Category Archives: Israel

Professor in Muslim comments furore lashes out at Australian Jewish leaders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Raphael Israeli (2)A visiting Jewish professor has lashed out at Australian Jewish leaders for their “shameful submission to Muslim thugs”, saying his comments were less harsh than some by the Prime Minister and federal Treasurer.

Hebrew University professor Raphael Israeli, dropped from a proposed lecture tour after comments last week, said political correctness did not allow his remarks to be said, though, privately, all supported them.

He said Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello had said harsher things after “Muslim riots”, but “someone elected to seize upon this opportunity now and sweep Australia into a storm in a teacup”.

Professor Israeli, who will teach his six-week Islamic history course at the University of NSW, posted his version of the stoush on a website. On the Dhimmi Watch section of www.jihadwatch.org, he wrote: “The dhimmi-like Jewish leadership cancelled all activities, in a shameful submission to the Muslim thugs and under the false claims of a ‘multicultural society’ in Australia, which they know is not true.”

The Age, 19 February 2007

For more on Raphael Israeli, see the website of the neocon PR company Benador Asssociates.

Professor dropped by Jewish lobby group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent Jewish lobby group has withdrawn support for an Israeli academic who warned that Muslim populations could place countries including Australia at risk of violence. The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council yesterday announced it had cancelled plans to co-host public appearances by Professor Raphael Israeli, including events in Melbourne next month. “AIJAC is very concerned by Professor Israeli’s implication that the Muslim community as a whole is a threat or a danger,” the council’s executive director, Colin Rubenstein, said. “His comments are both unacceptable and unhelpful and AIJAC cannot be associated with them.”

The Age, 17 February 2007

See also AIJAC press release, 16 February 2007

The original interview with Professor Israeli which caused the controversy (headed “Limit Muslim intake urges visiting scholar”) appears to have been removed from the Australian Jewish News website. However, it has been incorporated into a follow-up article, which reports:

“Citing France, where Muslims comprise about nine per cent of the population, as an example, Professor Israeli warned growing Muslim communities could change the political, economic, and cultural fabric of a country. ‘You have to adopt some kind of preventative policy. In order not to get there, limit the immigration and therefore you keep them a marginal minority, which will be a nuisance, but cannot pose a threat to the demographic and security aspects of a country’.”

See also Sydney Morning Herald, 16 February 2007

Another plug for Taj Hargey

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The legal efforts by a Muslim father to force a Buckinghamshire school to permit his 12-year old daughter to wear the niqab should be resisted by sensible integrated British Muslims. This misguided judicial action, if successful, will not only set a deplorable precedent for Muslim exceptionalism, but will also exacerbate frayed tensions between a (largely) self-segregating Muslim community and an antagonistic general public. This legal test case is so critical as to serve as a defining moment in the battle for the hearts and mind of Muslims in this country.

“The disputed decision by a father to protect the ‘human rights’ of his daughter by insisting that she wears the full-face mask in school should not be seen in isolation. It is at the root of a frightening theological convulsion that is underway in the Islamic world. Driven by a toxic combination of Wahhabi-Salafi-Ikhwani-Deobandi religious extremists, this militant movement seeks to resurrect the caliphate not only in the heartlands of Islam itself, but elsewhere as well.”

Taj Hargey (for background details see here) writes in the Daily Telegraph, 6 February 2007

And who exactly are these people who want to “resurrect the caliphate not only in the heartlands of Islam itself, but elsewhere as well”? Not even Hizb ut-Tahrir holds that position. Whatever your view on the niqab issue, to portray this as part of a campaign to impose an Islamic state in the UK plays to all the worst paranoid stereotypes about the “Muslim threat”. It’s no wonder Taj Hargey is enthusiastically promoted by the Torygraph and the likes of John Ware.

Unfortunately, Cristina Odone seems to have fallen for Hargey’s spurious claims to represent “moderate Muslims”:

Daily Telegraph, 6 February 2007

Meanwhile in an article entitled “School at centre of veil row gets overseas backing“, the Guardian reports that Hargey is boasting that he has the support and financial backing of a group calling itself the Muslim Canadian Congress. This is an organisation that participated in the hysterical “No sharia law in Canada” campaign against the proposal to extend state-sponsored faith-based family arbitration to Muslims in Ontario. In August last year a section of the MCC split away to form a rival organisation, the Canadian Muslim Union, accusing the MCC of aligning itself with the enemies of the Muslim community. The breakaway faction were denounced by the MCC leadership as “Canadian supporters of Hezbollah” – because they had joined a demonstration against Israel’s attack on Lebanon!

So this is where Hargey is getting his international support from – an organisation whose politics are evidently barely distinguishable from those of Harry’s Place.

Christian Zionists take on Islamists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Evangelical Christians, Zionists and members of the Knesset met together at Central Hall, Westminster, this week to discuss ways to confront radical Islam and revive Christian Zionism in Europe.

The Knesset Christian Allies Caucus – which oversees contacts between Knesset members and Christian leaders – joined the Jerusalem Summit think-tank to consider the need for a joint diplomatic strategy in the face of what many believed is a threatening situation.

“We are in a critical season and crossroads for Great Britain, which is a test case for the challenge of Islam,” said one Christian delegate, Christine Darg, head of the UK-based Exploits Ministry.

Israeli speakers, including Knesset members Benny Elon and Orit Noked, called for co-ordination among members of both faiths to support Israel. “The Bible is the real bridge between us,” said Rabbi Alon, a member of the National Religious Party.

Other participants included Baroness Cox, Canon Andrew White and British Jewish philanthropist Cyril Stein.

Jewish Chronicle, 2 February 2007

Muslims ‘about to take over Europe’ says Bernard Lewis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bernard LewisIslam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday.

The Muslims “seem to be about to take over Europe,” Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent’s Jews, he responded, “The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim.”

Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe’s future would be, “Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?” The growing sway of Islam in Europe was of particular concern given the rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements, said Lewis.

Lewis, whose numerous books include the recent What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, and The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, would set no timetable for this drastic shift in Europe, instead focusing on the process, which he said would be assisted by “immigration and democracy.” Instead of fighting the threat, he elaborated, Europeans had given up.

“Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence,” he said. “They have no respect for their own culture.” Europeans had “surrendered” on every issue with regard to Islam in a mood of “self-abasement,” “political correctness” and “multi-culturalism,” said Lewis, who was born in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States.

Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2007

Over at Jihad Watch, raving Islamophobe Robert Spencer observes that the Jerusalem Post report shows that “my areas of agreement with Lewis are much larger than any areas of disagreement I may have with him”.

With friends like these …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Israeli writer warns against accepting the support of anti-Muslim bigots in Europe who declare their support for the state of Israel. She argues:

“… many of these new friends are Muslim-bashers first and Israel-backers second. Their blanket condemnation of Muslim communities on their continent rings eerily familiar. Their sweeping verdict against a whole civilization has that strange déjà vu feel…. I, for one Israeli, would be grateful to my newfound buddies if their sympathy for me did not rely on the trashing of another religion. Unlike them, I’m touched by the sight of young Muslim women in European university campuses. They remind my of my own grandmother, a student in Prague who had to flee after the Nazi rise to power, and of all the other young and hopeful Jews whose dreams and lives were shattered by the European culture they so admired. I will therefore not solicit support based on unqualified dislike of other human groups…. Beware of Islamophobes bearing gifts.”

Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2007

Mad Mel is not happy.

British MP warns Europe of ‘new anti-Semitism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A ‘witches brew’ of Islamic fundamentalists, left-wing intellectuals and neo-Nazis is causing a new resurgence of anti-Semitism to spread across Western Europe and must be tackled, one of the continent’s leading experts on the subject has told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.

“British Labor MP Dennis MacShane – a close ally of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and co-author of a hard-hitting report on the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe – told the Post in an interview in Berlin on Tuesday that Western Europe was suffering from a ‘new anti-Semitism’ that had to be tackled head-on. Part of this, he claimed, came from some sections of the Islamic communities of Western Europe – both fundamentalists and intellectuals – who were in an unorthodox alliance with left-wingers in propagating anti-Semitic sentiment.”

Jerusalem Post, 22 November 2006

Mad Mel gets it wrong … again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Mr Livingstone also claimed it was wrong to brand a British Muslim boy a ‘terrorist’ if he got involved in Palestinian violence against Israel, whereas ‘if a young Jewish boy in this country goes and joins the Israeli army and ends up killing many Palestinians and comes back, that is wholly legitimate’. These comments are simply utterly unacceptable. British Jews do not serve in the Israeli army.”

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, 22 July 2005

“He grew up in suburban north London and still misses home comforts like milky British tea, the friends he left behind and the local pub. But yesterday Joe Wainer joined an elite Israeli army unit, and now he faces the prospect of active service in the occupied West Bank. The 19-year-old, one of nine young Britons who have signed up for a programme that recruits foreign Jews for the Israel Defence Forces, realised his life had changed when he fired an M16 rifle for the first time in training.”

Jeevan Vasagar in the Guardian, 23 November 2006

Postscript:  Dan Judelson of Jews for Justice for Palestinians has a letter in the Guardian responding to the latter article: “We hear over and over again that there are two sides to this conflict. Yet the real problem of the west’s attitude is one of double standards. A programme to recruit young British Palestinians to join Palestinian security forces would be swiftly shut down and claims of ‘mentoring’ dismissed as wicked Islamist indoctrination.”

Guardian, 25 November 2006

Inayat Bunglawala writes in support of MPACUK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB has written to MPACUK expressing support for them in response to the Observer‘s smear against Asghar Bukhari:

“This story has mysteriously surfaced at this time in a clear attempt to try and discredit Asghar Bukhari and MPACUK. Asghar’s donation of sixty pounds to David Irving over six years ago may be regarded as perhaps overly idealistic and indeed naive. However, it is disgraceful – though not unexpected, of course – that the usual suspects have tried to use this incident in an attempt to portray Asghar as an anti-semite. I know that Asghar is a staunch critic – and rightly so – of Zionism and the bloody and repressive policies of the Israeli government, but also that he has absolutely no truck whatsoever with anti-semitism or any other form of racial prejudice. I hope MPAC will not be deterred by this episode and continue to focus on encouraging British Muslims to play their full role in the mainstream of British society and not allow themselves to be marginalised through inaction and passivity.”

MPACUK news report, 21 November 2006

St Andrews’ Students Association rejects witch-hunt against Khatami

Posted on by Bob Pitt

KhatamiA storm of protest is expected to greet a controversial Iranian former president in Scotland next week amid growing opposition to his visit.

The move to honour Mohammad Khatami by St Andrews University has attracted a furious response from exiled Iranians, the Israeli government, politicians and students across the UK, who claim he ran a tyrannical regime.

He will receive an honorary degree when he officially opens the university’s Institute for Iranian Studies during his visit on Tuesday.

A university spokesman said Mr Khatami’s visit reflected the international standing of the institution and added that the historic seat of learning had received messages of support from senior government officers and politicians.

But angry cries were led by Laila Jazayeri of the Association of Anglo-Iranian Academics in the UK who attacked his human-rights record while in office.

She said: “Khatami has always been a central pillar of the theocratic and brutal regime in Iran, which is responsible for the execution of more than 120,000 Iranians.

“It is ironic that Khatami should be invited to St Andrews University when, during his presidency, the Iranian regime responded to the just demand of students for democracy by ordering vicious dawn attacks on dormitories.

“Students were beaten using knives, chains, and batons, resulting in fatalities and hundreds wounded. Some were even thrown out of the second and third floor windows.”

The move has also infuriated Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, who described the decision as a slur on Scotland. He said: “St Andrews University should be ashamed. Khatami’s presence in Scotland would be an insult to freedom, democracy, and human rights. I call upon Sir Menzies Campbell as chancellor of St Andrews University to withdraw the invitation to this odious man.”

Continue reading →