I saw this article by Taveer Ahmed writing on the page of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council via Twitter this morning and I thought that it deserved sharing widely. The problem of anti-Semitism has been around for a long time in Christian societies, but was starting to dwindle to a certain extent, at least in the free West. The injection of Islam into these free societies has not only brought a whole host of problems such as Jihad, oppression of women and crime, but it has also brought the vehement and violent culture of Islamic anti-Semitism.
This article by Tanveer Ahmed outlines the enormous level of anti-Semitism that is preached in mosques and the anti-Jewish brainwashing that goes in Islamic communities. This Islamic Jew-hate is all pervasive and deeply rooted and no amount of denial of this problem by Islamic clerics or Islamic activists mouthing shallow words of condemnation or hiding behind Jewish groups to polish their diversity credentials, can change that fact. Jew-hatred is as central a part of Islam as the idea of Crucifixion and resurrection is for Christians. Islamic anti-Semitism cannot be wished away or removed by ‘interfaith’ activity as Islamic Jew hatred is so deeply set in Islam. Jews, secularists and reformist Christians quite rightly are troubled by stuff in the Christian Testament that targets Jews, such as the ‘blood verse’ of Matthew 27:25. Modern Christians have taken many steps to either skip over this accursed verse, explain it differently than it was explained to previous generations of Christians or have put it in historical context. I see no similar actions from Muslims regarding the massive amount of Jew hatred expressed in the Koran and Hadith. The preaching of Jew-hatred still goes on in mosques and Islamic communal settings to an extent that cannot and should not be ignored.
But, being ignored it is and it’s being ignored not just by the average man in the street, but by those who should know far better than to ignore those who say ‘I want to kill you’. If there is any lesson that can be learned from the Shoah (Holocaust) then it is this: ‘when someone says that they want to kill you then believe them and defend yourself against them’. This lesson in my opinion is one that is being ignored by a whole host of Left-wing Rabbis who continue to play ‘nicey-nicey’ with Islamic groups and Muslim individuals. For example: Appearing on a stage at an event calling for more, mostly Islamic, migrants to be allowed into the UK, with an Iman who called for Muslims to go and fight ‘Zionists’, isn’t ‘interfaith co-operation’ it is gobsmacking suicidal stupidity. Worse still Islamic anti-Semitism is being ignored by the political Left as a large number of voters for Leftist parties now come from the Islamic communities. If you want a reason why parties like the UK Labour party have gone soft on Jew hatred then look at where Labour’s support is now coming from.
This piece, excerpted below, from Tanveer Ahmed, shows the some of the extent of the problem with Islamic anti-Semitism and it also indicates how difficult tackling this problem is. It’s a shame that there are not more people of Islamic background like Tanveer Ahmed who understand the problem of Islamic Jew-hatred and are as appalled at the problem as many of the rest of us are.
Tanveer Ahmed said:
As a boy, I spent many a Friday prayer in mosques hearing clerics wax lyrical about Jewish conspiracies and their intent to dominate the world and rid it of Islam. Descriptions of Jewish wealth, miserliness and hooked noses were commonplace. It just seemed normal and I didn’t think twice about it until I started meeting Jews in high school, even being invited to my first bar mitzvah in Year 7.
There is a story told by Muslims to each other, repeated in sermons and conversations, one I remember hearing as a child, that Muhammad gloriously slaughtered hundreds of Jews.
After defeating an invading army in Medina, Muhammad allegedly turned on the Jewish residents of the Banu Qurzaya tribe, who had remained neutral in the battle. He picked hundreds of the men and murdered them before dividing the spoils of conquest, varying from women to horses, amongst his Muslim followers. The tale is not recounted in the Koran but is in the Hadith and the Sira, which is the biography of the Prophet, and is spoken about as a source of pride among clerics and scholars. There is no record of it in any Jewish historical documents.
Recent controversies in the UK have raised the prospect of antisemitism in Muslim communities and, as a consequence, a greater tolerance of it in UK Labour and other leftist parties, which those of Muslim origin overwhelmingly vote for. There is a growing view among Jews that the British Labour party no longer has a place for them, illustrated by prominent British figures such as author Howard Jacobson withdrawing their support.
It’s difficult to disagree with Tanveer Ahmed on this last point. Leftist parties, because of their reliance on Muslim votes, have tolerated Jew-hatred in order to not upset the Muslims.
Tanveer Ahmed added:
While there are figures like Dr. Jamal Rifi who have spoken out against conflating anger towards Israeli policy with anger towards Jews, such figures are few and far between and immediately risk being isolated or, as Dr. Rifi has experienced, being labelled as an “Uncle Tom”. There is a considerable culture of denial among both Muslims and non-Muslims regarding the scale of the problem.
It is not that the Left is increasingly packed with antisemites, but there is a growing accommodation of antisemitic expression and not nearly the same intolerance of it as there may be towards perceived racism towards Muslims.
There can be little doubt antisemitism is increasing. A 2014 report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry showed physical attacks had increased 200% since the previous year, threatening emails 180% and property damage 66%. Nor can this rise be blamed just on Muslims. White supremacist groups have also spouted such hate towards Jews and the so-called “unholy alliance” between some Leftists and Muslims has encouraged so called progressives to occasionally slip into antisemitic territory.
Who could forget last year’s Sydney University altercation involving Professor Jake Lynch waving money in the face of a Jewish woman and his students ambushing retired British Colonel Richard Kemp? Students shouted in the face of the distinguished former British soldier that he was supporting genocide.
The double standard amongst media elites was further illustrated by the furore over a column by Tim Blair last year in which he exposed the antisemitic literature in one of Sydney’s largest Islamic book stores in Lakemba. Illustrating the growing tolerance of antisemitism within the framework of identity politics – where Jews now supposedly have a powerful, privileged status and therefore do not warrant sympathy – there was an enormous backlash from leftist commentators, all of whom paid mere lip service to the existence of the literature itself.
As British thinker Kenan Malik wrote in the New York Times during the recent London mayoral campaign, antisemitism was historically a greater problem within the Right, whereas the Left could proudly draw on its egalitarian principles and much firmer tradition of fighting bigotry against Jews and racial minorities.
But there has been a retreat from such values in line with a greater emphasis on multiculturalism and a society divided into distinct groups with their own beliefs and values. Once this kind of identity politics has become paramount, people are more often judged by what group they belong to. As a result Jews are increasingly held responsible for the actions of Israel.
The growth of Muslim minorities in Western populations is complicating matters surrounding antisemitism and policy responses to defuse it. Beyond the scriptural basis in Koranic or Hadith texts, Muslim antisemites also rely on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous document about Jewish conspiracy which was determined to be a forgery created by the Russian secret police in the early 20th century. Yet it remains a bestseller in the Middle East and among Muslims living in the West.
In 1951, the intellectual father of Islamism Sayyid Qutb wrote an essay decrying Jews as the natural enemy of Islam, intent on destroying Muslims, and described the creation of Israel as the manifestation of Jewish revenge for being humiliated in Medina during the time of Muhammad.
Ira Forman, US State Department Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, warns that smaller Jewish communities in countries like Holland, Norway and Sweden are increasingly feeling under threat and there is a steady trickle of Jews migrating to Israel. He warns that this trickle may become a flood if antisemitism continues to rise in parallel with the surge in Muslim migrants.
As Benjamin Kerstein writes in the Jerusalem Post, modern antisemitism is primarily a Muslim problem. He writes of the new antisemitism as a combination of hatred of Israel and its Jewish supporters, petty stereotypes and, perhaps most worryingly, the moral delusions of those like Professor Jake Lynch who believe they are standing up for oppressed victims through confronting Jewish supporters of Israel.
“Muslims are a minority in the West and no one likes to point out that a minority can be as hateful and racist as a majority,” writes Kerstein.
This is a seriously educative and must-read article and I’m grateful to those who have pointed me in the direction of it. I would strongly advise that you click on the link below and read the whole piece.
http://aijac.org.au/news/article/when-muslim-antisemitism-comes-to-australia
