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....
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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?