Why Not Be a Muslim for a Day, Mr Nick Cohen

When an outspoken Muslim gains some prominence, sooner or later they find themselves targeted by a campaign to discredit and undermine them. We have seen it time and time again. The list includes Journalists Mehdi Hasan, journalists and editorial staff of the Guardian and most recently Assed Baig of the Channel 4 News. Muslim Politicians and elected officials like Mayor of Tower Hamlet, MPs and Members of the House of Lords, etc also come under attack. Currently London's mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan MP is in the firing line from the opponents including the Prime Minister. Prime Minister used the parliamentary privilege to attack Sadiq Khan, the leader of the opposition and made unsubstantiated claims of extremism against an Imam Suliman Gani.

Then there are the Muslim student bodies which come under sustained attack. So when we see attacks on Malia Bauattia, newly elected president of the Student Union, it is neither shocking nor surprising. Furthermore, Muslim groups and individuals highlighting injustices, raising concerns about inequality and discrimination are constantly targeted in the mainstream and social media. Even Muslim children and their education doesn’t escape the scrutiny. Parents Teachers and school governing bodies have all come under attack on the whim of zealot officials and sensationalist media.

You don't need to say or do anything to be subjected to this scrutiny, just need to declare you are a Muslim. However, if you happen to be outspoken Muslim or in the public eye, you will be targeted by certain people to who would devote time and resources to find something incriminating, no matter how old or irrelvat. A recent example of this is the case of a 20 year old Muslim councillor, Aysegul Gurbaz, who may have posted 3-4 tweets between the age of 14 and 18. Another recent example was the attack on Assed Baig, again for 3- 4 tweets 2-5 year old and tweeted long before his employment with the Channel 4 News. In the first case the incriminating discovery was made by the campaign against anti-Semitism and in the second case by Guido Fauks, a right wing political blog. Both cases then appeared in the Daily Mail.

I am certain that I will be branded anti-Semite and not anti fascist for what I am about to say. In all of the above cases two things are prominent Israel lobby along with the right wing establishment supporting media. The question is why deploy resources, both human and in monitory terms, to try to dig dirt on Muslim individuals and organisations. They do not deploy these resources on every Journalist, politician, student body, education establishment, etc. Talking of students and educational bodies, when so called Trojan Horse story was in the news we saw helicopters flying around taking pictures of schools, teachers, governors, parents and pupils. The same situation occurred in the case of the Iqra school. There was no privacy and no concerns about the safety of the people being filmed. Compare that to the recent story of missing boys and the illegal and unsafe schools of the Jewish community. The reporters were prohibited from identifying students, teachers and the locations of schools. There was no interrogation of Jewish leaders instead the BBC Newsnight presenter had a very civilised almost jovial conversation with various Jewish leaders, politicians and educationalists. There was no outrage at their support for such schools.

Incidentally all these people who attack Muslims call themselves "liberals" but what does it really mean. One definition I found says "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own". These so called liberals have closed minds and are not open to discussion and debate. They have scripted rhetoric and ideas which they want to enforce on others. They not only abuse and misuse the term liberal they also abuse other terms like moderate and medieval. To be moderate is to be average, modest and ordinary but these individuals have extreme views about monitoring activities of Muslims from birth to death, labelling them from Islamist to extremist and demonising them in a way that it restricts their opportunities.

As far as the term medieval is concerned, historically it refers to the era between year 500 to 1500 after the loss of Roman Empire. Everything related to this term relates to history of disarray in the European continent. It has nothing to do with the rest of the world's civilisation, culture, trade and inventions. Basically people are judging rest of the world with their own bad history. Their limited knowledge of the rest of the world and historyis not based on reality but tainted by own experiences.

Recently Nick Cohen wrote a piece titled Why I am becoming a Jew and Why you should, too . This piece is an attack on the left in particular the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, Muslims of the West and alleged rise in the anti-Semitism. This is not the first time he has written on this subject, in fact the article is a rehash of his article written in 2009. There is a common thread in both articles warning left to stay away from Muslims in Europe and that Muslims and dark skinned people are the new fascists of Europe.

The Article doesn't mention of the modern day white far right and neo Nazi groups sweeping through Europe. This is probably because they have been persuaded that presence of the dark skinned minorities/ Muslims is the only threat to the Judeo-Christian Europe. Jist of the argument, in both articles, is the same, only thing which has changed is that Nick is no longer a member of the Labour party and there is more emphasis on the left in particular attacks on the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn. Could it be that the party embraces true liberal principles and it is on the side of the ordinary people that provides minorities including Muslims; support and opportunity to participate in the democratic political process.

While Mr Cohen continuously talks about anti-Semitism, which by the way is more to do with his affinity with the state of Israel, he denies the existence of Islamophobia. He regularly criticises Muslims, Islam and Palestinians but says nothing about the excessive persecution and suppression of Palestinians. He doesn’t criticise the fundamentalist religious coalition which is in power in Israel and their two tier justice system. The fact that the state of Israel governs over as many Jews as Arab and Palestinians with Muslim and Christian faith, criticism of Israel can not be considered anti-Semitic. Only way it could be regarded as anti-Semitic if Israel is considered solely religious Jewish state which will be contrary to the position of her and her supporters that Israel is a modern democratic state.

Whether he admit or not Nick Cohen not only promotes a certain rhetoric which can only be described as racist Islamophobia. Furthermore, time and time again he comes to the defence of others involved in the same activity. A classic example is this article in the Spectator. The headline states that “Richard Dawkins attacks Christian bigots as well as Muslim”. But when you read the article he doesn't provide any example of attacks on Christians. Nick Cohen uses the classic form of defence by attacking Muslims and in a convoluted way he justifies Richard Dawkins racist and Islamophobic activity. He talks about Nahla Mehmoud and how she had suffered in Sudan. Would he do the same for Malia Bauattia, who had fled terror in Algeria, only to find herself facing racism, discrimination and accused of anti-Semitism and being supporter of terrorism. Would he criticise this article by Hannah Weisfeld which belittles NUS motion against anti-Semitism, passed with the support of Malia Bauattia

In the above article Hanna Weisfeld provides the clue to the Islamophbic rhetoric coming out of these people. She says that 93% of UK Jews say that Israel is part of their identity and have an afinity with Israelis. There is nothing wrong with that except when, it becomes obsessive as this tweet by Toby Young suggests, it becomes dangrous. In contrast poll after poll of British Muslims show that they have 80+% feel loyalty to Britain. Furthermore, despite being migrants, refugees or descendants of migrats and refugees and having relatives abroad, they show no such afinity with other countries. Yet their loyalty is questioned again and again, just because they want to voice an opinion about wars and devastation it brings to the lives of ordinary people. 

Nick Cohen, an atheist, has seen the light and has accepted that he is a Jew and want others to be the same. He is not alone to show such sentiment about his religeon. The reality is that New atheism is all about religion and most of its figure heads have affinity with their or their parents. Be it Richard Dawkins who has more than soft spot for Christianity or Sam Harris who supports Israel because of his Jewish roots.

For a Jewish man to become a Jew is not really a big step, and it hasn't made a slight bit of difference to his rhetoric. Nick Cohen should try to be a Muslim for a week or just for one day, may be then he would realise how hateful and hurtful his rhetoric really is.

Whiter than White or Upto Their Neck In It

When Guardian a Journalist wrote an article based on an interview with Maajid Nawaz, titled How a former- slamist became David Camerons anti extremism adviser? Maajid Nawaz was not happy and he & his friends resorted personal attacks on the writer. He looked for help and it it was Nick Cohen who came to the rescue. He wrote this this article in support of Maajid.

Nick Cohen also wrote this about Mo Ansar during campaign of harassment against him. The latest smear propaganda was directed at a Channel Four News reporter. The right wing Guido Media started the smear campaign which was, not unexpectedly, picked by the Daily Mail and others. Channel Four News is an independent programme which, compare to other mainstream news outlets, reflects the diverse nature of the British Society. Furthermore, Channel Four News anchor Jon Snow, for his support for the Palestinian cause, is a thorn in the sights of the Israeli lobby. So this non story provided a perfect opportunity to these people to attack both.

This attack on the Chanel Four reporter was based on up to five years old tweets, tweeted long before his current employment. The Tweet police must have time and resources to trawl through thousands of tweets to find it. The question is why spend this time and resource to find so called incriminating tweets. It seems these people are allergic to any opinion which is different from theirs and certainly the truth. Furthermore, they want to protect their assets like the Quilliam Foundation and the establishment policies such as Prevent. Judging by the association of the Quilliam Foundation with the Gatestone Institute, Henry Jackson Society etc and one of the trigger points for prevent intervention said to be expression of support for Palestine, these people are also protecting the interest of the state of Israel.

Thankfully story about the Channel 4 news reporter was a damp squib as was the programme headed by Trevor Phillips. However, these people are determined to continue even after seeing public disinterest in their propaganda. They endlessly accuse people of antisemitism while denying Islamophobia. Despite their false rhetoric of antisemitism, we have seen people electing the new Labour leader and recently saw students electing new President of NUS. The hypocrisy is that they themselves continue to spread Islamophobia and often dismiss peoples genuine grievances concerning racism and inequality.

Following was written some years ago.

Recently Tom Holland tweeted this:

but when asked about his own views he did not respond. These people with little islander mentality probably understand that Muslims are not going to change their religion so what they are indirectly saying is that no Muslim refugees and probably suggesting deportations. Would these people agree with China that Christianity isn’t compatible with communism or Muslim nations of Middle East saying that Christianity and Judaism isn’t compatible. Would these people accept brown Christians from the rest of the world who likely to have fundamental and conservative beliefs.I think not so why say these things which incite and encourage Islamophobia. 

While Tom claims to be expert on Islam and supports interventionalist policies, he says that he is not knowledgable enough to support investigation into the alleged abuse by French soldiers, in the Central African Republic. This issue including beasting of young girls has been covered by the News Channels and Papers. Even if he was ignorant of the issue, he could have googled it as he is always on the internet. This shows the double standards of these people. 

Tom Holland often come across as a bitter person who hold grudges against individuals and organisations for discrediting his book and documentary. He most definitely holds a grudge against Mo Ansar and accuses him of slander. However, he did not peruse any legal action, instead he is pursuing a hate campaign with his co conspirators and an army of trolls. Tom Holland claims that Mo Ansar compared him with Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist. If Mo has said such a thing then I disagree with him. Breivik didn’t kill Muslims but he went after the government and the governing party members for allowing Muslims migrants and refugees into the country.   

Tom Holland’s Twitter activity includes daily tweets about Islam/ Muslims and of course about Mo Ansar. Such tweets are then retweeted, liked and commented by an army of trolls. Any objections/ comments on these and other Islamophobic rhetoric, coming from new atheists such as Sam Harris, Ayaan H Ali, Far right, is dismissed by these people as just words which don’t kill people. They claim they are just criticising a religion. The reality is that you can’t separate religion from the followers, thus this daily rhetoric encourages and incites hatred and violence against Muslims. This point that words don't kill people has been made by many public figures including Ian Dale of the LBC radio, BBC's Andrew Neil etc. Andrew Neil used it again in response to Ken Livingston's remarks that American Presidential candidate Ted Cruze is as fundamental as the Taliban. Incidentally same defence has been used by the Serb war criminal, Radovan Karadzic, that he wasn’t a violent person and that he did not kill anyone.  That is why I think that the alleged comparison of Tom Holland and other Islamophobes with Breivik was wrong. A better comparison would have been with Radovan Karadzic. 

It is not just the personal grievances that motivate Tom Holland and friends, they also want to protect people like Maajid Nawaz and want to give them unopposed platform to speak on matters of Islam/ Muslims. It doesn’t matter to them and the media broadcasters that these people have no credibility in the mainstream ordinary Muslim communities. Their support and protection of these assets doesn’t come without quid pro quo and Maajid dually obliged by declaring no such thing as Islamophbia.

In 2013 Maajid Nazwa’s Quilliam Foundation was in trouble as it had lost the government funding. In contrast Mo was filming a documentary for the BBC, with the ex head of the EDL, Tommy Robinson. Tom Holland and his co conspirators plotted to undermine this documentary. It is becoming clear that  financial incentives were used to lure Tommy Robinson away from the documentary. At the time Tommy was also experiencing financial difficulties and facing a criminal case for fraud. Next thing we saw was that Tom Holland sitting alongside Maajid Nawaz and Tommy Robinson claiming that Tommy had seen the light and Maajid seemed an uneasy participant in this charade. However, times have changed and despite Tommy now leading the Anti Muslim organisation Pagida UK, Maajid still follows him on Twitter. In my view Tom Holland is as much responsible for this failure to de-radicalise Tommy Robinson as Maajid and Quilliam are.I say that because you can’t expect Tommy Robinson to renounce his anti Muslim/ Islam rhetoric while Tom and others continue to spread the anti Islam/ Muslim rhetoric. Maybe de-radicalisation was just a smoke screen to make him look respectable. Otherwise, the Jewish Chronicle would be interviewing him or the Harry's Place presenting him at the Oxford Union and Douglas Murray writing supportive articles.

There are many co conspirators in the campaign of harassment against Mo including Maajid, David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen,etc. but the following people are at the forefront; Tom Holland, Jeremy Duns and Nicky Campbell. Jeremy Duns has written couple of blogs which are popular with the Islamophobic community. This may turn out to be his most recognised fiction as its free. In recent days we have seen Jeremy and his followers back slapping after the blog got a mention in the satirical magazine, Private Eye. This is probably the only time his work has been mentioned in any reputable publication.

The tweets below show how they conspired and the “methodology” used to allege sock puppetry by Mo. As Paul Varity in his tweet says that the allegations are based on inference only as only twitter knows if people have more than one account and how many accounts from one IP address

Mo Ansar says that he has blocked all of these people for their abusive behaviour and sometime misogynistic comments about his wife. So question arises that despite being blocked, how Tom Holland, Jeremy Duns, Nicky Campbell and others are able to view and comment on Mo’s tweets. As it happens I have been blocked by most of the Quilliam lot, Tom Holland, Jeremy Duns, Nicky Campbell, etc. Twitter does not allow me to follow them or view and review their tweets. Only way round was to open a second account. Therefore, I opened a second account but left enough clues for people to identify me. Some people were able to work it out and blocked the second account as well. One person who failed to spot this was the spy fiction writer and self declared sleuth, Jeremy Duns. He thought my second account was another of fictional sock puppets of Mo. He is not the only one, Nick Cohen also accused me of being Mo Ansar. They are now using accusations of sock puppetry to silence others.  

Mo’s tweets also suggest that he has blocked countless trolls because of continuous harassment. Therefore, only people who could continue to monitor his twitter activity would be newly created accounts. So who is creating these egg/ anonymous accounts? Tom Holland says, and probably Jeremy Duns and Nicky would say the same, that only reason he is able to comment on Mo’s tweets is that other people forward him those tweets. This is a hypocritical defence, as only people supplying would be annonymous trolls or sock puppets. After making allegations of sock puppetry, as a matter of principle, they should not be entertaining anonymous troll accounts. They should not be communicating, following, retweeting or commending commending them for their harassment activities, but they do.

After the popularity of his blog about Mo and new found notoriety Jeremy Duns embarked on spreading rumours about other accounts as being sock puppets of Mo. One person, Anne Fields, has borne the brunt of his belief that she is Mo. She is pursued daily by Jeremy, his friends and an army of trolls with these accusations, without shread of evidence. This is not sleuthing but harassment, plain and simple. Often this harassment turns into ugly misogynistic comments. Sometimes you wonder that, in his pursuit of a confession from Ann that she is Mo, Jeremy will do anything including setting up sock accounts. I have come across several suspicious accounts but one anonymous twitter account under the handle of “That Flashing” looks and acts like a sock account. This account has followers including  Jeremy Duns. The account follows people suspected of being Mo that means it is following 4 accounts named Ann or Ann Fields. I believe other people followed by this account are suspected by the account holder as accounts of Mo. Probably because they interact with him or retweet him. Yours truly is also being followed by this account. This account boasts about having several accounts probably to follow Mo and others "suspected" of being Mo 

 There is another account in the name of Alan Walker and has 22 followers with Nicky Campbell being his first follower. This account also mainly concentrates on Mo and Ann’s twitter activity while following various other Muslim and anti Muslim accounts. Can I make a bold claim like Jeremy Duns and declare these accounts as being sock puppets of Jeremy Duns and Nicky Campbell. Yes I can, but I won’t and let others make their own inferences.

Guess Who is Defending Tommy Robinson!

I look forward to the articles by Douglas Murray of the Spectator and Henry Jackson society. My anxious wait is in a vein hope that maybe just maybe he will talk about something interesting and change his topic to something more akin to the title of his previous “think tank” named “the centre for community cohesion”. I am not talking about the work of this think tank, which was to create divisions rather than cohesion.  Alas week after week I am disappointed to see that his talent remains limited to calling people anti-Semitic and his rhetoric continues to be anti Muslim and anti migrant/ refugee.

He obviously is happy with this static state of intellectuality probably because it attract funders. He has found supporters of this limited talent in the UK, across the pond in the US and through the channel tunnel in the mainland Europe. Not to mention support from the Spectator and the BBC which provides opportunities for regular appearances on the News and ethics programmes. Such appearances often include his friends and fellow beneficiaries of funds from the Gatestone Institute, the Quilliam gang. I am not sure if the Quilliam lot could be classed as his friends, as they receive funds from organisations of which Douglas is a director. And it seems there is no limit to the funding for Quilliam and Henry Jackson Society activities, details here , here and here . Furthermore, quilliam also recieved funding from Sam Harris along with royalties for joint appearances and a joint book. 

Anyway his latest article/ blog ,published on 9^th of January, gives false headline as he did for his article on the anti war protest during the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014. The current article headed “Cologne exposes a crisis in our continent, yet parliament is debating Donald Trump” is nothing more than a defense of Tommy Robinson. May be because, Tommy Robinson is setting up an English branch of the anti Muslim party Pegida. Tommy also attended a rally in Cologne where he declared, we are men, we protect our woman that’s what men do. Although his disparaging remarks about Mrs. Merkel did not go down well with the organisers. It seems Germans still respect their leaders.

This support for Tommy Robinson reminds me courting and grooming of Maajid Nawaz. He was also picked up, after he lost all support from the Muslim community,and propelled into the mainstream as a profit of reform (before you say it spelling mistake is deliberate). The reformist title was borrowed from Ayaan H Ali. It seems Tommy Robinson is another addition to their project. Because while the Quilliam and Maajid Nawaz etc. are projected as reformer to the educated and literati classes, Tommy Robinson would be a foot soldier to appeal to the disaffected lower classes. So, on the one hand Maajid Nawaz will spread the message that there is no such thing as Islamophobia and on the other, Tommy will spread the phobia through Pagida. Tommy has already been given all clear by the Jewish Chronicle for not being anti-Semitic. Now Douglas is asserting that the establishment has been mistreating Tommy while allegedly letting Muslims off the hook. This neatly fits into the narrative of discrimination against white lower classes and favoritism of BME communities.

At the time when Muslim and BME organizations including charities are coming under sustained attack on the recommendation of people like Quilliam, Nick Cohen and Eustonites, Harry’s Place, etc. this alleged victimhood of Tommy Robinson will be a good distraction. Today any organisation or individual who comments on or oppose the governments “Prevent” agenda is being attacked. Universities and other institutions who allow them onto their premises are set upon by the media. To borrow a phrase from Nick Cohen if they succeed silencing Muslim individuals and organisations then “What’s left” will be the Quilliam. That will give real meaning to the George W Bush’s misguided banner of “Mission Accomplished”.

Talking of Nick Cohen, another self proclaimed Liberal and leftist and the author of What’s Left, he has been busy. Did you know that there is a Wikipedia entry , created in December 2015, for the phrase "Regressive Left". If you read the entry, you will say Nick’s figure prints are all over it. Although he has given full credit for coining the phrase to Maajid Nawaz, a little research will show that the phrase has been borrowed from this site.. In any case the word regressive was first used in taxation to show variation of tax according to income. Regressive tax was a good thing though, as it dropped down if your income fell. In a recent interview about resignations and sackings of shadow ministers, Ken Livingston described the sacked and resignees as hard right. In my view this description of resignees/ sacked shadow ministers perfactly fits Nick Cohen and his politics.

The description of Tommy Robinson as a victim of the establishment will soon change to his right to free speech. That will be an hypocritical stand by Douglas Murray and co, who fund an army of snoopers in the false guise of "student rights". They criticise Universities, student unions and University staff for allowing discussion and debate on University premises. Our Universities are famous and admired for their ability to discuss and debate important issues of the day and produce tomorrow’s leaders. However, these people don’t care about the damage to the reputations to our Universities in the international market. They are happy to sacrifice peace and co existence in favour of maintaining purist and supremacist ideology of the far right. In short they want to undermine the community cohesion which took years to build.

Paris Tragedy, Clichés and Cycle of Backlash

Two weeks ago Paris was hit by the massacre of its inhabitants who were enjoying the start of weekend. A total of 130 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured. The loss of innocent life said to be the highest since the world war. Most of us were in a shock and were trying to get our heads round the extent of the tragedy and feeling sorry for the friends and families of the victims. A group of people, however, could not wait for the blood of the victims to dry and started to exploit the tragedy for their twisted agendas. They were firing up tweets, blogs and rants on the media, generally spouting hate. Their behaviour was against all human values of sympathy and respect for the dead. Following is a sample of their tweets:

Barefoot Syrian refugees with
her 3 young children in Europe

 The target of these tweets, refugees fleeing war zone of Syria and other conflict zones. These people have been criticising European Governments for allowing Brown Muslim Refugees into the white Judeo- Christian West. These hate preachers and fear mongers have been opposing the policies of the European Union, in particular the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Threy cheered countries like Hungry for putting obstacles in the miserably hard journey of refugees, which has taken lives of thousands. This exploitation of Paris tragedy shows the depravity of these people. Despite their hateful views, they are the respectable face of the racism/ Islamophbia. In fact some of them are part of a network of Islamophobic industry including the Gatestone Institute and their subsidiaries like the Henry Jackson society and supporters of sub-subsidiaries such as the Quilliam foundation. These are the respectable faces of the hate mongering fraternity. Together they inspire, incite and radicalise ordinary people who don’t just tweet vile abusive and threatening tweets but put that in practice. The inflammatory language used by our media and Politicians doesn't help. The use of words like hoards, swarms and swamping doesn’t help.

When something like Paris tragedy happens clichés such as “they hate the West“ are banded about. However, no one explains that why the large parts of the West like, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, etc are spared of such attacks. Why only countries involved in the conflicts have been targeted by these people? Of course there are other clichés like “they hate our values”, “they hate our lifestyle” and “they love death while we love life”. This message is reinforced with “they are barbarians and savages”. This language stems from the feelings of superiority and racist attitudes that are prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. The attitudes which have been responsible for deaths of unarmed black people in the US and gave rise to the black lives matter movement. This kind of language is also designed to cover up the failures to integrate generations of descendants of migrants who are the main culprits in Paris like tragedies. Furthermore, it is easier to blame people far away for the atrocities than accept the circumstances leading to the enfranchisement of own citizens.

Denial seems to be the name of the game when comes to wars and its consequences. It has been used by the Pentagon after bombing weddings and hospitals etc. Denial of the motives of attacks on the westerners and on the western soil is also part of the same strategy. Recently, Ken Livingston made remarks about 7/7 bombers on a tv programme, saying that they (bombers) gave their life because of a political cause and our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair supporter Matt Forde, who was also a panelist on the same programme, tried to shut Ken Livingston by claiming that it was offenssive to the victims of 7/7 bombing. It is this kind of bullying which is keeping us from discussing the real issues, which are keeping us in a cycle of unending violence. The reality is that only one of the mass murderers of Paris was known for his IS supporting activities. The rest were not known to be religious or known for any extremist tendencies. Some of them ran a bar which was closed for illegal activities, couple of months before the atrocity. It seems that they had become radicalised within that short period of time. Furthermore, at the time of their murderous activity they were high on drugs, not on any kind of religious fervour.      

It is the people like Maajid Nawaz and the sponsors of Quilliam Foundation with their rhetoric of ideology, who have been spreading fear of Islam and Muslims. Then they turn around and claim that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. Over the years, they have been casting increasingly wider net to label all Muslims as Islamists, non violent extremists, etc. The reality is that apart from a cultish group of approx. 200 to 300, which doesn’t believe in the democratic society, the vast majority of Muslims have always taken part in the democratic processes. There have been Muslim councillors and lord mayors going as far back as 1970s and 1980s. There are number of Muslim MPs and ministers in the cabinet and shadow cabinets. The reality is that Quilliam, their sponsors and so called prevent programme is doing real damage to the active participation of Muslims in Politics, Education, Employment, Media, etc. Maybe that is the goal of their sponsors; to undermine, disenfranchise, and suppress the voice of the Muslim community.  

Coming back to the Paris tragedy, there was an immediate backlash from the French in the form of bombing of the alleged capital of Daesh, Raqqa. Bearing in mind that France is already bombing in Syria, why didn't they bomb Raqqa before? Is it because the risk to the civilian population is greater in Raqqa than in other places? If that is the case then how bombing Raqqa civilians will improve their security? Now France has asked UK to join them in the bombing campaign over Syria, where risk of killing civilian population is greater. Although our Government has made an unconvincing case to join France in the bombing campaign in Syria, they may still get approval from the parliament. There is however a concern about the alleged remarks attributed to the PM David Cameron, that people opposing the proposed action in Syria are terrorist sympthisers. This unfortunately confirms that debate is suppressed at the highest level.

After the Paris attacks media talked about backlash against the Muslim citizens of the West. It was an odd prediction as they had nothing to do with what had happened in Paris. However, the backlash has happened, mainly due to the media rhetoric and headlines like in the Sun below. We must not forget the wide spread incitement and abuse on the social media.

The results are painfully clear to the victims of Islamophobic/ racist attacks. Although victims of such abuse are people of all ages, often it is the women who bear the brunt of this hate crime. Most victims are targeted because of their obvious visibility as Arabic/ Asian appearance and this sometimes results in attacks on other brown coloured non Muslim communities too. Women are targeted for such abuse as they are doubly visible as Muslims because of their colour and dress/ hijab and because, like the terrorists, they are probably considered a soft target.

Politicians are no better in addressing the problem. Only the Labour MPs have raised the issue in the Parliament. Shadow equalities minister Kate Green MP raised her concerns about the staggering 300% increase in, already high, Islamophobic attacks. As far as the Government is concerned, they have been busy enacting/ introducing annual instalments of counter terrorism/ extremism legislation / regulations. The Prime Minister has been making major speeches on the prevention strategy. PM and his minister's strong statements and so called prevent programme, has created an atmosphere of suspicion affecting whole of the Muslim community. The role of this approach in the increasing number of Islamophobic attacks and discrimination, affecting daily life from education, employment, public service to charitable activities, can not be denied. Government's reliance on selected individuals and organisations for advice and consultation and not the mainstream communities is responsible for some of its ill thought policies. Unfortunately some of the advisors are motivated by their own agendas. This became clear in the saga of the Cage UK, an organisation named by the Prime Minister in one of his speeches. As it happens the courts disagreed with the assessments made by the people advising him and attacking the charitable status of the organisation.

During the debate on Syria, conservative MP Rahman Chishti raised his concerns about the use of the words Islamic State, which have been abandoned by the UN, US, EU, France and many more, in favour of the Arabic name Daesh.  He said to the PM that the using Islamic State instead of Daesh was giving rise to Islamophobia. PM David Cameron’s response was that dropping Islamic State in favour of Daesh would risk losing the public. Obviously what he was more concerned about losing public support to extend bombing strikes in Syria. Furthermore, he was probably worried about the loss of support from the right wing press and organisations. This supports the idea that such terms are often used for political purposes which is a reckless attitude as it has devastating consequences.

 PM has at many times said that the UK government operates strong anti extremism policies, which he says are the toughest in the world (even Gatestone Institute calls it draconian). However, it seems the government has failed to conduct a thorough impact assessment. Apart from paying lip service, the government has shown no enthusiasm to tackle the scourge of Islamophbia. During the attack on Gaza in 2014, criticism of Israel was described as anti-semitic, by people like Douglas Murray. This is not to say that their weren’t anti-Semitic incidents, there were. This resulted in a robust response by the government to reassure the Jewish community and a parliamentary report on the issue was published.

Now that the parliament has voted to extend the bombing campaign into Syria, there is a risk that any negative implications will undoubtedly result in backlash against the Muslims. Therefore, it is imparitive that the Government reassures the community by acknowledging the existence of the problem of Islamophobia and take steps to reassure the community. Furthermore, it should consult mainstream Muslims to develop strategy to counter and safeguard Muslim citizens. This is important as anti-Muslim hate crime can only lead to disenfranchisement, which is believed to be a major factor in so called radicalisation. 

Not a Normal Country

Some will call this anti-Semitic

On 10^th November an Israeli sponsored account, which spreads state propaganda, tweeted the following:

This account, Israel News Flash, tweets propaganda as "Breaking News". Account tweets are then copied to people like Tommy Robinson, Trek Fatah, KT Hopkins and dozens more by twitter account of Charlie Green who's profile shows that he is an ex diplomat.

The young Palestinian boy in this picture is one of the 80+ Palestinians, mainly teenagers, shot dead by the Israelis since the latest troubles, which started at the beginning of October. During this period 10 Israelis have also been killed. On 13^th November2015 Two more Israelis were killed and one Palestinian was shot dead and over 100 were injured by live bullets at a demonstration. The Palestinians say that majority of the victims of Israeli policy of shoot to kill were unarmed and at the wrong place at the wrong time. A closer inspection of the knife placement in this picture can only strengthen the Palestinian version. The shoot to kill  policy isn’t new but what is new is that it has now been legalised. The Palestinians of any age including children can now be shot and killed for any descent including for stone throwing. Young children, as young as 6/7, can be described as terrorists and imprisoned.

Its not that Israel didn’t imprison children before, it did, however, now it can put them in front of military courts and prison them as terrorists. Furthermore, Israel continue to apply British colonial era practice of demolishing homes of Palestinians, accused of so called terrorist/ descent activity, rendering whole families homeless.

We in the west are  bombarded daily with rhetoric, by trolls on social media, newscasters and politicians like Boris Johnson, that Israel is a modern western democracy. Also that she is the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet I can’t think of a time when this so called democracy wasn’t involved in the suppressive and discriminatory behaviour towards the Palestinians and others living under her rule. This behaviour has been universally condemned, well almost universally. In fact Israel is the only country in the world which has broken/ ignored as many UN resolutions as the years of her existence. Not forgetting a bunch of resolutions which have been vetoed by the United States of America. No wonder Israel behaves like a villainous Mini Me and continues to apply the most brutal, discriminatory and apartheid practices against the Palestinians, Arabs and other minorities.

The fact is that Israel didn’t evolve as an organic nation but more like a creation of science fiction. What I mean is that Israel didn’t come to being because the people had always lived there and had gained independence and nationhood like many of the nations in existence today. Israeli story is more akin to a science fiction where aliens land from another planet. Like the Science Fiction, Israelis were given permission to settle in Palestine by the earth power, which at the time happened to be the British. Then in the fashion of sci fi they turned on the power that gave them sanctuary and the indigenous locals. They went on a terrorising spree of killing and expulsion of not only the indigenous population but also the British Imperialists.   

Israel’s relation with fiction has continued throughout her existence. From divine right to supposed ancestral home to reliant on Hasbara to spread fictional rhetoric. Israel and her supporters spread the rhetoric of being a modern democracy with civilised values. However, when it comes to the reality the picture is anything but that. It is a portrait of dark colonialism and suppressive apartheid. Where mistreatment of minorities, migrants, Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza is a daily reality. Where exists a deliberate policy of discrimination, use of deadly force and suppression. Where intolerance shows in the shape of imprisonment, racial abuse of African migrants. Where claims of gay friendly atmosphere are made but gay pride is attacked and you will have no open doors for sanctuary to gays fleeing persecution. Where criticism of state is banned and so is flying of Palestinian flag. Where you will be denied visa to visit, even to co religious, if state considers that you have been involved in the activity of criticising the state of Israel and her policies of suppression.

Fiction, lying, racism, discrimination, use of deadly force iaren’t limited to rogue elements, it is the official state policy. It starts from the top with the Prime Minister Netanyahu, his advisors, spokes persons, cabinet ministers and the Knesset. We all know the racist broadcast by Netanyahu during the elections, warning that Arabs are voting in droves. His most daring fiction came with attempts to rewrite the history and to rehabilitate Hitler by shifting the blame for holocaust on to the Palestinians and Muslims. It seems that he has started to believe his own Islamophobic propaganda and that can’t be good sign for a person leading a country.

 Israel and Netanyahu are aided and abetted by a group of fiction writers and propagandist. They hold onto the scripted lies and spread the fictional idea of Modern Western Democracy. More often than not they also share Israeli Ideals of racism, discrimination, inhumanity and war. Whether it is the Gatestone institute, Bill Maher, Tommy Robinson, Henry Jackson Society and Douglas Murray, they all spread Islamophobia, racism against the refugees and advocate bombing of other countries. Others include new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and self declared reformed radical Maajid Nawaz.

The hypocrisy of people like Douglas Murray and others is breathtaking. They cry that Syrian and other refugees coming to Europe of ½ billion people will affect Jodeo-Christian culture of Europe (even after acceptance of the refugees Muslims will only be approx 3.5% of the European population). The same people who oppose resettlement of refugees in Europe fervently support the Netanyahu’s policy of importing co-religious to already overpopulated occupied territories of Palestine, where settlers now make approx 30% of the West Bank/ occupied territories.  

These fiction writer Israeli supporters conveniently ignore at least 50 pieces of Israeli legislation, discriminating against the 20% of the “Israel proper” population of Arabs, affecting their family life from Marriage to buying a house. Then there are Palestinians living in the occupied territories in the West Bank. They face daily barrage of bullets, abuse and humiliation, not only from the ever present security forces but also from the armed settlers. The settlers have not only stolen their land, both residential and farming, they have the audacity to claim that they are doing favours by employing Palestinians as slave labour. These settlers are an extremist bunch on par with the IS, Indian RSS and Myanmar’s extremist Buddhists. Settler’s extremism and radicalism is many time greater than Maajid Nawaz’s greatly embellished radicalism.

We must remember the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, who have been subjected to an ongoing medieval style siege. They are surrounded from all sides with no prospects in Gaza and have no chance to escape to better their lives. Along with the walls and barbed wire, they are monitored from Military ships, drones and from time to time bombed by military jets. Last year over 2000 including 500 children of Gaza were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed by what could only be described as mad army. Their lives, livelihoods, health provisions, education, ability to farm and build homes are all subject to control. There homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, power stations and even beaches have been bombed by Israel. They don’t even have control of the safe water supplies.

Israel’s apartheid system is often compared with the South African system but in reality it is worse. As brutal and suppressive it was the South African regime didn’t use tanks and fighter jets against the black population. It did not invade neighbouring countries or sent bomber jets to invade and bomb. It didn’t have the walls erected or watch towers installed. It didn’t kill people at the mass scale as Israel does. It didn’t arrest and imprison children at the unprecedented rate. It didn’t make it legal to shoot and kill stone throwing children, It didn’t classify children and others protesting against the inequalities as terrorists. It didn’t classify the whole swaths of population as terrorists. It didn’t use military courts instead of the civil courts. It didn’t implant 600,000 foreign settlers in already heavily populated areas and armed and trained  them to kill.

During his latest visit to the United States this week, Netanyahu has once again stated that Israel is the only safe space for his co-religious. This is a slap in the face of all western democracies and their freedoms, which has allowed his co-religious people to flourish without any kind of discrimination. The dangerous nature of oppressive policies of Israel are sometimes criticised by some free thinking politicians like the Swedish Foreign Minister speaking after the Paris attacks. Yet this unlikely country continues to receive political support from our politicians and most importantly monitory and military support from the US.  

Dying to be Safe, The Refugee Crisis

Since I wrote this piece the migrant/ refugee story has escalated into a serious crisis. Thousands of refugees are taking a risky journey on overcrowded boats which are not designed for this purpose.  They fled their homes due to the wars, death and destruction to unsafe, overcrowded and badly funded refugee camps. So flee again in search of stable safe and secure life. They have paid their life savings to smugglers  to get them to safety. The tragedies of hundreds of deaths, in the sea and on the European soil, including babies, children, men women and the infirm are piling up. However, this doesn’t deter desperate people as what they left behind is worse than perceived peaceful existence ahead. Instead what they are finding is razor wired fences, army/ police patrols, helicopters, baton charges and tear gas, etc. Thousands are being held in inhumane conditions in camps reminiscent of camps in the early 20^th century. Thousands are sleeping in the fields after Hungry closed her border. 

While the European leaders were concentrating on the hazardous sea journeys between Libya and Italy and the British were preoccupied by the migrants living in the “Jungle”, humanitarian crisis were developing in Greece. War wary refugees were landing in their thousands at the shores of Greece islands. Recession hit Greece but no one came to their help, they hired Ferries to move these people to land. These people then walked hundreds of miles on foot with their children, pregnant women, old and the infirm. However, one European country decided took upon itself to be the Guardian of the European Law and the Christian culture of Europe and decided to block their passage.

Only European leader who kept her head and showed compassion is the German Leader Angela Merkel. It is not the first time Merkel has shown leadership as she is the only European leader who has spoken out against neo Nazi hate groups such as Pagida and other anti immigrant and anti Muslim hate groups. On Wednesday 2^nd September came the news of drowning of a young Kurdish Syrian family including 2 year old Aylan Kurdi hit our TV screens and front pages. However, If there wasn’t a striking picture of the two year old Aylan’s body washing up on shore, this incident would have remained another one of those non important drowning of migrants. How insensitive it might seem to be but the image awakened the humanity which has been lacking for years. The problem has been the brainwashing of our population by our media which has been portraying migrants as spongers and benefit and health tourists. This propaganda continued unabated, despite clear evidence that the migration, recent and historic, has been good for the economy and helped UK and other European economies.

The treatment of refugees in Hungry and other Eastern European countries shows a clear divide between old EU and the new EU countries. In their desire to expand the European and US influence in these countries and to expand their influence in countries bordering Russia, they were fast tracked into the European Union and the NATO. No one considered that these countries, which had been separated from the European civilisation by not only walls of the cold war era but also the development of civilised society. And that they were clinging onto the old historic events with deep held prejudices.

Our politicians and journalists, who lecture their minority communities about integration and values of Europe, failed to educate new comer nations about the values of humanity, human rights and other European values. While old European Union allowed new Europeans to travel freely and showered them with Billions of dollars of aid, it took eye of the important issues and let the scourge of far right develop and spread through partnerships throughout Europe. These partnerships not only developed previous rhetoric of anti-Semitism and racism, it added Islamophobic  rhetoric to their hate programme.

It is this failure, to integrate and educate new members about European values, which is undermining the European unity, culture, and values, resulting in the human rights abuses. While Hungry, currently ruled by a far right party, is taking the lead in demonising Syrian refugees, other Eastern European countries like Poland, Check republic, etc are also refusing to settle some of these refugees in their countries. UK is also refusing to help these refugees, already on the European soil. Europe is clearly going backwards not forward. Only Angela Merkel is upholding the European values but her decision to accommodated hundreds of thousands refugees may also prove to be the most pragmatic.

The same people, who often complain about the economic power of Germans, are attacking her decision to give refuge to these often young, educated and ambitious people. They question her statements about Germany’s ability to absorb Hundreds of thousands refugees and to say Syrian refugees were welcome. Journalists ask Germans silly questions, such as are you welcoming migrants because of the guilt of what happened in the past. They can not comprehend the genuine humanity and compassion.  

The open racism of the Hungarian government, which Nigel Farage described as moderate, shouldn’t be a surprise as 64% of Hungarians hold anti-Semitic views. Now it has become clear that they also hold serious Islamophobic views too. Nigel Farage and Hungarian Ministers say that these refugees aren’t destitute and are from the middle classes, as though only poor classes are affected by wars. Yes these people seems to have the means to pay the people smugglers to reach place of safety but that shouldn’t detract us from the fact that they are fleeing war and struggles they are enduring to reach place of safety. Because these refugees are educated, middle class, UKIP is unable to use the rhetoric of spongers and attraction of the Benefit systems, so they resort to attacking them for being middle class and false claims that it would dilute Christian culture. The reality is that even if 250,000 are accepted in Europe it will only add 0.05% to the existing 3.5% Muslim population of Europe.

People like Nick Cohen and other Eutsonites, Maajid Nawaz, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other so called Liberal Left, should be pleased that their Islamophobic rhetoric has much in common with the Far right Anti-Semitic Hungary and other Eastern Europeans. They also have a commonality with the hate spreading messages of Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone institute. It seems that these champions of Human Rights, Freedoms including Freedom of Speech, Secularism, etc agree that 0.05% addition to the population of Europe threaten European culture and values. I must add that these people, from time to time write about the misery faced by the refugees/ migrants but then go on to support the Government line on this issue. The media including BBC uses suspect surveys to show that majority of the public is against helping the refugees/migrants

Another “liberal left” journalist David Aaronovitch has written about the plight of the Syrian refugees but then he uses this crisis/ tragedy to make a case for intervention. One thing for sure that he is a consistent in his warmongering agenda. He talks about 200,000 deaths in Syria conflict but fails to admit that half of them are caused by the forces opposed to the Assad regime. Furthermore, further military intervention will not only increase the death toll, refugee crisis, it will turn Syria into Libya like lawless country. The only solution is a negotiated settlement but these warmongers don’t want any role by Turkey, Iran and Russia. They previously opposed and undermined UN’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement through Ban Ki Moon’s envoys, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

The right wing media and people like Nick Cohen, Maajid Nawaz, etc use red herrings such as why aren’t Gulf states taking in the refugees. The same rhetoric was repeated by the English Democrats leader, who was given platform by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, on the daily politics show. These are the same people who constantly attack these states for alleged human rights abuses but, because these refugees happen to be Muslim, it is ok for them to go there. In any case majority of Syrian, Afghan and other Muslim refugees are being hosted by the neighbouring Muslim countries. In any case these refugees have spent years in warzones and refugee camps where lives have been stood still. Their children’s education has stalled and often these children are forced to work to earn to put food on table.

Soon headlines and breaking news about refugees will disappear from the front pages and our screens. It is paramount that we keep telling our main stream politicians and governments to show humanity and to put in practice the values they like to talk about. They should show leadership and, as Jeremy Corbyn said, stand up to the menace of far right, hidden right in the cloak of Liberalism and racism and find a European solution to these humanitarian crises on the European land. They should also work to find a peaceful negotiated settlement of the conflicts and they will find many of these refugees will return to rebuild their country.