"The Virus Of Anti-Semitism Has Infected Members Of The British Muslim Community, Both Young & Old"

Bravo to the young and articulate Mehdi Hasan, a contributing writer for Britain's leftwing New Statesman (pictured is the cover of a notorious issue of that periodical dating to 2002), political editor of Huffington Post UK, and a not infrequent guest on BBC current affairs programmes, for admitting, à propos of Lord Ahmed's alleged antisemitic remarks:

'.... I can’t keep count of the number of Muslims I have come across – from close friends and relatives to perfect strangers – for whom weird and wacky anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are the default explanation for a range of national and international events.... 

The truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has infected members of the British Muslim community, both young and old. No, the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict hasn’t helped matters. But this goes beyond the Middle East. How else to explain why British Pakistanis are so often the most ardent advocates of anti-Semitic conspiracies, even though there are so few Jews living in Pakistan?

It is sheer hypocrisy for Muslims to complain of Islamophobia in every nook and cranny of British public life, to denounce the newspapers for running Muslim-baiting headlines, and yet ignore the rampant anti-Semitism in our own backyard. We cannot credibly fight Islamophobia while making excuses for Judaeophobia....

...[W]e’re not all anti-Semites. But, as a community, we do have a “Jewish problem”. There is no point pretending otherwise.... '

 Read the entire article here