Airhead Ashleigh (video)

Lots and lots and lots of people have seen this already, but I've only just caught up with it.

Another discussion on the same theme:

Something For The Weekend, Sir? A T-shirt, a soul uplift, & a harangue

First, an unmissable post from Edgar Davidson.

Next, a stalwart stance (with numerous likes and shares and approving comments) against an incidence of  dry and rueful British humour "Islamophobia" by British perpetual anti-Israel campaigner Ben White, the chap who is on record as saying that he can understand why some people are antisemitic and who seems to have a problem with Jewish physiognomy:

Like White, British anti-Israel propagandist broadcast journalist Harry Fear seems inordinately fond of Islam and of peppering his posts with Islamic phrases:

Meanwhile, reading between the lines of his latest screed, which reminds Dionne Warwick of the fight against Apartheid South Africa and of Jim Crow in the American South, it would seem that the eradication of Israel as a sovereign state is what aged rocker and veteran Israel hater Roger Waters hopes for:

'[W]e, in the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, will win this one against the similarly racist and colonialist policies of the Israeli government of occupation.  We will continue to press forward in favor of equal rights for all the peoples of the Holy Land.... There is no place today in this world for another racist, apartheid regime.

.... I remember the road to Montgomery, I remember Selma, I remember the struggles against the Jim Crow laws here. Sadly, we are still fighting those battles, whether here in the USA in Ferguson or Baltimore, or in Gaza or the Negev, wherever the oppressed need us to raise our voices unafraid.  We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, our brothers and sisters, until true equality and justice are won....

... When global pressure finally forces Israel to end its occupation, when the apartheid wall comes down, when justice is served to Palestinian refugees and all people there are free and equal, I will gladly join you in concert in the Holy Land, cross all the boundaries and share our music with all the people.'

 But I guess we've had grounds for suspecting that all along.

"Islamophobia" & The Not So Mighty Pens

Professor Phyllis Chesler has written an incisive piece regarding a number of writers and intellectuals who oppose tomorrow's PEN award to  the survivors of the carnage at the Charlie Hebdo magazine.

She writes, inter alia, 

'....[O]ne hundred and forty five authors have decided to shame PEN—publicly, and at the last minute—in order to make an “anti-Islamophobic” political statement which renders every critic of Islamic gender and religious apartheid, and every critic of Islamic terrorism, that much more vulnerable....

[Distinguished American Jewish n]ovelist Francine Prose, has written in The Guardian:

The ‘narrative’ of the Charlie Hebdo murders—white Europeans killed in their offices by Muslim extremists—is one that feeds neatly into the cultural prejudices that have allowed our government to make so many disastrous mistakes in the Middle East. The First Amendment guarantees the right of the Neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois but we don’t give them an award.

But she is wrong about Charlie Hebdo’s alleged “Islamophobia.” According to two French sociologists, a review of “523 covers of Hebdo over 10 years found that 485 dealt with politics, economics and so forth. A total of 38 involved religion; of those, Christianity was the exclusive subject of 21, and Islam of seven.” ....

Some of these distinguished signatories include the biographer of a Jewish-American woman who converted to Islam and who became the leading propagandist in Pakistan for radical Islam ....

Those who may be greatly talented are not spared the most vulgar prejudices of the day. Their foolish protest is a betrayal of the very civilization that has allowed them to flourish.'

Read the entire piece here

Meanwhile, more Islamic antisemitism, this time from an Egyptian imam comparing Jews to a "malignant tumour" which must be rooted out:

Miliband & Other Crawlies

Poor Ed Miliband.

The ethnically Jewish atheist leader of Britain's Labour Party (pictured; yes, I'm too kind to post one of those grotesque snaps online showing him making hard work of chomping through a bacon sandwich recently) has vowed to outlaw "Islamophobia" if, by some unhappy mischance, he should end up as Britain's prime minister next month.

Britain's "first Jewish prime minister," according to him, blithely choosing to forget the Tory Benjamin Disraeli, who although baptised in childhood was gloriously conscious of his Jewishness, and dubbed "the Hebrew conjuror".

Miliband told the editor of the UK-based The Muslim News:

“We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime.

“We are going to change the law on this so we make it absolutely clear of our abhorrence of hate crime and Islamophobia. It will be the first time that the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country,” he said.

.... “We will challenge prejudice before it grows, whether in schools, universities or on social media. And we will strengthen the law on disability, homophobic, and transphobic hate crime,” [his party's manifesto] said.

.... The Muslim community is as an “incredibly important, incredibly rich, incredible asset to our country” ...'

So how frightfully wretched it is that Red Ed has been the subject of an antisemitic tweet by a female Muslim Conservative candidate, Gulzabeen Afsar.

She's apologised and removed the tweet, and has been suspended from the party.

 Daniel Greenfield has noted:

"Gulzabeen Afsal helped raise money for Islamic Relief UK, a group that the UAE has listed as a terrorist organization and that Israel has accused of raising money for Hamas...."

Hers was not the only low message left on social media over the weekend.

On Saturday, Anzac Day, when Australia remembers its war dead, a reporter for the public broadcaster SBS made a number of highly inappropriate tweets,and is refusing to accept his the consequences.  To quote The Australian newspaper:

'The move by SBS to sack sports reporter Scott McIntyre over highly offensive Anzac Day tweets has sparked a fresh debate over freedom of speech....

The Australian understands McIntyre’s view is that the move to sack him was unfair and he is likely to contest the decision.

While he is still considering his options, it is understood he is not going to take his termination “lying down”.

McIntyre, who has worked at SBS for 10 years, declined to comment yesterday. The worst of the tweets, which have not been deleted from his ­social media account, read: “Remembering the summary execution, widespread rape and theft committed by these ‘brave’ Anzacs in Egypt, Palestine and Japan.”....'

On Facebook, the offending tweets have been gleefully reproduced by a Muslim group in Australia and by Muslim members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.  And these have been approvingly shared by a radical feminist activist with links to Socialist Alliance.  None so queer as leftist feminists climbing into bed with Muslim anti-feminists.  It's that word Palestine that's the aphrodisiac.

And, lowest of the low, are these comments regarding Israel's aid to the victims of Nepal's devastating earthquake:

 Israellycool, I see, has more

But let's come back to Miliband and that promise of his to outlaw "Islamophobia".  Douglas Murray has vowed immediately to test any such legislation:

"There are many things to say about this, but allow me confine myself to three points:

If Ed Miliband does become Prime Minister and chooses to make ‘Islamophobia’ illegal would he mind letting us know what he thinks ‘Islamophobia’ is? After all a ‘phobia’ is an irrational fear. The Charlie Hebdo staff were often called ‘Islamophobes’ before (and after) two Islamists went into their magazine’s office and shot most of them in the head.... 

I cannot help noticing that some actual, serious ‘hate-speech’ occurred while Labour were last in power, yet nothing seemed to have been done. Consider this speech by Michael Adebolajo at a ‘Unite Against Fascism’ rally in 2009. What else was Adebolajo doing here other than inciting anti-non-Muslim violence and prejudice? Of course Michael Adebolajo actually followed words with deeds and went on to behead Drummer Lee Rigby. Where were the hate-speech laws that day?

 And finally, I hate to grandstand, but I suppose I should point out that if Ed Miliband were to become Prime Minister and were to decide to make what people call ‘Islamophobia’ illegal then I’m very happy to test the law straight away. Indeed I will immediately put on a gathering of academics, writers, Quranic-scholars and philosophers – Muslim and non-Muslim – to discuss Islam. It is possible that some of those gathered may disagree with the foundational claims of Islam. I, for instance, may repeat my belief – not being a Muslim – that it is highly unlikely that the Quran was ‘dictated’ by God.... "

Read the rest here

"Islamophobia" Crude (video)

There's nothing subtle about this video, a heavy-handed satirical commentary on Islamic extremism in Britain.  Prompting the fear and resentment which lead to the making of such videos are the existence of Muslim supremacist groups proclaiming that Britain's destiny is to be a sharia-dominated state, the existence of Islamic enclaves in parts of Britain that are effectively "no-go" zones (and not just in London) for the "kuffar", the imposition of gender segregation at civil institutions, the activities of Muslim gangs in major cities grooming vulnerable underage non-Muslim girls for abuse, the surreptitious widespread imposition of halal meat onto unwitting elements within the general population (schools, barracks, takeaways, even parliamentary canteens!), the emergence of sharia courts and a sharia-compliant banking system, and of course the gross misogyny and gruesome violence that characterises so much of the Islamic world.

Regarding the "Islamophobia" that underlies this video and similar expressions of anxiety about the future of western societies, "You might expect to find such ideas among some of the more benighted members of the general community, but not among fellow-Jews," inveighed a Jewish far-left activist in the correspondence column of the Australian Jewish News not so long ago regarding a friend's opposition to Muslim immigration: the latter had warned that such immigration, if left unchecked, threatened to become a "tsunami that threatens to engulf us all".

 None so blind as those who will not see.

No WSC Please, We're British: English police arrest politician for quoting Winston Churchill on Islam

Yesterday, in the venerable English cathedral city of Winchester, where King Alfred the Great had his capital, and where (legend has it) King Arthur and his knights held counsel around the celebrated Round Table, a British politician, the urbane and prescient Paul Weston, who is hoping to secure a seat in the European Parliament, was on the hustings.

A press release from Liberty GB takes up the story:

'Today Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB and candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, has been arrested in Winchester.

At around 2pm Mr Weston was standing on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, addressing the passers-by in the street with a megaphone. He quoted the following excerpt about Islam from the book The River War by Winston Churchill:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."

Reportedly a woman came out of the Guildhall and asked Mr Weston if he had the authorisation to make this speech. When he answered that he didn’t, she told him "It's disgusting!" and then called the police.

Six or seven officers arrived. They talked with the people standing nearby, asking questions about what had happened. The police had a long discussion with Mr Weston, lasting about 40 minutes.

At about 3pm he was arrested. They searched him, put him in a police van and took him away.'

[Update: there's an interview with Weston following his release (after five hours in a cell, and now facing a charge that carries up to two years in prison) here]

Will the totalitarian leftists who have suborned the rights and liberties of English men and women and who are, in consequence, the architects of police-enforced censorship on Islamofauxbic free speech such as this woeful incident (look at how many cops came out on the job!) now call for Churchill's book, in which the quoted passage appears, to be withdrawn from public library and used bookshop shelves?

Were he still alive, would Winston Churchill's grandson and namesake (who died in 2010), be similarly arrested if he was to turn into a public speech the letter that he sent to the London Daily Telegraph in 2007, a letter that appears to have earned him only the cold shoulder from head-in-the-sand fellow members of the House of Commons including those in his own Conservative Party?:

“Britain sends some of the finest and most courageous of their generation to risk their lives and spill their blood chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan. But who, meanwhile, is guarding our homeland? A recent police report makes clear that, back here in Britain the Deobandi – the very same Islamist sect responsible for spawning the Taliban in Afghanistan – has succeeded in taking over more than 600 of Britain's 1,350 mosques. In addition, it controls 17 of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries and produces 80 per cent of Britain's home-trained Islamic clerics.

 It's a funny old world, as Margaret Thatcher once famously remarked. Except that this is no laughing matter. Not for 70 years has there been a more clear or present danger to our internal security, to our free society and to our democracy, than that posed by this vipers' nest in our midst. The Deobandi, an ultra-conservative sect, outlaws music, art, television and football, and also demands the entire concealment of women. According to the Lancashire Council of Mosques, the Deobandi has now taken control of 59 out of 75 mosques in the old Lancashire mill towns of Oldham, Preston, Bury, Blackburn and Burnley.

While not all Deobandis are extremist, leading preachers of this sect aim to radicalise the Islamic youth of Britain, and to mobilise them against our society and the freedoms we hold so dear. When will the Government wake up to this mortal threat which – if not swiftly dealt with – threatens to bring strife and bloodshed to the streets of Britain on a scale far exceeding anything seen in the bombings of recent years? Why are Gordon Brown and David Cameron, indeed our entire political class, so deafeningly silent on this, the most pressing matter confronting Britain today? Who will help the moderate majority of Muslims maintain control of their mosques? Who will safeguard the homeland?”

Who will safeguard the homeland, indeed?

In Australia Next Month, "Islamophobes" Will Gather

In Australia, the "Lucky Country"

Explains its website:

"The Q Society is a national grassroots organisation run exclusively by volunteers since 2010. Members and supporters are concerned about the socio-political problems associated with the rise of Islamic sharia law in Australia; as well as religiously-motivated human rights abuses against women and indigenous religious minorities in OIC member countries. We seek to inform and lobby for a free and open discussion about the socio-political impact of political Islam in Australia. Q Society opposes the Islamisation of our society as well as attempts to silence critical debate under the pretence of multicultural tolerance and political correctness. We reject racism and multiculturalism and stand for an integrated multi-ethnic society."

In New York City

From the 7th to the 10th of next month, in Melbourne,  the 1st International Symposium on Liberty and Islam in Australia will be held under the auspices of the Q Society in association with in association with SION and SkipnGirl Productions.  Explains the blurb for the symposium:

 "From China to Iceland and from New York to Sydney, Islam is spreading. Since the 7th century this unique theocratic ideology, veiled in religious veneer, has conquered people and nations. No other ideology spawns discrimination, division and violence on a global scale. People are looking for information, perspectives and better policies. This symposium offers insights and answers."

Americans Pamela Geller of "Atlas Shrugs" and Robert Spencer of "Jihad Watch" are listed among the speakers.

So is the Israeli Arabic specialist Dr Mordechai Kedar, an expert in Islamic ideology and movements, who of course in 2008 on Al Jazeera gave a memorable defence of the Jewish People's claim to Jerusalem:

Dr Kedar's attitude towards the threat to the West from Islam may be discerned from his remarks here in 2009, where he warns of the Muslim demographic weapon that seems poised to undermine Europe and of the wider danger contained in Iranian ambitions and machinations:

The Hamas Covenant goes global

Other speakers include Dr Ashraf Ramelah, founder and president of  the human rights organisation Voice of the Copts.  He knows a thing or two about Islamic persecution of Christians.

There's New York-based human rights activist Simon Deng, a black man who was enslaved for some years by Muslims in his native Sudan.

There's Anders Gravers, chairman and founder of Stop the Islamisation of Denmark and leader of Stop

Islamisation of Europe:

"Despite death threats, violent attacks and harassment from Neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists, Anders continues to fight for freedom of speech and to stop the further Islamisation of Europe and his native Denmark."

 There's the head of the Q Society, Debbie Robinson, of whom it's explained:

"Witnessing a violent anti-Israel rally in the streets of Melbourne led Debbie to question the source of hatred and aggression she saw that day. Realising that the freedom of the Western World is also at stake, Debbie now dedicates her time to raising awareness about the true nature of Islam." 

And there's Kirralie Smith from Halal Choices, which campaigns against what some people call "halal jihad".

The full list of speakers can be found here

Meanwhile, under the headline "Don't be taken in by Islamophobia", a Jewish far-left activist in the correspondence columns of last week's Australian Jewish News, aghast at the contention of one of his friends that Muslim "asylum seekers" are

"only pretending to be boat refugees. But in fact they are the advance wave of a Muslim tsunami that threatens to engulf us all",

wrote:

"You might expect to find such ideas among some of the more benighted members of the general community, but not among fellow-Jews.  Readers of The AJN should keep their eyes and ears open, and resist the blandishments of racist anti-Muslim campaigners."

Woe betide those of any background who dare to voice concerns about mass Islamic immigration to Australia in the hearing of lefties and liberals of any background; for, as elsewhere in the West, to do so is to invite vilification.

I have mentioned more than once how a senior Jewish academic known to me was reported to his department by a clique of Aussie Jewish far leftists intent on making trouble for him after he'd told the AJN in an interview that after what he's seen in the UK in recent years Muslim immigration is not in the interests of the Jewish community or of the wider society.  A strange totalitarian bunch, some leftists.

A strange bunch in general, the Islam-friendly Left, seemingly prepared to overlook or to forgive the Islamic war on Christians, Islamic oppression of women, Islamic cruelty towards animals (see here for the difference between halal and kosher slaughter, a difference very much to the former's detriment) in their absurd insistence that all cultures are created equal.

Among the speakers at the forthcoming International Symposium on Liberty and Islam will be a well-known member of the Jewish community, retired Melbourne businessman Michael Burd.

He's no stranger to readers of the Australian Jewish News and  and the online News and Views from Jews Down Under.

At least Michael has no vice-chancellor and no head of department to whom the totalitarian leftists will be able to "dob him in" (an Aussie term for squealing on someone):

"A vocal member of Melbourne’s Jewish community whose letters in support of Israel and Jewish Human Rights often appear in Australian newspapers. He is a retired rag trader who spent 25 years manufacturing clothing out of India and Pakistan. Michael has an intimate understanding of the mindset of Muslims and Hindus. He is a passionate Zionist advocate  and a critic of the Jewish community representatives’ views  on multiculturalism and asylum seekers."

"An Urgent Clarification Of The Concept Of Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia is a contemporary form of racism and xenophobia motivated by unfounded fear, mistrust, and hatred of Muslims and Islam. 

Islamophobia is also manifested through intolerance, discrimination, unequal treatment, prejudice, stereotyping, hostility, and adverse public discourse.

Differentiating from classical racism and xenophobia, Islamophobia is mainly based on stigmatization of a religion and its followers, and as such, Islamophobia is an affront to the human rights and dignity of Muslims."

That, for the benefit of conference delegates at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's definition of "Islamophobia".  The definition was supplied to the Conference, meeting in Vienna, by the Turkish delegate at the request of a representative of an Austrian organisation.

Read and see more here

British Intellectual Slams Islamic Antisemitism (video) & Palestinian Child Indulges In Some

Catholic intellectual Daniel Johnson, editor of Standpoint magazine and son of the journalist and historian Paul Johnson, who wrote a grand history of the Jews, pulls no punches in this speech at the Oxford Union, (coincidentally the day after the butchering of fusilier Lee Rigby) disputing the motion that "This House believes Islam is a religion of peace".  In the course of his speech he praises the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes, who forsook Judaism for Christianity and later reverted to his Jewish roots, and observes that had Vermes changed his religion in Islamic countries he would be at threat of death for apostasy.

Johnson cites, inter alia, cruelty to non-Muslims, women, and slaves in Islamic tradition, and the latter's inherent antisemitism.

Nevertheless, the motion was carried by 286 votes to 168.

Perhaps many of those voting in favour were inhibited by what Johnson, during his speech, called "the pernicious notion of Islamophobia".

Talking of Islamic antisemitism, here's a new PMW video showing a small Palestinian girl on PA TV indulging in some:

"Oh, you who were brought up on spilling blood
You have been condemned to humiliation and hardship
Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations
 Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs.
Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity
Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate
And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure."

Muslims Are Oppressed In Europe, Claims Amnesty International

Amnesty International, which is of course one of those prominent leftist NGOs that spend an inordinate amount of time castigating Israel, has issued a report castigating Europe's attitude to Muslims.  Says the blurb:

'Muslims across Europe belong to many different ethnic groups and follow diverse cultural, religious or traditional practices. They are discriminated against for different reasons, including their religion or belief, ethnicity and gender. This report highlights discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief and illustrates some of its consequences. Restrictive dress-code policies and legislation are enforced in several states. Muslims, and especially Muslim women, who express their cultural or religious background by wearing specific forms of dress or symbols have been denied employment or excluded from classrooms.'

Says an official press release embargoed until this morning: 

'European governments must do more to challenge the negative stereotypes and prejudices against Muslims fuelling discrimination especially in education and employment, a new report by Amnesty International reveals today....

.... Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination [observes]

“Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes.”....'

That Amnesty has produced this report will no doubt fuel allegations that it is, albeit unwittingly, helping to advance the propagandistic, political, and demographic agenda of those Arab regimes who aim to bring Europe closer to the Arabist viewpoint, if not to the Islamist one of suborning Europe under a Caliphate.


Discrimination against a person because of his or her religious beliefs is, of course, unsconscionable.  But so long as Islam is associated in the public mind with the subjugation of the female sex and of non-Muslims, with a barbaric penal code, with proselytisation of and contempt for "infidels", and, dare I say it, with acts of terror worldwide, so-called Islamophobia is likely to continue.

Meanwhile, I look forward to the day when an agency of the Jeddah-based OIC produces a report highlighting the oppression of Christians and other religious minorities in far too much of the Islamic world.

Update: See this important article on the OIC, Europe, and antisemitism

Senator Lee Rhiannon & Friends On European Islamophobia (video)

So, I guess they wouldn't consider this Swiss politician a William Tell for a continent:

Hat tip for Swiss video: Shirl in Oz

The Sad Old State of Cloud Cuckoo Land – British Jews, the Right, and Islamophobia

The Reform Club is a famous gentlemen’s club in the heart of London’s Clubland. Founded in 1836 by Whigs and Liberals, the kind of people responsible for the Great Reform Act of 1832 that swept away "rotten boroughs" and enfranchised the (male) urban middle class, it looks very much as it did in this illustration of 1840, except that some of the women there nowadays are members in their own right rather than members’ guests. The fictional Phileas Fogg’s celebrated journey in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days started from the Reform Club, and the club’s sumptuous interior has served as the backdrop for a number of movies – I recognise it in early scenes in The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian – and I know it has featured in others since then.

It was at the Reform Club that I once had tea with a Jewish former MP, Harold Soref (pictured, 1916-93) as his guest, seated in a corner of a library where ladies were permitted. Soref was, indeed, a most unlikely member of a club stocked with marble busts and oil paintings of the great and good of the Liberal Party – Cobden, Bright, Daniel O’Connell, Gladstone, and the rest – for he was known as the most rightwing Tory MP in the House, and there are rumours (I’ve never got to the bottom of them) that as a youngster he’d been a member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. After two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament in the 1950s, he became Conservative MP for Ormskirk in 1970, only to lose his seat in 1974 owing to boundary changes that assured Labour of victory.

A proudly loyal Jew, he was on the Council of the Anglo-Jewish Association and from 1947-51 he’d edited its fiercely anti-Zionist periodical, The Jewish Monthly. He also contributed articles on Anglo- and Commonwealth Jewish history to a number of journals. In the British Museum (now the British Library) I’d read some of his old anti-Zionist editorials, which were based, among other considerations, on the fear, common among right-wingers at the time he wrote them, that Israel would be a puppet of the Soviet Union, abetting that country's rivalry to British interests in the Middle East. However, in 1973, at the time of the Yom Kippur War, when the Heath government despicably refused to supply spare parts for British-made Israeli tanks, Soref had joined most other Jewish Conservative MPs as well as a few non-Jewish ones in crossing the floor to vote with the Opposition over the issue.

I was interested to learn, during our conversation at the Reform Club, that he’d visited Israel not long after Independence was declared, along with another Jewish future Conservative MP (whose subsequent marriage to a Christian provoked a pointed article from Soref – who never married at all – on intermarriage, headed, if I recall correctly, "Bad Jews and Mad Jews"). And it was clear that his anti-Zionism had been laid to rest by events. Perceiving Israel’s interests to have dovetailed with Britain’s, he was agreeably pro-Israel, and when I asked him what he thought of the wisdom of this or that Israeli policy he refused to be drawn, declaring emphatically: "It’s all very well for me, sitting in the comfort of this club, to presume to tell the Israeli government what to do!" (Quite so. Got that, Mick Davis?)

Soref headed a firm of Africa merchants founded by his Romanian-born father and uncle; he greatly feared the spread of communism in Africa and was an unswerving apologist for white rule there. This made him anathema in most Jewish circles – and in leftwing ones generally. In 1974 he had to scale a six-foot wall to escape a mob of howling students yelling “Death to Soref!” when he arrived to speak as scheduled at the Oxford Union. And he was apparently the intended target of IRA gunmen who, lying in wait outside his London home, killed a man who looked similar to him.

Following increasingly fraught relations with other members, Soref at length resigned from the Board of Deputies of British Jews in protest at its pursuit of alliances with other minority groups – he vehemently argued that Anglo-Jewry’s place was with what he called "the indigenous people" of Britain, whom he felt were betrayed by mass immigration and given a raw deal by "the race relations industry", and he maintained that it was futile to forge links with ethnic groups who were no true friends to Jews anyway. An "Empire loyalist", he was staunchly opposed to Britain’s membership of the Common Market – let alone the EU – holding that it was a betrayal of the Commonwealth and of Britain’s interests. At his memorial service in Westminster Synagogue the address was given by Enoch Powell, whose views on non-white immigration to Britain and its consequences, as on so many other matters, were matched by Soref’s.

Soref remains a controversial figure; Jews on the political right would probably not wish to be thought to resemble him, while those on the political left continue to demonise him. For example, in a recent biographical dictionary of Jewish MPs in Britain, of which the Labour life peer Lord Janner of Braunstone is a co-author, his entry contains a scathing value judgment unworthy of such a work, as well as politically-loaded factual inaccuracies.

I thought of Soref today, when I read on the Jewish Chronicle’s website (thejc.com) that a new parliamentary group, of which Conservative MP Kris Hopkins is chairman and Lord Janner (pictured) is a co-vice-chairman, established to tackle Islamophobia has – though evidently not without misgivings from its LibDem co-vice-chairman, Simon Hughes – been shamed into curtailing its foolish ties with Engage, an explicitly anti-Zionist Muslim organisation that has also defended radical Muslim preachers and opposed moderate Muslim groups concerned about Islamist extremism, following an exposé of Engage by former Conservative MP Paul Goodman (the Roman Catholic son of Jewish parents) in the Conservative Home website that he edits.

To quote the JC:

‘In June, Mohammed Asif, chief executive of Engage, wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove to express his opposition to Zionism being taught in Jewish schools. "Zionism is not part of the Jewish faith," he wrote. "It is a political ideology which has its roots in the works of Theodor Herzl and subsequent ideologues that have advanced the idea of a national struggle to establish a homeland for the Jews in the modern era."

The Engage website described Sunday Telegraph reporter Andrew Gilligan as “deranged” after he raised questions about whether the organisation was independent enough to perform the functions of secretariat to the all-party group. In recent years the group has defended the right of radical Muslim preachers to come to Britain and express their views and opposed the ban on extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir from university campuses.

Engage has also challenged those who condemned the Muslim Council of Britain’s Daud Abdullah for signing the Istanbul Declaration, which urged attacks on the British navy.

One comment on the Engage post announcing the establishment of the Islamophobia group said: “Jews and Christian scholars, the so called Western Orientals have always tried to mispresent Islam in their writings. They have always tried to spread baseless lies against Islam in a very authentic and scholarly style, hiding their deep rooted hatred against Islam.”’

According to the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (and it’s not wrong!), London has become a “Mecca of Delegitimisation” – a hub of hate for proponents of a concerted assault on Israel’s very right to exist – composed of a “Red-Green Alliance” of hard leftists and Islamists who liaise with like-minded groups throughout Europe (or Eurabia, as it's been dubbed by the Egyptian-born writer Gisèle Littman – aka Bat Ye’or). In 1973, Soref was already warning that London was home to some 50 revolutionary movements – a prophet ahead of his time, effectively anticipating Melanie Phillips’s characterisation of the British capital as “Londonistan”.

Some Jews, fed up with the current situation, and heeding an English Defence League (EDL) call to help "lead the counter-Jihad fight in England", have joined the so-called Jewish Division of the EDL, an organisation widely seen as composed at its core of football hooligans and National Front types.

'An exasperated friend tells me his father, a fearsome Jewish anti-Fascist in his day, now spouts near-the-knuckle canards about "illegal immigrants" and "asylum seekers". This phenomenon is known as "pulling up the ladder" – as each wave of migrants grows to feel at home "aboard" their new country they identify evermore with the host community, sharing in its resentment towards newcomers and not recognising any empathetic connection with their own historical experience", the Daily Telegraph blogger Julian Kossoff has observed blogs.telegraph.co.uk/.../the-english-defence-league-the-jewish-division-and- the-useful-idiots/:

'But when I heard that there were Jews actively supporting the English Defence League (EDL), I thought: "pull the other one". The EDL claims to stand up for Englishness against Islamic extremism, but in truth it is largely a hodgepodge of football hooligans, lumpen boot-boys and cast-offs from seedy neo-Nazi outfits, such as Combat 18.

....While many in the Jewish community have understandable concerns about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism – so often streaked through with virulent anti-Semitism – it is important to remember that the EDL are not our friends. They are part of the problem, not the solution.'

The EDL’s avowed support for Israel and brandishing of the Israeli flag at anti-Islam rallies has met an icy reception from communal leaders. Mark Gardner, communications director of the Community Security Trust, has observed: "The EDL intimidate entire Muslim communities, causing tension and fear. Jews ought to remember that we have long experience of being on the receiving end of this kind of bigotry." Similarly, Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies, has said:

"The EDL's supposed 'support' for Israel is empty and duplicitous. It is built on a foundation of Islamophobia and hatred which we reject entirely. Sadly, we know only too well what hatred for hatred's sake can cause. The overwhelming majority will not be drawn in by this transparent attempt to manipulate a tense political conflict."

Certainly, the fact that, following the poppy-burning ceremony on Armistice Day (11 November) by a group of Islamist extremists linked to firebrand extremist Anjem Choudary, the mosque in Portsmouth, which was in no way associated with the poppy-burners, was surrounded by EDL members and daubed with graffiti, lends credence to the view that the EDL consists largely of racist thugs.

But while holding aloof from it is one thing, holding aloof from all denunciations of Islamic extremism is quite another. The antisemitism spawned by a diabolical alliance of leftists and Islamists must be robustly countered – why, only last evening there was yet another grotesque antisemitic meeting on a British campus, as an Islamic extremist, Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper (who in 2007 had declared on MEMRI TV "By Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel") addressed the theme "How much influence does the Zionist lobby exert in the US and UK?" During the lecture he allegedly accused Jewish students of "bombing Gaza", referred to the "Jewish lobby" and refused to condemn Hamas: "Would you want me to condemn those who are resisting the occupation?" ("To invite Atwan to a British university should be inconceivable”, says Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor. "That in 2010, situations are allowed to develop where Jews are called 'Nazis' on British campuses, should appal and concern Britons in equal measure.")www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/42342/police-probe-antisemitic-speech-lse

"It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade," Isi Leibler has observed – and, boy, Anglo-Jewry desperately needs a leader of his vision and calibre! What a sorry lot most of them are!

'We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews".

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church’s medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs".

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam....

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists.

In that context, the relative tranquility which Muslims experience in Western societies is a great tribute to tolerance – a tolerance unlikely to have been extended to Jews in similar circumstances. Imagine the response if Israel had a track record like some of the Arab states, or if Jews in Western countries were blowing up their neighbors.

While genuine interfaith relations are to be commended, many Jews persist in engaging in "dialogue" with Muslim organizations that refuse to dissociate themselves from hard-line Islamic attitudes. Some of the leading Saudi groups promoting international interfaith conferences are directly engaged in the promotion of anti-Semitism, yet Jews participating in these bogus meetings naively babble on about love and coexistence and ignore realities. By doing so, Jews undermine the few moderate Muslims courageous enough to speak up.

All religions incorporate texts and concepts which encourage violence and aggression, but it is the interpretation by religious leaders that determines actual behavior. Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism today are overwhelmingly supportive of peace, and seek coexistence while condemning extremists.

In contrast, only a few Islamic moderates have the courage to criticize extremism within their own circles. Those brave enough to do so are marginalized, condemned by their kinsmen, and their lives are frequently endangered. The overwhelming majority remains silent or defends the Islamic excesses of Islamic regimes.... There is indeed a desperate need to encourage moderate Muslims. But appeasing the extremists and groveling to Muslim bullies merely emboldens them. There is not a single instance in history in which appeasing religious fanatics of any faith has brought about progress. If we allow ourselves to be intimidated or fail to confront Islamist jihadists, they will succeed in destroying the very tenets of our civilization.

This is an area in which Jews, who have the most to lose, must surely stand up and be counted."
www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=189444