Being the ‘only Jews in the village’, interfaith work is stuff that my family and I do every day as part of normal life. It means answering curious questions about why I say a string of Hebrew words, the ‘shehakol’ blessing, over a beer in the pub or being told by my child’s school that they will be using our child as a ‘teaching resource’ when Religious Education lessons cover Judaism. It can also sometimes mean patiently explaining Judaism to those whose knowledge, such as it is, of Judaism doesn’t really go further than weird food/Holocaust/oh you are the lot expelled from this town in the 13^th century. We’ve got wonderful Christian neighbours and friends and one of them, who understands our Sabbath rules, offered to light our coal fire on the Sabbath when we are forbidden to light it, should we have an unexpected cold snap. For us interfaith is not a job or a position but a lived experience. Of course I would be lying if I said that I have encountered zero arseholes, but thankfully in my experience they are few and far between.

However my situation in encountering very few arseholes is not one that is shared by the British government. When it comes to linking up with Muslim religious and community leaders in order to be interfaith advisors, who later end up being revealed as arseholes, the British government has a long and sorry record.

Time and time again the British government has built links with and employed Muslim leaders who when the chips are down end up revealing themselves to be either hate filled arseholes or who have links to the ‘kill the Jews’ crowd. Over at the Israellycool website, a British writer of Pakistani Muslim heritage, Inara, who writes about and criticises Islamic Jew hatred, has some brilliant stories about the latest interfaith fails by the British government.

Speaking about an article that was published in the UK Daily Mail which revealed that a prominent government funded Islamic cleric was calling for jihad against Israel and that the British government consistently funded Islamic clerics who are later revealed to be wrong ‘uns, Inara said:

“The latest member of this club is Imam Irfan Chishti MBE, who provides training to the police, the NHS and in schools on how to spot radicalism and neutralise extremist views. He is co-founder of Me and You Education, a training program to raise the awareness of far-Right and Islamist extremism.

At a rally to support the Palestinians in Rochdale eight days ago, Imam Chishti called Israel a “terrorist state,” referring not only to the recent conflict, but the “historic” loss of Palestine. He described non-Muslims at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as “vile human beings” who were “desecrating” it. Sounding like a representative of Hamas or Hezbollah, Imam Chishti several times poses the question, “Where is the modern-day Saladin?”  He continues and lauds the “mujahideen” and the “shahids” then prays: “We ask you Allah that you accept every single shahid who has given their life for Palestine.”

I must admit that this Chishti character doesn’t sound that peaceful to me. He’s also, according to Inara, thoroughly dishonest by claiming during his speech that when the area claimed as Palestine was run by Muslims was a ‘heaven on earth’ for Jews and Christians. The truth is that it was not. Chishti is quite obviously engaging in dishonest revisionist Islamic history.

But if you thought that Chishti was some sort of outlier, an extremist who slipped through the net, then you would be wrong. In another excellent article on Israellycool, Inara reveals that Chishti is not alone in his alleged Islamic Jew hatred whilst being employed as an advisor by the British government. According to Inara, a UK government advisor on ‘Islamophobia’, named Qari Asim is a social media follower of a ‘low key but influential Holocaust denier’ named Ahmed Thomson. Thomson is a Zimbabwe-born British lawyer who converted to Islam in the early 1970’s and according to Inara promotes various ‘New World Order’ ‘Zionist’ conspiracy theories. Inara said that in 2015 Asim promoted an Islamic conference at which both Asim and Thomson were to speak at.

Inara added:

It so happens that Irfan Chishti and Ahmad Thomson were also featured speakers at this same conference in 2015. At that time, Irfan Chisti was still under the radar, but Qari Asim could not conceivably have been in the dark about Ahmad Thomson’s nazi-like beliefs which were first exposed in 2005 by the mainstream media, and whose books were available – and still are –  to purchase on Amazon.

By a curious coincidence, all three men have at one time or another served as advisers to the UK government on matters pertaining to Islam.

It soon becomes evident that there is a double standard at play: Qari Asim has not spoken out against Ahmad Thomson’s participation in Muslim communal events in the same manner that he has against Tommy Robinson’s presence at Jewish communal events.  Nor has he challenged Thomson on Twitter about his promotion of anti-western Press TV propaganda, Jewish conspiracies and Khazar myths, views which are hardly conducive to interfaith harmony and something that Qari Asim is able to do given that he follows Thomson.

The information that Inara alleges and reveals is extremely worrying. Judging by the way that some of these clerics have managed to keep their true views about Jews and Israel under the radar it raises a lot of questions about how vigorously the British government has vetted these advisors? If it was just a case of looking at the social media accounts of these characters then it looks like it could be the case that maybe they were not vetted in any meaningful way. Whilst I accept that sometimes people may follow those they disagree with on social media in order to understand what their opponents are up to, something I do myself, I don’t think that this is one of these cases. Here we have high profile government advisors on Islam and ‘Islamophobia’ not only being uncritical to extremists, but also sharing platforms with them.

I want to conclude this piece by giving fulsome and deserved praise to Inara for her work on this and other similar stories. Just as we have Christians and Jews who criticise their own extremists in these faiths so also do we need those of Muslim faith and Muslim background to do the same and expose the nutcases who have hoodwinked the British government into employing them.