In FrontPage this morning I discuss the latest challenge to the freedom of speech in Britain:
Last week British columnist Melanie Phillips wrote a blogpost at the Spectator entitled “Armchair barbarism,” discussing the brutal jihad murders of the Fogel family in Israel. Her references to the “moral depravity” of the Arab “savages” who committed the crime have gotten her in hot water with Britain’s hyper-PC Press Complaints Commission, which has launched an investigation.Phillips is being investigated, ironically enough, for writing that “the moral depravity of the Arabs,” as she chose to term the murderers of the Fogels and those in Gaza who celebrated those murders, “is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and American ‘liberal’ media.” And as if on cue, the watchdog organization in Britain of that liberal media swooped down upon her.
The irony was compounded by a further statement in Phillips’ column: “Overwhelmingly, the media have either ignored or downplayed the atrocity – or worse, effectively blamed the victims for bringing it on themselves, describing them as ‘hard-line settlers’ or extremists.” In this case, however, they were not blaming the victim, but blaming the columnist who spoke forthrightly about the nature of the murderers.
After the column was published, the P.C. Commission received two complaints about it: one from Engage, a group that is dedicated to advancing Muslim participation in British society, and from one of Britain’s most prominent Muslim leaders, Inayat Bunglawala, the chairman of Muslims4UK. Bunglawala fumed that Phillips’ words “went far beyond just denouncing the killings. It was a far more generalised racist outburst against Arabs as a whole.”
Ignoring the fact that Arab Muslims commit jihad terror attacks on a virtually daily basis, and that there is no equivalent among Jews, Bunglawala claimed that “if you insert the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ where she has referred to Arabs then I am sure she would have no doubt that those words would be antisemitic. Just as she abhors antisemitism it is important that she maintains the same vigorous anti-racist stance against Arabs. It is just unacceptable to use that kind of language.”
Yet Bunglawala and Engage were ignoring one undeniable fact: the Islamic jihadists who murdered the Fogel family were savages, as were those who celebrated their murders in Gaza. I would say this while standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square, and if Britain’s PC Commission had any residual sense of shame, it would drop its investigation of Phillips immediately....
considering the koran is allowed to be published which says things like jews and christians polytheists and atheists are the vilest of animals, should be murdered and so on..... and on...
i find it odd that the press complaints can even begin to consider a complaint from koran lovers about some statement far less offensive than those in the koran.
Also i don't understand how her article demonises all arabs... she is talking about the arabs that celebrated the murders and committed them, isn't she? I didn't read it meant all arabs everywhere any more that I read all jews everywhere when the liveral media demonises jews in Israel or parts thereof.
Her main point of was against the liberal media so why is she not brought to task for saying bad things about the liberal media community?
Bunglawala(his surname says he is of Indian origin), even if he makes a statement deploring the killings, would only say "islam does not allow the spilling of innocent blood".
And the general British public would applaud this statement not knowing that in islam, non-muslims are never innocent.
'...Bunglawala claimed that “if you insert the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ where she has referred to Arabs then I am sure she would have no doubt that those words would be antisemitic.'
Correct, Bunglawala. Just one thing, though. Such an act would not be perpetrated by a Jew on the basis of a mandate from the the Talmud or the Torah that Jews should carry out a Jewish version of Jihad until the world is conquered.
It's only Islam that says that, Bungling Wally.
You're a clown!
Melanie Phillips' latest indignity proves, yet again, that the worst sin today is telling the truth. Like vampires who shriek when shown the crucifix, Muslims scream in anguish when confronted by non-Muslims with the ugly truth of Islam's core documents and Islam's "perfect" model, especially so when the actions of Muslims, like the Fogel murders, are shown to have been based on bedrock Islamic beliefs.
Muslims really, really hate it that we have learned their ideology and methods, and that the gears of their disassembling techniques are slipping. Less and less are their lying ways working any more.
One would think that any Brit who defends the murder of children against Melanie Phillips would be a spiritual heir of Reginald Dyer, who justified the deaths of scores of children by troops under his command in the Amritsar Massacre.
Go stuff that in your multicultural pipe and smoke it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Dyer
I wonder what "Dunglawala" would be writing if his 3 month old infant daughter were beheaded by Jews. You can bet the Muslimes of Brition and most of Europe would be rioting, the issues of fatwa's would be endless, and as usual the flags of every western nation would be burned in the streets while the masses shout "Allahu Akbar". The only thing not being burned would be the image of their friend and ally, Mr. Muslim "Barak Obama".
How much longer before the World wakes up and says "enough is enough".
Yes, Melanie Phillips would have been more accurate to have said "Muslims" rather than "Arabs", since this can be held to have a purely racial aspect.
But this is an incredibly minor point—everybody knew exactly what Melanie Phillips meant, in any case.
Moreover, this probably wouldn't have spared her any grief.
So—brutally murdering a family, including a *three-month old baby*—not so big a deal. Accusing the perpetrators of savagery? That gets you *investigated by the British government*.
Also note, "Muslims4UK" is supposed to be the "moderate" answer to the banned "Islam4UK". I suppose they are "moderate" because so far they haven't called for Melanie Phillips to be beheaded...
"...the P.C. Commission received two complaints about it"
Both from Muslim groups, feigning outrage at Melanie's reference to depraved Arabs instead of depraved Muslims...as though the two are not joined at the hip in context of the Fogel atrocity than either would have us believe.
And it's rather odd that Western political correctness values Arab/Muslim sensitivities over Jewish lives. Much like forgiving the arsonist in favour of prosecuting the one that raises the alarm.
Future generations will pay the price for our folly in allowing this to happen.
I would say it's time for "British" Muslims and their illegal, parastical cohorts to take a hike back whence they came, to lands in which there is no Melanie Phillips to offend them (where women would know their place), back to stagnant cultures more friendly to their frame of mind. I would say that, except that Muslims are not in Britain to enjoy "freedom," but to ensure that Britain, too, becomes a land in which there is no Melanie Phillips to offend them. Can you imagine it? The Magna Carta supplanted by Mohammad's Sharia?
The word savage has gone out of style but should be brought back in style a.s.a.p especially when it refers to suicide bombers, family killers, honour killers etc.
Melanie Phillips chose her words wisely. 'Savage' and 'moral depravity' fit the nature of the crime perfectly, that is, for those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life. The heinous violence perpetrated on the Fogel family despicable beyond words. Yet the Muslims are deeply perturbed by the words used to describe the acts while being completely incapable of an iota of guilt, remorse or regret about the acts themselves. Liberals who condemned the acts of American racists perpetrated on Blacks before the Civil Rights Movement fail to see that the Muslims and the KKK are morally equivalent and depraved.
Unable or unwilling to admit and denounce the savagery of a Stalin, a Mao, a Casto or a Muslim terrorist, they readily and eagerly denounce the US and Israel for killing 'innocents' in Afghanistan, Iraq and the West Bank. Their credo is 'If we commit the atrocity we call it liberation; when they do it it's colonialist, imperialist and racist.
Melanie Phillips deserves accolades for what she said, not bitterness and castigation. We need more like her in this increasingly insane world, the insanity emanating from the likes of the British PC Commission and the US Government.