Posted on 07/07/2005 10:59:24 AM PDT by SJackson
The mainstreaming of anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel is felt most acutely, however, in the public culture of the capital city of London. In the past decade, the United Kingdom’s undisputed political, economic, and cultural center has also become a major world center of political Islam and anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American activism.
Through its Arabic-language newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses, not to mention its flourishing network of bookshops, mosques, and community centers, radical Islam has taken full advantage of what British democracy has to offer for its anti-Western goals, reaping the benefits of London’s significance as a hub of global finance, electronic media, and mass communications technology.
The effect of this with regard to anti-Semitism and virulent anti-Zionism has therefore been quite different from that found elsewhere in Europe: Although Britain’s Muslim population of about 1.5 million is only a quarter of that of France, the growing influence of London’s Muslims has given the most inflammatory of ideas a greater legitimacy in the capital’s political and cultural discourse than they enjoy virtually anywhere else.
Much of this energy has been directed at mobilizing Muslims to fight against Israel and America. The impassioned calls of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, a leading Muslim cleric in London, to “celebrate” the September 11 attacks as a great moment in history and recruit Muslim youth for “holy war” in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, have struck an emotional chord in the Muslim ghettos.
This is less surprising when one recalls that 40 percent of British Muslims surveyed in a Sunday Times poll after 9-11 believed Osama bin Laden was “justified” in his war against America. They even supported those of their coreligionists from Britain who volunteered to fight with the Taliban against the Western allies.
'Filthy Jews'
At the same time, Islamists like Al-Muhajiroun (“the Exiles”) spokesman Anjem Choudary regard Britain and the West as mere pawns, controlled by the “Zionists.” Israel is invariably portrayed as a “cancer in the heart of the Muslim world” to be eliminated only by radical surgery.
Sheikh Bakri himself has warned Jews in Britain to avoid any support for Israel lest they “become targets for Muslims.”
Al-Muhajiroun combines calls for “the black flag of Islam to fly over Downing Street” with demands for the liberation of Palestine and the Jihadist demand to “de-Judaize the West.”
This highly inflammable cocktail embracing Palestine, jihad, the dream of a worldwide caliphate, Koranic indoctrination, and classical Judeophobia, was exposed by the Old Bailey trial of Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal, in February 2003.
The cleric, a Jamaican convert to Islam educated in Saudi Arabia, was found guilty of inciting to murder and racial hatred on the basis of his lectures and videocassettes - some of them on sale at specialty bookshops in Britain - and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Overwhelming evidence was produced at the trial to demonstrate his encouragement for a violent jihad to kill non-believers. Particular venom was reserved for the “filthy Jews.” In a spine-chilling speech which seemed to anticipate the May 2003 suicide mission of Hanif to Tel Aviv, el-Faisal ranted:
People with British passports, if you fly into Israel it is easy…. Fly into Israel and do whatever you can. If you die, you are up in Paradise. How do you fight a Jew? You kill a Jew.
Mayor compares Jewish reporter to Nazi camp guard
Such sentiments have long ceased to be limited to Muslim self-expression; the politics of London have begun to internalize the discourse of hate. In February of this year, the city’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, angrily compared a Jewish reporter for the Evening Standard to a concentration camp guard.
Instead of later apologizing, Livingstone criticized the reporter’s employer for what he said was its history of racism, scare-mongering, and, oddly enough, anti-Semitism.
Shortly thereafter, Livingstone published a piece in the Guardian claiming that Ariel Sharon “is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office,” adding that “Israel’s own expansion has included ethnic cleansing.”
Subsequently, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, responding to Jewish critics of the mayor, published an article on its web site entitled “Zionists Want Their Pound of Flesh.”
Given the legitimacy that such rhetoric enjoys in Britain today, it should not surprise us to discover the emergence of efforts among the intellectual elites to convert their rhetoric of hate into action - principally through the boycotting of Jewish and Israeli products and people.
It is these which have turned the public atmosphere in Britain into perhaps the most uncomfortable for Jews in all of Europe.
Excerpted from an article in the upcoming edition of Azure , published by Shalem Center, Jerusalem
Robert S. Wistrich holds the Neuberger Chair in Modern European History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is director of its Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism
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Well, this is hardly surprising.
Increasingly? What a joke.
The unspoken truce between jihadis and the UK seems to have been broken.
London, a center for dissidents and jihadis for decades now pays the price for the British govt's leniency to jihadis.
Well, they won't be as touchy feely or concerned about using jihadis for geostrategic and political shenanigans now.
Please, don't let your mosques be terror cells. Please live up to the best verses in your Koran. Please condemn the attacks in London (and here on 911...why were you so silent?). Please help in this war on terrorism. I ask this with all humility.
If not, or you view my words as those of a coward, I can only pray for you.
Take note, if there is another attack on U.S. soil, the mosques and your homes will provide no refuge. Remember, conservative estimates are that 80 million of your fellow citizens are armed. And they will give you no quarter, trust me.
5.56mm
"I'm posting this with the hope all Muslims in the U.S. will read it.
Please, don't let your mosques be terror cells."
Too late, done deal. Either by active support or by their overwhelming silence on the issue. Its a backward religion of hate....and that is not going to change.
LISBON (Reuters) - Several Islamic militant groups are preparing attacks on London, making such a strike unavoidable, a radical Muslim cleric said in an interview with a Portuguese magazine."It's inevitable. Because several (attacks) are being prepared by several groups," Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad told Lisbon's Publica magazine from London, where he is based.
One "very well organised" group in London calling itself al Qaeda Europe "has a great appeal for young Muslims", he said. "I know that they are ready to launch a big operation."
London police said they were not prepared to discuss the claims, but the country's most senior police officer, Sir John Stevens, has previously said that an attack on the capital was inevitable.
The firebrand cleric, who has outraged moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike with his uncompromising views, gave no further details.
So much for the reports that it's a "new" group.
>>Please condemn the attacks in London (and here on 911...why were you so silent?)<<
EXACTLY...silence is consent.
And how many years has Bakri been allowed to run off at the mouth and threaten Britain?
I'm afraid it won't be long before the same insanity flourishes here, judging by the response of the gooberment to the supposed "abuse" of the Koran.
I don't know exactly where it was but I remember reading that there are areas of the UK that the cops have practically given up policing because they are such concentrated areas of unassimilated Muslims. To go to these neighborhoods is too dangerous for unarmed officers of the law.
From what is preached in London mosques, I am sure you are right.
The 2012 olympics are going to be a time of testing of the extent of Britain's "tolerance". There is no doubt Britain will increase security measures between now and the opening of the Olympics. Many of the security measures will be met with greater intolerance from Britain's own muslims. I am not predicting terrorist attacks, simply predicting increased domestic tensions that are likely to grow, as Britain heads into 2012 and their hosting the Olympic games then.
One could speculate whether or not terrorist attacks are actually a reward for appeasement. Just last week Blair's government proposed laws that would criminalize speech that is deemed derogatory to someone's religion.
Kick these little would-be tyrants out of the UK. And if the Mayor of London objects, the voters should kick him out, too.
bump with no comment
>>there are areas of the UK that the cops have practically given up policing because they are such concentrated areas of unassimilated Muslims. To go to these neighborhoods is too dangerous for unarmed officers of the law.<<
This is a great example of why liberalism is the Achilles Heel of a civilized society. See where a liberal immigration policy gets you?
Sheikh Bakri himself has warned Jews in Britain to avoid any support for Israel lest they “become targets for Muslims.”
Why is this guy allowed in England.
i'm not sure which post on this thread offends me most. this forum is belittled by what i read here. many of the posts which precede this one are simply uninformed: "there are areas of the UK that the cops have practically given up policing because they are such concentrated areas of unassimilated Muslims". you foolish, foolish, ignorant man. i am a londoner, i am an englishman, i live here, you don't. speak the truth or shut up. good evening from blood-soaked london.
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