The BNP’s ‘pro-Jewish’, ‘pro-Israel’ rhetoric is a sham

Once again, the mask has slipped. A group of Jews turned out to oppose Stop Islamisation Of Europe (SIOE), a group that, as Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens notes, don’t simply oppose Islamism but ‘actively seek to discredit and attack moderate Muslims’, even the excellent British Muslims for Secular Democracy.

In his commentary on this, BNP speaker, fanatical Griffinite and all round nasty piece of work Paul ‘Green Arrow’ Morris has written a post entitled ‘Brain Dead Jews in Harrow‘, in which he writes:

You dull thick stupid cretins.  Where are the brains of the “chosen” ones?

Who but an anti-Semite makes a point of referring to ‘”chosen” ones’ when attacking a Jewish group?

This isn’t a first for the Green Arrow. Previously, Morris has reposted a racist and anti-Semitic text on his blog which listed Jews as ‘chosenites’ and describes a Jewish survivor of Nazi Germany as a ‘typhoid survivor’ (a reference to the claim made by Holocaust deniers that Jews in Nazi death camps were not murdered but simply died from typhus outbreaks).

And all this from one of the supposedly modern, Jew and Israel friendly BNP members.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the BNP’s claim that it is not an anti-Semitic organisation and that it is a friend of Israel is pure opportunism. In reality, the party remains infested with Jew haters who are adopting a superficially pro-Jewish, pro-Israel line as part of their race based campaign which is currently wrapped up in the language of anti-Islamism.

First they have come for the Muslims, later they’ll come for the Jews.

No British school should be supporting this organisation

‘Bristol school sends postcards to Gaza’, reports the Viva Palestina website:

Students at the City Academy School in Bristol have been writing POSTCARDS TO GAZA. On Monday 30 th November, they were handed to the convoy which will deliver them to a school in Gaza. The youngsters also donated boxes of stationery together with sacks of cuddly toys.

Dr Ray Priest , Principal says: “ Our young people, of all faiths, have been enthusiastic about the Viva Palestina convoy right from the start. We all feel that no children anywhere should suffer like those in Gaza, Palestine. ”

Who else might have been ‘enthusiastic about the Viva Palestina convoy right from the start’?

Well, here’s what happened last time:

As George Galloway handed money to Hamas he stated: ‘This is not charity. This is not charity. This is not charity. This is politics’.

And what is Hamas’s record like when it comes to education?

If you’re a toddler or a primary aged child, Hamas teaches you Islamic supremacism, jihad, and the virtues of becoming a child soldier:

If you’re a teacher and you don’t toe the Hamas line, don’t expect any job security. From August 2008:

The ruling Hamas movement has replaced hundreds of striking teachers with its own supporters, purging Gaza’s education system of its political rivals and deepening its control of the coastal territory.

The labour strife has disrupted the public school system at the start of the academic year and added to the misery in Gaza, which has suffered from international isolation and Israeli economic sanctions since Hamas violently seized power last year.

During the takeover, Hamas routed forces loyal to the rival Fatah movement. The local teachers’ union, one of the last remaining Fatah strongholds in Gaza, called its strike this week to protest the transfers of dozens of educators to new schools. It said Hamas forced the transfers to give its supporters key posts in the education system.

Hamas denied this, but then installed hundreds of new teachers almost immediately after the strike began.

“Anybody who left their job will not be allowed to return,” said the Hamas education minister, Mohammed Askoul.

“They have become irrelevant and cannot be trusted anymore as educators.” He estimated 2,000 teachers have been replaced. About 9,000 teachers work in Gaza’s public schools.

The move ensures Gaza’s education system will now be stacked with Hamas loyalists. While the group has said it would not impose its strict Islamic views on society, its control of the classrooms is likely to change the tone of instruction and create more sympathy for the group’s ideology among the territory’s 250,000 public school students.

A year later, Hamas made it very clear what they don’t want children to be learning about:

Hamas condemned the United Nations Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust … Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews “a lie invented by the Zionists,” the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools.

Hamas teaches jihad, Islamic supremacism, and anti-Semitism to children, and encourages them to become child soldiers and suicide bombers. It fires teachers and replaces them with its own supporters, and wants to stop Palestinian children from knowing about the Holocaust, which it calls a ‘lie’.

The last time Viva Palestina rolled into town, Galloway handed money to Hamas.

No British school should be supporting this organisation.

Islamophobia Watch continues to promote Bunglawala

Fake moderate Muslim Inayat Bunglawala of the fake moderate Muslim Council of Britain has written this week in support of a fake moderate Muslim cleric who thinks Allah sent Hitler to punish Jews and hopes for another Holocaust, this time at the hands of Muslims.

How does ‘Islamophobia Watch’ – a site run by far-Left non-Muslims – choose to write about Bunglawala’s article?

Witch-hunt against UK Muslim organisations over Fort Hood

Writing at Islam Online, Inayat Bunglawala examines how Anwar Al-Awlaki’s support for the Fort Hood killings has been used to promote “a modern version of a McCarthyite witch-hunt against leading UK Islamic organizations and Muslim individuals”.

Incredible.

‘Moderate’ Muslim praises Al-Qaradawi

I came under criticism recently from Islamophilia Botch for describing Inayat Bunglawala as a ‘fake moderate Muslim’.

Now Bunglawala has come out with this:

It is very unfortunate that Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has been barred from visiting the UK since early 2007 by the British government, following pressure from pro-Israeli lobbies. Sheikh Al-Qaradawi is an Islamic scholar who commands huge respect among millions of Muslims worldwide.

Al-Qaradawi has stated: ‘We must plant the love of death and the love of martyrdom in the Islamic nation’.

And there’s more.

And more.

And then there’s this:

What kind of a ‘moderate’ thinks it ‘unfortunate’ that this vile man is barred from entering Britain?

Fake ‘moderate Muslims’ and their extremist supporters

Inayat Bunglawala is the driving force behind a new campaign group called ‘Muslims4UK‘, which is ‘United against al-Muhajiroun, EDL and the Daily Express’. Muslims4UK was set up to counter a planned demonstration by ‘Islam For The UK’ (or ‘Islam4UK’), an Anjem Choudary al-Muhajiroun front.

Bunglawala didn’t need to set up this ‘campaign’, as British Muslims for Secular Democracy had already organised a counter-protest, but of course BMSD are genuine Muslim moderates, whereas Bunglawala is a member of the fake moderate Muslim Council of Britain.

In the event, Choudary’s gang pulled out of their planned ‘march’. Bunglawala followed suit, but BMSD went ahead anyway and you can enjoy some photographs here.

Coming back to Bunglawala’s Muslims4UK, looking at the group’s website we find a Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) banner placed prominently on the left hand side of the page, along with three text links, one of which goes to the website of far-left nutter and useful idiot for Islamism, Bob Pitt. Pitt’s site I can understand, given his brown nosing the MCB, but MPAC? Now that’s another story.

MPAC is, without a shadow of a doubt, an extremist organisation, as I pointed out here, when I looked at ‘Labour Friends of Palestine & The Middle East’ and its extremist connections.

MPAC has written of ‘the true nature of Muslim violence’ and justified turning to ‘violent ends’ in a statement which announces:

We will no longer be part of the deliberate attempt to keep the public confused on the issue of terrorism. We will not be part of the apologetic Muslim leaders who blame their own community for terrorism. We will not condemn, nor allow ourselves to be condemned by governing elites who are more interested in a political stunt than saving lives. No more politics and propaganda when it comes terrorism – its [sic] the truth and nothing else.

In December 2008, Asghar Bukhari, co-founder and spokesperson for MPAC was revealed to have written that ‘any Muslim who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise’, that ‘Zionists’ ‘murder little children for sport’, and that ‘Jihad is a beautiful thing’. In addition, Bukhari has donated money to the Holocaust denier David Irving.

So what the hell is the supposedly ‘moderate’ Bunglawala doing linking to MPAC on his website?

Well, here’s the disclaimer beneath the links:

Please note all these organisations are supporting the campaign but have no relationship whatsoever with Muslims4UK

The exaggeration of referring to ‘all these organisations’ aside, what a pathetic excuse for linking to MPAC. What if the BNP were supporting the campaign – would Muslims4UK link to their site as well?

When clicked, the MPAC banner in question takes you to a post entitled ‘I did something really kool today’. This post, written by ‘a 16 year old East London Sister’, tells readers of how she ripped down some Islam4UK posters.

MPAC, you see, doesn’t like Choudary and his vanity organisation. He’s simply too extreme, too embarassing, too ‘unsophisticated’ for these ‘moderate’ apologists for Jihadism.

The comments beneath the article are interesting. Now, comments on a website don’t necessarily reflect the opinion of those running the site, but it’s still interesting to see a marked lack of support for the sister’s ‘kool’ action among the MPAC crew.

Ripping up posters is ‘pathetic’ says one commenter, accusing the ‘sister’ of ‘acting like a spoilt brat’.

The next commenter states that ‘for the record i do not support Al-Muhajiroon or any of these groups who like to shout alot on the streets’, but…

MAKES ME SICK YOU HAVE THE CHEEK TO REMOVE POSTERS REGARDING PROMOTING SHARIA INSTEAD OF POSTERS THAT HAVE “SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN” IN THEM???
WHERES YOU ISLAM NOW?

Then we have:

ARTICLE qutoe” hate these crazy muslims who chat so much rubbish!” do you know anything about Islam to challenge other view point because it seems to me that infact you are the one talking rubbish

From then on the comments descend into claims that Israel ‘kills babies to sell the organs’ and that Choudary is an MI5 agent.

Hardly a hotbed of support for ‘moderate’ Muslim opposition to al-Muhajiroun, then, even of Bunglawala variety, yet he’s happy to link to MPAC nonetheless.

Bunglawala’s ‘anti-extremist’ drive managed to drum up support largely from extremists: Bob Pitt, an extreme left-winger, and MPAC, an organisation which refuses to condemn Jihadists and whose spokesman actively promotes them.

Moderate? Pull the other one!

How 'moderate' is the Muslim Council of Britain?

Let’s take a look at some of the MCB’s ‘Elected CWC members‘:

Muhammad Abdul Bari – Secretary General & Chair, Media Committee

According to a 2006 BBC profile:

As chairman of the East London mosque, Dr Bari was considered instrumental in helping controversial MP George Galloway secure his parliamentary seat in the last general election by telling Muslims they had a duty to vote.

‘Controversial’ is an understatement, given Galloway’s long history of support for terrorists such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Bari has twice attempted to compare the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany with the treatment of Muslims in contemporary Britain. In 2006, he asked: ‘What is the degree of xenophobia that tipped Germany in the 1930s towards a murderous ethnic and cultural racism?’ He also bizarrely objected to the idea that the Government should ask Muslims to  ‘inform on our children’, even though this ‘informing’ actually means providing information to authorities about suspected radicalisation among British Muslim youth as part of the strategy to combat extremism and terrorism.

In 2007, Bari stated: ‘Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn’t lead us to a time when people’s minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s.’

After Bari’s 2006 ’1930s’ statement, Jon Benjamin, the chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, rightly responded: ‘To try to recast modern Britain as equivalent to Nazi Germany is equally offensive and disingenuous, but also dangerous in that it will fuel alienation and anger, particularly at a time when conciliation is vital’.

In 2007, Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB defended and reiterated Bari’s ’1930s’ comments on BBC Radio 4, and Melanie Phillips correctly noted that these analogies are ‘obscene’, for:

The Jewish community in Germany in the 1930s was not simply ‘collectively vilified’. It was singled out for genocide. The collective vilification was part of that process of mass murder and ethnic obliteration.

When asked in 2007 if he condemned stoning, instead of clearly stating that he did, Bari said that ‘[i]t depends what sort of stoning and what circumstances’.

In January 2009, Bari gave an interview to Press TV, the international media outlet of Ahmadinejad’s Islamist regime. Far from moderate, Press TV welcomes extremists onto its programmes and continues to host Holocaust denial material on its website.

Daud Abdullah – Deputy Secretary General & Chair, Europe & International Affairs Committee

In 2009, Abdullah signed the Istanbul Declaration, a document that hails Hamas and its ‘integrity’ in ‘maintaining the Resistance against the Jewish Zionist occupation’. The Palestinian Authority, the Declaration stated, ‘is not eligible to represent the Palestinian people’, as it has ‘given up the choice of jihad in the way of Allah Almighty’. The document also notoriously affirmed:

The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.

This statement was clearly referring to Gordon Brown’s offer of British naval resources to stop Hamas weapons smuggling.

Tahir Alam

Despite all the talk of the MCB promoting integration, in 2004 Alam told the BBC he wanted to see taxpayer funded segregated education:

We need a separate Muslim school system. We need to cater for the Muslim spiritual, social and moral needs. We need state funding. There are 300,000 Muslim kids and only 5 state funded Muslim schools.

Azid Ali

Ali has been at the centre of considerable controversy, due to comments he has made on his Islamic Forum Europe hosted blog. Ali feels that it is wrong to oppose the notion that there is a ‘need for a Caliphate’ (which is, he claims, ‘a necessity’) and believes that those who reject this idea, such as the Quilliam Foundation, should be  ‘ignored and marginalised, since their premise is not a call back to Islam but away from it, with the tools of shaytan’.

He describes the State of Israel as ‘the Zionist terrorist state’ and claims that the terrorist organisation Hamas ‘stands for Freedom’. And what is this freedom? Ali affirms: ‘Free, free Palestine, from the river to the sea!’ Ali writes of the ‘strength and courage’ of Hamas and claims that ‘foreign policy’ is a block to the success of the Government’s anti-terrorist PREVENT strategy, stating: ‘talk to the hand, cos the head aint listening!’

Hasan Mueenuddin

In 2004, Mueenuddin was an organiser of a Metropolitan Police sponsored event called ‘Our Children Our Future‘, at which Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was invited to speak. Mueenuddin invited Quaradawi despite his well known extremist views:

Qaradawi preaches a right-wing agenda of misogyny, anti-Semitism and homophobia. He does not respect human rights. In defiance of the Geneva Conventions and every humanitarian instinct, he has justified the taking of civilian hostages and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Displaying the worst kind of anti-semitism, he urges: “Destroy the usurper Jews.” He does not say destroy Jewish settlers and soldiers oppressing Palestinians, but destroy the Jews – all of them.

Qaradawi also sanctions domestic violence against disobedient wives, blames rape victims who do not dress with sufficient modesty, and supports the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation.

Iqbal Sacranie

In 2005, Sacranie was awarded a knighthood for his  ‘services to the Muslim community, to charities and to community relations’, and he led the MCB until June 2006.

In 1989, Sacranie, in his capacity as spokesman for the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs, commented on Ayatollah Khomeini’s calls for the death of Salman Rushdie as follows: ‘Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him; his mind must be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah’.

In 1996, the Jihadist group Al-Muhajiroun planned an event called ‘Rally For Revival’ which was condemned by Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, and British Jewish organisations. Sacranie, again as spokesman for the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs, however, told the Muslim News:

The Board of Deputies of British Jews should seriously consider what action they take on this matter because of the detrimental effect on community relations which could result. Taking a hostile view towards scholars who wish to come to this country to present their points of view at a conference will not serve good community relations.

In 2005, following the death of Sheikh Yassin, the ‘spiritual leader’ of Hamas, Sacranie attended a memorial at the Central Mosque in London. Here are his extraordinary attempts at justifying this on a BBC Panorama programme:

John Ware: It’s one thing supporting the Palestinians and it’s another, isn’t it, supporting the theological justification which Sheikh Yassin gave to the murder of civilians.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: He may have given that…

John Ware: Well there’s no may about it, he did, he was the spiritual leader and the ideological leader of a terrorist movement.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: In your terms, if it means fighting occupation is a terrorist movement, that is not a view that is being shared by many people. Those who fight oppression, those who fight occupation, cannot be termed as terrorist, they are freedom fighters, in the same way as Nelson Mandela fought against apartheid, in the say way as Ghandi and many others fought the British rule in India. There are people in different parts of the world who today, in terms of historical side of it, those who fought oppression are now the real leaders of the world.

John Ware: Do you think targeting Israeli civilians is terrorism?

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Targeting any innocent people in any part of the world, any part, is an act of terror, whether it’s carried out by individuals, whether this is carried out by groups or whether it’s carried out by states, all fits in the definition of terrorism.

John Ware: So if Hamas is targeting civilians in Israel, that’s terrorism, is it?

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Well, I’ve explained to you…

John Ware: No, no…

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Hold on, whether it is Hamas, whether it is Israel, whether it’s anybody else, any part of the world, we have no distinction. Why are you making it such a difficult question? In simple answer to it, loss of innocent civilian life, we make no distinction between the life of a Palestinian or the life of a Jew. They are all part of human race and life is there is a sacred a sanctity in terms of life.

John Ware: So you say. In which case, why did you pay homage to a man who promoted the targeting of Israeli civilians? It’s a very simple question.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: I’ve given you a very simple straight answer earlier on. You just need to refer to my answer. Someone who fought against occupation, fought against subjugation.

John Ware: Using terrorism by your definition, using terrorism.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: If anybody.. if there are.. if they are aiming at civilians in terms of loss of life, then we don’t accept that.

John Ware: Then why do you pay homage to him, why just.. you.. you did not have to go to that memorial service in the central mosque, did you, you could have chosen not to go.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: The point is as a person, and as a responsible person of an organisation, an umbrella body, that has affiliates across the country.

John Ware: Well let them go.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Hold on, hold on. Whoever is organising that, we have a responsibility, we have a responsibility to steer through issues that are very important to the community, issues that are… we are facing day in day out from organisations…

John Ware: Alright but you’ve got a responsibility too, haven’t you, to lead.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Indeed.

John Ware: And set by example.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Indeed.

John Ware: What signal does it send when the general secretary, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain goes and pays homage to someone who supports suicide bombings in Israel?

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Well..

John Ware: Hang on, what kind of signal does that send to young Muslims in Britain?

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: If your whole question is based upon one aspect of that person’s belief in terms of supporting it, we look into the wider picture. The suicide bombing that you’re referring to is one aspect of the whole struggle.”

In 2006, Sacranie stated of gay civil partnerships: ‘This is harmful. It does not augur well in building the very foundations of society – stability, family relationships. And it is something we would certainly not, in any form, encourage the community to be involved in’.

And why is this?

‘Each of our faiths tells us that it is harmful and I think, if you look into the scientific evidence that has been available in terms of the forms of various other illnesses and diseases that are there, surely it points out that where homosexuality is practised there is a greater concern in that area’.

Abduljalil Sajid

Sajid considers the Egyptian-born Australian Muslim leader Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali ‘a great scholar’ and leapt to his defence in 2006 after he delivered a sermon blaming rape victims for sex attacks. Al-Hilali stated:

If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?

The uncovered meat is the problem.

If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.

The Times reported:

Abduljalil Sajid, a senior figure in the Muslim Council of Britain, offered support for Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali’s views, saying that “loose women like prostitutes” encouraged men to be immoral. Dr Sajid, visiting Australia, said that Sheikh al-Hilali was attacking immodesty and loose dress, or “standing in the streets, inviting men to do these bad acts”.

Although the Australian cleric did not use the word prostitute, but appeared to be attacking women wearing revealing clothes, Dr Sajid said that the sermon had been taken out of context. Referring to the thrust of the Sheikh’s argument, he said: “So what is wrong in it? Who will object to that?” Dr Sajid, who is on a speaking tour, met the controversial Sheikh at his Sydney mosque yesterday.

[...]

After meeting him yesterday, Dr Sajid said: “As far as I am concerned he is a great scholar and he has a great knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence.” Dr Sajid added that he believed that the inflammatory excerpts from a speech, given last month, had been quoted out of context. “I respect his views. His intentions are noble in order to make morality and modesty part of our overall society,” the British cleric said.

Previous sermons from this ‘great scholar’ have called for Jihad, supported suicide bombing, denied the Holocaust, and glorified the 9/11 attacks. In 2004, the ‘noble’ Al-Hilali stated in a sermon:

Don’t be surprised if one day you hear the Muezzin calling for prayer and saying “Allah Akbar” from the top of the white house. September 11 is God’s work against oppressors. Some of the things that happen in the world cannot be explained; a civilian airplane whose secrets cannot be explained if we ask its pilot who reached his objective without error, who led your steps? Or if we ask the giant that fell, who humiliated you? Or if we ask the President, who made you cry? God is the answer.

Hafez Al-Karmi

Al-Karmi is chairman of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, and in that capacity has claimed that Israel has a ‘plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine’, which it is conducting through ‘Apartheid policies’ and the deliberate ‘starvation’ of 1.5 million Palestinians.

Maulana Islam Ali Shah

According to MEMRI, the January 18th 2008 London edition of the Urdu language Pakistani newspaper Roznama Jang featured a report on a ‘Martyrdom is Pious’ campaign, which included the following information:

In Wakefield, Maulana Islam Ali Shah and Mufti Tariq Shah said that the second Caliph Hazrat Umar and Imam Hazrat Hussain, by sacrificing life during Muharram, taught killing-dying for Islam’s sake to their followers, to be borne until the Day of Judgment.

Labour Friends of Extremists

According to the ‘Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East’ mission statement, the organisation has been set up ‘to provide a voice for Labour members and supporters who want to see the establishment of a viable and independent state of Palestine alongside Israel’. Given this laudible stated aim, one would assume that the Friends would want nothing to do with Hamas, an Islamist terrorist organisation that from its inception to this day has declared that it will never accept the existence of the State of Israel.

Not so, it would seem.

In an article by the Palestinian academic Ghada Karmi found on the Friends’ website, the author asks:

What is the basis for the western allegation that Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ organisation? After all, this is a Palestinian political party whose main objective is to fight Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and whose operations, however unsavoury, are confined to the local area. Since when was resistance to occupation a terrorist activity?

Well, quite clearly, since such ‘resistance’ involves indiscriminate attacks on civilians through the firing of rockets into residential areas and the use of suicide bombing it is terrorism and Hamas is a terrorist organisation.

This article is not an aberration, it is merely the beginning, as a look at the Friends’ affiliates list quickly reveals, for here we find links to:

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign

This organisation states that the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) is ‘engaged with the campaign in the UK’. The BMI is a sister organisation of Hamas, and its President, Mohammad Sawalha, has been identified by the BBC as responsible for ‘much of Hamas’ political and military strategy’ and for directing funds to Hamas’ ‘armed wing’. The BMI’s supporters and associates include Azzam Tamimi, identified by the Malaysian National News Agency as ‘Hamas’ Special Envoy’.

In an appearance on BBC’s HARDTalk, Tamimi stated of suicide bombing attacks on Israel:

I would do it … If I have the opportunity I would do it … If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it.

Tamimi has also written glowingly of Hizbullah suicide bombers’ ‘love of death in martyrdom’.

Action Palestine

Action Palestine encourages visitors to its website to donate to Interpal, a charity proscribed by the US Treasury, which refers to it as ‘a principal charity utilized to hide the flow of money to Hamas’. Interpal employees were closely involved with George Galloway’s ‘Viva Palestina’ convoy which delivered cash to Hamas earlier this year.

The Action Palestine website also links to an article by Israel Shahak, an Israel hating extremist much loved by the international neo-Nazi community, who claimed – amongst other things – that Jews worship Satan.

Peace Cycle

This organisation endorses a number of extremist organisations. Amongst its recommended links we find, for example, ‘Jews Against Zionism’, an organisation that refuses the right of the State of Israel to exist and which enthusiastically promotes material taken from Holocaust denial journals and websites. Peace Cycle also links to the Muslim Association of Britain, an organisation which includes a former military commander of Hamas among its members, which has been described in Parliament as ‘the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood’ (the group which spawned al-Qa’eda), and which claims the would-be suicide bomber Azzam Tamimi as one of its ‘leading political thinkers’. Unsurprisingly, Peace Cycle also encourages donations to Interpal.

Friends of Al-Aqsa

This organisation also has links to Tamimi. In an article in its journal, he states:

[T]he weakness of the Arabs and Muslims is only temporary and will sometime in the future be reversed. Evidently, the Muslim world is witnessing a massive awakening that is destined to initiate the transformation from weakness to strength. When the Arabs and Muslims’ gain of strength and confidence coincides with the retreat of the World Order due to the shrinkage of the material and military resources available to it and as a result of the augmentation of domestic crises, the end of the Zionist project will come and the State of Israel will be no more.

Other articles on the Friends of Al-Aqsa site also express hatred for Israel. This article, for example, speaks of ‘Jewish Nazism’ and claims Israel is now ‘on equal footing with Nazi barbarianism’ and is ‘a sick and cannibalistic society that is as bestial as Nazi Germany was during the holocaust’. A recent article entitled ‘Is the Zionomedia Kingdom Invincible?’ states the following:

An August 17th article by Swedish photojournalist Donald Bostrom on longstanding suspicions amongst Palestinians that Israeli soldiers might have been involved in an illegal organ harvest conspiracy predictably sparked controversy and acrimony between the governments of Israel and Sweden.

With their exasperated and precipitate reactions, Israel officials once again underscored the accuracy and precision of an analogy made by the late founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who likened the Israel’s stability to a ‘Spy Nest’ some 30 years ago. A government whose very security and stability is threatened by the publication of a critical article should drastically review its policies to see what’s wrong with its trembling foundations. The same rule could be justly applied to Iranian authorities whose severe crackdown on the dissident media highlights major political shortages which the country suffers from; however, the Israeli lobby is so formidable and influential as to convince the ‘international community’ to take its side in the face of such a ‘legitimacy crisis’ while Iran has not ever nurtured such a network of lobbies worldwide.

Muslim Public Affairs Committee

This organisation has written of ‘the true nature of Muslim violence’ and justified turning to ‘violent ends’ in a statement which announces:

We will no longer be part of the deliberate attempt to keep the public confused on the issue of terrorism. We will not be part of the apologetic Muslim leaders who blame their own community for terrorism. We will not condemn, nor allow ourselves to be condemned by governing elites who are more interested in a political stunt than saving lives. No more politics and propaganda when it comes terrorism – its [sic] the truth and nothing else.

In December 2008, Asghar Bukhari, co-founder and spokesperson for MPAC was revealed to have written that ‘any Muslim who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise’, that ‘Zionists’ ‘murder little children for sport’, and that ‘Jihad is a beautiful thing’. In addition, Bukhari has donated money to the Holocaust denier David Irving.

Viva Palestina

This organisation, led by Israel hating MP George Galloway, publicly handed money to Hamas in a televised ceremony in March of this year. One of its trustees (and former chair of the Muslim Council of Britain’s ‘Europe & International Affairs’ committee), Sabah al Mukhtar, has happily appeared on an American anti-Semitic radio show where he claimed that the anti-Semitic fabrication ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’ (cited approvingly in Mein Kampf and the Hamas Covenant) shows ‘incredible insight’.

Conclusion

It is quite clear that Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East has chosen to align itself with anti-Israel extremists and supporters of terrorism. Its own website contains an article attempting to deny that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and its ‘affiliates’ include: an umbrella campaign with links to a pro-Hamas supporter of suicide bombing; a group that endorses a charity whose employees worked with George Galloway on his trip to deliver money to Hamas; a group that endorses pro-Hamas Islamists; a group whose journal offers a forum for the writing of a supporter of suicide bombing and the destruction of Israel, as well as promoting thinly veiled anti-Semitism in its ‘news’ articles; a group that refuses to condemn terrorism and even endorses it against Israel; and a group that organised fund raising for Hamas and delivered the money to them in person.

As such, its stated commitment to ‘a just and lasting peace’ in the Middle East is exposed as meaningless, if not deliberately deceptive, rhetoric. Any Labour Party member genuinely supportive of a Two State Solution to the Israel/Palestine question would do well to steer clear of this severely tainted group.