Not Fit To Lick Melanie's Boots: The British Board of Deputies Carries On Regardless

O, what a b[r]ummer!

British economics writer Alex Brummer, who is currently City Editor of the Daily Mail, also has a regular column in the Jewish Chronicle.  Mr Brummer, whose columns usually exude good sense, has erred badly in his latest contribution to the latter newspaper, with a most unworthy, myopic attack on one of the few public intellectuals in Britain, Jewish or non-Jewish, possessing the perspicacity and courage to say what needs to be said regarding the threat to the West and to Israel posed by militant Islam and indeed by the creeping islamicisation of non-Islamic societies.

Namely, that truly wonderful woman, Melanie Phillips.

Regular readers of my blog will recall that Ms Phillips recently made a well-justified condemnation of the Board of Deputies' ill-conceived release of a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain (see the latter's stance on Gaza here).

My blog quoted the comment on Facebook that Ms Phillips made about the statement.

She subsequently wrote:

'The Board of Deputies last week crossed a line. It stopped being a community embarrassment and became instead a positive menace.

It proudly announced an "unprecedented" joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain. This said the Middle East conflict should not poison community relations. But it also condemned the "targeting of civilians". The omission of who had supposedly done this targeting implied the Board blamed Israel along with Hamas.

No, protested the Board, this obviously could only relate to Hamas since Israel never targeted civilians. The crucial point, it said, was that the MCB had condemned Hamas.

Oh dear; where to start? The MCB, closely associated with Jamaat-e-Islami extremists and whose affiliated groups often support the Muslim Brotherhood, would never single out Hamas for blame.

UK's Jewish leadership has strengthened its enemies

The Board had enabled it to crow – falsely but plausibly – that the Jews had condemned Israel for war crimes. And the MCB could tell its own people it had not blamed Hamas, since the Palestinians were only civilians while all Israelis were military targets.

Worse still, the Board was boasting of its deal with a body which is a front for Islamic extremism and hatred of Israel and the Jews. Its past leaders have described Israel as "the Zionist terrorist state" and claimed that Hamas "stands for freedom".

It reveres Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who has supported suicide bombings outside Britain and claimed the Torah permits Jews to spill others' blood and seize their money and land.

In 2009, its then deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul Declaration, which threatened violence against Israel supporters and British troops.

Because the government views it with suspicion, the MCB is now careful to sanitise its language. Even so, its current secretary-general, Shuja Shafi, found it impossible to say on the Today programme that scrawling "Free Gaza" on a synagogue was antisemitic.

Notwithstanding, the Board claims "it gets you nowhere if you only make peace with your friends". Really? Can we expect a historic Board rapprochement with Hamas? Or al Qaeda? Or Iran?

A clue to the Board's idiocy lies elsewhere in the joint statement, which condemns both antisemitism and "Islamophobia" as if these were equal forms of bigotry.

This is a terrible error. While antisemitism is a true prejudice for which there can never be a shred of rational justification, "Islamophobia" is a catch-all phrase used to demonise anyone who makes a legitimate criticism of Islam or Muslims.

So while there may be some who unreasonably hate all Muslims, those who warn about the Islamic jihad or condemn Muslim attacks on women and girls or freedom of speech are condemned as "Islamophobic" to silence such criticism.

Those who point out the virulent antisemitism in Muslim societies are similarly branded. And because the Jewish leadership is desperate to appease Muslims, it is - astoundingly - silent about Muslim antisemitism. Instead, it, too, demonises those who warn against Islamic extremism as "right-wingers" or "Islamophobes".

The Board's spokesman has ludicrously insisted it is right to oppose "Islamophobia" because "racism is racism". It would appear that the Board doesn't even understand that Islam is not a race but a religion.

The Jewish leadership has now invested legitimate criticism of Islam with a status equivalent to the most hateful prejudice in the world. It has thus helped silence criticism of threatening Islamic behaviour and made all in Britain more vulnerable to attack.

Similarly, by awarding a kitemark of respectability to the MCB, it has undermined all who struggle to defend Britain against Islamic extremism. A Muslim academic, Mohammed al Husseini, has expressed his sense of betrayal at the Board's "collaboration" with the MCB.

All decent people, Jews and non-Jews - including truly anti-jihadi Muslims - need to stand shoulder to shoulder against Islamic extremism. Instead, the UK's Jewish leadership has breached the defences and strengthened the foe.'  [Emphasis added]

Particularly odious is Brummer's contention that

 "We are all capable of scouring the worldwide web in search of adverse material that supports our case. Phillips is expert at this and her fondness for conspiracy theories on a range of issues including events in the Middle East are legion"

As one very prominent Anglo-Jewish Zionist who is also a member (yes, there are still members who have not caught the dhimmitude bug) of the Board of Deputies remarks on Facebook:

"Alex Brummer – In defending the indefensible you have resorted to a baseless ad hominem attack on Melanie Phillips...

Resorting to playing the [wo]man rather than the ball simply reveals to all how impossible you find it to defend your case. I really thought you were above such libellous smear tactics. Shame.

 Melanie Phillips is a thorough and principled journalist and possibly the best asset we have in advocating for Israel and fighting antisemitism...

MCB supports BDS but no boycott of the goods of any other country. So how can its condemnation of antisemitism carry any credibility??"

That admirable Deputy also writes:

'Next Sunday there is a motion at Bd Deps: "That the Board supports the Executive in its approval of a joint statement by the Board and the Muslim Council of Britain condemning anti-Semitism"

There are several reasons to oppose the motion.

1. MCB still has as members groups aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and sympathetic to Hamas. The Board should be allying with moderates like Dr Muhammad Al-Hussaini who has roundly criticised the joint statement.

2. The MCB supports a boycott of Israeli goods. How can a condemnation of antisemitism by an organisation that has an antisemitic policy in place have any credibility whatsoever? And why did the President not see that?

3. The Board should not be giving the MCB credibility – it undermines the government’s strategy of bypassing the MCB as far as tackling extremism is concerned.

4. The MCB’s condemnation of antisemitism is meaningless without its confirmation that it accepts the same definition of antisemitism as the Board’s – namely, the EUMC Definition. I have asked it to confirm – no response.

5. Dr [Shuja] Shafi heads MCB. On the [BBC] “Today” programme he refused three times to accept that daubing “Gaza” on a synagogue wall is antisemitic. [Dr Shafi evidently thought better of this image-breaker when he left the studio; see tweet. Did a panicky Board of Deputies contact him, perchance? If so, he still fell short.  D.A.]

6. One part of the statement was very badly written. It said "The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions". The phrase "against our religious traditions" is in the plural. It therefore includes both Judaism and Islam. It therefore conveys the impression that the Board believes that the IDF targeted civilians, otherwise why the reference to Judaism? (To argue that Hamas' targeting of civilians is against Jewish religious traditions is nonsensical). Of course the Board does not think that the IDF targeted civilians …. but when writing about such a sensitive subject, perception is all important.

7. I am a member of the Board’s Defence Division and one of our responsibilities is interfaith work. Such a potentially controversial statement should have been shown to me and the other members of the Division for comment before it was released. It wasn’t. Yet another example – like the infamous Oxfam project – of the members of a supposedly democratic body being presented with a fait accompli.

If you too oppose the motion please lobby your Deputy to speak and vote against it.' [Emphasis added.]

The D[h]im & The Dutiful: "Tragic" says Marvellous Melanie

Recently, in this land Down Under, the Uniting Church (which, incidentally, is not renowned for love and affection towards Israel) held an interfaith meeting on the illustrated theme, coined in response to the "We'll fight radical Islam for 100 years, says ex-Army lead Peter Leahy" headline that which appeared in The Australian on 9 August.

That headline appeared above this report, in which Professor Leahy, a retired lieutenant-general who is director of Canberra University’s National Security Institute and part of the Abbott government’s team carrying out a comprehensive review of Australia's defence,  maintained:

"Australia is involved in the early stages of a war which is likely to last for the rest of the century. We must be ready to protect ourselves and, where necessary, act pre-emptively to neutralise the evident threat. Get ready for a long war....

They [the government] should advance a narrative that explains that radical Islam­ism and the terrorism it breeds at home and abroad will remain a significant threat for the long term, it will require considerable effort, the expenditure of blood and treasure and it will, of necessity, restrict our rights and liberties"....

He said radical Islamists intent on a new world order were already a threat to the survival of nations in the Middle East and Africa.

If the declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq survived, bases would be established there for attacks on the West and that would embolden “home grown” radicals to attempt attacks in Australia. Military action would be needed to eliminate the threat.

Radicals saw the West as “the far enemy” and they were undoubtedly planning more attacks in Australia. Senior intelligence believes the view that the threat posed by radical Islam would pass was “optimistic”....'

All pretty sensible stuff, we may think, particularly in view of the number of Islamic fighters from Australia known to be fighting abroad, including the father of the seven-year-old pictured recently holding a severed head.

But smacking of "media vilification" in the minds of the above-mentioned conference (at which a rabbi, the not widely known Zalman Kastel of Sydney was present) and its supporters, apparently.

For they issued the the following statement, all motherhood and apple pie and good up to a point, though arguably a reckless over-generalisation, which some "as-a-Jews" as well as some of the more naive (or indifferent to Israel, rationality, and to women's rights) among the Jewish community have hastened to append their names:

'As people committed to building a healthy, cohesive and diverse communities in Australia, we have observed with dismay and empathy the way our Muslim friends have been affected by the language and tone of recent political statements and media coverage. We agree with the concerns of Muslim community leaders that the language and policies of our leaders should not marginalise or vilify people of Muslim faith, and that rhetoric used in relation to Australian security and conflicts around the world should not cause further division in our society, or make anyone feel alienated from the nation they call home.

We believe people of Muslim faith are being unfairly smeared in the eyes of the Australian public by both subtle and overt links to violent extremism in political and media discourse.

This month in Sydney; Herald-Sun photo

We know and understand the deep concern and hurt this is causing to our Muslim friends and the risks this kind of generalisation has for social harmony and cohesion.

The violence and values of extremists like ISIS are not representative of the vast majority of Muslim people in Australia, who are characterised better by their commitment to peace, community and mutual respect.

We stand in solidarity with all people who are suffering the results of war, violence and terror around the world, recognising the dignity of all people and their right to enjoy freedom from persecution and oppression.

We celebrate the diversity of the Australian community and recognise the valuable contribution of people of Muslim faith to our culture and community.

We know that vilification and alienation are not the way to peace or social harmony, but that authentic relationships, solidarity, listening, learning and mutual respect go along way to building the kind of community we’d like to live in.'

And now, worse, far worse, we read in the UK Jewish Chronicle, that the d[h]imwitted British Board of Deputies has dutifully undertaken to make common cause with the Muslim Council of Britain:

'Muslim and Jewish leaders have united in calling for stronger collaboration between their communities in the wake of the Gaza conflict.

In an unprecedented joint statement, the Board of Deputies and the Muslim Council of Britain condemned civilian deaths as tragic and called for efforts to avoid them.

They also condemned any expression of antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism generally, calling on both communities to “redouble efforts to work together and get to know one another”.

But the statement was not without controversy, with both sides unable to agree the exact meaning behind one key line.

The line reads: “The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions.” ....'  (See more here)

Rightly comments the great and incomparable Melanie Phillips, who puts what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership to shame:

'It is hard to exaggerate the stupidity of the UK Jewish Board of Deputies in what it has just done. It has signed a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia and urging that the Middle East conflict should not prevent good community relations in Britain. Apart from the false equivalence between antisemitism and Islamophobia, which equates a metaphysical global derangement – the cause of centuries of pogroms and genocide against the Jews – with a spurious thought-crime invented to silence legitimate criticism of Islam, these were unexceptionable pieties.

However, the statement also contains this passage:

"The death of every civilian is a tragedy, and every effort should be taken to minimise such losses. The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions."

Daily Mail, 25 March 2009

The MCB is an umbrella organisation, a number of whose member groups are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and support Hamas. The Board of Deputies may have assumed the second sentence above could only refer to Hamas, since the IDF does not target civilians and goes to great lengths to avoid hurting them wherever possible. But there is no way the MCB would ever suggest that Israel behaves honourably while Hamas does not. It should therefore have been blindingly obvious that the MCB would do what it has immediately done – claim that the Board had agreed with it that both Israel and Hamas had targeted civilians. The Board has thus now enabled the MCB to claim that the UK's Jewish community leadership has condemned Israel for targeting civilians.

Unbelievable. But that's not the full extent of it. The Board seems to be proud that this joint statement is an "unprecedented" achievement. But just look at its new friend.

MCB leaders have in the past strongly supported Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of Hamas who supports suicide bombings against Israelis (and previously, British forces in Iraq) and who has also asserted that the Torah permits Jews to spill the blood of others and seize their money and land.

The MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, for which it was shunned by the British government until it ended its boycott. In 2009, its then deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul Declaration which threatened violence against Israel supporters and British troops.

In 2005, it offered its condolences to the family of the leading Hamas terrorist Abdul Aziz al Rantissi after he was killed by the Israelis. Its former Secretary-General, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, branded Israel a "Nazi" state, accused it of "murderous leadership", "Zionist brutality" and "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine", and compared Hamas suicide bombers to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Also that year, the BBC TV Panorama programme exposed the influence on the MCB of the Islamist thinker Sayed Maududi, who preached the need for jihad to bring abut the "universal revolution" of Islamic state rule.

In short, it is beyond astounding that the Board of Deputies should have had anything to do with the MCB at all. Its action has also dealt a blow to all who are struggling to deal with Islamic extremism in the UK. For at a stroke the MCB, which in any sane universe should be shunned as a threat not just to Jews but to Britain, has been awarded a kite-mark of respectability and decency by – of all people – the Jews.

The Board of Deputies is not fit for purpose. It has shown that it does not have a clue about the true nature of the threat posed to Jews and to Britain by Islamic extremism. Britain's Jewish community is leaderless at a time when strong, brave and wise leadership has never been more urgently and desperately needed. Tragic.'

As for the often-heard analogy between antisemitism and "Islamophobia", and more specifically that in Europe Muslims are "the new Jews", James Kirchick has a rather splendid refutation here

Requiem for Islamic Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing? David Cameron on Islamic Extremism in that Province of Eurabia called Britain

Remember this infamous statement by Britain’s ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, made in Beirut last year in praise of Londonistan? Here it is again, in all its brazen shame:

“London has traditionally been a place of refuge and tolerance; Marx after all wrote his classic work in the British Library. London was the favourite place of exile of anarchists and revolutionaries. More recently it has been seen as the home of Muslim opposition forces, even leading to the French coining the term Londonistan. This is a heritage that we are proud of, even if it makes us occasional enemies of other governments.”

She must certainly be feeling proud now, then, having been a major player in Whitehall’s forging of close ties with the Muslim Council of Britain (MBC, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood) when she sees scenes like the ones pictured here, outside the Egyptian Embassy in London, as enemies of the pro-Western Egyptian government vent their hatred of Mubarak’s regime.

There are the fanatical young men (with their grotesquely-garbed womenfolk) screaming that “Islam is the Solution” – the rallying cry of the Muslim Brotherhood itself – and doing the verbal equivalent of holding two fingers up to Britain and the West by decrying democracy, making taunting remarks about our religions and way of life, and telling us that we’ll all be in dhimmitude sooner or later.

In his splendid article “The Days of Doing Deals with Muslim Extremists are Over,” that great British journalist Charles Moore (about whom I’ve blogged before) delivers a few insightful warnings, starting with the coverage of the Egyptian riots by certain left-liberal TV pundits some of whom have been reporting subjectively on "Mubarak's thugs".  Moore also says, inter alia:

”Lenin lived in London and other parts of western Europe before returning to Russia as a revolutionary leader. The Ayatollah Khomeini flew in from Paris. Today, no city is more important in fomenting revolt in the Muslim world than London. The place is awash with exiles, and with British-born extremists. Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most significant global Islamist organisation, has been living here for several years. Last week, he returned to his country as the old regime fell. And although the Muslim Brotherhood began life in Egypt, and claims 20 million followers there, its power centres have grown in the West. Much of the propaganda for Hamas, and for one of the Brotherhood’s religious gurus, Yusuf Qaradawi (a big pal of Ken Livingstone), is generated here. Money from charity fund-raisers in Britain is used for its work in Egypt. The Muslim Association of Britain is the Brotherhood’s vehicle in this country. The Muslim Council of Britain, which supposedly represents all Muslims here, contains leaders who are highly sympathetic to the Brotherhood. We think of everything about the Middle East as “abroad”, but many of the truths about the state of the Muslim world are also home truths.”

Read all of Charles Moore’s article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8304545/The-days-of-doing-deals-with-Muslim-extremists-are-over.html

And here’s Moore talking about the Muslim Council of Britain, in a panel discussion last year, along with Conservative peer Baroness Warsi , who's a Muslim, and former MP (Lib Dem) Susan Kramer:

Britain, particularly Londonistan, is the base of some of the most deranged and dangerous Islamists in the world, yet despite the anger and anguish – yes, anguish – this state of affairs arouses in the average man and woman in the street, little is done about it by the chattering classes who comprise the metropolitan elite and the latter's outlets such as the BBC and the Guardian.  People –  decent, everyday people –  who express anxiety are intimidated by the “racism” label – or by the “Islamophobe” tag. In fact, just as outspokenly supporting Israel is increasingly something done only by consenting adults in private, owing to the scorn and rage it's liable to provoke, so too is expressing concern about the Islamism that is in our midst.

A young working-class lad who – calling himself “Tommy Robinson” – founded the English Defence League (EDL) after being outraged by the behaviour of a bunch of Islamic extremists insulting British troops returning from a tour of duty in the Middle East has been demonised by the media and politicians with such routine immediacy and to such an extent that it is impossible for the average member of the public to make a considered assessment of the real nature and motivations of him and his organisation. (Here's Roberta Moore, of the EDL's so-called Jewish Division, who's certainly made up her mind):

Why, even a public figure with so illustrious a name as Winston Churchill (the great wartime prime minister’s grandson, a Conservative MP who died in 2010) was in effect given the cold shoulder by his party when, like a prophet in the wilderness, he warned:

“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?”

A few days ago, at a security conference in Munich, David Cameron – raising the spectre of Islamic radicalism and terrorism for the first time in his premiership – criticised "state multiculturalism" and called for initiatives to integrate minorities into the fabric of national life. He made the obligatory – some would say deluded – distinction between Islam and Islamism ("We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing") and foreshadowed a get-tough policy on recruiters for militant Islam on university campusese and in prisons, and a withdrawal of government funding of and liaison with advisory bodies that are neither as moderate nor as useful as they appear.

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations."

The relevant part of Mr Cameron's speech can be found here:

Predictably, the BBC has been giving more than their fair share of airtime and webspace to the opinions of people and organisations opposed to Cameron’s message. For instance, it reported the jaundiced reaction of the Muslim Council of Britain (which perhaps recognised itself as one of the bodies whose cosy ties with Whitehall are now in jeopardy). Dr Faisal Hanjra, the MCB’s assistant secretary general, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

“We were hoping that with a new government, with a new coalition that there'd be a change in emphasis in terms of counter-terrorism and dealing with the problem at hand....

Again it just seems the Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution”

and Inayat Bunglawala , the MCB’s media secretary, was on several Al Beeb television news bulletins waxing similarly indignant.

An Al Beeb regular, London imam Ajmal Mansoor, pronounced that Cameron is “barking up the wrong tree", since “foreign policy blunders” cause the "extremism and radicalisation in the world".

And so on, and so on.

Al Beeb newsreader Chris Rogers did his best to challenge two Cameron-supporting Muslims who came on, presumably as tokens among the long parade of Muslim critics of the speech, to praise Cameron’s initiative – new Tory peer Lord Tariq Ahmad (to whom Rogers behaved a tad flippantly) and Mohammed Amin, vice-chair of the Conservative Muslim Forum, whose description of the speech as “excellent” and observation that "some Muslims want to bring back the kind of state that existed a thousand years ago where Christians and Jews paid extra special taxes in exchange for the privilege of being exempt from conscription” did not please young Rogers – evidently fully immersed in that left-liberal “mindset” that former Al Beeb presenter Peter Sissons assures us pervades Al Beeb – at all.

For Isi Leibler on the need for moderate Muslim voices to be heard see
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=2789

and for Lee Kuan Yew’s thoughts on Muslim integration see
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2011/01/on-muslim-integration