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I wrote here last year about fantasy ideology, a term employed by Lee Harris, to describe the delusions which he argued drive the political terrorism of Al Qaeda and other Islamist entities. Harris argued that Islamist terror has no rationale as we might apprehend it; rather, its essence is unpredictability and confusion and its violent aspects are deliberately promoted by Islamist leaders as a means of gaining political supremacy.
The key marker of a fantasy ideology, according to Harris, is
“… that there must first be a pre-existing collective need for this fantasy; that this need comes from a conflict between a set of collective aspirations and desires, on one hand, and the stern dictates of brutal reality, on the other — a conflict in which a lack of realism is gradually transformed into a penchant for fantasy….”
The above can also describe the essential ingredients of the reactions to the so-called “Arab Spring” by the West as well as in the Middle East.
Key among those ingredients is the lack of realism – it rapidly became plain that although the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, for example, wanted “democracy” and “freedom” they had little idea of what they wanted to bring about, much less a plan as to how to do so. Nevertheless there was and still is certainly the collective need for such a fantasy. The fantasy aspect lies in the apparent belief that freedom and democracy would somehow happen if enough students and others demonstrated in favour of it but without their having actually to do anything else to bring them about.
The riots are still going on and Egypt looks likely to descend into an abyss of Islamism which will put freedom and democracy, however they might choose to operationalise it, further out of their reach.
The fantasies that freedom and democracy could be achieved first by announcing that they wanted it, and then by rioting rather than thinking about how it could be pushed rapidly forward, also spread throughout the Middle East, no doubt again because of the collective need for the fantasy rather than because the main drivers of it could engage in reality-based means/ends analyses of to how to bring it about.
Initially in Tahrir Square, the collective aspirations and desires for “freedom” and “democracy” took little or no account of the stern dictates of brutal reality, ie that such drastic change cannot come about suddenly or quickly or without an infrastructure whereby it can be maintained.
By contrast, when Lenin returned to Russia he had an organisation in place to control and guide the revolution he wished to bring about. Years of planning and underground work had gone into his preparations. However, as I have already described above, the young bloggers and others in Tahrir Square had no organisation and no plan. The only two groups in Egypt that were organised and had a firm plan were the Muslim Brotherhood and the military leadership.
As a result of this, the post-Mubarak era presents Egyptian demonstrators with an infinitely more threatening brutal reality – that of Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood who are frighteningly adept at stepping into the vacuum left by mayhem and uncertainty and appearing to provide answers. In fact their agenda is enslavement and brutality of a far different sort in the name of Islamist supremacy. Elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, the same stern dictates of brutal reality described by Harris have been very much in evidence as the death toll of protestors in the grip of their own fantasy ideology rises steadily at the hands of Assad’s forces.
Arguably the greatest impact on the West’s imagination, however, was made by events in Tahrir Square.
Particularly interesting was the almost immediate disconnection from reality of Western governments and their media when they reported it – it became, in effect another fantasy ideology for them (which they peddled relentlessly to their viewers and readership) as they tried to analyse those events and predict outcomes. The Tahrir Square uprisings provided a vehicle for the media to exaggerate the import of what, after all, were little more than the sort of expressions of discontent we had been witnessing in Muslim countries for decades, albeit on a very much smaller scale.
There seems little doubt that this belief in and the promotion of an “Arab Spring” (the name is borrowed directly from the Prague Spring and is a curious misnomer because that led to years of repression after Dubcek’s failed attempt to bring in democratic rule) met a pre-existing need in the West to perceive Islamic countries as being essentially “just like us” in their needs and aspirations.
The media fell almost en masse into cognitive egocentrism – and mistook, as it so easily does, what it wanted to happen (ie its own hypotheses and expectations) for reality and truth. Because of that much of the brutality of the crowds towards each other in Tahrir Square was either skated over in the Western media or not mentioned at all, perhaps because it did not fit with the story which underpinned the collective need for the fantasy. One notable example of brutality (which, so far as I know was not replicated in the demonstrations in Prague and elsewhere in Eastern Europe) was the sexual assault on CBC’s Lara Logan by a mob in Tahrir Square. Sexual assaults on other female journalists in Egypt were also reported.
In spite of repeated and verifiable reports which showed that the “Arab Spring” represented a fundamental category mistake by the West and its outcome was unlikely to be anything like that of the Velvet Revolution of Vaclav Havel, which is what most of the demonstrators and the media and western governments seemed to want, the majority of the media persisted in their optimistic portrayal of it for an unconscionably long time.
Riots spread across the Arab world, but it took Ian Black in The Guardian until 13th December 2011 to admit that the fate of the region still hung in the balance. Yet we also had an article on 16th December, again in The Guardian, – and it seemed not to be able to prevent itself from mentioning Israel in a poor light – which persisted with its cock-eyed optimism – that a “lost generation” had “found its voice!”
Whether or not that is the case, it seems to suit the Guardian and other media not to spell out that Islamism is inimical to pro-democracy protest or indeed to democracy itself as they might apprehend it. Hamas was “democratically elected” in Gaza, after all, and promptly disposed of its opposition and has held no elections since.
This should scarcely be surprising given that the essence of Islamism is submission to authoritarianism.
Old habits die hard.
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'Muslims against Crusades' demonstrating in London in 2010. The group threatened the life of MP Freer
Harriet Sherwood is never slow to condemn Israel about anything. Usually, however, her burblings are not deemed worthy by her Guardian masters to merit reader comments below such reports. However an exception was made (I suspect in order to crank up vitriol below the line) for her article on the reprehensible behaviour of Haredim towards school girls in Bet Shemesh – which many Haredim themselves deemed reprehensible and, in fact, spoke out and acted against.
However, at almost the same time, and far away from the Guardian’s fairy tale world of habitual Israeli villainy, a rather disturbing incident kicked off in the UK. You would not know about it if you read only the Guardian because it has not been reported there at all thus far, but the nasty little self-proclaimed organisation for the propagation of Islam and sharia rule, Muslims against Crusades, have been busy making their egregious presence felt in a mosque in north London. The BBC tells us all about it :
Conservative MP Mike Freer was holding a constituency surgery at the North Finchley mosque in north London when a group of 12 men forced their way into the room. The BBC article refers to Freer’s report of a message posted before the incident on the Muslims Against Crusades website which referred to the attack on Labour MP Stephen Timms, who was stabbed while holding a surgery in east London last year. (The web page has since been removed). The message referred to the attack on Mr Timms and said that it should serve as a “piercing reminder” to politicians that “their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area”. Not mentioned by the BBC, however, is that Mr Freer had been prominent in the campaign to deport Raed Salah.
The overweening arrogance of Muslims against Crusades is not without precedent in the UK, whose successive governments have, to their shame, caved in all too easily to similarly inappropriate and misplaced infringements upon the rights and freedoms of its citizens in London and elsewhere by such radicalized Muslims who deliberately set themselves apart and live in separate societal groups governed by sharia law. One rationale for their behaviour may be explained as follows:
The Muslim concept of hijra is used to describe a migration – or more accurately, and perhaps tellingly, a flight – and in particular the flight of Muhammad and his followers in 622 AD from Mecca, where they were persecuted, to Medina, where they established the first Islamic state. The process of migrating and establishing a Muslim community in a non-Muslim context, is an important aspect of the Muslim perception of the territorialism of the umma. It has an important place in Islamic theology and it also raises interesting questions about a significant number of Muslim immigrants who – rather than interacting with the indigent communities to which they have migrated and respecting their social mores – encourage, if not attempt to compel, that community to adopt their own view of the world.
Muslims who hold such view may see the establishment of a Muslim community in the UK as a contemporary hijra. However, Sookhdeo (2005) says that an important question arises as to which seventh century hijra they compare it: the hijra to Abyssinia in which the Muslims became contented and loyal subjects of a Christian king, or the hijra to Medina where they seized political and military power. My belief is that ‘Muslims against Crusades’ would like to imitate the hijra to Medina, as has started with the Tower Hamlets travesty, which took place with the connivance of the UK government, and spreading it elsewhere.
Turning again to the incident in the North Finchley mosque, it shouldn’t, of course, matter to anyone if MP Freer is indeed a Jew and/or gay, yet ‘Muslims against Crusades’, in stark opposition to the social mores of a multicultural UK, broke into the room where Freer was speaking and made explicitly antisemitic and homophobic remarks – reportedly calling him a “Jewish homosexual pig“.
We are also led to believe from the BBC’s account that so threatened did Mike Freer and the mosque staff feel that they locked him in a room for his own protection and the police were called. Nevertheless no arrests were made.
So far as I am aware no mosque representative has yet come forward to speak out against the reprehensible behaviour of Muslims against Crusades towards Mr Freer – a minimum gesture which would go some way to improving the image of the North Finchley Mosque and its members.
It certainly seems reasonable to expect that the government ought to show some backbone – and moral consistency – and ban Muslims for Crusades because of the group’s undeniable threat to social cohesion.
Three aspects of that incident are chilling:
The first is that Muslims for Crusades could so easily enter the building and threaten Mr Freer. We are told that there was a noisy demonstration outside the building when he arrived. Why was there no security at the doors to prevent the mob from entering?
The second (which links to the lack of security provision) is that the members of the mosque felt so incapable of asserting their right to do what they wanted within their premises that they allowed this to happen. Those readers who have heard the highly vocal Muslims against Crusades in action will be well aware of how intimidating they can be;
The third is Muslims for Crusades’ warning to politicians that “their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area”. This is a prime example of the results of what Sookhdeo (2005) calls the “sacralisation of space” which follows on from the Muslim hijra. As Sookhdeo writes:
“..Two other Islamic principles [besides hijra] are important subjects of debate among contemporary Muslims. The first concerns ‘sacred space’. Islam is a territorial religion. Any space once gained is considered sacred and should belong to the umma forever. Any lost space must be regained — even by force if necessary. Migrant Muslim communities in the West are constantly engaged in sacralising new areas — first the inner private spaces of their homes and mosques, and latterly whole neighbourhoods (e.g., Birmingham) by means of marches and processions. So the ultimate end of sacred space theology is autonomy for Muslims of the UK under Islamic law….”
We know that these have happened in Tower Hamlets in London and elsewhere in the UK, but the government seems deaf, dumb and blind to this latest no-go area and grave threat to social cohesion.
On the website of ‘Muslims against Crusades’ they warn that MP Freer is “an avid promoter of teaching homosexuality and lesbianism in schools”.
The statement on Freer ends by adding that “Islam will dominate the UK and the world.”
What will it take, I wonder, for the UK to wake up?
Related articles
- The Guardian’s long crusade in defense of radical Islamist Raed Salah is dealt a heavy blow. (cifwatch.com)
- Another adherent to radical Islam welcomed by the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
- Blogger, heal thyself (cifwatch.com)
Hamas Produced Poster
The last month has seen momentous events in Israel following the release of Gilad Shalit from his captivity by Hamas. His freedom, bought as a result of Israel’s agreement to the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, was controversial to say the least, but that is not the main topic of this article.
Instead I believe it would be useful to expand on the circumstances and conditions under which Gilad Shalit may well have been held and view Shalit’s treatment by Hamas through the lens of Professor Simon Baron-Cohen’s Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty.
Baron-Cohen makes clear that he does not accept the concept of “evil”, rather he argues that what we come to perceive as “evil” is a complete failure of empathic attunement on the part of the wrongdoer. I admire Baron-Cohen’s work and his attempts to redefine evil. I can see why he has taken the approach that he has and it is an exciting theory, but I do not agree that it can be applied to the rationale for the behaviour of entities like Hamas. I shall explain why below.
Baron-Cohen’s book is, among other things, an excellent introduction for the layman to the extent to which the brain is thought to influence behaviour. He posits the existence of an empathy circuit which can be assessed on MRI scans, and which, if the circuit is damaged by injury or fails to develop because of childhood abuse, actually shows deficit. Baron-Cohen is himself a world-renowned expert in the study of autistic spectrum disorders and Asperger’s Syndrome, both of which may be perceived, albeit very simplistically as I describe it here, as a profound inability on the part of the suffer to empathise or to apprehend how another person might think or feel, a deficit which affects all facets of their lives.
Empathy, as Baron-Cohen defines it, is our ability to identify what somebody else is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their thoughts and feelings with an appropriate emotion. Thus Baron-Cohen suggests that there are two stages in empathy – recognition and response. A sufficiently empathic person can therefore recognise when someone is upset, for example, and in some cases even feel upset themselves and react and perhaps act with appropriate sympathy. A person who possesses what Baron-Cohen calls zero degrees of empathy lacks either recognition of emotion in others, or the capability for appropriate response, or both.
The total absence of empathy is not necessarily evil but I argue that in certain circumstances it can facilitate evil acts. The capability to feel empathy fluctuates in and between individuals. I have said above that people with Asperger’s or on the autism spectrum may have great difficulty in apprehending how others feel, and of course they cannot be blamed for that. However, what about others who know very well how their victim feels when they ill-treat him but do not care about or even enjoy the pain they cause? Like Baron-Cohen, I would classify such people as psychopaths who are not only immoral but also amoral. However, whereas Baron-Cohen advocates understanding their behaviour, I do not.
Unless one is a research or academic psychologist or psychiatrist, there is little to be gained from it. Such evil intent and action on the part of Hamas and its fellow Islamists is felt on to a mass scale towards Israel and its Jews, and is almost identical to that of the Nazis for Jews, and that needs to be fought against. Merely understanding it and reframing it as total lack of empathy cannot save the lives of those at whom it is directed. Such reframing also conflates the possible explanation for the behaviour with the results of that behaviour.
I shall never forget how frail, unwell and emaciated Gilad Shalit looked on his release, in comparison with the healthy, well-fed Palestinian prisoners released by Israel. What can have motivated such treatment of Shalit? One clue lies in the statement in 2009 of Abu Marzuk, deputy chief of the Hamas Political Ministry. Marzuk said he was not interested in Shalit’s well-being, and added: ”We are not giving him any special guard since he is as good as a cat or less.” (emphasis added).
Here is as frank an admission as any of the psychopathy of Hamas and the utter degradation of any humanity and complete absence of empathy in its treatment of Gilad Shalit, and on many occasions towards its own people. Psychopaths may often have a history of torturing animals for pleasure. Gilad Shalit’s presentation on his release evidenced that he had been kept in conditions of extreme privation and that Hamas had indeed perceived him as being less than an animal.
As further proof, I invite you to cast your minds back to the egregious celebration by Hamas in Gaza of their 21st anniversary, in which a crowd of thousands mocked a Hamas member dressed up as Gilad Shalit who begged and pleaded to be set free and said that he missed his mother and father. Did any of these have any creature feeling or empathy for the suffering of Gilad Shalit of his parents? If so, why add to their misery? Did they have the ability, in the terms of Baron-Cohen’s definition, to identify what the Shalit parents might be thinking or feeling, and to respond to their thoughts and feelings with an appropriate emotion? To argue that they had zero degrees of empathy may well have provided sufficient explanation for their behaviour, but that behaviour was evil.
Here is a test for your own empathic attunement. Remember to try to empathise:
- How might Gilad Shalit’s parents have felt when they heard about this?
- Did Hamas have any reservations about causing anguish to Gilad Shalit’s parents? Do you think they were aware of that anguish?
- Why do you think so? Why not?
- How might those who organised this travesty have felt while it was going on? Was Gilad Shalit a flesh and blood person to them or an object to be used for propaganda?
- Why has not the Israeli government treated Palestinian prisoners in like terms? What do you think stops them from doing that and why did that not stop Hamas?
- In the light of what we have seen of the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails what is the main difference between the Israeli view of Palestinian prisoners and Hamas’ view of Gilad Shalit?
The willingness of Hamas to inculcate hatred and the wish for painful “glorious” death even into the very young, adds to the evidence for the existence of mass psychopathy within the organisation. It goes against every law of nature to endanger one’s own children deliberately. It is, quite literally, dysfunctional and it murders the nation’s future.
Therefore, in spite of Baron-Cohen’s analysis that the Hamas animals who exhibit such utter degradation of any humanity in their behaviour towards Gilad Shalit, and on many occasions towards their own people, show zero degrees of empathy rather than are evil, I have to conclude that they are psychopaths by his own definition. Although they are indeed utterly lacking in empathy, to persist in defining what is essentially evil in their behaviour in such terms is to resort to mere semantics and almost to absolve them from guilt and blame for that behaviour. Also, for me to remove the label of evil from them implies that I believe that they are capable of change and being reasoned with. I do not. It is evident that there is a total and deeply atavistic lack of creature feeling in them, otherwise they could not have treated Gilad Shalit as they did and for as long as they did.
Therefore Israel must continue to counter this evil with all the force it can muster whenever it rears its ugly head, all the while knowing that, given its past showing, Hamas cannot somehow miraculously be forced to change into a trustworthy peace partner which will mean it no harm. That is an invidious position to be in, but the psychological victory of getting its son back alive sends a positive message to its people.
Addendum: The Israeli decision about exchange to get its son home is not without precedent and I found the following curiously comforting. An analogy can be drawn between the following account from Roman times particularly in regard to the state of the released Palestinian prisoners and their use to their murderous masters after many years of living in comparative luxury in Israeli prisons:
The Roman senator, Regulus, (c307 BC – c250 BC) foresaw the effects of the exchange when the Carthaginians sent him on his own recognisance back to Rome to negotiate his release and that of other Roman captives in exchange for peace. The poet, Horace (writing in 23 BC) bewailed the fact that Romans could be captured and yet endure living a normal life in the country of their captors. Horace has Regulus encouraging the Roman Senate to reject the terms for the release of the prisoners, because the freed Roman soldiers, rather than fighting all the more fiercely because of their captivity, would be degraded and worthless as fighting men.
May this also prove to be the case in respect of the freed Palestinians and their use to Hamas.
Related articles
- Guardian Letters Editor abets distortion of Gilad Shalit’s comments about Palestinian prisoners (cifwatch.com)
- Deborah Orr “chosen people” update:Israel to free 25 Egyptians for 1 Jew, thus Jews 25 X more valuable than Egyptians (cifwatch.com)
- Jewish supremacism revisited: And, Deborah Orr’s faulty memory (cifwatch.com)
- Shalit after Hamas captivity vs Palestinian terrorists after Israeli incarceration: A visual/moral contrast (cifwatch.com)
GAZA CITY, Gaza City – A leader of the Palestinian militant group that captured the Israeli soldier swapped this week for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners said Saturday that the soldier was treated well during his captivity.
Zuhair Al-Qaisi of the Popular Resistance Committees told The Associated Press that Gilad Schalit was given sufficient food and allowed to watch Hebrew-language TV.
Schalit was notably gaunt, pale and exhausted when he was freed. His father says his son is suffering from malnutrition, the effects of isolation and lack of exposure to sun and also wounds sustained during his capture that had not been treated properly. Noam Schalit also said his son “endured harsh things” in his more than five years of captivity in Gaza.
Al-Qaisi dismissed the accusations, saying that Schalit was provided food that “fits him as a Jew,” by which he appeared to mean kosher food….”
“The way Schalit looked when he was released proved that he was treated well,” said Al-Qaisi.
However, look at the following.
Note Schalit’s appearance during the infamous Egyptian TV interview, and then later when he was finally on Israeli soil:
Does Gilad Schalit look fit, well-fed and cared for? Does he seem to be as healthy as the terrorists kept at the Israeli taxpayers’ expense?
Judge for yourselves from the Palestinian photographs below. Note the significant difference between the appearance of the freed Palestinians and that of Schalit.
(Note also that these photographs, by Talla Photography, were taken from pro-Palestinian web pages. I collected them so that, despite the bizarre accusations circulating that the photographs and film footage of Schalit had been doctored to make him look more unwell than he actually was, there can be no credible claims that these photographs have been altered by the Palestinian media to make the subjects look fit, well, suntanned and healthy) :
The latest Wikileaks disclosures remind me of the sickening display by Ken Livingstone, then Mayor of London, when he embraced Youssef al-Qaradawi, supporter of the suicide murder of Israeli civilians, outside City Hall in July 2004.
Yousef al-Qaradawi embraced by Ken Livingstone
According to the BBC News Channel in 2005, Livingstone justified his decision to welcome al-Qaradawi to the UK when he said that engaging with him would help enhance relations between Islam and the West. Livingstone told a press conference:
“When you get a progressive figure who is moving that religion in the correct direction you engage and you develop it. ..” [emphasis mine].
Was this a foolish or a cynical remark? So far as Livingstone is concerned, it is difficult to tease out one from the other.
UK governments, of whatever stripe, have a woeful record of dealing with Islamists who mean UK citizens harm, and they even promoted them to positions of power within the civil service. Therefore, when al-Qaradawi applied for a visa to enter the UK again after the Islamist-perpetrated 7/7 suicide attacks, one Mockbul Ali, the Foreign Communication Office’s Islamic issues adviser argued that he should be allowed to enter:
“Exclusion … could turn Muslim opinion further against the UK and encourage some to move to violence against British targets.”
In a restricted, leaked memo, Mockbul Ali referred to al-Qaradawi as not presenting a danger to the UK, and argued that many of the accusations against al-Qaradawi “had come from the [Jewish] Board of Deputies.”
The Sunday Times later disclosed the distinctly dubious credentials of the allegedly “moderate” Mockbul Ali. The leaked memo led to a public outcry which led to al-Qaradawi indeed being banned from entry into the UK, and in spite of Ken Livingstone’s threat to sue the government, the latter for once remained unmoved.
Whether or not the government had been shamed into banning al-Qaradawi, the end result was arguably a very important one, in that it delayed, for a time at least, the inroads into the UK by radical Islamists was spearheaded by one of its chief proponents.
For Youssef al-Qaradawi himself is no moderate. On the contrary, he is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has, reportedly, substantial wealth as a result of being sharia adviser to many important Islamic banks and funds. He is also considered to be the “spiritual guide” for Hamas and is chiefly to blame for the issuing of the fatwahs in support of the suicide murder of Israeli citizens which led to the many deaths in the Second Intifada.
A Salafist, al-Qaradawi believes that the sharia should be adhered to and enacted literally (although he is adept at the mental juggling which justifies bending the rules in the furtherance of what he sees as the ends). He has written that all Jews and Muslims will fight each other in a final battle in which Muslims will emerge victorious. True to paranoid radical Islamist type, al-Qaradawi also believes, and has written, that Israel plots against the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Nina Weidl writes in the first of a two part article (the second part focuses on Tariq Ramadan’s attempts to make common cause with the European Left) about al-Qaradawi’s motivation in respect of the spreading of Islamism in the West. This is al-Qaradawi’s interpretation of helping to enhance relations between the West and the Muslim religion. Its aims are unequivocal and chilling in equal measure, and alarming because of the extent to which it can already be argued to be successful in the UK:
“For Qaradawi, Muslim settlement in the West isn’t simply religiously permissible. It is, he argues, a religious necessity and an obligation for the worldwide Islamic revival movement. The Muslim presence in the West is necessary because it enables the conduct of dawa, which in Qaradawi’s view serves multiple purposes—from proselytization to Europeans, to creating Islamic enclaves and an Islamic environment for Muslim immigrants and European converts, to influencing the the social and political climate towards Islam and the Muslim Nation (umma) within Western societies Moreover, he claims that “persuading the West of the necessity of the emergence of Islam as a guiding and leading force” will eventually mean that Western governments will bring pressure to bear on Muslim rulers to adopt more lenient policies toward the Islamic Movement in their own countries. In Qaradawi’s eyes, this will “certainly be a great benefit” for the global Islamic movement. Qaradawi ultimately believes that Islam will be established as the dominant religious and political force in Europe through dawa. As he has written, “Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor after being expelled from it twice … the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology.”
Weidl concludes that al-Qaradawi sees Muslims in the West as able to create a “pro-Islamist environment” to counter what he sees as Jewish influence, and she continues by arguing that al-Qaradawi’s juristic reasoning clears the way for new methods of dawa and dialogue and for influencing the society from within.
Using all forms of media for dawa purposes had already been encouraged by [Hassan al] Banna, but al-Qaradawi additionally encourages Muslims to study and strive for important positions in media, the arts, and the human sciences and social sciences in order to influence European society from “above.” Al-Qaradawi calls this process an “Islamisation” of these arts. In addition to al-Qaradawi’s call to imbue the arts and sciences with the principles of political Islam, he also attempts to Islamise the understandings of Western political concepts such as feminism, democracy and civil and human rights.
For instance, in a fatwa on the status of women in Islam, he declares that Muslim women are not inferior to Muslim men, but he adds that this is based on the Islamic comprehension of equality before Allah, but not on the Western comprehension of gender equality. Over the long-range, al-Qaradawi believes these diverse intellectual and media-based activities will ultimately create a pro-Islamist environment within Europe that will counter what he describes (citing a widespread stereotype) as the monopolization of these areas by Jews.
Weidl’s description of al-Qaradawi’s views about freedom:
The application of the fiqh (sharia law) of balances allows Qaradawi to issue fatwas that permit Muslims to participate in European society to a greater degree than classical Islamic law permits—but only under the condition that this serves the interests of the Islamic Movement. Qaradawi explains that, for example, working in a non-Islamic bank is not forbidden if the work and the knowledge gained from it substantially benefit the movement. Under the same conditions he also declares that it is permissible for Muslims to publish in non-Islamic journals, to become involved in non-Islamic governmental and civic institutions, to engage in media of all kinds, and to form alliances with non-Islamic movements, parties and other groups. Taken as a whole, he calls this participation “the divine duty of the call (dawa),” because it makes “our word [of Islam] reach them [non-Muslims].”
Qaradawi’s desire to improve the image of Islam, especially with regard to violence, women’s rights or democracy, remains considerably proscribed by his adherence to traditional frameworks, as well as to salafist revivalist ideology. For example, in a fatwa entitled “Freedom of expression from an Islamic perspective” al-Qaradawi guarantees this freedom only on condition “that religion should not be toyed with;” freedom “to such extent that it commands Muslims to struggle and fight in (the) cause (of Islam).” In other words, freedom of expression is valid only within the framework of the sharia, and reinterpreted in the context of a duty to struggle for Islam. Here, Qaradawi follows the opinion of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which issued the “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam” in 1990. Article 22 subordinates freedom of expression to sharia law, and the duty of “enjoining right and forbidding wrong.” It states, “Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shariah.” Needless to say, Qaradawi’s conception of Islamic freedom remains deeply antithetical to liberal conceptions of freedom—a fact that suggests that his dawa will likely continue to be a source of cultural and political friction within the West. [emphasis added]
In light of all the foregoing, and the latest disclosures by Wikileaks, look again at the embrace of Ken Livingstone by al-Qaradawi. What was al-Qaradawi’s real motive for quite literally sucking up to the then most important public figure in London? What was Ken Livingstone’s real motive for identifying with this instigator and supporter of Islamist terror attacks? Was Livingstone merely ignorant or was he cynically manipulating his electorate? Was he al-Qaradawi’s willing dupe?
It is truly alarming that Ken Livingstone was so quickly entranced by the “smoke and mirrors” of al-Qaradawi’s al-taqiyya as to ignore the dangers for democracy inherent in making common cause with such a one, and even to threaten to sue the UK government when al-Qaradawi was banned from entering the UK in 2005. Of course he did not but, showmanship apart, this illustrates very well the depths to which some politicians would sink in order to get votes.
The entrancement is still evident, too, in the UK government’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the danger to it still presented by various Islamist bodies which find shelter in the UK, among them Hizb-ut-Tahrir which Tony Blair said that he would ban immediately after the 7/7 atrocities.
What will it take, I wonder, to wake them up?
Related articles
- The Guardian’s “democratic” Islamist leader: Kill every last Jew on earth (cifwatch.com)
- Blogger, heal theyself (cifwatch.com)
From the BBC Radio 4 news today and today’s Daily Telegraph comes word of the latest Guardian hypocrisy, that a senior Guardian journalist, Amelia Hill, has been questioned under caution* by the Metropolitan Police in London in connection with the telephone hacking scandal. According to the Daily Telegraph, she is thought to have published information based on leaks from an officer assigned to the inquiry into the News of the World’s voice mail hacking.
I cannot deny that Schadenfreude rules for me. It appears that the Guardian, so eager and quick to point the finger at the News of the World, may itself be implicated in the very sleaze it condemns. The biter seems to have been bitten.
But although the Guardian’s Teflon coating seems to be getting worn, note the following attempt to deflect from Dan Roberts, the paper’s national news editor, who tweeted that the developments were a “bleak day for journalism when (a) reporter behind vital hacking revelations is criminalised for doing her job”. What on earth could he have meant – that the “bleak day for journalism” was because another Guardian reporter has been implicated in underhanded, possibly illegal and certainly unethical behaviour?
*Interviews under caution are conducted when the police would like to speak to a person about an arrestable offence. Amelia Hill is likely to have received documentation along the following lines:
CLICK TO ENLARGE
A Guardian Reporter’s Prayer:
Our Editor, which art in King’s Place
Rusbridger be thy name
Thy time has come
To be undone
For thy sins against the truth;
But give us this day thy latest excuse
That the readership may forgive our lies
As we forgive thy spin to us;
And lead us not into the arms of the Met
But deliver us from government enquiry;
For thine is the (ever-shrinking) kingdom,
The power and misplaced glory
But not for long
Amen
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As we know, the Guardian was in the forefront of the baying hounds of condemnation in its coverage of the News of the World’s telephone hacking scandal. I have a mental image of Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger in angel’s garb, complete with halo, pointing a judgmental finger at the devil-depicted News of the World.
One cannot help but be skeptical about the subtext of the Guardian’s precious, pious and censorious attitude. After all, this is the newspaper which gave us the lies about the Jenin “massacre” (but see also here and how subsequently the Guardian “almost-but-not-quite” retracted its libel) as well as the abhorrent obituary for Nizar Rayyan, Hamas suicide bomber recruiter. It is also the newspaper which regularly invites Islamist terrorists and their supporters to write for Comment is Free.
In the light of all this and much more, one can be excused for assuming that, given the appropriate facilitating environment, the Guardian would almost certainly stoop to the depths of the News of the World and then lie through its collective teeth that it had done any such thing.
And indeed it has, as we have seen in the latest revelations about David Leigh’s methods of investigative news gathering.
Of course we have only his word that the telephone messages he hacked into were those of “a corrupt arms company executive” since he does not name the person – they could have been anybody’s messages.
So far as I know there was no police enquiry, and no arrest resulting from his activities. Had the hacking really been in the public interest the results of it would almost certainly have made the front pages of every major newspaper, which means that we cannot be sure in whose interests he was acting when he appears to have violated the law. Although Leigh is quoted as saying, the “privacy cards are stacked in favour of the rich and powerful”, what on earth gives him, or any other Guardian journalists, the right to define what precisely is in “the public interest”, and how to determine when such a serious personal intrusion is warranted?
It therefore gives me considerable satisfaction to note that the Guardian’s chickens may at last be coming home to roost.
At the very least the Guardian will not remain untouched by the dirt and debris spread by the phone hacking scandals. Leigh, in the fashion of the arrogant who believe that rules, regulations and societal and professional norms of decency do not apply to them may, like Icarus who flew too near to the sun, have fallen victim to his own hubris. The skewed sense of ethics which underlies not only Leigh’s activities but also his perception of the morality of his behavior is intriguing and disturbing – though not surprising given that this is, after all, the Guardian.
Leigh’s actions, and his subsequent boasting about them, mirror the Guardian World-View and its perception of the unswerving rectitude of its own conduct. Leigh clearly believes that ethical norms do not apply to him and actually seems proud of what he did.
A curious anomaly therefore presents itself:
Although the Guardian is quoted as saying that the paper “does not authorise and has not authorised phone hacking,” Alan Rusbridger himself is on record as saying that “any intrusions must be authorised at a sufficiently senior level and with appropriate oversight.”
(What precisely does Rusbridger mean by “intrusions”? Is this Rusbridger dissimulation for voice mail interception or other breaches of privacy? Was Rusbridger’s statement an admission that there are and have been intrusions, or was it another example of Guardian hubris or a slip of the tongue?).
Did Leigh listen to or “intrude” into private voicemail messages without the knowledge or permission of his seniors or did Rusbridger himself authorise Leigh’s “intrusion”?
I would be willing to bet that the Guardian’s and Leigh’s defence will be based on semantics, and on what exactly might constitute “hacking.” According to Leigh:
“… The trick was a simple one: the businessman in question had inadvertently left his pin code on a print-out and all that was needed was to dial straight into his voicemail…”
Note that Leigh calls his intrusion into privacy a “trick” rather than anything else, but the whole incident, as Leigh recounts it, should ring warning bells:
If this businessman was indeed corrupt and engaged in shady arms deals, why on earth would he record his telephone pin number anywhere, let alone print it out, “inadvertently” or otherwise where the likes of Leigh could find it? One would imagine that he would have more of a sense of danger than to do that.
Even assuming that Leigh is not being economical with the actualite, was it ethically sound for Leigh to dial in to the man’s voicemail? Was it even remotely connected to the “last resort” argument put forward by Leigh, under which hacking or interception could be justified? Since we do not know who Leigh hacked or intercepted, we cannot know whether he practised what he preached – that it should be done only as a last resort – or whether he merely took an opportunity which presented itself.
If the latter, then Leigh was on a fishing expedition. He was not looking for specific information, rather he was hoping to find information on the off-chance. If that were the case, then how would Leigh’s rationale for his conduct have constituted what Ben Riley-Smith, writing on The First Post, calls a “watertight public interest defence”?
Might Leigh, and ipso facto Rusbridger, be guilty of any crime if Leigh’s boasting has a basis in truth? I am no lawyer, but the following is intriguing.
Rusbridger, being the Editor, and Leigh by doing the deed under Rusbridger’s real or imagined “oversight” may have infringed Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act, 1990. Of course it may be moot whether voice mail data can be fully comparable to data held on a computer but, nevertheless:
The Section 1 offence “Unauthorised access to computer materials (hacking)” provides that someone is guilty of the offence if:
• he causes a computer to perform any function
(a) with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer
(b) or to enable any such access to be secured
• the access he intends to secure, or to enable to be secured, is unauthorised
I have set out above the difficulties I have with Leigh’s story of how he came by the man’s pin number. Added to that the obvious intent by Leigh to access the other man’s voicemail as evidenced by Leigh’s confession and his actions once he got the pin number, however he got it, and it seems that many more questions are shopping for answers.
All of which actions, as well as Leigh’s own admission that “…it is hard to keep on the right side of legality on all occasions ….” point yet again to the essential lack of ethical standards at the Guardian.
Rusbridger’s rag lost its reputation for fair and honest reporting long ago. It honours the NUJ’s Code of Conduct more in the breach than in the observance. It has the collective moral reasoning age of a five-year old who believes that an action is wrong only in terms of the punishment it will attract if the wrongdoing is found out, and yet too readily sets itself up as the arbiter of what constitutes moral behaviour of the politicians and others it criticises. It will be interesting to see what transpires as a result of Leigh’s hubris.
Rusbridger has many questions to answer, among which are:
1. When does he intend to hold an enquiry into Leigh’s conduct?
2. Whether (as mentioned above) he gave permission and provided “oversight” for Leigh to intercept voicemail, and if so, why did the Guardian spokeswoman deny that such conduct occurs there?
3. How widespread is voicemail interception as a method of news-gathering at the Guardian?
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The Guardian Online has been confusing lately. More and more Guardian articles are closed to comments. Why is that? Are they having to lay off moderators or rely on school leavers/holiday job volunteers? Why are they departing so markedly from their format of printing guff about Israel and by not allowing even their own baying hounds to vent their hatred?
No comments are allowed either below the article in the World News section about Hamas hanging two Palestinians, allegedly for spying for Israel.
Hamas executing political opponents in Gaza.
Accusing their political enemies of spying for Israel is the strong suit of every Arab government in the Middle East, as Daniel Pipes says in his book “The Hidden Hand” , so that should not surprise us.
Nevertheless not allowing comments below the Guardian article is bizarre, given the readiness of the Guardian, and particularly Comment is Free, to leap to the defence of Hamas and give its apologists all the column inches they want to spout their particular brand of distortion.
Why, I wonder, is there no attempt to explain away Hamas’ behaviour or at least give the Guardianista anti-Israel knuckle draggers the opportunity to do so below the line? Also curious is that this article is stripped of the usual anti-Israel / pro-Hamas hype one expects from the Guardian.
We see from the article that the two men, aged 60 and 29, (who according to CNN were father and son) were hanged at dawn on 26 July. The Guardian article says that the Hamas spokesman would give no further details, so we do not know from that article whether they were tried or whether this was a summary execution in the manner preferred by Hamas of its enemies, real and/or imagined. CNN, however, tells us that they had been convicted in 2004 of assisting the enemy and providing information used to assassinate Palestinians. It is interesting to note the egregious double standard here, that Hamas executed two men for colluding with the very crimes (ie assassinating Palestinians) that it itself committed subsequently against Fatah:
“According to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the families of the men received a call at 1 a.m. Tuesday, asking them to visit their relatives. The meeting took place until 3 a.m., and at 6 a.m. the men’s bodies were received at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital.
“It appears from the state of the bodies that the men were hanged,” a statement from Al Mezan says. The center noted the danger in collaborating with Israel, but said that “(while) it is important to bring them to justice, we strongly object to the use of the death penalty and see the move by Hamas as illegal.”
[Question 1: If CNN could find this out, why didn't the Guardian print the whole story? *
Anomaly 1: According to CNN, these men were arrested in 2004 and Israel left Gaza in September 2005. I am not sure – and the article does not make clear – exactly how they fell into the hands of Hamas, when Fatah was presumably in charge of maintaining what passed for civil law and order in Gaza at the time of their arrest. Perhaps it happened after the Hamas coup and the bloodletting and murder of Fatah operatives when Hamas took over the jail system. But why wait seven years to execute these men if the case against them is clear-cut? Is Hamas losing its grip and therefore it needs to make an example of them now? So many questions shopping for answers!]
Conjecture apart, Amnesty International’s Middle East programme director Malcolm Smart said in 2010 that legal proceedings that led to death sentences “failed to meet international fair trial standards” and made any resulting executions “especially abhorrent.”
*Now look a little closer at the article. This report of Hamas barbarism was not written by a Guardian hack filled with anti-Israel animus but by Associated Press, which might explain the unadorned, unemotional nature of it, and why it did not wander off into the ozone layer of hyperbole and supposition. Can we assume that it was chosen for publication because the sparse nature of the information in it might have fitted the Guardian World View far better than the more detailed reporting of an outlet like CNN, simply because AP skated over the circumstances of the executions and the fact that they arose from Hamas’ failure to meet the international standards for a fair trial?
These are not the first such executions and it is a racing certainty that they will not be the last.
Indeed Hamas seems morbidly proud of its record and intentions, as one might expect given its blatant disregard for the human rights of its own people (see also here ). The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said that Hamas has executed five people for spying since taking control of the coastal strip in 2007. It would not be surprising if the figure was in fact higher and that is definitely the case if one includes the summary executions of Fatah members and sympathisers after Cast Lead.
It is a similar racing certainty that no article condemning Hamas’ complete lack of awareness of what might constitute “just” behaviour towards its own people will ever find its way into the Guardian or Comment is Free.
Related articles
- Hamas executes father and son for Israeli collaboration (cnn.com)
- 15 seconds in Sderot: An open letter to Harriet Sherwood, the Guardian’s Jerusalem, Israel correspondent (cifwatch.com)
- Another in the series: Where in the world is Harriet Sherwood? (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian or Gaza TV News? Harriet Sherwood continues to run interference for Hamas apologists (cifwatch.com)
- If they’re Jews send them back! (cifwatch.com)
- Campaigning for truth about Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- Next Hamas-supporting stunt by Western ‘activists’: the ‘Flytilla’ (cifwatch.com)
- On the “Guardian Hamas support network” (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas calls for “end of Zionist project”: CiF’s Tareq Baconi promotes the group’s moderation (cifwatch.com)
Readers who know the raison d’être of CiF Watch also know that it came about as a result of the obsessively negative focus on Israel by CiF. This continues as we see, but nowhere is it more evident and arguably more sinister than at this page, hidden away within the World News section in the online edition of the Guardian.
The uninformed reader without an axe to grind who happened on this might be forgiven for assuming that only one side (Palestinian) was wronged in Cast Lead, that only one side were victims (again Palestinian), and that Cast Lead (for which this section seems to be a macabre memorial) happened out of the blue one day simply because Israel decided on a whim to launch a war.
Because, conspicuously absent from any of the articles and videos is any account whatsoever of the Hamas’s human rights abuses against its own citizens, their unprovoked missile attacks on Israeli towns, or of the context and the events which led to Cast Lead. I hope that readers will bear with me while I summarise those events:
Israeli civilians have been targets of rocket fire from Gaza since Israel’s withdrawal from there in 2005. Instead of using the withdrawal to make it clear to their neighbour that they were prepared for coexistence, Palestinian terrorists began launching rockets into southern Israeli communities.
Despite a period of relative calm, when comparatively few rockets were launched, Hamas began firing again at Israeli civilians on 19th December 2008.
A statement by a spokesman from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs included:
“…Israel has no interest in conducting military operations in the Gaza Strip, but it is clear that the current situation, in which Israeli civilians are being targeted around the clock, cannot continue indefinitely. The residents of the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, as well as the towns and villages in ballistic range of the Gaza Strip, cannot be held hostage forever to the radical fundamentalist agenda of Hamas….”
But the rocket fire continued and escalated and all the while Israel was urged by the major powers to stay her hand while her people were targets of Hamas hatred.
In the face of that escalation, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN submitted a letter of complaint to Ban Ki Moon on 17th December 2008, followed by a formal letter of protest to the Secretary General on 22nd December 2008, when that was not effective. We do not know what he replied. We do know, however, that the rocket fire on Israeli civilians in southern Israel escalated to such an extent that the Israeli government launched Cast Lead on 27th December 2008.
Nowhere on the Guardian’s account of alleged war crimes by Israel is there any mention of the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas – itself a breach of the Geneva Conventions – although the Guardian was indecently quick to condemn Israel for the civilian deaths in Gaza which ensued mostly because of Hamas tactics of embedding its terrorists within the civilian population and launching its rockets from among them, and using civilians as human shields (see also here). Nowhere on the page is any mention of the measures taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible.
One would not know either from the coverage, because it has not been updated to take note of ensuing events, that the IDF conducted formal hearings (see also here, here, here and here) and disciplined where necessary any soldier who broke IDF regulations. In the absence of this we are left by Chassay and Borger to assume that the IDF went on the rampage far too often, without being curbed at all.
One example of the Guardian’s readiness to distort the picture and omit vital information was the Physicians for Human Rights’ case against the Prime Minister of Israel and others in which they accused the IDF in their petition of deliberately firing on medical personnel “in many cases” while they were carrying out their duties and deliberately prevented them from evacuating the wounded in a timely fashion. The case was heard in the Supreme Court sitting in the High Court of Justice in Israel. It goes without saying that the fact that it was heard so speedily at a time of war is an indication of how seriously the Israeli justice system takes such accusations.
According to the IDF, from intelligence information that they had in their possession it transpired that terrorists were making use of ambulances to carry out terrorist activity and to transport rockets and ammunition from one place to another, and in these circumstances even international humanitarian law provided that these protected institutions lose the protection that they usually enjoy. Having made that argument, however, they accepted that in firefights it is not always possible to ensure that innocent people are never harmed, that where this happened it was never done intentionally but was as a result of hostilities which had been taking place in the vicinity.
The judges rejected the petition, but the allegation remains at the Guardian without mention of that very important fact.
In short, the Guardian does what it does best in this nasty little section. It vilifies and lies about Israel and it reduces the Palestinians to passive objects lacking moral agency, who it believes cannot speak out for themselves, and on whose behalf it also promulgates lies. In its indecent emphasis, (which should not be surprising when one considers its obsessive focus) on Israel’s misdeeds, it ignores the part it plays in the perpetuation of the abuse of the Palestinian people by Hamas and the latter’s own war crimes against Israeli civilians for which the Guardian would have it absolved.
In the case I have referred to above and in other matters the IDF conducted its own enquiries into the complaints made about its soldiers’ misconduct. Five investigatory teams were involved in the enquiries, and among the conclusions were:
“..The investigations showed that throughout the fighting in Gaza, the IDF operated in accordance with international law. The IDF maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians whilst taking cover amidst uninvolved civilians in the Gaza strip and using them as human shields. Notwithstanding this, the investigations revealed a very small number of incidents in which intelligence or operational errors took place during the fighting. These unfortunate incidents were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations, in particular of the type which Hamas forced on the IDF, by choosing to fight from within the civilian population….
” In accordance with usual practice, a summary of each investigation will also be presented to the Military Advocate General, who is entitled to decide whether additional checks need to be done or if there is the basis for opening another type of investigation. His decision is entirely independent and he is subject only to the law.
“Due to their significance, the conclusions of the investigations and the opinion of the Military advocate will be presented for review to the Attorney General.”
I shall not be holding my breath for demands for a similar enquiry by Hamas, which, cheered on by sections like this in the Guardian and its useful idiots around the world, actively perpetrates human rights abuses against its own people as well as pursues its hate-filled mission to eradicate the Jewish state.
Rather, Hamas’ agenda before, during and after Cast Lead was perfectly summed up by Colonel Richard Kemp, from his own extensive experience of fighting insurgency in Afghanistan. In an address to the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs on 18 June, 2009, he said,
“… I have spoken of the considerable British and American efforts to operate within the laws of war and to reduce unnecessary civilian casualties. But what of the Israeli Defence Forces? The IDF face all the challenges that I have spoken about, and more. Not only was Hamas’s military capability deliberately positioned behind the of the civilian population and not only did Hamas employ the range of insurgent tactics I talked through earlier. They also ordered, forced when necessary, men, women and children , from their own population to stay put in places they knew were about to be attacked by the IDF. Fighting an enemy that is deliberately trying to sacrifice their own people. Deliberately trying to lure you in to killing their own innocent civilians.
“And Hamas, like Hizballah, are also highly expert at driving the media agenda. They will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
“Their people often have no option than to go along with the charades in front of the world’s media that Hamas so frequently demand, often on pain of death…”
Related articles
- What the Guardian won’t report: UN concludes that Israel’s blockade is LEGAL (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Hamas’ pain (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian finds fresh new talent to whitewash terror connections of flotilla movement, and demonize Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian and Independent coverage of second flotilla omits key facts (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian levels false allegations at Israel over the use of white phosphorus (cifwatch.com)
The IDF is well-versed in maritime and other law. Israel knows that it must apply its blockade unequivocally across the board, to all maritime traffic regardless of where it is from, if it is not to have an Iranian-armed next-door neighbour in Hamas. Hamas’ Charter sets out what it wants to be able to do to Israel and Israel cannot let that happen. This means that no matter how many boats attempt to run the blockade, however misplaced their righteous indignation when they are collared and arrested and sent home or banned for ten years from Israel; however violently they resist being boarded, Israel cannot afford to let them through, and not only because the first part of the Turkel Commission’s report of the enquiry by the UN into the last flotilla has ruled that the blockade of Gaza is legal.
Nevertheless in spite of warnings from the Israeli and US governments that participation in the “Freedom Flotilla 2″ would constitute an illegal act, boatloads of useful idiots for Islamism and more than a few from the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) will try to descend upon Gaza in the coming days from various countries.
Many have at least one thing in common – ignorance, wilful or genuine, of the true motives behind the over-publicised attempt to break the blockade of Gaza. Others hate Jews but would have us believe that their animus is directed against the “Zionist entity.”
Some, however, are not so easily fooled, or blind to the obvious even though they may support the flotilla. This from the Radio Nederlands webpage shows us how the scales fell from the eyes of this reporter and several others as they all jumped ship. Note in particular:
“.. Things started going wrong from the very beginning. During our first meeting on the Greek island of Corfu, we received the usual latest updates, and then one of the organisers informed us that one of the Dutch journalists had leaked secret information to the most popular Dutch daily about the mission. She was furious: No one is as open as the Free Gaza Foundation, she proclaimed indignantly.
“But I have worked as a journalist for the past 25 years, and never have I experienced such a closed organisation…”
And
“… After this welcoming message, she explained the ground rules to us. There were many, many non-negotiables. “If you don’t accept this, you can’t come along.” I wanted to make a video report, filming the two days of obligatory training sessions to convey a sense of how the activists were preparing for the mission. But the organisation declared numerous sessions off-limits. I and the other Dutch journalists present explained that we needed this footage to do our work. But she wouldn’t have it. “I have worked with CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, and no one has been as demanding as you Dutch reporters.”
“Eventually there was a hand count and the activists voted us out of those sessions. We journalists all felt that a schism had been created for no reason. We also began to lose faith and trust in the organisation, both essential ingredients when undertaking such a risky trip….
And also:
Motivation.
“I expressed an interest in joining the mission earlier this year when I heard that the Dutch were going to send their own vessel to Gaza for the first time. There would be over 30 participants, including prominent members of Dutch society. An Italian delegation with 20 people would also take part.
“I then attended meeting after meeting in various cities in Holland. I had to be screened because – I was told – there were so many people wanting to travel to Gaza. When the organisers called to say I had passed the screening and been chosen as one of the select group of people who would set sail, I felt obliged to express my joy.”
Deception.
“Now, back in the Netherlands, over three months later, I feel deceived. There never was a “select group”. There were no prominent Dutch figures interested in joining Freedom Flotilla2. Instead of 32 people from the Netherlands, the organisation managed to assemble just eight activists and four journalists. Yesterday [Monday], two more journalists decided to jump ship before the boat even left the port of Corfu.
“Since day one, journalists, including myself, asked questions about the Dutch organisation and the boat, for example about the funding. Even simple questions about the ship’s power supply for me to hook up my satellite transmitter. The answer was consistently: “I’ll get back to you about that” or “we don’t know”. I’m still waiting for answers…..”
Note also the persistence of the flotilla members’ delusions in spite of this journalist’s sensible advice. If his account is at all representative of the members’ experiences, it seems that this flotilla is the archetypal camel which started out as a horse but was designed by a committee.
Delve a little deeper than he did, however, and you come to the real motives behind this fun-loving, “peaceful” jaunt. The flotilla is organised by none other than Muhammad Sawalha, from the safety of the UK (the government of which allows him a free hand to do so whilst decrying the Islamist terrorism his organisation supports). Sawalha is the excessively litigious representative of the Ikhwan there.
Sawalha’s influence is great and stretches far. He has been allowed to get away with most of his activities because the strong suit of the Ikhwan and of other Islamist bodies in the UK is to despise western democracy on the one hand whilst using its laws to try to stifle debate about or criticism of their behaviour on the other (see AKUS’ article and also here, and here). As AKUS has said Muhammad Sawalha’s spiteful yet successful machinations behind the Spectator’s ignominious appeasement of his particularly repulsive form of Ikhwan bullying, would not be tolerated in the USA. However, the Ikhwan has the measure of the spinelessness of successive UK governments whose over-eager attempts to engage with Islamist extremists has blinded them to Islamist’s real agenda and has set a woeful precedent for more such goings on. The most polite explanation of the UK’s behaviour is that it cannot realise that it is sending mixed messages to Islamists, but this monumental oversight (if allowing an avowedly antisemitic Islamist into the UK after having issued an exclusion order against him only the previous week can be called a mere oversight) almost beggars belief!
Given that the “Freedom Flotilla 2″ is organised by Sawalha from the safe haven of the UK (the same Ikhwan who, remember, are brothers of Hamas) and is probably carrying Ikhwan members, can we really expect them to behave peacefully and respond peacefully to Israel’s demands to be allowed to board and to be towed into Ashdod? Hardly. Even the Guardian’s soul mate in Israel, Ha’aretz, ran a story which cast doubt on that. It matters little whether they are carrying letters, balloons, hearing aids, or tons of bubble gum – it is important to the Ikhwan that they break the blockade for the reasons I have set out above, and particularly in view of the following:
In January 3 2002, the Israeli Navy and Air Force seized the Karine-A, purchased by the Palestinian Authority and loaded with 50 tons of weaponry supplied by Iran and Hizb’allah, which it planned to transfer to the Palestinian Naval Police force on Gaza beach near El Arish. According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
“…The shipment included both 122 mm and 107 mm Katyusha rockets, which have ranges of 20 and 8 kilometers respectively. It also contained 80 mm. and 120 mm. mortar shells, various types of anti-tank missiles, anti-tank mines, sniper rifles, Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition. From Gaza, the 122 mm. Katyushas could have threatened Ashkelon and other coastal cities; while from the West Bank, Ben-Gurion International Airport and several major Israeli cities would have been within their range….”
Also on board was equipment which could have facilitated seaborne attacks from Gaza against coastal cities in Israel.
On March 15 2011, Israeli Navy commandos seized a cargo ship, the German-owned “Victoria”, in the Mediterranean, while it was en route to Alexandria, from whence the Iranian arms and ammunition it was carrying would be smuggled into Gaza via tunnels from Egypt. Iran, of course, denied it had supplied the arms.
Arms and ammunition, almost certainly from Iran, continue to be smuggled into Gaza via tunnels from Egypt where the ships that transport them dock.
It should be evident that this apparently benign bunch of useful idiots is mere window dressing for the Ikhwan’s attempt to undermine the legality of the blockade. If they are allowed to break the blockade then Israel will not be able to apply it legally against the boatloads of arms and ammunition which will inevitably be sent by sea to Gaza from Iran in future.
Recommended Links:
- ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ Publicity Stunt, Update 3: abusing the concept of ‘non-violence’ (cifwatch.com)
- Journalists on board Gaza-bound flotilla will be active participants in illegal act (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ – Staying Pointless. (cifwatch.com)
- Flotilla ‘Publicity Stunt’ Update, 2 (cifwatch.com)
- Flotilla Publicity Stunt Update (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ – Update 4 – ‘Brothers’ in Arms (cifwatch.com)
- Should the British Spectator Bow to Lawfare? (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas Leader in the UK Identified as Gaza Flotilla Coordinator (The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report)
I came across the following web-based support group, TWATS, which has a rather unusual focus and history: Its web address was http://www.truthorlieswhocares.com
Believe it or not, TWATS is an acronym although you may be excused for believing that it describes very well the people who say they need its support and those who try to offer it:
Troubled CiF writers With anti-Jewish issues Assembled to Trawl the depths of Self-pity
Its mission statement is as follows:
“Having been for too long at the receiving end of the rapier-like debating skills of the pro-Israel lobby who dare to argue with us on CiF many of us are nearing the end of our tether. The only way we can cope is by having the offending posts deleted but a certain blog, CiF Watch, run by Zionists/Jews and dedicated specifically to undermine the “truth” we speak, has brought us to our knees.
“We therefore invite anyone with expertise in countering these highly inconvenient facts with variations on the believable and plausible lies which have served people like us well for centuries to support us here by giving advice to writers or would-be writers and commenters below the line.
Our motto is
“The public need never know the truth “
Scrolling down the page I came across the following tweets forwarded there by their writers:
Now, you need not be a psychologist to realise that Linda Grant herself is hysterical and is projecting that onto those critical of her friend Garry Younge, who made a consummate horse’s backside of himself recently on CiF. She’s blatantly trying to convince herself, too, when she writes “badge of honour.”
Immediately below these on the page is a contribution from “Postman Well-wisher”
Dear Gary and Linda, You are both such gentle people that I am very sorry for your upset at the hands of these Israeli-supporting thugs. I believe you even if they don’t and even if my psychiatrist says I shouldn’t. NO TO THE TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL! YES TO OUR FAIRY TALES ABOUT HAMAS!
But Gary Younge is so disturbed that he repeats himself several times, the first as follows, and gets yet another answer indicative of paranoid projection from Linda S Grant:
The projection is evident in the “thick as shit too” part above. These people evidently can’t take any criticism at all of their views and, sure enough, the following to the TWATS page was swiftly deleted:
SympatheticbutNotStupid: Hey you guys, have you never heard of the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen?” I am sorry for your distress but having read some of the guff you write – ill-researched and biased and misrepresenting your distinctly wonky opinions as hard facts – I am not surprised that CiF Watch piles into you. Have you never thought of doing something else to earn some money? I mean, your sort of self-pity is not an attractive personality trait is it?
The third episode of Gary Younge’s bleating is followed by a reply from none other than Ben White:
White has been curiously absent from CiF, probably recovering from the maulings he has had there. Note again the paranoid projection and the ready use of the “apartheid” slur. Poor soul, he’s probably still trying to promote his book, to be found on every remaindered shelf in good book shops across the world. People are, no doubt, of the same mind as Jonathan Hoffman who laid the book waste in his review of it. See here for the uproar against the use of “apartheid” to describe Israel as a state.
Immediately after that exchange come these words of wisdom:
Gorgonhead: Hi, Gary, good article about Israel’s racism, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Try to ignore your critics. If you repeat yourself often enough what you say BECOMES true whether it began that way or not. I’ve always operated that way and look where it has got me! Ben, needless to say you have my full support for whatever you write (again regardless of whether it’s true or not). Don’t worry – the choir of ethical cretins below the line, couldn’t recognise truth or lies if you paid them to – all you have to do is keep them cranked up with hatred and keep them posting the comments.
The final repeat of Gary Younge’s whine comes with another “gee ain’t it awful?” answer from one who has the art of belligerent self-pity down to a fine art:
And, sure enough along comes Gorgonhead again, to offer words of wisdom and comfort:
Gorgonhead: Tony, I didn’t realise that you were so thin-skinned! You need to toughen up a bit before you get invited back onto Comment is Free. Have you thought about going for therapy to get rid of your conflictedness between having been an ardent Zionist – a leader in a youth movement no less – and now being anti-Zionist? Seriously I’ll have a word with Kath about inviting you back but only if you don’t burst into tears as often. Take care.
And another from
Babblegaga: Yeah, Tony, I used to think you were great but you used too many long words for me and it was kind of difficult to get into what you were writing, know what I mean? But it’s great that even though you’re a Jew and you’re doing a lot to bring the apartheid state down, just like my mentor, Ilan Pappe.
PS: Used to like what you wrote about antisemitism being exaggerated. I agree and so does Ilan Pappe.
I have just tried to log on to the page again, only to find that it has been discontinued. If anyone knows why, please contact CiF Watch.
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International Committee of the Red Cross, Hamas Guardians. (On Fish & House Guests II)
January 24, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Gilad Shalit, Hamas, International Committee of the Red Cross, Sheikh Jarrah, Taliban, Terrorism | by Medusa | 2 comments
In September 2010 I wrote here about the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and it’s too ready inclination of sympathy towards Hamas, to the extent that it gave sanctuary to three wanted Hamas fugitives, Ahmad Attoun, Khaled Abu-Arafa and Muhammad Totah.
The three had been ordered to leave East Jerusalem having had their residency permits revoked when they refused to renounce their ties with Hamas. As I noted in my previous article, the Hamas members were openly supported by Uri Avneri and others on the extreme left in Israel, who visited them at the ICRC’s headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah building in East Jerusalem.
The Red Cross, despite their statement that the Israeli police could have arrested them whenever they wanted, aided and abetted them to break Israeli law by making them comfortable there.
According to the Jerusalem Post (Hamas MPs hiding in E. Jerusalem Red Cross arrested, Jan. 23) all of the fugitives were provided with a room inside the building where they could sleep and keep their belongings, a bathroom, and electricity for their protest tent together with a water cooler. Readers will agree that these are hardly the actions of unwilling hosts towards wanted men. We are told that the men met with overseas dignitaries, and even held a press conference there. Family members came daily to bring food and clothing. All this is in contrast to the ICRC’s passivity and its lack of effort to gain access to Gilad Shalit while he was being held by Hamas.
It seemed then that the ICRC’s house guests, like the fish in the proverb, would soon begin to smell but it transpired not. Ahmad Attoun was arrested several months ago, having been lured onto the street by Israeli police.
The police seemed unsure what to do about Abu-Arafa and Totah, but undercover police finally went into the building and arrested the two, who put up no resistance.
It seems that the ICRC’s actions are the only things that smell, because, in spite of its protestations that it is involved only in humanitarian issues, it did not force these Hamas supporters to leave their premises.
Its “we are involved only in humanitarian efforts” excuse also rings rather hollow in the light of recent revelations that it has provided first aid training to the Taliban, the impact of which it tried to minimise by staying that it had also provided training to Afghani civilians “to ensure that everyone is treated humanely” and …”as fairly as possible.”
People might wonder, and rightly, whether that first aid to non-combatants included how to relieve the pain and prevent further harm to people who have had a limb chopped off or acid thrown in their faces.
Now I would not put it past the Taliban to have the cheek to demand/request these favours from the politically and morally paralysed – oops, I mean “neutral” – ICRC, but the moral equivalence which accompanied the meeting of that demand/request beggars belief, as do the ICRC’s excuses for providing it.
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