The hypocracy of the LEFT and the Media.

From The London Times.

July 06, 2004

Anti-Jewish? Anti-gay? Welcome to Britain
anthony browne
The Left's deliberate blindness to these Muslim extremists imperils us all



THESE are curious times. The British Left, long the champion of anti-racism and gay rights, is forging deepening bonds with anti-Semitic homophobes. If these were old-style anti-Semitic homophobes the Left would be campaigning to have them locked up. But instead they are Muslim extremists.
What is most unsettling is that the Government, suffering from excessive cultural relativism, is also pandering to Islamic anti-Semitism.

Consider the circumstances surrounding a conference to support the Islamic veil next Monday in London. Ken Livingstone, the mayor, is to open the event, organised by the Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab, of which the guest of honour is Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Dr al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt but lives in Qatar because of his association with the extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he is a spiritual leader, and which is banned in several Middle Eastern countries.

The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel. Before the Left gets too misty-eyed about suicide bombings, it should remember that it can involve blowing to bits innocent children on buses.

According to BBC Monitoring, Dr al-Qaradawi said last year: “Oh God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders and infidels.” He said the killing of the American telecoms engineer Nick Berg by Islamic militants in Iraq, had to be seen “in the right context”, although he has condemned decapitations and the twin towers attacks and suicide bombings outside Israel.

You can get more idea of his views on www.islamonline.net, whose contents are overseen by an editorial co-operative led by Dr al-Qaradawi. Islamonline declares that homosexuality is a “sexual perversion”, for which the penalty should be death. The only question is whether gays should be killed by being thrown off a high cliff, or flogged to death. Gay rights groups and Jewish groups, as well as London ratepayers, have a right to know why Mr Livingstone is choosing to share a platform with him.

Dr al-Qaradawi, who is head of the European Council on Fatwa and Research, is banned from the US, but is a regular visitor to the UK. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been presented with a dossier of evidence on him, but has not banned him from the UK.

The Home Office is even lending government credibility. Fiona Mactaggart, the Race and Community Cohesion Minister, was also due to share a platform with him, until challenged by a Sunday newspaper. Instead she is just sending a video message of support to the event.

It isn’t the first time that Ms Mactaggart has lent tacit government support to Islamic anti-Semites. Last month, at the opening of the London Islamic Centre, she shared a platform with Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais, one of the imams of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most holy mosque in Islam, who has used his sermons to call for Jews to be killed. According to the CIA, he has said: “Yesterday’s Jews are bad predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors. They are killers of prophets and scum of the earth. God hurled his indignation on them and made them monkeys and pigs and worshippers of tyrants.”

Sheikh al-Sudais was recently barred from Canada after outcries by Jewish groups. Contrast this with the actions of the UK Government. One is left wondering what sort of race relations Fiona Mactaggart sees herself as minister of.

Dr al-Qaradawi is coming here as a guest of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), which together with the Socialist Workers Party helped to form the Stop the War Coalition. It openly supports Respect, a political party formed by the former Labour MP George Galloway.

HOWEVER, the Muslim Association is itself already highly controversial. Louise Ellman, one of the few Labour MPs to understand the importance of standing up to Islamic anti-Semitism, last year denounced in Parliament MAB’s public face, Azzam Tamimi, for “preaching hatred against Jews”. She quoted him as saying at a conference in South Africa last year: “Do not call them suicide bombers, call them Shuhada (martyrs). They (Israelis) have guns, we have human bombs. We love death, they love life.”

Despite this, MAB is a member of the umbrella group the Muslim Council of Britain, the voice of moderate Islam in Britain with which the Government holds a running dialogue. The Muslim council has made a big effort to show how moderate it is, which raises the question why it continues to allow MAB to be a member.

The Left has often let concern about offending Muslims take priority over standing up to Islamic extremism. Many decided to attack Salman Rushdie rather than support him when the Ayatollah of Iran urged Muslims to kill him for practising free speech. When the Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel was issued with death threats and sparked murderous riots last year by suggesting that Muhammad would marry a Miss World contestant, many left-wing British commentators condemned her rather than those perpetrating the violence.

The Government ought instead to be supporting Muslims such as Irshad Manji, a Canadian lesbian TV presenter who has just detailed her struggle with the intolerance of some of her fellow-believers in the courageous book The Trouble with Islam. In it she insists that non-Muslims in the West have a duty to challenge Islamic extremists, rather than support them. “Non-Muslims do the world no favours by pushing the moral mute button as soon as Muslims start speaking,” she says.

It’s a lesson Ms Mactaggart, the British Government, and the British Left should learn.

Join the Debate at comment@thetimes.co.uk

Posted by: apostate_islam at July 6, 2004 8:33 AM

Good for GALHA. I went to the Rainbow site and noticed a few other mentions of Islamic homophobia that they've pointed out. This is what we need - people pointing out the hatefulness of Islam. And since the feminists are strangely quiet, and the Jews don't seem to get as much support as they should from govts who whore themselves for the Muslim vote, the gays might be our knights in shining armour.

Livingstone, if he sides with the gays, would not be rejecting multiculturalism, but would be championing basic human rights and equality, something that MC should not take precedence over.

Posted by: feralee at July 6, 2004 10:17 PM

We are trying to arrange a counter-demonstration against Islamic extremism at the same time as the Al-Mahajiroun rally. If it works out I will post details...

Posted by: misguidedjihadi at July 7, 2004 1:44 AM

Misguidedjihadi,
Please send any info to my email address, I too could get a few like-minded folks down there to protest, the more the merrier.This gay/anti-jihad unity has been a long time coming!!!

Posted by: Rikki at July 7, 2004 6:44 AM

I don't necessarily think Livinstone is turning his back on multiculturalism if he sides with gays it's a simple case of right and wrong nothing more nothing less. I often share my opinions on multi-culture. I used to accept it but now I believe it's erroding this country and it's economy, too many asylum seekers are taking advantage of Britains soft-centre, the muslims are absolutey milking it, and can we really blame any one else but the left and the pressure they force upon whichever political party is in power at the time. Come on liberals are you really that far up these invaders arseholes that you will turn your back on the gay community of this country ( which you've spent an eternity protesting for -e.g-gay marriages, age of concent...etc...etc) and which I might add is multi-cultural in itself. If you take their side this time you might as well be a radical islamist.
Livingston on the other hand , there should be no question whose side he takes,as I said it's the age old battle between right and wrong and the homophobic hate-filled terror-loving invaders are wrong. We'll see what happens.

Posted by: Rikki at July 7, 2004 7:01 AM

I root for the Muslims on this one--barely. Christianity condemns pride as a deadly sin, and as for homosexuality, I'm honestly horrified by anyone who could enjoy either giving or getting the equivalent of a colonscopy.

Posted by: Kepha1 at July 7, 2004 10:05 PM

Yes, kepha, I am sure that you, like most wingnuts, often side with the Jihadis.

Hate homosexuals
Hate "uppity" women
Hate atheists
Punish the lib'ruls
Laugh at the animal rights activists
"Spare the rod, spoil the child"
Live life based on fairy tales (Bible, Ko-ran)
Want "God" back in schools
Want "God's law" in our courtrooms
Want taxpayer-funded faith-based crap for churches
Hate Jews
Hate Buddhists
Hate dot-heads
History of slavery, forced conversion, genocide

Kepha, did you know that Muslims are conservative?

Posted by: kj at July 8, 2004 8:23 AM

Way-ull, kj, see-ince Ah'm jes' a duh-uhm raidneyuck wut reads the King Jay-uhms Bah-bul, ah thankee fer ainlahghtening me.

I know Muslims are conservative. Also, homegrown Buddhists (as opposed to the Hollywood kind) believe that a woman who gets an abortion will be led around Hell in a cangue by demons with the aborted child tugging at her skirts. When Taiwan legalized abortion, the senior sangha was as incensed as the Roman Catholic hierarchy and Protestant fundamentalists.

All people who think they have something of value are conservative in that they want to conserve what they have. In this sense, liberals are "conservative". too. It's why they rage and howl whenever someone challenges their cultural and political dominance; and get uneasy when people remind them that much of the good in the civilization they have taken over was bequeathed by people for whom liberty was only a means to greater goods; not the ultimate end in itself.

Only now, when multiculturalism leaves us wide open to Islamofascist terrorism, are people starting to wake up to the fundamental fatuity of the relativist vision now dominant in liberalism: if no system of values is truer than others, and self-fulfillment is the goal of life, who are we to condemn the Pol Pots and Muhammad Attas of the world?

BTW, kj, do you know that Muslims also deny the doctrine of original sin; reliability of the Old and New Testament; and divinity of Jesus Christ? (Since you imply that as a Christian conservative I'm a fellow traveller with Muslims, I get to imply your Western "free thought" makes you one, too. Manny-nanny-noo-noo, as my kids used to say when they were 4 and 5) There. I can do a tu quoque, too! EEEEHHHAAAAAA!

BTW, I refer you to Alasdair MacIntyre's _Whose Justice? Which Rationality?_ and his _After Virtue_.

Posted by: Kepha1 at July 8, 2004 11:47 PM