Diary
Appeasing totalitarian Islam
27 February, 2007
We have become too used to Islamist terror in the twenty first century. Our screens reverberate to the sound of bomb blasts in Mumbai, Iraq, Bali and Tel Aviv. But after the usual shock and expressions of sympathy, what do most Britons think is driving today’s Islamic terror? Every time the question of terrorism is raised, the chattering classes subscribe to the jihadis’ own theory of global persecution. Britain’s Iraq policy, the alliance with George W Bush and support for Israel are singled out as the usual scapegoats for the increasing radicalization of millions of Muslims. These facile explanations could be endlessly multiplied but all are deemed preferable to the most unpalatable one of all, that we are threatened by a holy war based on clerical fascism in the name of Islam.
Both political correctness and post colonial guilt make it hard to deduce that this terror threat is a distinctly Islamic problem. It is Islamic because it is fuelled by a radical ideology, known as Islamism, spread from Damascus to Riyadh, and from Cairo to Gaza, in which Muslims are commanded to launch a violent jihad against the unbelievers and bring down Western civilization. This is clerical totalitarianism in every sense. The Islamists seek no separation of church and state and wish to forcibly replace secular democracies with Sharia Law. In this nightmare world, non Muslims, if they survive at all, would be subject to the intolerant whims of clerics and ayatollahs while moderate, peaceful and law abiding Muslims would be among the first victims of such crusading fervour. Unfortunately, due to silence or sympathy, this militant expression of religious faith is in danger of becoming mainstream discourse in many Muslim countries, most notably in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
When people make excuses for these Islamist radicals, they appease an insatiable ideology that thrives on our weakness and self denigration. The excuses are an implausible denial of reality, the reality that screams out to us when we see the charred bodies in Tel Aviv and Beslan. The Islamists do not seek a minor change in foreign policy, whether in Iraq or ‘Palestine’, but the humbling of America, Britain and the West. In short, they seek a new ‘year zero’ in their remaking of the secular world. Today’s naïve apologists or ‘useful idiots’ merely repeat the tragic mistakes of the 1930s when Hitlerism was viewed as a by product of German opposition to the Versailles Treaty. Then, as now, the British establishment took the lead in hang wringing apologies and implausible denial, insufficiently appreciating the revolutionary character of the Nazi movement.
Israel, while not perfect, is nonetheless an important front in the wider struggle against Islamic terror. While territorial issues need to be justly resolved between Israelis and Palestinians, those issues are not, and never have been, the driving forces of a conflict which is now a symptom of radical Islam’s struggle with modernity. Appeasing these militant forces will prove a futile gesture in the long run while advertising our weakness to the enemy.
Technorati ProfiletopHow the mullahs must be mocking our weakness
27 February, 2007
Picture the scenario. Early in 2008, the United States suddenly launches a series of pre emptive strikes against targets deep in Iranian territory. The targets are Iran’s nuclear facilities that have been constructed in defiance of UN sanctions and resolutions. Both the US and its allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar) agreed that Iran, as an oil rich power, had no need for new energy resources. As a result of the strikes, Iran’s fledging nuclear program is set back for several years, reducing her WMD capability as well as the threat she poses to the region. Iran responds with a massive series of attacks inside Iraq that reduce some Shia towns to an inferno. In an attempt to divide the Arab world, Iran then launches Shehab 3 missiles at Dimona and Tel Aviv but these ‘strikes’ fail because the missiles are intercepted by Israel’s Arrow system. Nonetheless the regime orders a series of attacks by its overseas agents against Jewish and American targets worldwide. The price of oil shoots up to over $100 a barrel and the Iranian President leads a march in Tehran, saluted as a hero by supporters and opponents alike.
A frightening scenario? Now consider the alternative. The Iranian President, a sworn enemy of the West, of America and the country he labels ‘the Zionist entity’, continues to build a nuclear capability in defiance of UN sanctions. Undeterred by the threat of massive retaliation and determined to destroy the Great Satan, the regime eventually manages to produce a number of crude nuclear devices at its processing plants at Natanz and Busheir. In secret, Ahmadinejad allows some of Iran’s terrorist proxies to be given these weapons: Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Shia extremists in Iraq. One of these weapons suddenly turns up in an unmarked container in New York but, owing to lax security, remains undetected…until it is too late. What ensues is a global nuclear conflagration of horrifying proportions.
No one should doubt that President Ahmadinejad, and the clerics who stand with him, might consider risking the second scenario. The Iranian Revolution was built on a venomous hatred for America and Israel and, in Ahmadinejad, Iran is being led by a true son of the Revolution. A leader who stands brazenly against the West and who has laughed in the face of international opposition cannot simply be written off as a maverick statesman. A leader who openly incites genocide against a UN member state in calling for Israel to be wiped off the map is an ideological extremist who may stop at nothing to achieve his goals. It is a scandal that Iran can maintain a seat at the United Nations after making such blood curdling threats to a sovereign state. But then the UN, which is host to so many corrupt, tyrannical and blood stained regimes, is so morally compromised anyway that Iranian membership is merely par for the course.
Enough of the speculation. The real scandal is how we got into this mess in the first place. For years the Foreign Office engaged in a futile policy of appeasement with the Iranian mullahs. The EU3 of Britain, France and Germany, argued that the best way to persuade the Iranians not to proceed with a nuclear programme was through constructive engagement and dialogue. They consistently added that a military option was not feasible and that negotiation alone would work. And for a while it looked like they had achieved some success when Iran agreed, in the so called Paris agreement of November 2004, to voluntarily and temporarily suspend their uranium enrichment program as a confidence-building measure.
The Iranians responded by breaking the IAEA seals at the Isfahan nuclear processing plant in 2005, signalling their intent to go nuclear come what may. Even after Iran’s defiant behaviour that year, the international community was hesitant to take a tough stand and report Iran to the Security Council. At the request of the IAEA, Iran was given yet another chance to desist but then President Ahmadinejad made it clear that nothing would stand in his way in building the bomb. These were Iran’s tactics all along, to buy valuable and much needed time while the West prevaricated. Such a view was confirmed in 2005 when Hosein Musavian, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator told state television: ‘Thanks to our dealings with Europe, even when we get a fifty day ultimatum, we managed to continue the work for two years. Today we are in a position of power.’ The foreign secretary (in 2005), Jack Straw, should have taken a tougher line with Tehran but instead insisted that military force was not an option.
Fast forward to 2007 and we now have a series of UN sanctions so watered down as to render them virtually ineffective. Even when Iran is clearly providing weapons to arm insurgents inside Iraq, weapons that have killed British and American troops, we continue to hear the same voices - that military force against the regime is unthinkable and immoral. There could be no clearer sign of British weakness and irresolution, something that has not unnaturally been picked up by President Ahmadinejad. Last week he told a crowd in Northern Iran: "If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat." Like any good bully, Ahmadinejad is a master at detecting and exploiting his enemies' weaknesses. The uncomfortable truth is that much of the West has been appeasing Iran for the last decade and we are now paying the price.
Meanwhile, in the spineless Iraq Survey Group report, the cry of appeasement can be heard loud and clear when the authors suggest that the best way to disengage from Iraq is through ‘engagement’ with Iran and Syria. In other words, the best way of ending the terrorism that is rampant in Iraq is to engage with the region’s two leading sponsors of terrorism! How the Mullahs must have fallen about laughing when they read that one.
irantopA legacy to be proud of
26 February, 2007
How right that Mrs. Thatcher has been honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The iron lady (now the bronze lady) has been accorded the same honour as 2 esteemed statesmen, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, whose statues adorn the entrance to the Commons. Just like these two figures, she inspired policies that led to a remarkable transformation in British society, and one from which we continue to benefit today.
Mrs. Thatcher had a profound belief in individual freedom and self reliance. One of her first achievements was to end the penal system of taxation which saw a ludicrously high tax rate of 98% on unearned income from dividends. By reducing the highest rate to 40%, she ensured that the state could no longer act as the senior partner in people’s businesses. She also understood what the post Keynesian generation of politicians did not - that a low tax economy could stimulate economic growth and provide extra revenue for the government in the process. She therefore created the conditions for the booming enterprise economy of the 1980s.
Her belief in self reliance was nowhere more powerfully echoed than in her decision to allow people to buy their own council homes. This policy allowed millions to join the ranks of the property owning classes, transforming council estates at a stroke. The economy was further transformed with the series of privatizations that took place in the 1980s. Suddenly, people had cheaper and more efficient power supplies and businesses could drastically cut costs. The greatest testament to her success is that our current Labour government has no intention of reversing either of these policies.
Self reliance could not mean anything unless it involved removing the pernicious powers of the trade unions. In the 1970s, the unions had repeatedly held previous prime ministers, and the country at large, to ransom. Thanks to the Thatcher revolution, laws were passed which banned secondary pickets and made it illegal to call a strike without a ballot. When Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Miners decided to test her resolve in 1984, there was only going to be one winner. As with any revolution, there were winners and losers. Millions became unemployed as her economic reforms were put into practice and the manufacturing sector suffered from high interest rates. But many of the unemployed found jobs elsewhere as the economy increasingly shifted away from manufacturing to the service sector. As with any revolution, it was a case, for some at least, of one step backwards, two steps forwards.
People miss the essential point about her philosophy, which was that wealth, instead of being endlessly redistributed, had to be created. But it also reflected her profound belief in individual freedom, that people should be able to keep more of their hard earned money in order to make choices in life. This was not a philosophy of greed but a philosophy of individuals taking responsibility for their lives, where people used their freedom to become successful rather than relying on state handouts.
But her achievements did not end there. In foreign affairs, she showed a steely resolve on world issues that enhanced British prestige around the globe. She was a fierce opponent of world communism and rightly stood with President Reagan decrying the evils of the Soviet system, while she no doubt inspired the economic reform of perestroika. Her fortitude was also in display in 1982 over the Falklands Islands and, thanks to her, the Royal Navy had its finest hour since the war. On Europe, the issue that would see her removed from power, she negotiated an annual rebate which saved the country billions of pounds.
The greatest downside to the Thatcher years was not her crusading fervour for individual choice but the fact that this principle did not extend far enough. Thus instead of carrying out vital decentralizing reforms in the health service, the NHS became more subject to Whitehall bureaucracy. For all the talk of parental choice, the education system came increasingly under central government control, with the introduction of a National Curriculum and national testing system. And universities suffered through loss of funds and meddling from the Treasury. Perhaps the greatest lament was that Parliament in the Thatcher years became increasingly sidelined as power began to centre around 10 Downing Street. These are genuine grievances but they do not detract from the real achievements of Mrs. Thatcher’s premiership, the effects of which are with us today.
Technorati ProfiletopRoad pricing and a sham exercise in democracy
22 February, 2007
How Tony Blair must be regretting his exercise in direct democracy! Nearly 1.8 million people signed the petition against road pricing, indicating a widespread and growing unease with the proposals. Now it looks as if the government will blithely ignore these concerns and press on with its proposals regardless. There was a growing suspicion that this might happen when, some weeks ago, the Transport Secretary dismissed the concerns raised on the online petition, claiming that the document was full of errors and misinformation. That a government could attack a ‘dodgy’ document while providing us with their own Iraq dossier is an irony too depressing to dwell on.
In the face of the government’s zeal for a new tax on motorists, the arguments against road pricing seem considerable. Firstly, any such scheme would involve exorbitant set up costs which would no doubt skyrocket beyond the government’s original estimate. Secondly, a road pricing scheme would require a vast new layer of tax funded bureaucracy, all paid for by poor, hard working people, motorists and non motorists alike. Thirdly, a road pricing system would involve a regressive flat tax on motorists, disproportionately burdening the poorest in society who would literally be priced off the more congested roads. Proponents claim that road pricing would enhance choices since people could choose to drive on certain less congested roads instead of the busier ones. But you may not have this luxury if your journey to work necessitates using busier roads at busier times; thus it reverts to a luxury of choice for the better off only. The fact that we already have a regressive tax system called ‘fuel duty’ which costs little to collect and enforce seems to be lost on ministers. Fourthly, a road pricing scheme is bound to impinge on our civil liberties, allowing bureaucrats to know our whereabouts while we are driving. Clearly there are serious issues with congestion which will need to be tackled by future governments, though this government’s own forecasts of worsening congestion could be unduly alarmist. But this solution seems the most unfair, divisive and expensive way of tackling it.
Tony Blair is now caught between a rock and a hard place. If he presses ahead, it will look as if he has stubbornly ignored a vast number of disenchanted voters, the ones who may be tempted by Mr. Cameron’s Tories. But if he decides to change course, he will look weak and irresolute, a PM who will be remembered for capitulating to public opinion. Not for nothing has this been dubbed Labour’s Poll Tax.
For Labour (soon to be led, barring a miracle, by Mr. Brown) this could not have come at a worse time. Public disenchantment with the government has reached epidemic proportions and there is growing anguish about their failure to deliver. Whether the issue is poor discipline in schools, dumbed down exams, NHS deficits, soft sentencing, Home Office failure, abuses in the asylum system, Iraq or cash for honours – the sense of anger is palpable and mounting. From one issue to another, this government has promised much and delivered little and is now, more than ever, aloof from the public. Instead of reconnecting to the public, this sham exercise in democracy has invited a public backlash.
But while the government licks its self inflicted wounds, the opposition are conspicuous by their absence. Whereas a previous Tory administration would have stood shoulder to shoulder with the motorist, condemning a flagrant attempt to enlarge the state’s powers, Mr. Cameron’s Tories have helped to form a political consensus at Westminster. So passionate are they to promote their ‘green credentials’ and present an ‘attractive’ face to liberal voters, that they have literally forgotten what they are in business for. The end result is that both the government and the opposition are failing to appreciate the most basic lesson of all - that an addiction to high public spending and intrusive politics only breeds hardship and resentment among normal, hard working families. There are times when politicians have to stop meddling and start reining in their appetite for policy making. In short, politicians have to stop being politicians once in a while. In politics, less is very often more.
topTarred with hypocrisy
21 February, 2007
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph last Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the Netherlands has filed an ‘official complaint’ after Dutch MP, Geert Wilders said that, if alive today, Muhammad would be ‘tarred and feathered’ and then deported as an extremist. This is the same MP who has been the subject of death threats from Islamists and forced into hiding since 2004 for his opposition to Islam. The Saudi ambassador has called for the Dutch government to take some action against the MP but, so far, the Foreign Ministry, respecting the principle of free speech, has said there is little it will do. Granted, his comments will cause offence to Muslims but the Saudi establishment is in no position to take the moral high ground with anyone. Just pop along to a mosque or school of your choice in the desert kingdom and you’ll hear comments that are far from merely ‘offensive’. What passes for mainstream discourse is a vicious, paranoid hatred of Jews and Christians and a call for jihadist warfare against ‘infidels’ worldwide. So in a nutshell it’s OK for the Saudis to call for mass murder and global conquest but wrong for non Muslims to offend the Islamic faith. Enough said!
topWhy Britain must not talk to Hamas
21 February, 2007
In last week’s Jewish News, Richard Burden, Chairman of the British-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, offered readers a taste of his organization’s wisdom on the Middle East. Headlined ‘Why I met with Hamas and believe Israel’s leaders should do the same,’ Mr. Burden called for exploratory talks to begin between the West, Israel and Hamas. These talks, he argued, would enable us to discover how far Hamas’ leaders were ‘prepared to go in practice towards accepting a visible two state solution.’ It was wrong, he argued, that the Palestinians were being ‘ostracized’ for electing a government that included Hamas and wrong to impose preconditions before talks could start. By adopting this position, he was rejecting his own government’s position which is that Hamas had to renounce violence and recognize Israel prior to any diplomatic recognition.
Before this wishful thinking reaches Alice in Wonderland proportions, let’s start with some basic facts. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fanatical Islamist movement which strives for world domination through jihad and is, as such, a natural enemy of the West. Hamas remains ideologically committed to eradicating the Jewish state and to this end, has been responsible for a wave of suicidal terror over many years. On their website they make it perfectly clear that their opposition to Israel springs not from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which has existed since 1967, but from Israel’s very existence and, more especially, their visceral loathing of Jews. I quote thus:
Article 22: ‘With their money, they (the Jews) took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there…There was no war that broke out anywhere without their (Jews') fingerprints on it.’ Article 28: ‘Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. May the cowards never sleep.’ Article 32: ‘The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’
This is nothing but a vicious charter of hate that embodies the more familiar conspiracy theories involving world Jewry: that they control the media, foment war in their own interests and seek global power by manipulation. Hamas openly supports the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious anti semitic forgery and ‘warrant for genocide’ that is readily available across the Muslim world. It follows from this torrent of abuse that Hamas must reject any notion of a long term compromise settlement that might create a just, viable Palestinian state next to a secure Israel. In section 13 of the Hamas charter, dealing with the question of peace conferences, you read the following: ‘The so-called peaceful solutions…to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion…’ Put simply, Jewish sovereignty over even one square inch of Israel is unacceptable, end of discussion. No amount of wishful thinking will alter the fact that Hamas remains ideologically committed to the eradication of the Jewish state. After all, when you believe that the ethnic cleansing of the Jews is a divine command, you don’t allow an inconvenient peace process to get in your way, especially one concocted by the ‘Great Satan’ overseas.
Hamas leaders’ play a clever, tactical game by offering an open ended hudna or ceasefire. By making an apparent gesture of peace, they are putting pressure on Israel (and its allies) to make further concessions in the hope that the Jewish state will appear as the region’s rejectionist power. But a hudna is a temporary lull in hostilities, a chance to regain strength and rebuild military power before the next round of fighting commences. It is an opportunity to try and catch the enemy unprepared. Of course the Palestinians deserve a just settlement which will involve, in one shape or another, a 2 state settlement. But as I have argued before, the issue is whether this state will be founded to improve Palestinian lives or destroy others (Israelis). Unless the Palestinian leadership publicly disavows the second aim, statehood will be one more tool in their war against the Jewish state. Hamas, no doubt, regards the indulgence of our MPs as yet more evidence of the weakness, naivety and irresolution of the West, a conclusion that is becoming increasingly hard to dispute.
Mr. Burden ends his piece by saying that the challenge is to make peace between enemies, not between friends. Here I can only paraphrase Professor Daniel Pipes: one should never make peace with one’s enemies, only with one’s former enemies.
topSchools should insist on seeing their students' faces
18 February, 2007
How refreshing that a Buckinghamshire grammar school, whose identity is protected by a court order, is taking a firm stand on the issue of the Muslim veil (niqab). It is a sign of the times that a 12 year old pupil, who has blatantly defied her own school's dress code by wearing (and refusing to remove) a face veil, is claiming that her human rights have been violated. The girl was sent home by her headteacher last year when she was spotted in a lunch queue wearing the niqab, the garment that covers the face and prevents all but the person's eyes from being seen. In a statement, the headteacher explained clearly that she considered wearing the niqab was 'a breach of the uniform policy' which would 'hamper the teaching and learning of the pupil and impact on her communication and socializing with others.'
With this point, the teacher was surely echoing pure common sense. A great deal of communication clearly does rely on the ability to see people's faces, allowing us to detect their emotions and judge their reliability and truthfulness. Observing faces, in all their variety, enhances our social intercourse and the veil is clearly a barrier to this form of interaction. Put simply, if you shroud your face, you are hindering your opportunities to engage in meaningful communication and severely restricting opportunities to participate in wider society. From the school's point of view, it would be difficult to register this girl's level of attention and understanding without seeing her face.
The girl's lawyers claim absurdly that the school's ruling is a breach of her right to freedom of "thought, conscience and religion" under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. But this case isn't really about securing religious freedom and equality. As many have pointed out, the niqab is not a strictly religious Islamic requirement; hence the vast majority of Muslim women feel no need to wear it. Even the extremist group, the Muslim Council of Britain, which regularly disseminates their distaste for Western practices, has made this very point. What this girl is demanding is that the school grants her the same privilege that was given to her sisters who, while students at the school years before, were allowed to wear the veil. What is unfortunate is not that this girl is being treated differently to her sisters but that the school kowtowed to her sisters' demands many years ago. That was a mistake of the past, based on an act of cultural submission to the prevailing doctrine of multiculturalism. This misguided ideology celebrated the 'equality' of cultural lifestyles, yet entrenched an alienating cultural divide that remains with us today.
But times, as they say, are a changing. Last year the Law Lords decided that a school in Luton was justified in barring schoolgirl Shabina Begum from wearing the jilbab to classes. This school too believes that it must uphold its uniform policy, ensuring equality for all its students, male and female. We should welcome their brave and fair stance.
topIndependent Jewish Voices - Ponder before you sign
14 February, 2007
It is a familiar truism that Jews rarely have one view on anything. Whether the issue is political, philosophical, ethical or historical, you’ll find Jews endlessly (and healthily) disputing with one another and usually joking about it afterwards. Two Jews, three opinions as the proverb goes. So when a newly established group feels it must tell the world that Britain’s Jews speak with a discordant voice, one fears that their approach may be well intentioned but superfluous. But a new group, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), has been set up to do just this.
They set out to remind the world that British Jewry’s opinions on Israel are not being fairly represented by its lay institutions, such as the Board of Deputies, which is bad news for the many Jews (they claim) who oppose the Israeli government and its policies. The IJV count themselves among these noble Jewish ‘dissenters’.
Let's start with the obvious here. The IJV are not some persecuted body of dissenters. Take a look at the signatories and you come across such fearsome and distinguished talents as Eric Hobsbawn, Sir Harold Pinter and Stephen Fry. It is hard to imagine that these shining talents are unable to hold their own because they are under the cosh of the over mighty Board of Deputies. No one prevents them from disseminating their views, as any Guardian or Independent reader will instantly tell you. Instead they are a group of disgruntled attention seekers falsely claming to be a stifled minority.
Next, as one reads their advertisement, one is hard pressed to disagree with most of what they write. Which Jews do not hope that Israelis and Palestinians can live ‘peaceful and secure lives’ or that the Middle East can be free from racism? But this seems to be a clever ruse designed to mask their real agenda. For these principles are apparently ‘contradicted’ when Jewish groups ‘consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people.’ So let me see if I have this right. The battle against racism and for peace is undermined, not by Hamas who liken Jews to ‘monkeys and pigs’, or Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust, or the Saudis who persecute Christians or Al Qaeda who wish to drive the ‘infidels’ into the sea, but by Israel’s occupation. Well it is that simple really isn’t it? What they are saying in their twisted little piece is that unless Jews actively and publicly oppose the Israeli government, they cannot claim to be committed to peace or anti racism, a charge that is as grotesque as it is ignorant. Far from being the victims here, this group seeks to victimize anyone who disagrees with them. It won’t be long before this group starts calling themselves ‘the new Jews’ which would be truly ironic given that many of their signatories choose to actively distance themselves from the Jewish community.
As for their perspective on the occupation, the nuance is conspicuous by its absence. There is no admission that the (admittedly) perilous position of the Palestinians is largely self inflicted. They say nothing about the barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks that followed Israel’s handover of territory in 2005. They fail to grasp that the reason why there is no 2 state solution, which Israel has offered, is that the Palestinian leadership remains intent on a one state solution, aided by the demonization of Jews in Palestinian classrooms and mosques and the repeated promise of a ‘right of return’. This intransigence mirrors the virulent Judaeophobia (anti semitism is too polite a term) that is spreading like a cancer across the Muslim and Arab world, and which rejects the right of Jewish self determination on even one square inch of Israel.
The IJV will point out that uncritical acceptance of Israeli policy is harmful and self defeating - and of course they are right. What they miss is the reason why people are sometimes reluctant to offer balanced and proportionate criticism of the Israeli government. In essence, the political climate in Britain towards Israel is marked by (often) outright hostility and demonization, a mood of hate that is based on distortions, inaccuracies and downright lies. When well meaning people speak out, it is grist to the mill of the Israel bashers and does nothing to advance the cause of peace in the region.
It is rather understandable that the IJV’s one sided viewpoint finds little echo in mainstream Jewish opinion. I only hope it stays that way.
topObsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West
11 February, 2007
For those who have yet to view it, the new American documentary 'Obsession' is an absolute must see. From start to finish, it offers a vivid and utterly compelling portrait of the global jihad now being waged against the West by the forces of radical Islam. The theme of the documentary is simple: it aims to expose 'a radical world view and the threat it poses to us all, Muslim and non Muslim alike.' After one hour, this world view becomes startlingly clear.
At the start you watch graphic footage showing the horrific effects of Islamic extremist terror, from Beslan, New York, Madrid, London and Jerusalem. These images leave little to the imagination and expose the global reach that the terrorists now have. But what the documentary reveals so clearly is the sinister culture of hatred that underlies the terrorism. This dimension is crucial for, without it, the individual terrorist acts make little sense.
The culture of hatred derives from a narrow interpretation of Islam (or Islamism), which is rejected by the majority of Western Muslims though it is increasingly mainstream in parts of the Arab and Muslim world. In this world view, Islam must be spread, by force and conquest, until it is the dominant power in the world. Those who refuse to subscribe to Islamic tenets, the non believers (or 'kuffar'), would live at the mercy of their Islamic conquerors and be either enslaved or killed. All other faiths are inferior and must submit to the all conquering Islamic warriors. The radical Islamists are little interested in Western notions of individual liberty, democracy, the rule of secular law, religious pluralism and equality. Indeed Western civilization and its values are the enemy they wish to strike down in a global confrontation with Islam. In short, radical Islam is totalitarian to the core. What this documentary reveals, using footage from religious sermons and television interviews, is just how this totalitarian ideology is being spread.
One Islamist group after another uses the airwaves to spread their 'theory of global persecution', according to which America, Britain and Israel are leading an all out war to destroy Islam. We see Sheikh Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council on Iranian television, calling for Muslims to 'stand against the Americans, English and Israelis and endanger their interests wherever they may be.' Two weeks before 9/11, the Grand Mufti was filmed openly preying for the destruction of America, Britain and Israel. Images from Iranian television show the Statue of Liberty as a skull swimming in oceans of blood, a disturbing symbol of the bloody war against America being preached from the pulpit. George Bush is depicted as Satan, 'the source of tyranny' who is engineering a war against Islam. There is no nuance here, no shame.
The same clerics who demonize Western powers also call for a holy war against them, believing that a violent and sustained jihad against the unbelievers offers untold spiritual rewards. The culture of jihad, whether disseminated in Lebanon, Jordan or Gaza is shown to be deeply entrenched and increasingly mainstream. To their credit, the makers of this documentary go out of their way to distance the majority of Muslims, who are decent and law abiding, from those who preach this insidious hatred. A war declared against an entire faith would be both unfair and self defeating. But two powerful and thought provoking points are raised during the documentary. Firstly, the minority who subscribe to radical Islam is a sizeable (and arguably growing) one. Secondly, those who reject radicalism are failing to speak out against it. This refusal to speak out is harming the West's response to the radicals.
At the heart of the Islamist worldview is a visceral loathing of Jews. One horrific scene from a recent TV series shown on Al Manar television purports to show a Jew kidnapping and then killing an innocent Christian child, before using the child's blood to make matzahs. This is a televised version of the blood libel, a form of medieval bigotry for the masses in the 21st century. Elsewhere clerics openly quote the Koran and call for the beheading of Jews. A former member of the Hitler Youth points out the clear similarities between the Nazis' propaganda methods and those used in the Muslim world. The images used by Islamist extremists to portray Israel and the Jews (including a picture of an octopus with the Star of David trying to control the world) could have been taken from Der Sturmer, and when one views the screaming demagogues and frenzied crowds in Iran and Lebanon or the children in Gaza brainwashed to hate Jews, the parallels with Nazism are hard to miss. The images of brainwashed children screaming for their own death through jihad are perhaps the most disturbing and tragic in the documentary. As John Loftus, the former Justice Department Prosecutor points out, this surely constitutes the most grotesque form of child abuse imaginable.
Professor Robert Wistrich makes the telling observation that this is a war of propaganda in which the techniques of subversion used by the fascists and the Nazis are repeating themselves. In some cases, the parallels are very close indeed. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem before WW2, Haj Amin-al Husseini, one of the early Islamists, was a fervent admirer of Hitler and spent the war years in Berlin. So devoted was the Mufti to Hitler's annihilationist anti semitism that he gathered together Bosnian Muslims to fight alongside the SS in the Balkans. Even today, he is revered by many Palestinians.
Most frightening of all is that in the face of this terrifying onslaught, a culture of denial is entrenched in the West. As Nonie Darwish points out, this is partly the result of relentless political correctness and a refusal to think badly of a Muslim minority. More important is Sir Martin Gilbert's comment that people are simply not spotting the underlying similarities between the different terrorist atrocities and the common ideology that underpins them. In short, people are not 'connecting the dots.' Much of the Western 'establishment', mired in post colonial guilt, likes to tell us that the Islamist fanatics seek only a redress of foreign policy grievances, primarily in Iraq and Palestine. But this merely repeats the tragic mistakes of the 1930s when policy makers pretended that a revision of the Versailles treaty would satisfy Hitler's appetites and lead to an era of peace. Hitler sought a global revolution in which the world would be purged of Jews and other 'undesirables' to suit his ideological appetite. Today's jihadis also seek a revolution that would wipe out Western civilization and the Judaeo-Christian values on which it is based.
But at the end of the documentary there is a more uplifting message. While the jihadist ideology is evil, it can be confronted so long as we recognize the problem and take steps to confront it. Evil will never simply disappear of its own accord. As those interviewed rightly observe, it is the duty of all moderate Muslims to take a stand against the radicals and the equal duty of non Muslims to support these moderates. 'Obsession' is not easy to watch and some scenes are truly shocking. But it must be seen by all those who wish to understand radical Islam, and the lethal threat it poses.
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