Ed Husain’s article is so evidently full of paranoid projection that it’s difficult to know where to begin:

Essentially he whinges about Melanie Phillips for criticising the demonstration against al-Muhajiroun, and for pointing out the rank hypocrisy of one Inayat Bunglawala (of whom more below)  who appears to be supporting the moderate Muslims. Husain also goes on to whinge that Melanie Phillips criticised him too. Let’s look for a moment at some of what he said that caused her to do that:

Firstly, in December 2008 Husain wrote in ‘Comment is Free’:

“…Regardless of political condemnations, the crude reality is that Israel has just helped create a new generation of suicide bombers, prepared to stop at nothing. The ideology that justifies and advocates suicide bombings already exists. Israel though, through its recent actions, has just provided the fire that will now re-ignite this poisoned gas. Prevented for now by Israel’s wall and heavy security, the suicide bombers’ will to kill, to avenge will not calm. And where there is a will, victims will always find a way to lash out….”

Note the total lack of context, and that consequently he seemed not to have any awareness at all of how lacking in intelligence his arguments were – there was no mention that Cast Lead was the culmination of years of shelling Israeli civilians. Far from it, Husain reverted to the old belligerent self-pity on which he was probably fed in his days with Hizb-ut-Tahrir – when he implied that Israel forced the Palestinians into years of suicide terror and now, because she had the temerity to act to stop the war crimes against her civilians, said Palestinians cannot help but perpetrate more of the same, and wail when they are bested!

Note also the essential narcissism, no doubt bolstered by writing for a narcissistically-inclined CiF, which will not allow him even to offer any suggestions as to what Israel might have done instead (apart from march herself into the sea), and most importantly what he thinks the Palestinian leadership should have done rather than continue to shell Israeli civilians if it really wanted to avert what ensued.  No doubt, like so many on CiF he thinks of Palestinians as children with behavioural problems who cannot be expected to control themselves.

He then went on to tell us that the Arabs have “.. strong notions of collective honour, dignity, and respect..” and that an attack on some of them is perceived as an attack on them all.  He failed to convince me then, however, and my second reading of that article convinces me even less, that “collective honour… and respect”, however strong the notions of them, can ever be reconciled with using Palestinian civilians as human shields and teaching little children that the high point of their lives should be to martyr themselves murdering Israeli Jews.  No, this was yet another insult to the intelligence by an allegedly reformed Islamist apologist.

In the same article Husain said that he was “no friend of Hamas” but he proved that he is hardly an enemy either:   Nowhere in that December 2008 article did he criticise Hamas at all for the situation into which it got the Palestinians, and nor has he since.  Not once did Husain acknowledge how Hamas had betrayed its people, who were conned into voting it into power on a welfare ticket, and that it then went on to get many of them killed as it could because it needed human shields in its relentless pursuit of fruitless aggression and “if it bleeds it leads.” He must have known that. Why, then, the deafening silence about it?

Husain’s current article is merely a rant, much as he accuses Melanie Phillips of ranting, but with more of the belligerent self-pity so characteristic of even the most reformed Islamist sympathiser. He complains that Muslims are wrongly accused of al-taqiyya whilst not appearing to realise that, for all his displays of moderateness, his own tendency towards al-taqqiya is writ large in this article. For example, he appears not to be aware of the ludicrousness inherent in his statement that the “reformed” Inayat Bunglawala, will  ”once again, oppose racism..” So what?? Bunglawala and Husain can say whatever they wish, but the animus in this article against Melanie Phillips is still argued to put Husain’s own al-taqqiya on display.

(Apropos, Husain seems to have performed a volte face about Bunglawala, too, and doesn’t seem to realise the inherent contradiction in using the latter’s essential al-taqiyya – and he is well aware of it – in  trying to shore up a very shaky argument: In Husain‘s The Islamist, for example, he himself informs us of Bunglawala’s antisemitic credentials).

Finally we go from the sublime to the preternaturally ridiculous. Husain is writing on an avowedly anti-Israel and at times openly antisemitic blog, where Jew-hating comments are often allowed to remain whereas the comments which complain about them are swiftly deleted. He shows no sign of being aware of this, however. Instead he then gives us proof positive that his paranoid projection is in full spate with this priceless jewel:

“… But do fairness and humanity matter to Phillips?…”

without any apparent awareness that his question about Melanie Phillips can be asked as if not more appropriately, about him and his CiF article of December 2008, as well as about this latest ignominious tirade and about CiF in general!