London’s mayor must resign (says rabid Zionist)

“For years, the loony Left, epitomized by Red Ken, has encouraged radical Islam to take root in Britain, particularly London. While British policy has allowed a wave of Islamists to enter Britain and abuse the system, people like Galloway and Livingstone have encouraged these people to be active in their murderous agenda. They have sanctioned calls to Jihad and have legitimized the very programs that are now being turned against innocent Londoners, resulting in death, injury, suffering and grief.”

MidEastTruth.com, 9 July 2005

Pipes denounces knighthood for Iqbal Sacranie

Iqbal Sacranie“Sacranie has been one of the most important advocates of radical Islam in the United Kingdom…. Among Sacranie’s actions: calling for censorship of religious speech, trying to change the plot of the action series 24, boycotting Holocaust Remembrance ceremonies, denying the existence of Islamic terrorists, interpreting the Bush administration’s true agenda as the ‘recolonization and the re-mapping of the Middle East’, and accusing Israel of genocide.”

Daniel Pipes takes exception to Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB being included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Among the authorities Pipes cites for evidence of Sacranie’s extremism is Militant Islam Monitor. Well, you can’t find a much more reliable source than that, can you? And to think there are sceptics who question Pipes’ standing as an expert in Islamic studies.

Daniel Pipes’ blog, 12 June 2005

Protest over Israel Quran abuse report

Palestinian prisoners at an Israeli prison have gone on hunger strike after reports accused Israeli soldiers of desecrating the Quran while searching Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Arab member of parliament Ahmed Tibi, who represents an Israeli Arab political party, said he received complaints from prisoners at the Megiddo prison that soldiers tore and stepped on three copies of the Quran – the Islamic holy book – while searching Palestinians and their possessions on Tuesday morning.

Al-Jazeera, 8 June 2005

See also Islam Online, 8 June 2005

Mad Mel rejects dialogue with terrorists (Ariel Sharon excepted, of course)

Melanie Phillips is appalled that Western governments should consider talking to democratically elected Hamas representatives: “Hamas is a jihadi terror organisation, period. The decision by Britain and the US to treat with it is spineless and shameful and wholly counter-productive for the defence of the civilised world.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 7 June 2005

Whereas, of course, holding talks with elected representatives of Likud who are responsible for acts of state terrorism against the Palestinian people is entirely acceptable.

See also “US signals policy shift on Hamas: diplomats”, Islam Online, 6 June 2005

High-flying professor faces US terror trial

samialarianUniversity of Florida professor Sami al-Arian goes on trial today in what is being billed as the most important terrorism case in the United States since September 11.

Prosecutors claim that Dr Arian, and three other Arab-Americans who will be in the dock with him, commanded an Islamic Jihad cell that flourished in Tampa and infiltrated the University of South Florida. The group is said to have helped finance a series of attacks in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel in which more than 100 people died, including at least one American.

However, supporters and lawyers for the Kuwait-born professor claim that it is not a straightforward case of terrorist funding. Instead, they say it raises serious issues about anti-Muslim bias in the US post-September 11, freedom of speech and what they see as a blatant attempt by Israel to silence a powerful Palestinian voice in America.

Guardian, 6 June 2005

Oprah Winfrey – pawn of Islamist terror groups

“Oprah Winfrey’s popular print magazine – O – has an ongoing feature named ‘Rescuing the World’s Girls’. O‘s June 2005 edition focuses on the plight of an 18-year-old Palestinian who was tried, convicted and is currently serving time in an Israeli jail for conspiring to perform a suicide bombing. The author, David France, asks the question: ‘What would make a girl take such a radical and grisly step?’ France quotes an author and university professor who asserts that: ‘religion is not the cause [of Palestinian suicide terror]… these are people who define their situation as hopeless. They feel that they have no way to respond against what they see as Israeli military aggression.’

“Incredibly, the lengthy O article completely ignores a main factor behind Islamist terror – the incitement to violence that continually spews forth from Palestinian media and mosques …”

Front Page Magazine, 27 May 2005

Qaradawi not anti-semitic shock

The Middle East Media Research Institute, a right-wing organisation headed by a former colonel in Israeli intelligence, has become notorious for its distorted coverage of Middle East politics. Its speciality is to provide partial translations of articles and broadcasts from the Arab media in order to present Muslims in general, and opponents of the Israeli government in particular, in the worst possible light.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been a notable victim of MEMRI’s propaganda operation. In July 2004, at the time of Dr al-Qaradawi’s visit to London, MEMRI published a Special Report accusing him of acting as “a spiritual guide for many … Islamist organizations across the world, including supporters of Islamist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qa’ida”.

That same month, MEMRI approvingly quoted the article ‘Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi: Liberal or Extremist?’ by pro-US Arab journalist Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, which falsely accused Qaradawi of rejecting all dialogue with Jews.

However, a recent dispatch by MEMRI struggled hard to maintain the fiction that Qaradawi is a hate-filled anti-semite. Even MEMRI’s selective extracts from Qaradawi’s Al-Jazeera programme could not obscure the truth about his firm rejection of anti-semitism.

Perhaps Peter Tatchell, who in the November 2004 issue of Labour Left Briefing summarised Dr al-Qaradawi’s philosophy as “destroy the Jews – all of them”, will now be writing to the Sheikh to apologise?