British politicians are always paying lip service to the urgent need to combat the rise in anti-Semitism, such kitsch events as Holocaust memorial day are often the favourite time wheel out such lackluster calls against that hatred that thankfully still remains so absolutely beyond the pale in western society. Yet if our leaders really cared about turning back the tide of the growth of Jew hatred then they would stop trying to fool themselves and the rest of us about where the problem is really coming from. The truth of the matter is that most Jews in Britain today do not live in fear of attack from members of the BNP or white supremacist groups, but rather from another minority community which itself claims to be suffering persecution - the Muslim community.
Needless to say that coming out with the above statement is almost guaranteed to be met with accusations of Islamophobia. Yet just as Jews can not always be protesting frank conversations about Israel with accusations of anti-Semitism so too it just is not good enough for the Islamic community to hide behind the charge of Islamophobia every time its conduct is up for debate. The facts must be allowed to speak for themselves without any attempt to drown them out with shrieks of feigned offence and false indignation. And as the expert in Modern Anti-Semitism Professor Robert Wistrich points out; the statistical evidence shows that British Muslims commit violent acts anti-Semitism at almost ten times the rate of the non-Muslim population. And after that what more is there to be said?
Of course apologists will argue that it is only to be expected that as Muslims they will show concern for their co-religionists in Gaza and the West Bank and that this naturally expresses itself as an anti-Israel sentiment. But when Muslims are heard chanting Islamic death chants about the Jews and seen carrying placards about the Holocaust at anti-Israel demonstrations in London can it really be denied that there isn't something more sinister at work?
And while these things will inevitably be dismissed as the work of extremists it should be remembered that the work of British Muslim extremists have already had deadly consequences for Jews in recent years. After all in 2003 two British Muslims heeded the call of a third British Muslim ; Abdullah al-Faisal, to go and murder Israelis by blowing themselves up in a Tel Aviv music bar. And indeed it was the British Muslim Omar Sheikh who was the mastermind of the kidnapping and beheading of the Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002.
While these events are of course the work of intensely radicalised extremists it seems that Jew hatred filters down to rather less adventurous sections of Britain's Islamic community also. In recent days the story has come to light of a young man in Walsall who had adopted a Jewish appearance as part of his desire to convert to Judaism but found himself the subject of constant abuse from local Muslim teenagers until finally a group of seven of them set upon him and beat him badly.
If Britain's political leaders truly mean what they say about anti-Semitism then they would confront this issue directly and make clear to the leaders of the British Islamic community that this culture of hate must be brought to an end. No accusations of Islamophobia. No excuses about Israel. No threats about the risk of pushing their youth into the arms of extremists. The virulent anti-Semtism rampant in sections of Britain's Islamic community must end.
No comments:
Post a Comment