A "Muslim Zionist"

In recent days Ed Husain, full name Mohammed Mahbub Husain, has been busy doing the rounds of the right wing media houses and organisations to promote his book titled “Among the Mosques: A journey across Muslim Britain”.  He started this by providing advanced copies to all known anti migrant, anti minority and anti Muslim outlets. This is not surprising as his target readers aren’t Muslims but anti Muslim crowd and Western governments. Extracts from his book were published by Daily Mail and the Times. While he says they took things out of context but by providing copies to these publications, known for their anti Muslim history, he knew they would generate publicity in the desired circles.   

Ed Husain has now written an article titled “The evolution of British Muslim society will shape the Uk’s future” in the Jewish Chronicle. The headline is similar to the far-right tactics of population replacement conspiracy theories. By the way it is not the first time he has written for the magazine. Last year he wrote an article titled “British Jews should stop attacking Netanyahu”. In which he argued that Britain should not intervene to stop the annexation of the West Bank by Israel. He asserted that attacking Israel would result in Jews again expelled from the Middle East. He clearly used emotive language to scare Jewish community to unconditionally support Israel and ignore breaches of the International law and human rights.

In that article he at least said something truthful that historically Muslims had provided sanctuaries to the Jewish people. It is a fact that Muslims recognise both Jews and Christians as people of book and has lived with them side by side in peace in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Any friction that developed was by the interferences of the West, from crusades to colonialism to recent wars. Ed Husain uses Muslim belief of respecting Abrahamic religions and prophets to twist into claim that early Muslims had recognised that Judea and Jerusalem belonged to the Jews. We know that the Zionist community doesn’t agree with his former statement that Muslims provided sanctuary to Jewish people. Instead they allege that Muslims committed atrocities against Jews and Netanyahu even blamed Mufti of Jerusalem for the holocaust committed by the Nazis.

In his latest article in the Jewish Chronicle Ed Husain again says that “Who will explain to the Muslim firebrands that today’s Israel is a fulfilment of the Quranic command” He provides no evidence for his assertion. These views are similar to those of the Evangelical Christian Zionists, who also say Israeli state is fulfilment of Biblical prophesies. Maybe that’s why he and all other self proclaimed reformers/ moderates e.g. Maajid Nawaz, Zuhdi Jassar, Qanta Ahmed, Rakib Ehsan, Wasiq, Fiyaz Mughal, Husain Haqqani, etc.are unconditional supporters of Israel and its far right leadership.

Ed Husain says that “French historian Gilles Kepel documents the influences of the Nazis on the Muslim Brotherhood”. He adds Moderate Muslims and Jews feel unsafe in parts of Britain today because we have a common enemy in those who seek to destroy our inheritance of nation states in Britain and Israel, but also remove Arab governments and create disorder in the Middle East. This crisis is much bigger than Israel. There is no appeasing it. The Red-Green alliance seeks to advance Iran’s radical allies of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Brotherhood and others.  Firstly, Kepel is not a historian but a political scientist and Arabist whatever that means, secondly, His views are based on Western supremacy and French colonial history in Algeria, Africa, where French committed Nazi like atrocities long after Nazis had been defeated. In other words Ed and Kepel are both in the same field as both made careers by talking about Muslims in the West.

Their aim is twofold; firstly, spread fear and suspicion in the mainstream white communities of alien presence and secondly, to talk about failures of integration to help authorities and right wing politicians to introduce measures of surveillance control. No wonder Ed is a supporter of Macron’s far right style curbs on freedoms of religion and personal freedoms of French Muslims. The reality is that this kind of restraints on freedoms in so called free societies results in more alienation, discrimination, etc. These state sponsored discriminatory measures are designed to suppress chances of progression of the minority communities, in particular their participation in the mainstream life and politics where they could raise concerns and influence policies which is contrary to their narrative of promoting integration.

One of the reasons Zionists including Muslim Zionists rile against the left is that people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders encourage grass root minorities to participate in politics. They are responsible for new, fearless, young and vocal faces like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Dawn Butler, Zarah Sultana,etc.. These people would have had no chance in the established systems that only promotes chosen and vetted people from minority communities and who don’t rebel against injustices and curbs against minorities. Their fear of sharing power with minorities is greater than the left’s support for the Palestinian cause. That’s the reason for Ed Husain and far-right’s fear mongering rhetoric of population growth of Muslims/ minorities and possible influence on policy.    

There can’t be any other explanation for Ed Husain’s claims that 40% mosques in UK are controlled by Deobandi extremists. He has previously written about Sunni, Shia and Salafi extremists, which basically means all Muslims are extremists. He doesn’t pick up these sects by accident, this happens after far right Islamophobic organisations like Henry Jackson Society and Gatestone Institute, who happen to be Israeli supporters, publish false and manufactured information about various sects based on their views about Israel Palestine Kashmir etc. Then people like Ed Husain pick up those lines to legitimise their rhetoric including projected population growth of Muslims/ non white minorities without comparing it with growth of population as a whole.

When Ed Husain says that he feels unsafe in Derby and Doncaster than in Delhi and Dubai because he is a moderate Muslim, he is legitimising views of the far-right Islamophobes/ racists of no go areas. Reality is 99.999..% of Muslims in Britain probably don’t know his name let alone his face. He says that he does not fear far-right racists but Muslims whom he calls racist bigots and Islamic supremacists. If he thinks that he would be spared by racists who attack mosques and recently killed 3 generations of a family just because they were brown and Muslim, he is mistaken.

As far as Ed Husain feeling safer in Delhi and Dubai than Derby and Doncaster is concerned, he probably couldn’t find a city to rhyme with in Israel so he opted for Dubai. He is either oblivious to the fact that India is currently ruled by a fascist Hindutva ideologists. Hindutva is an ideology which was definitely influenced Nazi ideology as explained in this research articles by Paul Marshal of the Hudson Institute. The current Indian regime persecutes minority communities of Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Dalits. This regime has put 10 million Muslims of Kashmir under lockdown, enforced by 900k army, for nearly three years. There are daily lynchings of Muslims in India and in one incident in Delhi a Muslim neighbourhood was attacked and nearly 50 Muslims were killed and their homes and mosque destroyed.

His claims of not feeling safe in Muslim communities are contradicted by his own statements that Muslims welcomed him in their homes and mosques. He visited many cities and towns but no one attacked him or chased him away from the mosque or the areas he visited for “research”. Research, consisted of casual conversations with some individuals that included a taxi driver, a man in the street/ mosque, an anonymous council worker and a white man sitting on a wall etc. And like the Trojan Horse saga, proven to be an elaborate hoax, he claims to have spotted an odd book in a shop or a mosque or seeing a sign saying sharia department to label people extremists and accuse them of running a parallel legal system. He tries to link Manchester bomber with Didsbury mosque while ignoring the Libyan link and 9 years of deadly chaos.  

His language about Syrian refugees is appalling. He uses a conversation with an anonymous council worker to suggest young refugees from war torn Syria are loud, prone to violence and possibly future terrorists. He shows no sympathy with possible mental scars they are carrying from their experiences of war. It is not clear whether Ed supports Asad regime in Syria or those who tried to overthrow the regime. You expect better than this from a professor then again when you start your journey with results and readership in mind you will come to the conclusions to suit that.

With regard to the recent demonstrations against Israeli attacks on Gaza and barbarity in the occupied Palestinian territories Ed Husain says “I can only imagine the fear in Jewish families from the rise of this militant Muslim supremacy. It pains me to hear the chilling refrain of bags being ready for an escape”. It is the rhetoric developed by the Zionists to scare Jews to continue the programme of illegal settlements in Israel. Zionists consider Palestinian flag and talk of Palestinian freedom struggle anti-Semitic. Ed Husain not only agrees with them but goes further by calling Muslims in the demonstrations supremacists

This rhetoric from Ed Husain and other Zionists is similar to the rhetoric and tactics used by far-right/ right wing media to neutralise voices raising concerns about racism, bigotry and white supremacy. They call Anti-fascist, fascists and Marxists and Black lives Matter supporters are also called racists, etc. Now Muslims raising concerns about racism, Islamophobia, or atrocities against Palestinians, Kashmiris etc are subjected to the same abuse. What is interesting is that those labelling Antifa and Black lives matter are also supporters of Israel. The fact is that both Muslims and Jews have more to fear from rising Far-right fascists and white supremacists than each other. History shows that Jews, minorities/ Muslims have jointly fought against the far-right before and they will face it together again.

However, Ed Husain doesn’t like people to unite and promotes divisive rhetoric as he said in the article that “as always, the Jewish people are the canaries in the coalmine” and “the footsoldiers (Muslims) who seek to attack Jews also see others as inferior: women, Hindus, Sikhs, gay people and moderate, peace-loving Muslims”. He adds “If after education and opportunities to integrate, radical Muslims don’t like our free nation and its citizens they should leave Britain. Shamima Begum did. Until we say “you are not welcome here, leave,” we will be seen as weak. Once we muster the courage to defend civilisation, we will begin to win. This is not about Jews: it’s about the future of Britain”. He’s not the only one saying to Muslims to leave his fellow "Muslim Zionists" have also said that at one time or another.

His outburst against Muslims suggests that its not the Jews who are canaries in the coalmine, it is the Muslims. We know that and apart from the Zionists, Jewish people also know that there are no statutory controls and restrictions on the freedoms of the Jewish people. They are not continuously subjected to the rhetoric of othering by states and the media. No one questions their loyalty despite the fact that some people put Israel before their home state. They are free to send their children to Israel to spend two years in Israeli army. No one questions what that does to their mentality, as they participate in violent suppression of Palestinians and maintain racist apartheid systems, and how they behave on their return. People like Melanie Phillips use youtube channels to pump out hateful propaganda against Muslims and minorities to Israel and US while maintaining respectable position in the mainstream media, Times, BBC, Sky etc.  

Ed Husain questions Muslim community’s loyalty by saying there are no British flags in the mosques but there are flags in the synagogues. Firstly, I am sure he’s been in mosques all over the Muslim world & would have noticed that there aren’t any national flags in the mosques, secondly, if synagogues have union jack they also have Israeli flags. Imagine if mosques in the UK would have flags of other countries, he would be the first to question the loyalty of worshippers. He says Muslims are living a separate life from British society, I would say its not the Muslims but Ed Husain who is living a separate life from mainstream Muslims. He has no idea what's going on in Muslim communities up & down the country and he's still trading with rhetoric of 15/ 20 years ago.

Ed Husain’s book is not a scholarly work but something Tommy Robinson would write, I mean have it written for him. No wonder its reviewers are not his peers from the teaching fraternity but peers from the anti Muslim anti minority and anti immigrant community. These reviewers include Sajid Javid who is member of the conservative friends of Israel. Times of Israel says Sajid Javid, in an address to a meeting of World Jewish Congress in 2017 said “to apologise for the Balfour declaration would be to apologise for the existence of Israel”. Javid had also said that if he had to go and live in the Middle East, hr wouldn’t go to the birth place of the holy prophet but Israel where my family would feel warm embrace of freedom and liberty. Don’t forget that Sajid Javid made Shamima Begum stateless.

The other reviewer is Tom Holland, a fiction writer who made an Islamophobic documentary which BBC refused to air but on the back of that he now calls himself a historian. He is an English nationalist and a Christian who supports Israel but I am not sure if he is Evangelical Zionist.

Then we have David Goodhart who made a career out of being anti immigration, In 2004 Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality called his views similar to those of Enoch Powell. The chair was Trevor Phillips, who was suspended by the Labour Party for Islamophobic comments, and seem to hold similar views as Goodhart, how times have changed. Talking of change Trevor Phillips under New Labour disbanded Commission for Racial Equality and created Equality and Human rights commission and David Goodhart is now one of its commissioners despite saying we need to maintain hostile environment that resulted in Windrush scandal.     

Another reviewer is mysterious Jawad Iqbal of Times. Don’t know much about him except he writes for the Times a paper with history of anti Muslim campaigns.