP remains under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a convicted Holocaust denier and author of the Jewish conspiracy booklet Who Are the Mind-Benders?, this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Update:  Over at Harry’s Place the story is reported under the headline “Jews are unwanted here”, and just in case you missed the parallel they’re drawing between Mahmood Hussain and the Nazis, a German sign from the ’30s is reproduced: Juden sind hier unerwünscht. And this despite Hussain’s denial of the accusation against him and before the Labour Party has investigated the matter. Still, he’s a Muslim isn’t he, so why bother with all that innocent-until-proven-guilty nonsense?

Further update:  See also “Selective outrage over bigotry” by Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics, 1 May 2009

EU wants to impose Sharia law on Britain shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Judges could be forced to bow to Sharia law in some divorce cases heard in Britain. An EU plan calls for family courts across Europe to hear cases using the laws of whichever country the couple involved have close links to. That could mean a court in England handling a case within the French legal framework, or even applying the laws of Saudi Arabia to a husband and wife living in Britain.

Daily Mail, 27 April 2009

An ideal story for the Mail, combining as it does an appeal to anti-Muslim prejudice with hostility to the European Union. And of course it provokes the predictable outpouring of bigotry in the comments:

“This is the UK, obey our laws or get out.”

“Stop giving in to minority groups, and get out of the EU while we still have a country.”

“If they want it to be heard there then they should gave stayed there! What are these unelected EU idiots on?”

“Try to understand: this is the United Kingdom, not the Middle East.”

“Those who wish to live under Sharia Law have no place in the United Kingdom. EU Judges should therefore keep their Continental noses out of Britains affairs.”

“And New Labour scratches its head, wondering why people are voting for the BNP in droves.”

Quilliam, New Labour and the witch-hunt of Osama Saeed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Osama and AlexCraig Murray responds to the disgraceful attempt by Ed Husain and his mates to smear Osama Saeed:

“The party political nature of the Quilliam Foundation is shown in their astonishing and completely unbalanced attack on Osama Saeed, a prominent SNP candidate and a friend of mine. They try to portray him as an Islamic extremist. If Osama is an Islamic extremist, then I am a Blairite.

“For New Labour to have even the faintest hope of a respectable performance at the general election, they must protect their Scottish base against the SNP. This pathetic attempt to smear the SNP as connected to Islamic extremism is a blatant abuse of taxpayers’ money….

“The real scandal here is not Osama Saeed, who is a good man dedicated to freedom and to bringing Scotland’s Muslim community into its mainstream politics. The real story is the blatant misuse of taxpayer funds by New Labour.”

Continue reading →

Danish cartoons editor: There’s a problem with Muslims in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jyllands-Posten editor Flemming Rose has been interviewed by an Israeli newspaper about the Danish cartoons controversy:

“There are even experts on Islam who didn’t see this coming,” he said. “I talked about it with the orientalist Bernard Lewis, who told me there was a long culture of insulting the prophet in Europe. He referred me to Dante, and the cathedral in Bologna where Muhammad is depicted in hell. Muslims didn’t respond to that, because they said it these were heretics that they shouldn’t be concerned with.”

When asked why he thought Muslims reacted so harshly this time, Rose said, “According to Lewis, this is the first time Muslims try to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim countries.”

According to Rose, the riots that broke out following the publications stemmed from “Muslim immigration to Europe and the fact that there are Muslims who don’t want to be integrated… There’s a problem with Muslims in Europe and it must be dealt with.”

YNet News, 22 April 2009

Lichfield Cathedral rejects BNP’s latest attempt to hijack Christianity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP What Would Jesus Do election posterA row has broken out after the British National Party tried to use Lichfield Cathedral as the backdrop for an advertising campaign.

The Archdeacon of Lichfield, the Ven Chris Liley, has hit out at the BNP after an activist turned up in Cathedral Close on Tuesday afternoon with a large advertising van displaying a pro-BNP poster.

The move comes as the debate over plans by the Muslim community to build a mosque in the city rages on with more than 5,000 people voicing objections to the plan on a Facebook site. The BNP activist was challenged by the Archdeacon who “required him” to stop taking photographs and to remove the van from cathedral precincts.

The cathedral authorities have revealed they will now be writing to the BNP to “demand” it does not publish any promotional or marketing material which uses the cathedral as a backdrop or implies any endorsement of the BNP’s views or policies by the cathedral.

The BNP defended its actions claiming it is “voicing the opinion of the people of Lichfield”. BNP spokesman Simon Darby told local website The Lichfield Blog:

“We sent our truth truck along because a lot of people in Lichfield are very upset by the planned mosque. If this was a Labour or Islamic poster would the cathedral have taken the same action? The Archdeacon should spend more time defending the Christian faith because it needs it.”

In recent weeks the BNP has been targeting Christian voters and last month unveiled an advertising poster headed: What would Jesus Do – Vote BNP. Chris Liley added: “The BNP are wrong to suggest Jesus would vote for the BNP. His parable of the Good Samaritan was a clear example about the value we should place on people from other communities.”

Birmingham Mail, 23 April 2009

See also Chris Liley’s post at Comment is Free, 23 April 2009

Terry Eagleton on the liberal supremacists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terry Eagleton“If the test of liberalism is how it confronts its illiberal adversaries, some of the liberal intelligentsia seem to have fallen at the first hurdle. Writers such as Martin Amis and Hitchens do not just want to lock terrorists away. They also tout a brand of western cultural supremacism. Dawkins strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq, but preaches a self-satisfied, old-fashioned Whiggish rationalism that can be wielded against a benighted Islam. The philosopher AC Grayling has an equally starry-eyed view of the stately march of Western Progress. The novelist Ian McEwan is a freshly recruited champion of this militant rationalism. Both Hitchens and Salman Rushdie have defended Amis’s slurs on Muslims. Whether they like it or not, Dawkins and his ilk have become weapons in the war on terror. Western supremacism has gravitated from the Bible to atheism.

“The irony is clear. Some of our free literary spirits are defending liberal values in ways that threaten to undermine them. In this, they reflect the behaviour of western states. Liberals are supposed to value nuanced analysis and moral complexity, neither of which are apparent in the slanderous reduction of Islam to a barbarous blood cult. They are noted for their judicious discriminations, rather than the airy dismissal of all religion as so much garbage. There is also an honorable legacy of qualifying too-absolute judgments with an awareness of context: the genuine liberal is appalled by Islamist terrorism, but conscious of the national injury and humiliation that underlie it. None of the writers I have mentioned is remarkable for such balance. On the whole, they are more preoccupied with freedom of expression than freedom from imperial rule.”

Terry Eagleton in the Guardian, 25 April 2009

Teachers report ‘racist bullying’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nearly half of teachers say racist bullying is a problem in their schools, a survey has found. A Teachers TV survey of 802 teachers found two thirds said their schools had no policy on such bullying, and many worried about religious intolerance.

A third of teachers said more training would help them tackle the problem. The government said all schools should have a strong anti-bullying policy, which should also include measures to tackle racist bullying.

Teachers TV questioned 802 teachers to coincide with its anti-racism week. One in five said they were aware of Islamophobia in their schools.

BBC News, 24 April 2009

Muslims in fear of police terror

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims-in-fear-of-police-terrorMuslim leaders in Lancashire said on Thursday that the arrest, detention and subsequent release without charge of 12 people in police raids has created huge anxiety among the local community.

Hundreds of armed police raided addresses in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire during the operation, dragging the suspects from their homes and classrooms at gunpoint.

Images of the suspects being pinned to the ground with machine guns pointed to their head were beamed around the world.

In the immediate aftermath, the government commended the police on their prompt action in foiling a potentially imminent terrorist attack on British soil. Two weeks later, all 11 suspects plus a twelfth man – a British national – were released without charge. The 11 Pakistanis now face deportation.

Mr Abdul Hamed Kureshi of Lancashire Council of Mosques said: “Historically, arrests of Muslims are very high profile, it creates a lot of anxiety and there is a negative impact on community relations.

“If these people are arrested, as in this case, on what appears to be very poor intelligence, what effect will it have on their lives? If they are innocent they should be released. We have called on the authorities to be balanced and offered our support but whenever we tried to raise these issues we hardly get any response at all.

“We have been told nothing about why these arrests took place. We have excellent relations with Lancashire Constabulary but these arrests were carried out by different forces with little knowledge of the community in a negative and ruthless manner.”

Morning Star, 24 April 2009