Posted tagged ‘Islamophobia’

Ramadan Massacre in Orlando

June 13, 2016

Ramadan Massacre in Orlando, Front Page MagazineRobert Spencer, June 13, 2016

(The Orlando massacre happened because of homophobic Christians and their horrid firearms. CAIR and Obama have told us so and it’s true. It  had nothing to do with Islam and to claim that it did is Islamophobic. Muslims are the victims. Thus spake the left. When will they blame anthropomorphic climate change? — DM)

Ramadan shooter

It was the worst mass shooting ever on American soil: Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at the Pulse, an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub, on Saturday night. Mateen murdered at least fifty people and wounded another 53. The death count is almost certain to go higher, as many are quite gravely wounded. Mateen was a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and mentioned the Boston Marathon jihad killers in a 911 call just before he started shooting. Thus in the wake of the jihad massacre, it was time for the Leftist political and media elites to do what they always do first and foremost after every jihad massacre: make sure that no one thought ill of Islam.

The FBI, to its credit, immediately declared the massacre a terror attack, but Barack Obama was circumspect about what kind: he declared that it was too early to know “the precise motivations of the killer.” This despite the fact that not only had Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, but also the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the FBI is investigating reports that Mateen recited Islamic prayers during the massacre. On top of all that, the attack took place during the Muslim month of Ramadan, during which the Islamic State has called for jihad attacks against Americans.

Nonetheless, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with many other Leftists, tried to turn the jihad attack into a commercial for rolling back Americans’ Second Amendment rights, tweeting: “We mourn with the people of Orlando and the LGBT community as a whole on the news that -once again- we have lost precious lives to the gun.” Who knew that guns could be so diabolical and anti-gay?

Leftist responses ranged from the ominous to the absurd. Ominously, Facebook and Reddit turned to censorship to try to prevent people from thinking ill of Islam. Facebook removed the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) page, which had been up for six years and had over 55,000 members, and Reddit began banning people who dared to mention that the killer was a Muslim.

On the absurd side, ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted that the massacre was the fault of conservative Christians: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.” Does the illustrious Strangio actually believe that Omar Mateen was incited to commit mass murder in the gay nightclub in Orlando by an “anti-queer climate” created by Christian conservatives? He probably does, since, as a Leftist, he knows that non-Muslims are always and everywhere to blame for atrocities that Muslims commit.

Not only are non-Muslims to blame for Muslim atrocities, but Muslims are their victims, even when no Muslims are killed. AFP reported that “Florida officials also invited a local Islamic leader to address the media in a bid to preempt a possible backlash against the Muslim community.” Imam Muhammad Musri of the Islamic Society of Central Florida warned against“sensationalizing” the story.

In a similar vein, gay activist Steven W Thrasher wrote sanctimoniously in the Guardian: “Let us remember that we have never really blamed all Christians, Republicans or Democrats (many who have organized en masse to subject queer people to systematic violence and destruction at different points in American history) for the violence waged against us. We should remember that again today. We should remember not to blame all members of any other religion or political ideology for what one person does.” Right. The problem is that any examination of the motives and goals of people such as Omar Mateen, and any consideration of what can be done about them, is always met with the accusation that such examinations and considerations constitute blaming all Muslims for the actions of jihadis. It is so obviously fallacious that it is hard not to suspect that it is an intentional obfuscation.

In reality, the motivation for the jihad is quite clear, but Barack Obama doesn’t want to acknowledge that, because to do so would force him to confront the reality of Islamic teaching regarding gays. The Qur’an says: “If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful.” (4:16) That seems rather mild, but there’s more. The Qur’an also depicts Allah raining down stones upon people for engaging in homosexual activity: “We also sent Lot. He said to his people: “Do you commit lewdness such as no people in creation committed before you? For you practise your lusts on men in preference to women: you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds….And we rained down on them a shower of brimstone: Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!” (7:80)

Muhammad makes clear that Muslims should be the executors of the wrath of Allah by killing gays. A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.” (Abu Dawud 38:4447) And: “Stone the upper and the lower, stone them both.” (Ibn Majah 3:20:2562)

Combine this with the fact that Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani recently called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America,” and Mateen’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, and there is no doubt whatsoever what Omar Mateen was trying to do.

The Left has chosen to protect Islam at all costs, even at the expense of its other victim groups. When the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) several years ago ran ads highlighting the mistreatment of gays in Islamic law, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which is its city council, issued a resolution condemning not that mistreatment, but our ads. Gay advocates such as Theresa Sparks and Chris Stedman attacked us for daring to call attention to the institutionalized mistreatment of gays under Islamic law. Their gay advocacy doesn’t extend to standing up to Sharia oppression of gays, even though that oppression is far more virulent and violent than anything from “right-wing extremists” in the U.S.

And you can’t blame them: given the Leftist/jihadist alliance, it’s clear that if they spoke out against Sharia mistreatment of gays, they would no longer be invited to the best parties, and might even be branded as “right-wing.” Their moral cowardice and duplicity, however, are obvious, and monstrous in the light of what has just happened in Orlando. The Left’s continuing and now reflexive obfuscation and denial in the wake of every jihad massacre only ensures that there will be many, many more such massacres.

Stealth Jihadists are Hiding Their Identities Behind the Islamic State

June 13, 2016

Stealth Jihadists are Hiding Their Identities Behind the Islamic State, Jihad Watch

(Imam Obama and many others have told us, repeatedly, that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. Therefore, mass slaughters by Muslims in the name of the Islamic State must have nothing to do with the Religion of Peace and Tolerance either; to say or think that they are based on Islam is Islamophobic. Islamists are the principal victims. That’s the message pushed by CAIR and related Islamist organizations, highly regarded and relied upon by Obama, et al. — DM)

ISIS-has-always-been-here

An American-born man, reported to be 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and went on the deadliest mass shooting in American history, described as the worst terror attack since 9/11.

Robert Spencer has been following the media in its the defense of the indefensible, including: ACLU lawyers blaming the Christian Right and the GOP for the Jihadi rampage, while Obama babbled that it was too early to know the precise motivations of the killer. Too late, Mr. President! You already knew that the gunman had identified himself to police and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on a 911 call, and Mateen was also said to have recited prayers to Allah during the attack.

The victimology machine, as expected, went into high gear, with warnings about the backlash of “Islamophobia” before the crime scene was even cleaned up. The nefarious display of insensitivity on the part of by agenda-driven cads toward the families of the victims who were targeted in this monumental Jihadist attack, as well as the rampant political posturing, is grievous — and sure to continue. Even some of those who were directly affected in the attacks have been regurgitating the “Islamophobia” agenda, which has been shoved down their throats by means of a propagandist message about Muslim victimhood, racism, the past sins of European colonialism, the Crusades, and the present sins of right-wing foreign policies that supposedly provoke Jihadists. I’ll be surprised if the Jews don’t thrown onto the villain list somewhere, somehow.

Combine that focus with the media emphasis on the Islamic State’s “un-Islamic doctrine,” and its fears about where the next target could be. In all this, one group escapes mainstream scrutiny virtually unscathed, and thus continues in its malevolence virtually undetected. That group is the stealth Jihadists, who are using the presence of the Islamic State to hide behind and conceal their own activities. They did well at hiding almost completely — at least up until the Holy Land Foundation case, in which many of them were designated them “unindicted co-conspirators”, thus blowing their cover and showcasing their ties to jihad terrorism. Nonetheless, the mainstream media still gives them immunity from critique and analysis.

Before delving into some of the trickery of the stealth jihadists, it is important to note that Western water-carriers for the Jihad have been psychologically beaten into forgetting that the worst atrocities worldwide are being committed by Jihadists against innocents. These jihadists, who are both homegrown and foreign, are brainwashed by fanatical Islamic clerics — teaching in Western mosques and Islamic institutions — and linked to foreign entities that provide funding and issue fatwas and commands to conquer and kill infidels, along with their fellow Muslims who are deemed apostates. The anti-black racism in the Arab world, discussed at length in this AlJazeera article by an Arab woman, and the historic and current Arab slave trade, are also conveniently ignored.

June is Gay Pride month in America, and Orlando recently wrapped up a festival reported to have drawn up to 150,000 in the LGBT community to theme parks, gay nightclubs and special events.  The Pulse nightclub is well known for its power party atmosphere and its weekly themed performances. Chances are that it hasn’t gone unnoticed by local jihadists.

To delve into the subject of Jihadists operating largely unnoticed on our soil:

Only half an hour’s drive away from the Pulse Club is the Husseini Islamic Center of Sanford, which recently invited a Sheikh who had once called for the murder of gays as an Islamic act of love. His talk was so shockingly violent that prior to his recent visit to the local mosque,  some locals in Sanford were outraged by his invitation to the Center.

Sheikh Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar stated in 2013 that the killing of homosexuals is the compassionate thing to do. See the video here.

Sheikh Sekaleshfar also said, in an eerily calming manner, that:

“Death is the sentence.  We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this.… We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same, out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”

He also declared that homosexual sinners are Allah’s creation and that Muslims should never hate, but that the “punishment for the act of homosexuality is one of love”.

Westerners have a hard time grasping how it is that this Jihadist could be welcomed in by the local Husseini Islamic Center of Sanford; a Jihadist who not only believes, but preached that killing homosexuals is an act of love and compassion. And he uttered those vile words using a loving and compassionate tone.

A word to Westerners: when trying to gauge what a Jihadist enemy looks like, or sounds like, preconceived Western notions do not work. Just because a person may be calm, serene, polite, intelligent and charming does not mean that he or she will not murder according to Jihadist ideology.

The Sheikh also justified the murder of gays as a “happy” act, as being something that only looks brutal. So in the mind of Sheikh Sekaleshfar, the Pulse Club massacre only looked violent, but in his ideological belief system, these victims were killed by Mateen as an act of love. He states:

“We see the physical killing as something brutal, and this is the point when human hatred toward the act has to be done out of love….You have to be happy for that person … we believe in an afterlife, we believe in an eternal life … and with this sentence, you will be forgiven and you won’t be accountable in the hereafter.”

Organizations invite speakers that espouse their views, and Sheikh Sekeleshfar was invited by the Husseini Islamic Center of Sanford. What does that reveal about the Center?

The Sheikh also noted that you can’t enter homosexuals’ houses to murder them because they are free inside their houses, and you can’t prove their act, because according to Islamic law, there must be four witnesses to convict a homosexual. Disturbingly, he went on to claim that Islam is not homophobic because there is no hatred against such people.

Anti-gay violence is rooted in Islamic law, so the Pulse massacre is not an aberration of normative Islam. Indeed, there are those Muslims who are genuinely kind, pluralistic, and democratic-minded, and mortified by what took place at the Pulse Club. These Muslims are routinely deemed apostates by their co-religionists, and do not deserve to be targeted as a fallout from Jihadist violence.

One such person is Dr. Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, founder of the Koranist sect in Egypt, who warned about the danger of blindly accepting a jihadist organization as mainstream without question. He used CAIR as an example of a terrorist organization, warning that the “culture of CAIR is the same as Usama bin Laden, but they have two faces.”

Mansour was ejected from his professorship at Al Azhar University in Egypt for preaching against traditional Islamic doctrines of violence and subjugation. He was subsequently tortured in prison under then President Hosni Mubarek and eventually exiled from Egypt. He settled in Boston, only to report that he found the same violent ideology in a Boston mosque. He stated in an interview:

“I passed by the old mosque and attended the sunset prayer. I found materials in Arabic full of hatred against America and the Jews. It proved that the leaders of that mosque were very fanatical. I have my own painful story of persecution in Egypt from the same fanatics, so I was so scared and I finished my prayer quickly and did not go there anymore.”

The most effective way to battle Jihadist ambitions is for Western authorities, law enforcement and media to target those ambitions vigilantly and assiduously. The more we try to sweep this evil under the carpet, the more innocents will suffer.

Muslims who speak out against Jihadist violence are not necessarily friends. Stealth jihadists routinely speak out against the Islamic State and against violence committed in the name of Islam to make a show, and Westerners are fooled by them. For example, in a striking display of manipulation and hypocrisy , that same Husseini Islamic Center that invited Sheikh Sekeleshfar (who called for the “loving” murder of homosexuals), issued this statement following the Pulse Night Club massacre:

“Members of Husseini Islamic Center  stand united with our fellow Americans in categorically condemning this attack. We share the grief and sorrow of the nation and stand united with the Central Florida community and City of Orlando. Our heartfelt condolences and prayers go out to the families and loved ones who are victims of this tragedy.”

The Orlando regional CAIR chapter also condemned the Pulse Club massacre and called for Muslims to donate blood, a noble gesture — if sincere.

Unfortunately, CAIR is well credited with the bogus “Islamophobia” branding, intended to deflect any criticism of Islam and intimidate those who speak the truth JIhadist ambitions. After the San Bernardino killings, CAIR quickly condemned the violence and once again distanced the murders from Islam. Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, showed up with CAIR in a show of a united front, at which CAIR stated, “We have condemned all violence, everywhere” and urged people to “not implicate Islam or Muslims” at large for the attack. Siddiqi said that “our faith has nothing to do with [the shooting], our faith is against this kind of behavior.”

Muzammil Siddiqi is also the former president of the Islamic Society of North America, an organization (along with CAIR) that was named in the Holy Land Foundation trial as among the entities that were part of the Muslim Brotherhood structure in America.

According to Siddiqi’s current organization’s website, the Islamic Society of Orange County has “earned a prosperous reputation within the Muslim, interfaith, and broader communities”; while Saddiqi is a well-respected and prominent man in the interfaith dialogue business. Some of his impressive interfaith acquisitions……

Current President of the Academy of Judaic-Christian and Islamic Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).  He has spoken at: the World Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver – Canada, the World Assembly of Religions, the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He has participated in many seminars organized by the National Council of Churches and National Council of Christians and Jews in USA. In September 2001 on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance he was invited by President George Bush to lead a Muslim Prayer at the Interfaith Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral. In September 2006 he was again invited by President Bush to lead an interfaith prayer on the 5th Anniversary of 9/11 at Ground Zero in New York.

Yet, when this acclaimed diversity expert Siddiqi spoke about homosexuality, this is what he said:

“Homosexuality is a moral disorder. It is a moral disease, a sin and corruption… No person is born   homosexual, just like no one is born a thief, a liar or murderer. People acquire these evil habits due to a lack of proper guidance and education.”

Recall a so-called “Intelligence Report” by the Southern Poverty Law Center that listed over 1,000 organizations labeled “hate groups.” 17 “anti-gay” ones were singled out, of which the majority were Christian and conservative, yet they bypassed the sheer scorn spewed against gays among Muslim groups.

Some more about the great diversity expert and Islamic Cleric Imam Siddiqi…..

He converted homegrown terrorist, Adam Gadahn, who was killed in a drone strike. Gadahn was dubbed the American face of al-Qaeda, according to the Orange County Register. The New Yorker describes his conversion to Islam: he was sitting in Imam Siddiqi’s office as he recited the Shahada in Arabic at the Islamic Society of Orange County on November 17, 1995.

Three years prior, in 1992, Siddiqi hosted a lecture in his mosque at the Islamic Society of Orange County, where his featured guest was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (a.k.a. the infamous“Blind Sheikh”). Siddiqi sat beside him and translated his speech in real time. Sheikh Rahman was a longtime spiritual leader of Egypt’s largest Islamic militant group, al-Gama’a al-Islamiya. Eventually, Omar Abdel Rahman was indicted for helping to plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. One of his fatwas, issued from prison in 1998, became central to Al Qaeda’s justification of mass violence, as reported in the Investigative Project.

This is what Imam Siddiqi translated from Rahman’s speech in front of his audience: in his lecture, Abdel Rahman dismissed non-violent definitions of jihad as being weak. He stressed a critical message that revealed the violent call to jihad among Muslims. Worthy of alarm is that this message was not being taught by al Qaeda nor the likes of the Islamic State, but was a message to those living among us, organized also by those living in our midst as mainstream Muslim Americans and fooling us with outward condemnations at the time when their very instructions are carried out.

Rahman continued on as Siddiqi translated:

“If you are not going to the jihad, then you are neglecting the rules of Allah.”

He went on to indicate that this call to jihadist war applied anywhere. He then ploughed into victimology propaganda, stating that jihad must be executed upon “those who are taking the wealth of Muslims from petrol or from oil.” He also passed around a red toolbox with a slit cut into its lid for donations. Videotapes of the lecture were brazenly offered for sale at the Islamic Society of Orange County’s bookstore.

Investigator Steven Emerson wrote about  the continuing efforts to present jihadist Muslims as mainstream voices. Our Western democracies, which have evolved into rule of law societies to protect the rights of all citizens, righteously do not permit Muslim witch-hunts, but with that said, it is expedient for Westerners to educate themselves so as not to be duped by these stealth Jihadists.

Another comment, issued from the mainstream Islamic Center of Orlando (twenty minutes away from the Pulse Club), should raise questions. It was issued by Imam Tariq Rasheed following the massacre:

“Over 1.6 billion people are practicing Islam peacefully, and that’s what Islam is all about…It’s a religion of peace and love and we feel these people [Islamic State] have hijacked our peaceful religion and they are manipulating it.”

The world’s Muslim population is 1.6 billion or close to that, so the balderdash in in this statement is to be rejected. Indeed there are peaceful, law-abiding Muslims in our midst, but let’s stop ignoring the 1400 years of violent history in the name of Islam, and the violence that continues to be practiced today in both stealth and violent forms for the objective of global conquest.

Last year, FBI Director James Comey warned that “hundreds, maybe thousands” of people across the country are “receiving recruitment overtures from the terrorist group or directives to attack the U.S.”

But let’s not be fooled: the Islamic State is a Jihadist force that has dramatically and shockingly revealed the brutality of Islamic Jihad in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere, and Saturday night in the U.S.: its ideology has been brought within our borders long before the Islamic State started grabbing headlines with its atrocities in the Middle East. Jihadists, both stealth and violent, work hand-in-hand toward the same goal of conquest.

ACLU lawyers blame ‘Christian right,’ GOP for Orlando terrorist attack

June 12, 2016

ACLU lawyers blame ‘Christian right,’ GOP for Orlando terrorist attack, Washington ExaminerJoel Gehrke, June 12, 2016

Christian conservatives are responsible for the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando because they “created this anti-queer climate,” according to American Civil Liberties Union attorneys.

“You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate,” ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted on Sunday morning.

About 50 people were killed last night by Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen born to Afghan parents suspected to have “leanings toward extreme Islamic ideologies.” The FBI is investigating the attack as a “domestic terror incident.”

But Strangio — who “spend[s his] life fighting Christian homophobia while being loved & supported by [his] Muslim family” — and his colleagues connected the shooting back to Christians and Republican politicians who oppose gay marriage. “The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this,” Strangio tweeted. “No.”

Another ACLU attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues scolded Republican lawmakers who tweeted out their condolences. “Remember when you co-sponsored extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act?” the ACLU’s Eunice Rho tweeted at Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans,

House Speaker Paul Ryan was careful not to jump to conclusions about the attacker on Sunday morning. “We pray for those brutally attacked in Orlando,” Ryan tweeted. “While we must learn more about the attacker, the victims & families will not be forgotten.”

Strangio rebuffed that message as well. “But there will be no self-reflection and people like you will continue to fuel and embolden this type of hatred,” he wrote in a retweet of Ryan’s note.

Gaffney: Jihad in Orlando

June 12, 2016

Gaffney: Jihad in Orlando, BreitbartFrank Gaffney, June 12, 2016

Orlando massacreUnivision

At 2 a.m. this morning, a man who law enforcement sources have identified as Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a U.S. citizen born of Afghan parents, opened fire with an automatic weapon in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  Before he was killed by police, he murdered at least 20 individuals and wounded dozens more.  The death toll could rise further.

The FBI reportedly suspects that the shooter may have “leanings towards radical Islamic terrorism.”  Some accounts indicate that he was, like so many so-called “lone wolves,” actually a “known wolf” – a jihadist already identified as a potential threat by authorities, but allowed to continue to operate.

Now that latitude appears to have translated into the murder and wounding of dozens of gay people, an action consistent with the teachings of the totalitarian Islamic supremacist doctrine known as sharia, which requires its adherents to hate and kill homosexuals.

A posting last night at CounterJihad.com shows that the genesis of this practice is found in a hadith which has Muhammad saying that “whomever you find doing the actions of the people of Lot, kill the one doing it, and the one it is done to.” While the authorities of Islam disagree about what is the preferred way to kill gays and lesbians – throwing them off buildings, hanging them, burning them alive – there is no question but that murdering them is sanctioned by sharia.

As it happens, in 2013, an Islamic supremacist named Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar made this point in a speech at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford, Florida – about 20 miles from Orlando and two hours drive from Mateen’s home in Port St. Lucie.  It is unclear at this writing whether the shooter was associated with this mosque or aware of this particular exhortation to kill homosexuals.  But if indeed he was a sharia-adherent Muslim, there is no doubt that he was aware that his duty was to take homophobia to its murderous extreme.

It is absolutely predictable that Muslim Brotherhood front organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) will shortly denounce this act of violence, insist that it has nothing to do with Islam, and lowball any ties the perpetrator may have had to one or more Orlando area mosques.  Instead, they will try to deflect attention to those they accuse of “Islamophobia” for connecting the obvious – and ominous – dots.  In fact, CAIR has scheduled a press conference on Tuesday at its headquarters in Washington for the purpose of defaming American patriots who oppose the Islamist agenda and those, like the Muslim Brotherhood with its pre-violent “civilization jihad,” who are enabling violent jihadists, here and elsewhere.

The Islamic State and al Qaeda have both called for individual jihadists to use the month of Ramadan, which began on June 6th, to attack Americans in this country.  This murderous act in Orlando may prove to have been inspired by such calls, or by Sheik Sekaleshfar, or simply by the tenets of sharia.

We can only hope that – whatever its inspiration – Mateen’s is the last such act of jihad in America.  But for there to be any chance that will be the case, we are going to have to stop importing more jihadists, designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization (the object of pending legislation sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart), and shut down the Brotherhood’s mosques and front groups that are promoting sharia and the realization of its ultimate objective, which is – in the Brotherhood’s own words – “destroying Western civilization from within.”

As former Department of Homeland Security whistleblower and best-selling author of See Something, Say Nothing Philip Haney points out, the jihadists won’t stop trying to kill us, homosexuals and straights alike, until we stop them.  And that’s what we must be about now.

The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents

June 12, 2016

The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents, Gatestone InstituteGiulio Meotti, June 12, 2016

♦ Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the rebels, the non-believers and the heretics.

♦ This rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents is the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics.

♦ They are alone against all. Against Islamism which uses Kalashnikovs and against an intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

♦ We should support them — all of them. Some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

Islam, warned the best-selling Algerian novelist, Boualem Sansal, is going to split European society. In an interview with German media, this brave Arab writer painted a vision of Europe subjugated by radical Islam. According to Sansal, the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels are directed at the Western way of life: “You can not even defeat the weak Arab states, so they have brought in fifth columns to bring the West to destroy itself. If they succeed society will fall.”

Mr. Sansal, who has been threatened with death, belongs to a rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents. They are the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics. These Muslim dissidents pursue freedom of conscience, interreligious coexistence, pluralism in the public sphere, criticism of Islam, and respect for the rule of common law. For the Islamic world, their message could be devastating. That is why the Islamists are hunting them down.

It is always individuals, such as Lech Walesa, who make all the difference. The Soviet Union was defeated by only three beings: Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II — and the dissidents. When Professor Robert Havemann died in East Germany, few people noticed it. This intrepid critic of the regime was confined under house arrest in Grünheide, guarded by the Stasi. But the old professor never allowed himself to be intimidated. He continued to fight for his ideas.

A hero of Czechoslovak anti-Communism, Jan Patočka, died under grueling police interrogation. Patočka paid the highest price of silencing. His brilliant lectures were reduced to a clandestine seminar. Although unable to publish, he continued to work in a tiny underground apartment.

Hunted by the KGB, Alexander Solzhenitsyn set down the chapters of his Gulag Archipelago and hid them with different trusted friends, so no one possessed the entire manuscript. In 1973 only three copies existed. When the Soviet political police managed to extort the typist, Elizaveta Voronyanskya, to one of the hideouts, thinking the masterpiece was lost forever she hanged herself.

Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the heretics, the rebels, and the non-believers. It is no coincidence that the first victim of a fatwa was Salman Rushdie, an Indian-British writer from a Muslim family.

Pascal Bruckner called them “the free thinkers of the Muslim world.” We should support them — all of them. Because if the enemies of freedom come from free societies, those who kneel before Allah’s enforcers, some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

One, an Algerian author, Kamel Daoud, who called Saudi Arabia “an Isis that had made it,” recently sparked an “Islamophobia” row for having directed his own anger at the naïve people, who he says ignore the cultural gulf separating the Arab-Muslim world from Europe.

Another, an Iranian exile, now in the Netherlands, the jurist Afshin Ellian, works at Utrecht University, where after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, he is protected by bodyguards. After the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, while Europe’s media were busy in blaming the “stupid” cartoonists, Ellian promoted an appeal: “Don’t let terrorists determine the limits of free speech.”

Another brave dissident and author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals.

1644Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a brave Muslim dissident and author, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals. (Image source: Gage Skidmore)

The Moroccan mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is also guarded by police. He recently told fellow Muslims who protested against freedoms they found while living in the West to “pack your bags and f… off.” A heroic Christian defender of these freedoms in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, is now on trial accused of “discrimination.” “I am in jail,” he has said, referring to his safehouses, “and they are walking around free.”

Many of these dissidents are women. Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist, declared war on Islamic fundamentalists after the Taliban’s religious police beat her for daring to walk without a male escort. A suicide bomber blew himself up near her car, killing three. Kadra Yusuf, a Somali journalist, infiltrated Oslo’s mosques to denounce the imams, especially regarding female genital mutilation, not even required in the Koran or the Hadith (reports about Mohammad). In Pakistan, Sherry Rehman called for “a reform of Pakistani blasphemy’s laws.” She risks her life every day. She is branded by Islamists “fit to be killed” for being a woman, a Muslim and a secular activist. The Syrian-American author and psychiatrist, Wafa Sultan, was also branded an “infidel” deserving of death.

Le Figaro recently published a long report about Muslim French personalities threatened with “execution”. “Placed under permanent police protection, regarded as traitors by Muslim fundamentalists, they live in a hell. In the eyes of Islamists, their freedom is an act of betrayal of the ummah [community].” They are writers and journalists of Arab-Muslim culture who denounce the Islamist threat and the inherent violence of the Koran. They stand alone against Islamism which uses the physical terrorism of Kalashnikovs, and against the intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

The French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many ministers in the government of Manuel Valls, and for security, has to change houses in Paris often in recent months. For this young scholar, born in Casablanca and who works at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, walking down the street in Paris has become unthinkable. A fatwa put out after January 7, 2015 reads: “Kill Zineb El Rhazoui to avenge the Prophet.”

Threats against another dissident, Nadia Remadna, do not come from Raqqa, Syria, but her own city: Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis. They reflect the growing influence of Islamists in the lost territories of the French Republic. What “crime” was she found guilty of? She created the “Brigade of Mothers” to combat the Islamist influence on young Muslims.

A philosophy teacher, Sofiane Zitouni, has also quit his job at a Muslim French school over “insidious Islamism.”

The French-Algerian journalist, essayist and author of several investigations into Islamist circles,Mohamed Sifaoui, is the victim of a double threat. He is a prime target for both fundamentalists and the “tolerant” grand inquisitors. Sentenced to two years in prison by the Algerian regime for “press offenses,” then harassed by Islamists, Sifaoui requested asylum in France in 1999 and has never set foot in Algeria again. Since then, Sifaoui has seen his picture and name next to the words “le mourtad,” the apostate, on Islamist websites, meaning that he is targeted for death. French police protection around him has been total since 2006, when he defended freedom of expression for the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

About fifteen witnesses made a deposition in favor of the magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Among them were the late Muslim Tunisian essayist, Abdelwahab Meddeb, who had the courage to challenge the entire French Muslim establishment which tried to stop Charlie Hebdo. Meddeb wanted to show “this is not about anyone against Islam, but enlightened Islam against obscurantist Islam.”

Also in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, the courageous imam of Drancy, preaches while wearing a bullet-proof vest. When he goes out on the street, he is accompanied by five police officers with semiautomatic weapons. This is not outside Baghdad’s Green Zone; this is in the heart of Paris. Chalghoumi backed the ban on burkas; made an unprecedented visit at Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial; paid tribute to the victims of Charlie Hebdo and favored a dialogue with French Jews.

Naser Khader, a Muslim liberal with Danish citizenship, who called for “a Muslim reformation,” and authored “Honour and Shame,” is threatened by Islamic groups with death.

In Italy, an Egyptian-born writer, Magdi Cristiano Allam, is protected by bodyguards for having criticized political Islam. As the deputy editor of Italy’s leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Mr. Allam published a book whose title alone was enough to endanger his life: “Viva Israele.

Ibn Warraq lives protected behind a pseudonym since writing a seminal book, “Why I am Not a Muslim.”

The Palestinian blogger Walid Husayin is also a rarity. Jailed for “satirizing the Koran, he recently published a book in France about his experience in the Palestinian territories, where his “atheism” nearly cost him his life.

In Tunisia there are a handful of filmmakers and intellectuals who fight for freedom of expression, especially after a secular opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, was assassinated. Also Nadia El Fani, the director of “Ni Allah ni maître” [“Neither Allah nor Master”], and Nabil Karoui, the manager of Nessma TV, are threatened with death and are being taken to court to answer charges of “blasphemy.” If Tunisia’s “Arab spring” did not turn into an Islamist winter, as elsewhere, it is largely thanks to these dissidents.

Those heroes know what happened to their predecessors in “the war on Arab intellectuals.” Writers such as Tahar Djaout were killed in 1993 by the Islamists in Algiers, as was the journalist, Farag Foda, famous for his sharp satires on Islamic fundamentalism. Prior to his murder, Foda had been accused of “blasphemy” by the great mosque of al-Azhar. A dozen Bangladeshi bloggers have also been murdered in cold blood by Islamists for the “crime” of “secularism.”

Last year, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi called for reforming Islam and the way it is taught as did Sunni Islam’s leading cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al Tayeb, head of Cairo’s al-Azhar University, the center of Sunni Islam. And he said it in Mecca, no less. Egypt’s conservatives however did their best to tamp that down – at least for the moment.

There are, however, more and more dissidents successfully speaking out and leading bold, farsighted movements. In the U.S., M. Zuhdi Jasser, author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam,” and a practising physician, founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Last year, more than two dozen Muslim personalities promoted an appeal “to embrace a pluralistic interpretation of Islam, rejecting all forms of oppression and abuses committed in the name of religion.”

In Canada, Raheel and Sohail Raza founded “Muslims Facing Tomorrow,” and there is the outspoken Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Salim Mansur.

In the U.K., Maajid Nawaz heads the influential Quilliam Foundation, and Shiraz Maher, who defected from the Islamist organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, now serves as a Senior Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London.

These are just a few of today’s heroes. Some had to be left out; there were too many to list.

The proud and painful resistance of these “Allah’s rebels” is one of the most beautiful testaments of our times. These “Allah’s rebels” are also the only real hope of reform for the Islamic world — and of preserving freedom for all of us.

Swedish Politicians: “Islam is Definitely Compatible with Democracy!”

June 8, 2016

Swedish Politicians: “Islam is Definitely Compatible with Democracy!” Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, June 8, 2016 — Part II of a series.

♦ With their goodhearted eagerness to be inclusive, not to discriminate and to defend freedom of religion, Swedish politicians are easy prey for Islamists with an anti-democratic agenda.

♦ “The presumption is that Muslims want nothing more than to adapt to a Western way of life and Western values. … the presumption is also that Islam can be tamed…” — Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrats party leader.

♦ “Democracy is a man-made system, meaning by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah… it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being…” — Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, in fatwa number 07166.

♦ Everyone knows what happens to anyone who criticizes Islam — first, you get labeled an “Islamophobe racist,” then, like the artist Lars Vilks, you might get afatwa of death on your head.

♦ The question is where the democratic Muslims will be when Islam has gained even more influence in Sweden — will they stand up for Swedish democracy if that means openly going against the tenets of Islam?

It should not be a mystery whether Islam is compatible with democracy or not. All you have to do is look at the Islamic sources or call any imam and pretend to be impressed that Islam does not separate religion and politics.

Yet, when Gatestone Institute called Swedish politicians at all levels to ask if Islam and democracy were compatible, they gave assurances that there were no problems whatsoever with Islam’s capacity for democracy — or they hung up.

The two most common answers given were:

  1. Islam is definitely compatible with democracy!
  2. I cannot discuss this matter right now.

The question cuts through all parties; apparently no one dares to face the facts. So far, throughout history, and now in the world’s 57 Muslim countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), nowhere has Islam been compatible with democracy, freedom of speech, human rights and legal certainty. These Muslim states have not signed the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, a document Swedish politicians seem to cherish. Instead, those countries have joined the Cairo Declaration, which stipulates that sharia is the only foundation for human rights. In short, human rights are all well and good so long as they do not conflict with sharia — if they do, sharia wins. In practice, this means that in the Islamic world, there are, in the Western sense, no human rights.

Then why do Swedish politicians believe they will be able to democratize Islam? Do they know something the rest of the world does not? Or, as the alternative is so terrifying, are they just pretending?

In 1985, Sweden was still a homogenous country. There was no doubt that Sweden belonged to the Swedes. We were proud of the country that our forefathers created, and the welfare state given to us by the Social Democrats. Women in veils and men in Middle Eastern clothes did not walk the streets, and Islam was still considered exotic. It was, as the analyst Ronie Berggren recently put it, “Arabian nights, or [the children’s book] Tam Sventon with his manservant, Mr. Omar, and the flying carpet. Olof Palme was still alive and Sweden thought itself a safe and functioning nation.”

But in 1985, the Swedish History Museum published an anthology, “Islam: religion, culture, society,” in which a diplomat, Dag Sebastian Ahlander, expressed concerns:

“Islamic immigration to Sweden can also lead to new conflicts within Swedish society. The Swedish perception is that there is freedom of religion in Sweden, but that perception is built on a private view of religion. To a Muslim, a large part of the rules regarding everyday activities is based on Islam; co-education of boys and girls, sex education, the view on the status of women, the demand that the slaughter of animals should be performed according to certain rituals, the demand that Friday should be a public holiday — all of these things are potential sources of conflict to Muslim immigrants in Swedish society, and they are all ultimately founded on religion.”

Sadly, the anthology fell into oblivion. All at once, while the Swedes were busy tending their gardens or repainting their summer houses, and feeling safe in the knowledge that our politicians surely were not lying to us, Islam was everywhere. The problems sketched out by Dag Sebastian Ahlander are now affecting all of us — but still the politicians refuse to address the most basic question.

In calls to politicians, Gatestone also encountered an incantation: Islam is democratic because it has to be democratic, because what will happen to Sweden otherwise?

Many politicians are, evidently, frightened to death to talk about Islam. They seem to do everything in their power to avoid giving an answer. They claim they are the wrong person to talk to; they hang up the phone — anything to skirt a discussion.

The reason may well be that no matter what they say, everyone knows what happens to anyone who criticizes Islam — first, you get labeled an “Islamophobe racist,” then, like the artist Lars Vilks, you might get a fatwa of death on your head.

Not one of the politicians or officials was able to name a single Muslimmajority country that has a decent democracy with legal certainty and freedom of speech. Not one could see any danger coming from an increasing Islamization of Sweden. Typical answers were:

“Yes, Islam is definitely compatible with democracy. At least, that is my interpretation.” — Beatrice Ask, Conservative (Moderaterna), former Minister of Justice.

“Of course if you read the words in the Quran, and the movements and schools that are leading around the world, then Islam is difficult to merge with the Swedish version of democracy. But I try to avoid talking categorically about Islam as a whole. Many people have Islam as their personal faith.” — Paula Bieler, Sweden Democrats.

“I have nothing against that. People can believe what they want in a democracy.” — Nooshi Dadgostar, Left Party (Vänsterpartiet).

“Islam as a religion is compatible with democracy, why wouldn’t it be? I don’t think there is any religion not compatible with democracy. As long as you don’t use religion to hurt each other, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all democratic in their basic perspective.” — Jamal Mouneimne, Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna).

“[Mehmet] Kaplan is a practicing Muslim in a democratically elected government, so of course both he and I believe Islam is compatible with democracy. He is also an anti-racist, a feminist and he stands up for human rights.” — Mikaela Kotschack, Green Party (Miljöpartiet), Press Secretary for the recently resigned Mehmet Kaplan.

“I cannot answer that I’m afraid. This calls for a longer discussion, you cannot just answer yes or no to that question. … No, the question does not make me nervous, but it demands knowledge and a longer discussion.” — Larry Söder, Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna).

The civil servants, who are supposed to give the politicians more insight into current political issues, seem no more knowledgeable than the politicians. Deputy Assistant Göran Ternbo, the Government Offices’ expert on democracy and human rights, was also asked if Islam is compatible with democracy:

“Eh, ah … that’s a controversial issue, it is. I don’t know. You cannot be that categorical answering one way or the other. Why are you asking these questions? It feels … where are you going with this?”

Gatestone: We just want to know what the government’s view on Islam is. Are you aware of the Islamic agenda?

Ternbo: “We have freedom of religion in Sweden.”

Gatestone: Can you say that Islam fits into democratic Sweden?

Ternbo: “Yes, if they follow our laws.”

Gatestone: But many say they want sharia?

Ternbo: “I have never heard that.”

Gatestone: Can you mention one democratic Muslim country?

Ternbo: “I do not understand where this is going. If you want to discuss Islam, I advise you to contact the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, they have experts on Islam.”

Gatestone: But the politicians are filling the country with Islam right now, how does that affect Sweden’s future?

Ternbo: “My job is to deal with completely different issues, so I cannot answer that. Right now, I’m working on the Nordic Sami Convention.”

Gatestone: You work with human rights, have the Muslim countries accepted the UN Declaration on Human Rights?

Ternbo: “Yes, they’ve accepted a number of declarations, including the Cairo Declaration.”

Gatestone: Does the Cairo Declaration view human rights the same way we do?

Ternbo: “I don’t want to continue this discussion, it feels like an interrogation. We have freedom of religion in Sweden.”

Gatestone: Is it possible to use Swedish democracy to abolish democracy?

Ternbo: “This is going too far. I have a meeting now. Goodbye.”

The Swedes are highly secularized. They have never asked to be invaded by fierce religious rules. However, the huge immigration of asylum seekers, mainly from Muslim-majority countries, has turned everything the Swedes take for granted upside down — such as the idea that people mind their religious business in private, and that you can trust what other people tell you.

Can you trust what Muslim politicians are saying? In the Nordic culture, telling the truth is a virtue. The Aesir clan of the gods in Norse mythology listed nine noble virtues: courage, love of the truth, honorable living, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, confidence, diligence and endurance. In Islam, however, love of the truth does not seem to be a prominent virtue — in some circumstances, not only is lying allowed, it is compulsory to lie if it benefits Islam.

The question of whether Islam and democracy are compatible is probably the most important one that Sweden has faced in modern times. If Islam is not compatible with democracy, while the number of Muslims in Sweden grows week by week, then Sweden as a democratic country may soon be but a memory.

With their goodhearted eagerness to be inclusive, to defend freedom of religion, and not to discriminate against any group, Swedish politicians are easy prey for Islamists with an anti-democratic agenda.

Islam has its own system of justice, built on divine law (sharia); a ban on any and all criticism of Islam, and laws regulating virtually everything in everyone’s life. Moreover, there seems to be no interest on the part of the newcomers in abandoning these traditions in favor of the traditions of the West.

The fact that all political parties apart from the Sweden Democrats (who are critical of immigration) have Muslim representatives might lead people to think that if there are Muslims working within our democratic system, they must be democrats.

Yet Swedish imams make no secret that in Islam, politics and religion are branches on the same tree. If you phone an imam, and say you are a Swede who has grown tired of the Swedish Church’s compliance on political issues, and that you have thought about converting to Islam, you might hear, as imam Ali at the Islamic Cultural Center in Lund, said, “No, you cannot take politics out of Islam, it is a part of our religion. Islam is a complete system, which people need.”

Of course, if you are critical of Islam mixing politics and religion, you will not get answers like that — the imams evidently know that such answers are not popular in Sweden — anyway, not yet.

Anyone who thinks that these candid imams might be mistaken can study the official pronouncements on the subject. In fatwa number 07166, for instance, entitled, “Ruling on democracy and elections and participating in that system,” Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, one of the most respected scholars in Sunni Islam, writes:

“Praise be to Allaah. Firstly: Democracy is a man-made system, meaning rule by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah, the Most High, the Almighty, and it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being, no matter who he is.”

His fatwa number 98134, “Concept of democracy in Islam,” states:

“Democracy is a system that is contrary to Islam, because it gives the power of legislation to the people or to those who represent them (such as members of Parliament). Based on that, in democracy legislative authority is given to someone other than Allah, may He be exalted; rather it is given to the people and their deputies, and what matters is not their consensus but the majority. Thus what the majority agree upon becomes laws that are binding on the nation, even if it is contrary to common sense, religious teaching or reason. In these systems legislation has been promulgated allowing abortion, same-sex marriage and usurious interest (riba); the rulings of sharee’ah have been abolished; and fornication/adultery and the drinking of alcohol are permitted. In fact this system is at war with Islam and its followers.”

In fatwa number 111898, he answers a question on whether it is permissible to participate in non-Muslim, democratic elections:

“The Muslim participants should intend thereby to serve the interests of the Muslims and ward off evil and harm from them. The Muslim participants should think it most likely that their participation will have positive effects that will benefit the Muslims in that country, such as supporting their position, conveying their requests to the decision makers and those who are in charge of the country, and protecting their religious and worldly interests. The Muslim’s participation in these elections should not lead to him neglecting his religious duties.”

In fatwa number 178354, the Sheik is asked, “What is the ruling on one who reviles the Muslims and praises the kuffaar [infidels], and even wishes to be one of them?” He replies:

“Allah, may He be exalted, has instructed His believing slaves to love one another and to take one other as friends, and He has instructed them to hate His enemies and regard them with enmity for the sake of Allah. He has stated that friendship can only be among the believers and enmity is to be between them and the kaafirs; disavowing them is one of the basic principles of their faith and is part of perfecting their religious commitment. There are very many verses, hadeeths and comments of the early generation to that effect.”

That Islam combines religion and politics, with a view to using politics to advance the religion, and further these views, which are clearly stated, appears a totally foreign concept to Swedish politicians. Perhaps this is the reason that a Turkish-born Muslim, Mehmet Kaplan, could become Minister for Housing and Urban Development, all the while rubbing shoulders with the Islamists of Turkish groups Milli Görüs and the neo-fascists of the Grey Wolves — he was convinced no one would ever question him or his agenda, as questioning him about such alliances would be considered “Islamophobic.”

When pictures of him consorting with these groups were leaked to the media, a video clip also emerged in which Kaplan compared Israel’s actions with the Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. That remark, in 2016, crossed the line for what an Islamist may say and do in Sweden. In Sweden, it is incredibly important not to question the Holocaust. Disapproval may possibly have come as a surprise to many, who perceive Sweden’s Israel policy under Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström as extremely critical of Israel. Wallström and the government’s criticism of Israel stems mainly from a view of Israel as the stronger party in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and from not recognizing that the Muslims and Arabs in the larger conflict perpetually threaten genocide against Israel and the Jews.

Mehmet Kaplan’s remark forced him to resign. Alas, anyone thinking that the Kaplan affair would lead to a discussion of the role of Islam in Swedish politics, is mistaken. Nothing in the public debate so far suggests that Swedish politicians will seriously start looking into a possible underlying agenda among Muslim politicians, such as that they might in fact be working to spread Islam in Sweden, as Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid encourages. Such fatwas can be found in his IslamQA.info, one of the world’s most popular websites on Islam.

1565Mehmet Kaplan, a Turkish-born Muslim, became Sweden’s Minister for Housing and Urban Development, all the while rubbing shoulders with the Islamists of Turkish groups Milli Görüs and the neo-fascists of the Grey Wolves — he was convinced no one would ever question him or his agenda, for fear that doing so would be considered “Islamophobic.” Kaplan was only forced to resign in April after revelations that he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Jan Ainali)

Mehmet Kaplan had only just resigned, when, within the Green Party, the next scandal broke. Yasri Khan, chairman of Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (Svenska muslimer för fred och rättvisa), was also a would-be member of the Green Party executive committee. In a news report on Sweden’s TV4, viewers watched in amazement as Khan refused to shake the female reporter’s hand. Was a man who did this really a good representative for the “feminist” Green Party?

When the Green Party’s spokesman, Gustav Fridolin, tried to explain Khan’s actions and why he had been recommended for the party’s executive, he only made matters worse. On a morning television show, Fridolin said that he “did not understand that women could feel so offended by someone refusing to shake hands.” The same evening, Fridolin apologized for the apology.

The Green Party may be the easiest party in which Islamists can act as entryists. The party appears particularly fond of physical diversity and seems willing to accept just about anybody who appears to be not an ethnic Swede. Possibly the Green Party never counted on the Swedish people, including their own constituents, having a completely different view of religion, politics, gender equality and handshakes.

After these scandals, the scholar Lars Nicander of the Swedish Defense University warned inAftonbladet that the Green Party might have been infiltrated by Islamists:

“I see a resemblance with how the Soviet Union acted during the Cold War, when it tried to infiltrate various democratic parties, and these methods are similar to what we see today, when people close to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party, apparently have gotten a strong foothold within the Green Party.”

A few days later, the Social Democratic politician Nalin Pekgul, a Kurdish Muslim, told the public-service Sveriges Television that she believes the Green Party is rife with Islamists: “The Green Party has for a long time become an arena for many Islamists to involve themselves in. That is the party where they have been strongest and most successful.”

She also said that while other parties have been exposed to Islamists, the Green Party has been affected the most:

“The Islamists in the Green Party are members of the party executive, they are in City Halls around the country, in the District Councils, and they have friends in the Government Offices who push their issues and make sure their organizations get lots of money.”

The key issue is what, if any, lesson Swedish politicians have learned from the Islamist revelations this spring. If Sweden is to survive as a secular democracy, then all politicians need to understand what Islam actually is. The fact that there are democratic Muslims does not mean that Islam itself is compatible with democracy. Individual Muslims may make a distinction between politics and religion, but this does not mean that Islam accepts this division. The question is where the democratic Muslims will be when Islam has gained even more influence in Sweden: Will they stand up for Swedish democracy if that means openly going against the tenets of Islam?

In 2009, the year before the Sweden Democrats party entered parliament, party leader Jimmie Åkesson published an opinion piece, headlined “The Muslims are our greatest foreign threat,” in the newspaper Aftonbladet:

“This is the reason today’s multicultural Swedish power elite is so totally blind to the dangers of Islam and Islamization. The presumption is that Muslims want nothing more than to adapt to a Western way of life and Western values, and that Islam is essentially the same as Christianity, the only difference being that Muslims have another name for God. Thus, the presumption is also that Islam can be tamed, the same way secular forces have tamed European Christianity and relegated it to the private sphere.”

Åkesson further wrote that Islam has affected the Swedish society to a much higher degree than Swedish society has affected Islam. He listed several areas where Islam has made an impact. People who have made fun of Islam are forced to live under constant police protection; Muslim terrorist organizations are growing stronger; Muslim representatives are demanding sharia laws; taxpayer money is being spent on circumcising baby boys; public swimming pools separate men and women; demands for halal meat at supermarkets while schools should no longer serve pork, and so on.

Not even the Sweden Democrats seem to have focused on Islam’s demands for political influence. Party leader Jimmie Åkesson asked what things will look like in another few decades, when the Muslim population has increased several times over, and cities such as Malmö most likely have a Muslim majority. He concluded the article with a promise:

“The multicultural societal elites may see this future as a colorful, interesting change for a Sweden and a Europe one usually denies has ever been ‘Swedish’ or ‘European’. As a Sweden Democrat, I see this as our greatest foreign threat since World War II, and I promise to do everything in my power to reverse this trend when we go to the polls next year.”

Åkesson’s article ignited a firestorm. Members of the “establishment” swore they had never read anything so vile, and the article was reported to the Chancellor of Justice as suspected “hate speech.” However, the Chancellor at the time, Göran Lambertz, did not open an investigation into the case. He noted that the law allows for “criticism of ethnic groups or circumstances pertaining to those groups.”

“There is no doubt whatsoever that this does not cross the line for criminal behavior. You are allowed to say a lot of things that can be considered offensive and annoying and in many ways unpopular. That goes with freedom of speech.”

Seven years have passed. The Muslim population of Sweden is approaching one million (out of 9.8 million inhabitants), but even the Sweden Democrats do not mention a threat from Islam.

But whether the politicians’ unwillingness to discuss a threat stems from ignorance or fear, to answer a question by hanging up the phone is simply not good enough. It is the politicians who have filled the country with Islam, and the Swedish people have a right to know the result. Above all, they have a right to demand that the politicians know the consequences of their decisions for the Swedes, who are secular and who love their democracy.

The French Appetite for Appeasement

June 4, 2016

The French Appetite for Appeasement, Gatestone InstituteGeorge Igler,  June 4, 2016

♦ France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

♦ n the measures revealed, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a back seat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

♦ Whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy, have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns, stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

♦ In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

Last year Muslim jihadists murdered more people in France, than were killed by terrorism in the country during the entire 20th century.

In response, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, has announced a range of innovative legal measures, introduced in response to the terrorist outrages which struck France in 2015.

On January 7, of that year, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacring twelve and injuring eleven others.

In the days that followed, a comrade of the earlier jihadists committed a string of murders, which culminated in a siege at the kosher supermarket. Amedy Coulibaly killed five and injured eleven more.

On February 3, 2015, three military personnel guarding a Jewish community center in Nice were stabbed, by Moussa Coulibaly.

On June 26, the severed head of Hervé Cornara was placed on display, at the gas factory near Lyon where he worked, alongside twin ISIS flags, by Yassine Salhi.

On August 21, an attempted mass shooting on the Thalys high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris, by Moroccan-born Ayoub El Khazzani, was foiled by American tourists, leading to the wounding of four.

In two days, starting on November 13, multiple jihadist attacks once again struck the French capital. 130 were killed and 352 injured, by perpetrators operating in three teams of three, which included suicide bombers.

1432 (1)Last January, Amedy Coulibaly (left) murdered a policewoman and four Jews in Paris, before being shot dead by police. Right: Medics carry a victim wounded in an attack by Islamist terrorists, who shot hundreds of concert-goers, killing 90, at the Bataclan theater in Paris on November 13, 2015.

France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

“A range of measures” are set to be introduced to combat the alleged “Social, Ethnic and Territorial Apartheid” currently blighting France.

Not only were the jihadist proclivities of most of last year’s perpetrators fully known to the authorities in France, some had been released from prison early following crimes of violence involving automatic weapons.

In the measures revealed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, however, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a backseat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

The first aim of the new laws contained within the Equality and Citizenship bill, reports Le Monde, is to centralize the provision of social housing in France. Until now the growth of Islamized areas has largely been limited to suburbs around major urban centers.

Much as in Germany, where Muslim migrants to Europe are being sent directly into rural areas, the prime minister is proposing a new nationwide system designed, “to make a better distribution of the public housing supply” in France. This nationwide transformation of housing policy is aimed at curtailing “concentrations of poverty,” within problematic Islamic enclaves infamous as no-go zones.

Recalcitrant” locally-elected mayors who oppose the construction of new housing projects in their areas will be overruled by the state in the interests of “social diversity.”

Second, in the guise of improving literacy in French amongst those of immigrant descent, a new fast-track employment scheme has also been drawn up.

The scheme “will allow youths with few or no qualifications” to enter France’s “citizens’ reserve,” a government initiative established last year which links the nation’s education system with its civil service, allowing an accelerated path into state employment.

The euphemism “youths” is used in the French media to describe the country’s increasingly problematic young Muslim population. In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

The glowing account given to the proposals being forwarded by Prime Minister Valls, in his country’s leading left-wing daily, fails to mention how the newly foreseen “third path” job scheme will address the greater key issues.

Unease is growing at the level of Islamist sympathies already held by state employees in France, such as members of the military and police.

Third, as nationwide protests continue to mount over migrant chaos in French towns, spread across the coast of the English Channel, even greater criminal penalties against free speech are also set to be introduced by the new bill.

Verbal communication has, apparently, been largely exempted from legal free speech curtailment in France, unless recorded and posted online. Such cases then fall under the same strict law that governs the printed word, originally passed in 1881.

This law is why Charlie Hebdo is famous for distributing its most challenging content in the form of cartoons, thereby seeking to exempt itself from strict sanctions against “defamation” in print. Fictional novels published this year about France’s Islamic future have sought to do the same.

Under the legislation currently being proposed by Valls, this existing status quo is set for a radical shake-up. The new restrictions planned for France are more in line with the Europe-wide harmonization of hate speech offences, mandated by the European Union.

The augmented provisions against incitement to hatred, previously limited to the 1881 press law, are set to be expanded throughout the French criminal justice system, under the new bill.

Much as in the UK, the new creation of aggravated offences will also ensure that any existing crime can be claimed, by its victim, also to contain a “hate speech” component, incurring far stiffer penalties against the alleged perpetrator.

The application of existing French laws, however, after the last major atrocity in Paris, on November 13, point to the likely reasons for the new proposals being put forward by France’s government.

Since the massacre at the Bataclan nightclub and suicide bombings that struck the French capital, the Republic of France has been in a state of emergency. This gives the country’s President, François Hollande, “extraordinary powers” under Article 16 of the French Constitution.

In February, the duration of these powers, which enable warrantless searches whilst limiting freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, were extended until May 26 by the lower house of the French legislature, the Assemblée Nationale.

In the intervening period, soldiers have become such a common sight in the French capital, that they often give Paris the impression of being under martial law. Half of the country’s army is now deployed on the streets of France.

Yet, whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns,stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

Although the law being introduced by Mr. Valls is chiefly claimed to be about “youth engagement,” the new bill seems more the result of a realization that one group in France — its natives — can generally be relied upon to obey the law, while apparently another cannot.

There is a certain group of young people, however, with whom Manuel Valls clearly does not wish to engage. He recently excoriated members of the controversial Europe-wide Identitarian Movement, a nationalist youth group notorious for engaging in acts of civil disobedience in response to the changing culture and demography of France and Europe.

Described as the “hipster right” by some outlets, Mr. Valls decried supporters of the movement — which began in his country — as “those who want the country closed while dreaming of going back to a France that never existed.”

“I believe in my country, in its message and its universal values,” Valls added. In the interview published by Libération, on April 12, he continued:

I would like us to be capable of demonstrating that Islam, a great world religion and the second religion of France, is fundamentally compatible with the Republic, democracy, our values, and equality between men and women.

Manuel Valls was later forced to admit, in the interview, that this “compatibility” is something doubted by “a majority of our fellow citizens.”

Some 3.3 million people have dual citizenship in France, most of them Muslim. After President Hollande had announced that his country was “at war,” in the immediate aftermath of November’s attacks, the French Prime Minister unveiled plans to amend France’s constitution.

The proposed amendment was intended to strip French citizenship from dual-nationals convicted of terrorism offences. At the time Manuel Valls was described, in the left-wing media, as a “strongman” who had taken a “hard line against terror.”

On March 30, however, after a split within the Socialist Party over the issue, the Prime Minister’s plans were dropped.

The new, more comprehensive, legislative proposals are set to go before the Assemblée nationale this month.

European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech

June 3, 2016

European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech, Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, June 3, 2016

♦ Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the European Union’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.

♦ Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours — as “Orwellian.”

♦ “By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people… into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.'” — Douglas Murray.

♦ In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation.

The European Union (EU), in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, has unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe.

Proponents of the initiative argue that in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, a crackdown on “hate speech” is necessary to counter jihadist propaganda online.

Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the EU’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the European Union itself.

Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours, and replaced with “counter-narratives” — as “Orwellian.”

The “code of conduct” was announced on May 31 in a statement by the European Commission, the unelected administrative arm of the European Union. A summary of the initiative follows:

“By signing this code of conduct, the IT companies commit to continuing their efforts to tackle illegal hate speech online. This will include the continued development of internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that they review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

“The IT companies will also endeavor to strengthen their ongoing partnerships with civil society organisations who will help flag content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct. The IT companies and the European Commission also aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives [emphasis added], new ideas and initiatives, and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

Excerpts of the “code of conduct” include:

“The IT Companies share the European Commission’s and EU Member States’ commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online. Illegal hate speech, as defined by the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law and national laws transposing it, means all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin….

“The IT Companies support the European Commission and EU Member States in the effort to respond to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities for illegal online hate speech to spread virally. The spread of illegal hate speech online not only negatively affects the groups or individuals that it targets, it also negatively impacts those who speak out for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our open societies and has a chilling effect on the democratic discourse on online platforms.

“While the effective application of provisions criminalizing hate speech is dependent on a robust system of enforcement of criminal law sanctions against the individual perpetrators of hate speech, this work must be complemented with actions geared at ensuring that illegal hate speech online is expeditiously acted upon by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame. To be considered valid in this respect, a notification should not be insufficiently precise or inadequately substantiated.

“The IT Companies, taking the lead on countering the spread of illegal hate speech online, have agreed with the European Commission on a code of conduct setting the following public commitments:

  • “The IT Companies to have in place clear and effective processes to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content. The IT companies to have in place Rules or Community Guidelines clarifying that they prohibit the promotion of incitement to violence and hateful conduct.
  • “The IT Companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.
  • “The IT Companies and the European Commission, recognising the value of independent counter speech against hateful rhetoric and prejudice, aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

The agreement also requires Internet companies to establish a network of “trusted reporters” in all 28 EU member states to flag online content that “promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct.”

The EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vĕra Jourová, has defended the initiative:

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalize young people and racists use to spread violence and hatred. This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected. I welcome the commitment of worldwide IT companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.”

Others disagree. The National Secular Society (NSS) of the UK warned that the EU’s plans “rest on a vague definition of ‘hate speech’ and risk threatening online discussions which criticize religion.” It added:

“The agreement comes amid repeated accusations from ex-Muslims that social media organizations are censoring them online. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain has now begun collecting examples from its followers of Facebook censoring ‘atheist, secular and ex-Muslim content’ after false ‘mass reporting’ by ‘cyber Jihadists.’ They have asked their supporters to report details and evidence of any instances of pages and groups being ‘banned [or] suspended from Facebook for criticizing Islam and Islamism.'”

NSS communications officer Benjamin Jones said:

“Far from tackling online ‘cyber jihad,’ the agreement risks having the exact opposite effect and entrapping any critical discussion of religion under vague ‘hate speech’ rules. Poorly-trained Facebook or Twitter staff, perhaps with their own ideological bias, could easily see heated criticism of Islam and think it is ‘hate speech,’ particularly if pages or users are targeted and mass reported by Islamists.”

In an interview with Breitbart London, the CEO of Index on Censorship, Jodie Ginsburg, said:

“Hate speech laws are already too broad and ambiguous in much of Europe. This agreement fails to properly define what ‘illegal hate speech’ is and does not provide sufficient safeguards for freedom of expression.

“It devolves power once again to unelected corporations to determine what amounts to hate speech and police it — a move that is guaranteed to stifle free speech in the mistaken belief this will make us all safer. It won’t. It will simply drive unpalatable ideas and opinions underground where they are harder to police — or to challenge.

“There have been precedents of content removal for unpopular or offensive viewpoints and this agreement risks amplifying the phenomenon of deleting controversial — yet legal — content via misuse or abuse of the notification processes.”

A coalition of free speech organizations, European Digital Rights and Access Now, announced their decision not to take part in future discussions with the European Commission, saying that “we do not have confidence in the ill-considered ‘code of conduct’ that was agreed.” A statement warned:

“In short, the ‘code of conduct’ downgrades the law to a second-class status, behind the ‘leading role’ of private companies that are being asked to arbitrarily implement their terms of service. This process, established outside an accountable democratic framework, exploits unclear liability rules for online companies. It also creates serious risks for freedom of expression, as legal — but controversial — content may well be deleted as a result of this voluntary and unaccountable take-down mechanism.

“This means that this ‘agreement’ between only a handful of companies and the European Commission is likely in breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (under which restrictions on fundamental rights should be provided for by law), and will, in practical terms, overturn case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the defense of legal speech.”

Janice Atkinson, an independent MEP for the South East England region, summed it up this way: “It’s Orwellian. Anyone who has read 1984 sees its very re-enactment live.”

Even before signing on to the EU’s code of conduct, social media sites have been cracking down on free speech, often at the behest of foreign governments.

In September 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard on a live microphone confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on what he was doing to prevent criticism of her open-door immigration policies.

In January 2016, Facebook launched an “Online Civil Courage Initiative” aimed at Facebook users in Germany and geared toward “fighting hate speech and extremism on the Internet.”

Writing for Gatestone Institute, British commentator Douglas Murray noted that Facebook’s assault on “racist” speech “appears to include anything critical of the EU’s current catastrophic immigration policy.” He wrote:

“By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people (who, it must be stressed, are opposed to Chancellor Merkel’s policies) into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.’ This is a policy that will do its part in pushing Europe into a disastrous future.

Facebook has also set its sights on Gatestone Institute affiliated writers. In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation. Abu Toameh wrote:

“It’s still a matter of censorship. They decide what’s acceptable. Now we have to be careful about what we post and what we share. Does this mean we can’t criticize Arab governments anymore?”

In June 2016, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.” In an editorial, Gatestone wrote:

“After enormous grassroots pressure from Gatestone’s readers, the Swedish media started reporting on Facebook’s heavy-handed censorship. It backfired, and Facebook went into damage-control mode. They put Ingrid’s account back up — without any explanation or apology. Ironically, their censorship only gave Ingrid’s video more attention.

“Facebook and the EU have backed down — for now. But they’re deadly serious about stopping ideas they don’t like. They’ll be back.”

1637This week, the EU, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe. The next day, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.”

 

An In-Depth Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam and the Defense of Western Civilization

June 1, 2016

An In-Depth Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam and the Defense of Western CivilizationThe New Criterion via YouTube, June 1, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

For The New Criterion, Ben Weingarten, commentator and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media sits down with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ardent defender of Western civilization and individual liberty against Islamic supremacism, New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Caged Virgin,’ ‘Infidel’ and ‘Nomad’ and ‘Heretic,’ former Dutch MP, fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, founder of the AHA Foundation Ayaan Hirsi Ali and recipient of The New Criterion’s fourth annual Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture & Society for an in-depth interview. During their discussion, Weingarten and Ali discuss America’s inability under both Presidents Obama and Bush to recognize and defend against Islamic supremacism as the totalitarian existential threat of our time, the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West and the ideology of the global jihadist movement, the Islamization of Europe, how the West can defend its freedoms from a subversive global jihadist movement seeking to use those freedoms against us, the war on free speech in the West being waged by Islamic supremacists with the help wittingly or unwittingly of many on the Left and more. For more from The New Criterion’s April 2016 ‘Edmund Burke Award’ gala and other compelling content, check out The New Criterion’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheNewCri….

UK Labour Party Inquiry: Deny, Divert, Cover Up

May 30, 2016

UK Labour Party Inquiry: Deny, Divert, Cover Up, Gatestone InstituteDouglas Murray, May 30, 2016

♦ Today, as the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn has the opportunity either to tackle anti-Semitism or mainstream it into the UK body politic. The evidence that he has any interest in doing the former are not good.

♦ Whenever the specific question of anti-Semitism was raised, Corbyn would say how opposed he was to all forms of racism, “including Islamophobia.” It has apparently proven impossible for Corbyn to realize the specific nature of anti-Semitism; whenever it has come up, he has used the opportunity to talk not about racial hatred against Jews but what he believes to be an epidemic of hatred towards Muslims.

♦ The British Labour party today evidently is riddled with anti-Semitism from top to bottom, and led by people who want to divert attention from the fact or cover it over entirely. Things can only get worse.

How would you push away a problem you did not want to deal with? The best way, as any addict could tell you, is to pretend that you have dealt with it. The drug-addict pretends to have given up drugs. The alcoholic pretends to have cut down on drink. And the British Labour party pretends to have dealt with its anti-Semitism problem.

Since the start of this year, stories of routine anti-Semitism have emerged from the most junior levels of the Labour party (the Oxford University Labour Club) to the highest levels (a member of Parliament and a member of the party’s National Executive Committee). No one who had followed the career and hobby-horses of the current Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, could have been surprised by this. Anti-Semitism is a swamp he has spent his political life swimming in. But today, this has become not just a problem for him. In recent decades, Jeremy Corbyn’s activities had been of interest only to the small number of people who had hoped to keep the Labour stable clean of anti-Semitism. Today, as the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, he has the opportunity either to tackle anti-Semitism or mainstream it into the UK body politic.

The evidence that he has any interest in doing the former are not good. Last month, after online media released anti-Semitic tropes shared and composed by the Labour MP Naz Shah, she was suspended from the party, pending an investigation. The former Mayor of London and Labour grandee Ken Livingstone then spent a week trying to defend Shah by (among other things) explaining which of Hitler’s early policies were not that objectionable. Every day for more than a week, the national newspapers were running headlines about Labour’s anti-Semitism problem. Finally, even this Labour leader realized that something had to be done. And of course the best way to do “something” is to announce an inquiry that will do nothing. This Corbyn soon did, announcing an inquiry that would be led by Shami Chakrabarti, a left-wing human rights advocate, with no expertise in anti-Semitism and a tendency to think well of Islamist extremists. Oddly enough, Chakrabarti — who has made a virtue of her non-party affiliation throughout her career — joined the Labour party on the day that the inquiry was announced.

1579Labour Party MP Naz Shah (left), was recently suspended from the party for composing and sharing anti-Semitic tropes. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (right), has a tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk, and is a self-declared “friend” of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah.

From the outset, she showed that she was willing to do the precise bidding of her party leader. Not least in ensuring that the point of any inquiry was entirely missed. For immediately upon being announced as the leader of the party’s inquiry into anti-Semitism, Chakrabarti announced that it would make no sense “only” to look into anti-Semitism, and that the inquiry must instead also look into “other forms of racism, including Islamophobia.” In a subsequent interview, she went on to question why the Conservative party had not set up an inquiry into what she alleged was its “Islamophobia.” Of course, this is a side-step that Jeremy Corbyn has very much made his own.

In the run-up to his election as Labour party leader, Corbyn was often asked about his tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk. Apart from not quite owning up to his connections to such people, the other technique he employed at this time was to put on a look of extreme affront and say that he had spent his entire life “fighting racism.” Whenever the specific question of anti-Semitism was raised, he would say how opposed he was to all forms of racism “including Islamophobia.” It has apparently proven impossible for Corbyn to realize the specific nature of anti-Semitism; whenever it has come up, he has used the opportunity to talk not about racial hatred against Jews but what he believes to be an epidemic of hatred towards Muslims.

Leaving aside the obvious fact that Muslims are not a race, there is in any case no evidence whatsoever to support the allegation of Corbyn and others that there is an epidemic of “Islamophobia” in the UK, and specifically no evidence of such an issue in the Conservative party. But this attempt to turn around the narrative was pushed by certain Labour apparatchiks to complain that any and all questioning of the newly elected London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, for his past affiliations with Islamist extremists was not a legitimate line of questioning of the judgement of anyone running for elected office, but instead an “Islamophobic” attack purely motivated by “racism.” Even now, Corbyn supporters are trying to distract attention from their own party’s very evident problem and turn racism allegations around on the Conservative party. None of which suggests any serious desire to get on top of their problem.

We can already predict what the conclusions of the Chakrabarti Inquiry will be, from the manner in which she has started it. Will she able to explain that the main originator of anti-Semitism in the Labour party today comes from its growing Muslim base? If she does identify that, will she then need to have an inquiry into herself for such flagrant “Islamophobia”? More likely she will find the party entirely blameless. Just a few dozen bad apples, and so on. And even then, we now have a nice demonstration of what will happen if any unpleasant findings do accidentally slip through.

The Labour party has another inquiry: into allegations, reported earlier this month, of anti-Semitism at its Oxford University club. Amazingly enough, while that inquiry (led by Baroness Royall) found “difficulties,” it claimed to find no “institutional anti-Semitism.” These careful headline facts having been released, the rest of the report was then swiftly supressed on the orders of the Labour party. Only a bland executive summary and some recommendations were made public, evidently leaving even the author of the inquiry “frustrated.” So there is the state of the British Labour party in 2016. A party evidently riddled with anti-Semitism from top to bottom, and led by people who want to divert attention from the fact or cover it over entirely. The Labour party has a serious problem, and it is in institutional denial. Things can only get worse.

Related Video: Douglas Murray on “Anti-Semitism in Britain’s Labour Party”