The level of commentary in ‘Comment is Free’ sunk to a new low in the Ed Husain thread on Saturday which witnessed one of the most venomous and hate-filled threads in a long time. The target of this hate-fest was Melanie Phillips, a popular columnist for the Daily Mail and author of the highly acclaimed Londonistan.

The pretext for the attack was an article by Ed Husain entitled “The personal Jihad of Melanie Phillips” which accused her of being full of “anger, venom and hatred” and having an “Israel First” mindset. This was all that was needed to get the Guardianistas fired up and ready to vent their own “anger, venom and hatred” directed at Melanie Phillips personally.

As RightWingZealot aptly observed,

It is simply disgusting to see the parade of odious leftie guardianistas queing up, one after the other, to denounce Melanie Philips and by doing so hoping to burnish their own right on, multi-culturalist, I’m anti-racist credentials. It’s like a perverse competition to see who can be the most PC, Islam friendly poster, by coming out with the most strident attacks and virulent denouncements of this columnist. This thread is the guardian’s own version of “hate hour” from George Orwell’s 1984.

What’s more striking is that not only did the Guardian moderators allow this to go on for hours and hours (not just Two Minutes) in direct contravention of their talk policy (the talk policy prohibits personal attacks on any individual) but BellaM, a Guardian moderator weighed in with a highly offensive ad hominem and defamatory attack on Phillips which helped set the tone for the entire thread.

BellaM

31 Oct 09, 9:53am

Staff

I imagine she’s like that character in Little Britain who is violently sick every time she hears the words ‘black or gay.’ Except for Melanie, the word would be ‘Muslim.’

So here are some examples of the outpouring of hate most of which were not deleted:

MilesSmiles

31 Oct 09, 9:20am

Melanie Philips’s zealotry and ignorance frighten me. How did we produce a public commentator filled with such anger, venom and hatred?

I suspect that, like Ann Coulter, she doesn’t believe most of this claptrap. But it does make her a lot of money.

To be honest, she should be prosecuted for inciting racial and religious hatred. She’s hardly better than Mr Griffin and his friends in that regard.

Voon

31 Oct 09, 9:27am

She’s certainly rather dangerous and aggressive and in a bad mood most of the time.

She ought to drive a Golf. It would suit her.

HerrEMott

31 Oct 09, 9:36am

Not for nothing has she earned the soubriquet Mad Mel.

gondwanaland

31 Oct 09, 9:46am

Melanie Phillips is pure poison. A racial supremacist who would be dangerous if she wasn’t such a cartoon bigot.

Better to laugh at her Ed.

BeautifulBurnout

31 Oct 09, 9:56am

Contributor

She is, to all intents and purposes, a British Ann Coulter, as MilesSmiles pointed out.

However, whether she believes the stuff she spouts or not is neither here nor there, really, because the effects of what she says remain.

So much hatred. So much spleen vented. Truly sad.

LordSummerisle

31 Oct 09, 10:03am

How many words does it take to basically say that Melanie Phillips is a bit of a twat? I agree with the premise but preaching to the converted in exactly the same way Mad Mel does in The Daily Mail adds the square root of bugger all to the debate.

Melanie has gone from being a tree-hugger during her Guardian days to ranter about climate change “totalitarians”.

Funny how quite a number of writers change tack depending on who they’re writing for. Were I a more cynical man I might come to the conclusion that they’ll write anything provided there’s a cheque at the end of it.

Janissary

31 Oct 09, 10:08am

Melanie Phillips accusing Obama of being a secret Christian is world-class comedy.

As for anti-semitism, Melanie Phillips would accuse her husband of anti-semitism if he didn’t do the dishes on time – nothing she says is credible.

Care in the community has gone too far – keep the mad away from the media.

WilliamAshbless

31 Oct 09, 10:22am

So why so you think her nickname is mad Mel? Because she’s called Melanie or …

JamesDickins

31 Oct 09, 10:26am

Melanie Phillips is one of the most vacuously aggressive people I have ever come across.

Moeran

31 Oct 09, 10:43am

I assume Ms Phillips will taking over Our Nick’s chair on Question Time before long. They have so much in common though maybe Our Nick is the intellectual one.

Its worth noting that a number of the commenters above including Moeran, gondwanaland and MilesSmiles regularly post antisemitic comments on CiF so their outpouring of hate against Melanie Phillips is quite unsurprising.

And you don’t have to scratch very deep beneath the surface of this type of thread to find antisemitic commentary:

yorkandy

31 Oct 09, 10:36am

why, Mr. Husain, do you feel that you have to state that you “support israel’s right to exist” ?

is this in order to get this comment piece actually published on this site?

wooden

31 Oct 09, 10:41am

How can you believe in a “chosen people” and not be racist?

When it comes to restring historical homelands there would seem to be two problems. If God gave gave Palestine to the Jews they can not claim that they have any rights anywhere else in God’s world at large.
If we give back the “homeland” on a biblical( Jewish History) basis who is going to lead the campaign to return North America to the Ist nation peoples or undo the property inheritance that follows from the Norman Invasion of England? The Jews?

JacktheNat

31 Oct 09, 12:15pm

Getting worked up about Melanie is rather a waste of time.

I know Jews who love her work and Jews who are embarrassed by her and make even stronger criticisms than Ed Husain. Ditto, non-Jews. She’s a living to earn and seems to know how to do it.

What seems a more productive use of time ahead of a general election and with the Middle East situation so urgent is to examine to what extent the parties depend less on the goodwill of Daily Mail columnists but on the backing of pro-Israel groups.

Lord Levy and the Labour Friends of Israel have been very important in the creation and sustenance of New Labour in the past 15 years. Will Stanley Fink and the Conservative Friends of Israel be similarly important to David Cameron?

If so, what are the prospects for peace both in the Middle East and for social harmony here at home?

http://www.thejc.com/business/business-features/interview-stanley-fink

MusabUK

31 Oct 09, 4:24pm

Brilliant and very courageous article.

Ed, by coming out and clearly and telling the Zionist Islamophobes where to go you’ve done yourself and many other British people a huge favour. Bravo!

Gondwanaland is correct; her bigotry is tolerated because it isn’t aimed at Muslims and Blacks.

And what would a CiF thread be like without its deletions of comments that do not comport with the Guardian World View (take note BellaM):

Kahina

31 Oct 09, 12:11pm

I will stand up for Mel anyday. Cif readers amongst their own may feel very comfy bullying her from the protection of their homes, but in the real world she is very, very well repected. She says things as they are and will not conform to political correctness.

Ed, it is easy to write from your computer but when confronted on with Melanie Phillips face to face on live tv you run. Melanie is not only articulate with the pen, but pretty powerful on live debates. She can dish out the facts and any opponent that doesn’t have their wits about them will be made into mincemeat.

Yes sabraguy, it is shame we don’t have more like her. The baying of the crowds on cif against Israel, the Jewish homeland, reminds me of the thugs of 1930’s Germany. They all deserve each other. Is it some coincidence that this piece was put out on Saturday morning, when a lot of people who might debate this article aren’t at their computers?

WendyMann

31 Oct 09, 11:58am (51 minutes ago)

Let me take your logic a step further. You say you don’t see what is wrong in hating a religion. So do you see anything wrong in people saying they hate Judaism? Or do you see that as anti-semitic?

I think its avalid expression to sayone hate’s Islam, Judaism or Christianity.

If people came on here talking about how Judaism was taking over the country, how were were allowing thousands of Jews to flood in and make demands for Judaic law, and unless we stopped it, they would change our culture forever? If people said was perfectly normal for the EDL to campaign against the building of synagogues because this was a Christian country?

One-eyed bigotry of the first water, Monnie. You have no excuse for it that holds water.

If Jews had made demands of how our society has to change in order to accommodate them then I’d expect and support a backlash against that. No religion that is alien to a country and which boast a tiny minority has a right to abuse the hospitality of its hosts.

I support the right of EDL to protest about the building of mosques because in some parts of the UK mosques dominate locales where non-Muslims feel alien in places where they and their families have lived for ages.

This has unfortunately popularised the BNP. Its dues to loud-mouth, in-your-face Islamists like Choudray, Bakri and the hate crew. It even extends to Dr Bari at MCB who compared the UK to ‘Nazis” as did Dr Naseem at the Birmingham mosque.

What Melanie forecast in “Londonistan” was accurate and can be seen in what followed by way of Islamist terrorism in the UK.

Over 250 people have been found guilty of Terrorism related offences in the UK. They are almost 100% Muslims. So, Melanie’s warnings have been accurate. (figures can be verified by Home Office and answers in Hansard)

So Georgina, Matt and Brian, do you wish to clarify what your position is on the Guardian talk policy when it comes to personal attacks on individuals that do not share the Guardian World View because I’m having a really hard time reconciling what I witnessed in the Ed Husain thread (particularly from one of your own moderators) with what is contained in your talk policy. Perhaps Georgina you should consult the Guardian style guide or better still perhaps your talk policy has been updated with the one I have here which parodies your talk policy.

In particular, let me take the liberty of drawing your attention to Section 6 of the talk policy which we parodied and which provides,

“We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy. Postings defamatory of Jews, Israel or neocons are an exception to this rule since we know that Jews, Israelis and neocons will never threaten to blow up our office.

The funny thing is that our parody of the talk policy is looking more and more like the real thing with every day that goes by.

This is a cross post by Melanie Phillips from the Spectator

On Friday, I wrote about the confused message being put out by the various groups which were taking to London’s streets yesterday, including one led by Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, to oppose the ‘sharia now’ demonstration by al Muhajiroun. My post provoked an unexpected reaction – an extraordinary ad feminam attack upon me, on the Guardian’s Comment is free blog, by the ‘reformist’ Muslim Ed Husain which accuses me of displaying

zealotry and ignorance

and being filled with

anger, venom and hatred

not to mention also being

demented.

Such fame! It could turn a girl’s head.

The first question is why Ed Husain was so exercised by what I wrote. After all, this was not his fight; I had made no mention of him or his ‘anti-Islamist’ Quilliam organisation. Much more astonishing was that he was leaping to the defence of none other than Inayat Bunglawala and the MCB. The MCB is an Islamist body which wants to theocratise Britain according to the precepts of Islam.

Last March, the government suspended links with it after its deputy Secretary-General, Daud Abdullah, signed a declaration that was seen as calling for violence against Israel and condoning attacks on British troops in Iraq. Earlier this year, it boycotted Britain’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration ceremony. Its Secretary-General, Dr Abdul Bari, has said Britain should adopt Islamic practices such as arranged marriages and that Britons should follow the teachings of Islam. Moderate it is not.

As I reported below, Bunglawala told me himself that he wants Britain to become an Islamic state. Yet Ed Husain, whose Quilliam organisation receives a great deal of money from the government in order to oppose Islamic extremism, actually extols Bunglawala for having moved to embrace liberal attitudes. Ed Husain, who in 2007 vividly described in his own book Bunglawala’s anti-Jewish attitudes, now says Bunglawala should not be held to account for remarks he made in 1993 in support of Islamist extremism and from which he has now ‘distanced himself’.

People must decide for themselves whether Bunglawala’s apparent conversion to the causes of gay rights and freedom of speech is genuine. But what about his declared aim of turning Britain into an Islamic state? Does Ed Husain now think this too is evidence of Bunglawala’s ‘liberal’ attitudes? Or must we assume that Ed Husain too must not be held to account for his previous opposition to this Islamist goal?

Now let’s look at what Ed Husain says about me. His article sits underneath a strapline, almost certainly written by the Guardian rather than by him, which says:

In her McCarthy-style paranoid parallel universe, the Spectator columnist views every Muslim a potential Islamist terrorist.

You really do have to rub your eyes at this. In my blog post which provoked Ed Husain’s article, I praised and welcomed those truly moderate Muslims who were mounting a counter-demonstration against al Muhajiroun, particularly the group British Muslims for a Secular Democracy. I have never said or implied that ‘every Muslim’ is a ‘potential Islamist terrorist’. On the contrary, in everything I have ever written about the subject I have emphasised that there are many Muslims who sign up to secular western values and who are themselves victims of the jihadis.

I have always emphasised that, while jihadi Islamism is a particularly troubling interpretation of Islam because it is based on theology and backed up by the history of Islamic conquest, it is only one interpretation and there are other Muslims who interpret their religion in an entirely peaceful and unthreatening way. To suggest that I have ever said otherwise is not only a demonstrable falsehood but is a smear which is likely to incite hatred against me.

But it is Ed Husain’s account of how we first met and what followed that utterly destroys any claim he has to integrity. This is what he writes:

I first met Melanie two years ago at the Richard and Judy show. Unaware that she was a last-minute, unexpected guest, and aware of the prejudiced views that she has expressed about Muslims in the past, I was unwilling to appear beside her as a complementary contributor; I made my excuses to Richard and left the studio.

However, I believe in the human ability to change and, in that hope of helping Melanie see the flaws in her analysis, I met with her several times in private and appealed to her to stop blaming Islam and Muslim scripture for (the decidedly un-Islamic phenomenon of) terrorism. Why would she and her acolyte Douglas Murray not cease attacks on Muslim scripture that were based on bin Laden’s understanding of Islam? And why would they not support Islam’s inherent pluralism and recognise that Islam per se is not the problem, but iconoclastic interpretations of it.

I would not normally ever reveal what takes place in private conversations. But since Ed Husain has grossly abused this confidence by misrepresenting these exchanges in order falsely to blacken my reputation, I will now reveal what actually happened.

We did indeed first meet in July 2007 in the hospitality ‘green’ room of the Richard and Judy Show, where we were both due to appear on a panel. Upon my arrival in the green room, however, Ed Husain immediately said he would have to leave. I was taken aback, since I had admired his position as a practising Muslim who had renounced his former membership of the jihadi Hizb ut Tahrir and was now fighting Islamist extremism. When I asked him why he felt he could not appear with me, he told me that he could not risk the damage this would do to his reputation amongst other Muslims.

‘They already call me a Zionist’, he said. Of course he was anything but. What he meant was that Islamists who were out to destroy him were using the most lethal form of demonisation that they knew. If he opposed Islamic extremism, he had to be a ‘Zionist’ stooge. He had in fact recently written an article for the Guardian which troubled me very much, in which he wrote:

Zionism and Islamism are both political perversions of ancient Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Islam… Prior to the Holocaust, Zionism was a pariah movement among Europe’s Jewish communities. Rabbis chastised Zionists for abusing religion and religious identity. And yet, with the inhumane onslaught against European Jews in the 1940s, Zionism gained acceptance and respectability.

I asked him whether the reason he had written this article was similarly to fend off the taunt of ‘Zionist’. ‘Of course’, he said. He was, he said, on the point of encouraging more defections from Hizb ut Tahrir and could not afford to allow anything to jeopardise this delicate mission. So he had written this article mainly as a tactical ploy to deflect the charge that he was a ‘Zionist’ stooge.

‘But’, he added, ‘it was not altogether wrong. There is a core of truth in what I wrote’.

I was appalled to hear this. Cynical, tactical use of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist bigotry to save his own skin was bad enough. But for him to believe that Zionism really was a perversion of Judaism suggested to me that, even though he had renounced the jihad, he was still in the grip of the poisonous Muslim delusions about Israel and the Jewish people.

So it was I who suggested we should meet, in order to discuss this. He enthusiastically agreed; he made plain he had no quarrel with my position on Islam. He appeared keen to strike up a friendly relationship, and wanted to know more about my views on Israel and Zionism which were clearly a point of contention between us. So we met in a cafe, chosen at his request to be in an out of the way place where he would run no risk of being seen with me by anyone who could use this against him.

I gave him a quick history of the Jews and their ancient relationship with the land of Israel, explaining to him the symbiotic relationship between the people, the religion and the land. I ran through the development of political Zionism in the 19^th century, the decision by the world community after World War One that the Jews had an unchallengeable and unique right to the land of Palestine where their ancient national home should be reconstructed, and the subsequent attempt by the Arabs to frustrate this aim, the actual cause of some nine decades of conflict in the Middle East.

He was – at times, literally – open-mouthed at all of this. He had clearly never been told any of it before. It threw him. He cavilled at parts of it, not because he had any contrary information but because, he said, he just ‘couldn’t believe it’. But there was one thing I said to which he responded with enthusiasm.

I remarked how amazing it was that the anti-Israel ‘progressive’ Left supported ethnic cleansing in the putative state of Palestine through their core demand that the Israeli settlers had to be removed from that territory. After all, there was in principle no reason why the settlers couldn’t just be left there and become citizens of a state of Palestine whose boundaries could simply be drawn around them. This was impossible, however, because the Palestinian position was that no Jews could be citizens of Palestine – a racist position supported by the ‘anti-racist’ Left.

‘You are absolutely right!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a brilliant point! Why don’t you make it more vigorously?’

We met subsequently on a couple more occasions. The conversation did not return to the subject of Israel but was largely about Ed Husain’s difficulties in fending off the onslaught from Islamists who, he said, were using every trick in the book to isolate, bad-mouth and destroy him, and the manoeuvres he was having to use to outwit them; and how frustrated he was that the government refused to listen to him about the dangers of employing Islamist advisers — and about how imperative it was not to treat the Islamists of the MCB as legitimate interlocutors, since by doing so ministers were cutting the ground from under his own feet. He was anxious; I was sympathetic.

The last such discussion that I had with him some months ago was very different. He tried to persuade me that a certain Islamist who was working as a civil servant in Whitehall, and who I believed to be as dangerous as the government was deluded about him, was a reformed character and had turned into an anti-Islamist activist. I thought Ed Husain had finally been got at by the Muslim Brotherhood who had succeeded in bamboozling him. But I also wondered – as I had done uneasily right from the start – whether, although he had denounced violence, he had never properly renounced Islamic extremism because he could not bring himself to acknowledge its true religious source.

Whether he was a ‘holy fool’ or something worse, it became clear to me at this point that Ed Husain could be viewed no longer as a weapon against Islamist extremism. He should be regarded instead as a potentially lethal boomerang by which the Muslim Brotherhood could bamboozle and manipulate ministers and government officials who had Ed Husain-shaped stars in their eyes – and who were throwing money at him on the basis that he would serve to inoculate young British Muslims against the Islamists.

Let me reiterate that – contrary to his assertion in his Cif article – at no point in any of our discussions did he ever accuse me of ‘blaming Islam and Muslim scripture for (the decidedly un-Islamic phenomenon of) terrorism’ or for not recognising ‘Islam’s inherent pluralism’. On the contrary, it was a given between us that, unlike some other anti-jihadis who did indeed regard all Muslims and Islam as one homogeneous threat, I drew a distinction between moderate Muslims and Islamists and did allow for differences in interpretations of the religion.

The question remains, though, quite why Ed Husain feels so viciously towards me. I think it is indeed because of my support for Israel, on which subject he appears to be unbalanced and obsessional. In his Cif piece about me, he claims of me that anyone

who opposes her views on Israel is either an Islamist or ‘in the Islamists’ camp’.

This is an absurd misrepresentation of my views. What I do say, however, is that anyone – Muslim or not — who endorses and promulgates lies and bigotry about Israel and the Jewish people, scapegoating them for crimes of which they are not only innocent but are in fact the victims, cannot be a true ‘moderate’ or an ally of the free world against the enemies of civilisation.

A number of anti-jihadis told me from the start that my support for Ed Husain was misplaced because he had never properly renounced Islamist extremism. To begin with, I defended him as a naif. Even when he came out with boilerplate bigotry against Israel, I put it down to the fact that he had been brought up in that kind of milieu. He was on a steep learning curve, I said. Everyone can change for the better.

It was I who was naive.

Picture: Goya’s ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’

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!

I am starting to archive some of the posts from my main blog, Bob From Brockley, so as not to have all of my eggs in one basket. Please got to the original if you have any comments.

Original post location: The lessons of the Lucozade plot

I have a strong personal stake in the so-called Lucozade plot, the plot to explode several trans-Atlantic flights using ingenious liquid explosive devices concealed in lucozade bottles. I was due to fly, with my family, on one of the target flights on the day in August 2006 when the plot was foiled. That long, gruelling day at the tense, chaotic airport, and the subsequent days of indecision about whether to catch another flight, and the day we actually flew, with the fear that it may well be our last day on earth, were extremely stressful – but as the details of the plot emerge I realise more and more how close to being killed I actually was.

Reading the details of the second trial which has finally concluded at Woolwich Crown Court, four lessons strike me – four myths are exposed as utterly wrong. In the writing that follows, I am referring to the eight men who were tried. Of these, Donald Stewart-Whyte was found not guilty. Some of the others were found not guilty of some of the more serious charges, and the jury was unable to reach a verdict on many of the charges. Although the innocence of some of them, particularly Stewart-Whyte, is conceivable, the fact that all were involved in jihadist groups means my observations about the jihadist ideology and milieu based on their examples would stand even if they were innocent of this specific plot. However, it seems clear that the jury’s verdict had to do with the technical quality of evidence, an issue that relates to one of the points I make below, and that the overwhelmingly likelihood is that they were all involved in a bomb plot.

1. “Terrorism as the voice of the voiceless“. There is a common view, especially on the left, that terrorism is a cry of despair, the voice of the utterly dispossessed, born out of grievance and poverty. Terrorism, the argument goes, will go away when we remove the grievances, grievances for which the West is largely to blame. However, looking at the biographies of the plotters, it is clear that most of them were from reasonably well off backgrounds, and reasonable life chances, were well educated and articulate, and had other opportunities to express their grievances. Wahid Zaman was a biomedical student at a top university, and, in his “martyrdom video”, said “I have not been brainwashed, I am educated to a very high standard.” He was articulate; he spoke at rallies and had articles published in his university’s student magazine. Donald Stewart-Whyte was an art student, a white boy, who went to the “prestigious” Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Chesham. His father was a Conservative Party agent, his mother a teacher. Tanvir Hussein was also highly educated. In fact, terrorism, far from being the voice of the voiceless, seems to be a weapon of the relatively privileged, of intellectuals.

2. “Londonistan, Eurabia”. A familiar argument, particularly in North America and particularly on the right, is that Europe, with its official policies of multiculturalism, has sleep-walked into segregation, has created Islamified ghettos or no-go areas which breed terrorists. This is the Britain and Europe portrayed by Melanie Phillips, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and their ilk. The details of the plotters reveal this to be a myth. The plotters were in fact extremely westernised, assimilated even. Waheed Zaman’s favourite TV programme was Only Fools and Horses. Tanvir Hussein experimented with drink, drugs and girls at college. Stewart-Whyte, Umar Islam (from a Christian Caribbean background) and Ibrahim Savant (of Indian and English parentage) were all converts. It is true that one of the July 2005 bomb attempts was perpetrated mainly by young men from one of the areas (Beeston in Yorkshire) which is predominantly Pakistani Muslim. But it is also true that the Beeston bombers turned to radical Wahhabi Islamism as part of a rebellion against the traditionalist Sufi Islam of their parents; becoming Wahhabi meant they could, for example, marry white girls rather than the Mirpuri village girls chosen by their parents. In other words, jihadi violence is not something anachronistic imported to the West through immigration and breeding in multiculturalism’s ethnic enclaves; it is modern, Western and appealing to converts and the apparently most integrated of Muslims.

3. “The war on terror”. There seem to have been two approaches to the investigation and foiling of the plot. British intelligence and security services, reporting regularly to Tony Blair on the case, carefully infiltrated and watched the plotters, building up a slowly expanding picture of their networks, and gathering robust trial evidence. They let it run its course, confident they would know when they needed to act. American intelligence and security services, reporting regularly to George W Bush, seemed to want to make quick arrests to shut the network down. British stubbornness, resisting the pressure to swoop, seems to have enabled them to catch the High Wycombe branch of the conspiracy, which was not visible at first. It also seems that the Americans were obsessed with what they called “al Qaeda central”, rather than seeing the terrorists as an extremely dispersed and loose net. It seems that America pressured Pakistan into arresting Rashid Rauf, who connected the conspiracy to Al-Qaeda networks. This in turn forced the British to “scramble”, cracking down on the conspiracy earlier than they meant to. This scrambling, seems to have been a major factor in the poor quality of the evidence the prosecution has been able to present at trial, leading to an embarrassing failure to convict some of the plotters. In this instance, the American approach was mistaken, and the culture around the war on terror under Bush – conceived as a military war rather than as a strategy of investigation and prevention, and staged as a high profile public spectacle – proved counterproductive.

4. “The terrorists have already won”. There is a certain civil libertarian line – whose vulgar, common-sense, non-dogmatic version you often hear at airports when passengers are irked about having to hand over the over-sized perfume bottles they have in their carry-on – which says that defending us against terror is not worth the price of the curtailment of our “rights”. Our privacy, our freedom of movement, even our right to carry hair gel in our hand bags, are precious, and if we create a draconian security state which abrogates these, then the terrorists have effectively already won. This argument, which we can currently hear most loudly and articulately from those civil libertarians who are calling for an end to control orders, is disingenuous. If the 2006 bomb plot had succeeded, some dozen big long haul planes would have been downed over the sea, with few if any of the passengers surviving. The threat is real, and, as the old saying goes, the bombers only have to be lucky once, while the rest of us have to be lucky all the time. We have managed to be lucky now in Britain since July 2005, but it has not just been luck, and we should be grateful to the security services for the protection we have had.

PRESSETIK: Uttrycket “nyttig idiot” antyder att den som sprider lögner gör detta omedvetet. När det gäller Aftonbladet och Donald Boströms antisemitiska artikel på kultursidan är det uppenbart att det inte handlar om okunnighet. 

Tre faktorer sammanfaller som förklarar varför Aftonbladet har accepterat publiceringen av en sådan artikel på sin kultursida. Det handlar om politisk övertygelse, kampanjjournalistik och en önskan om att se bevis där det inte existerar några bevis.

Jerusalem Post publicerade igår uppgifter som visar att den palestinska familj som spelar huvudrollen i tidningens historia om att israeliska armén skulle vara involverade i organstöld inte har några bevis för att så har skett. Familjens moder förnekade dessutom att hon ens skulle ha sagt till någon utländsk journalist att dådet hade utförts.   

Så vad är det som har hänt på Aftonbladet? Varför har Donald Boströms påstående om att israelisk militär dödat unga palestinier och skurit ut deras organ publicerats i Aftonbladet? Förklaringen är ganska enkel om än otrevlig.

1. Medvetet politiska vinklar: Aftonbladet är inte direkt känd för att driva en neutral nyhetsrapportering från Mellanöstern. Både ledarsidan och kultursidan – men även ordinära nyhetsartiklar – har länge haft en politisk vinkling som har varit utpräglat antiisraelisk. 

Är man per definition både antiisraelisk och propalestinsk är det inte konstigt om Boströms artikel inte ansågs behöva granskas innan publicering.

Varför kontrolla källor när man vet att man har politiskt rätt? Och även om källorna skulle vara “lite vinklade” så gagnar det trots allt den “goda saken”. Israel blir misskrediterat internationellt och dess fiender framstår som good guys oavsett hur många dödsbombningar man har på sitt rymliga samvete.

(Är det verkligen någon som tror att ett omvänt påstående - d.v.s. att palestinier stjäl organ från döda israeliska soldater - skulle ha fått publiceras i Aftonbladet utan bevis?)

2. Kampanjjournalistik: Att tidningar ägnar sig åt kampanjjournalistik är knappast någon hemlighet. Kampanjjournalistik argumenterar alltid för det som anses som ädelt och för det till synes självklara.

Avsikten är att läsarna utifrån denna nyhetsförmedling ska kunna dra sina egna slutsatser. Men om redaktionen från början har bestämt sig för vad som är rätt och fel, bra och dåligt, svart och vitt så är förstås risken uppenbar att rapporteringen om sakfrågan blir snedvriden. Journalistiken underordnas i praktiken målsättningen eftersom det knappast är troligt eller rimligt att redaktionen efterforskar och publicerar tunga argument och hårda fakta som talar mot den linje man själv går i spetsen för och uppmanar läsarna att ansluta sig till.

I frågor där en tidning är politiskt motiverad kan det naturligtvis vara intressant att ägna sig åt just kampanjjournalistik för att på så sätt också gagna det slutgiltiga politiska målet. 

3. Palestinsk propagandakrigsföring: I ett tidigare inlägg på denna blogg beskrivs den omfattande propagandakrigsföring som västerländska medier medvetet spelar med i.

Fabricering av pro-palestinska nyheter har tagit sådana proportioner att det har fått ett eget namn – Pallywood – ett palestinskt Hollywood där lögner paketeras som sanningar för att sedan kablas ut över världen via västerländska media organisationer.

Och varför vill västerländska medier spela med i detta spel? Objektivitet är ju annars det som all nyhetsmedia brukar förespråka. Melanie Phillips, författare och krönikör på Daily Mail, förklarar fenomenet;

The answer lies in a combination of their dislike of Israel, professional self-preservation, and the fact that they depend upon local stringers who are virtually all partisans of the Arab and Islamist cause.

Nu är Donald Boström inte en “local stringer” utan en svensk journalist, fotograf och författare som helt uppenbart har velat spela med i att sprida de palestinska propagandalögnerna.

Och Boström har nu också backat från sina själsäkra omdömen i sin artikel i Aftonbladet. På bloggen Fred i Mellanöstern kan man inte bara läsa om hans krumbukter i efterhand utan också hur svenska Utrikesdepartementet, kyrkor och fackföreningsrörelsen har bidragit till att göra det möjligt för Boström att sprida sina lögner.

4. Antisemitism som är förklädd till ”Israelkritik”: Det finns tre sätt att avslöja när ”Israelkritik” snarare är antisemitism.  

1. När statens Israel existens ifrågasätts

2. När Israel tillskrivs egenskaper och handlingar av “monstruös” art.

3. När det finns oproportionerligt negativt fokus på Israel jämfört med andra konflikter (eller andra folk som befinner sig i konflikt).

Här har Aftonbladet lyckats med konststycket att uppfylla två av tre kriterier för antisemitism.

Shmuel Rosner touches base with the Dershowitz-Phillips debate, designating himself as mediator. Conclusions? Typically, both are right and both are wrong. My opinion is that Rosner is sympathetic to Dershowitz, however, while keeping Melanie Phillips at a respectful arm’s length. Here is his conclusion:

Here’s George W. Bush, from January the 10th, 2008, on the same topic: “It should happen and could happen by the end of the year”. Was Bush also the kind of leader that Phillips would call “lethal for both Israel and the free world”?

Compare to my own:

Israel pulled out of Gaza when George W. Bush was in the White House and Ariel Sharon in the Knesset. Would this today not be labeled “suicidal” by Melanie Phillips?

So Rosner and I are on the same page, which is good news as far as I’m concerned.

Yaakov Lozowick takes a stab, as well. I like Lozowick because he has the deft touch of making criticism sound breezy, even if he’s sticking a finger in your eye. He writes words that make a point without stooping to name-calling. Obama’s more vocal critics could learn a thing or two from him.

I’m of the camp willing to cut the Obama administration some slack on their diplomacy of winning hearts by respectful gestures. I doubt it will work, and I hope that once it doesn’t they’ll recognize the significance of the failure, but I don’t see the harm in trying. Learning through experience is the best way there is. At the end of the day, however, the purpose of the new diplomacy is to have results. By alienating the large segment of Israeli society who are his natural allies, Obama is needlessly reducing the chances of his own success.

So pull up a seat. It’s going to be a long summer. And if you get bored with this debate, try this one.

I love the fact that Melanie Phillips can come down on Alan Dershowitz, who has written a trilogy of books in outright support of Israel, for his support of Barack Obama. I applaud Phillips for her steadfastness in defending Israel and Jews from bigotry, and Dershowitz wrote as much in his blog for JPost. His point, I think, was that support of Israel should be bipartisan. Which is why I smile when my more conservative friends ask how I can vote Democtratic and still support Israel. As if one position naturally informed the other.

They don’t, unless we think support of the Jewish state goes hand in hand with social issues like abortion, separation of church and state, minority rights, immigration, scientific research, the economy, etc…conservatives and liberals are split on most of these issues, which do not regard support for Israel in the least. Obama, for his part, hasn’t deviated from previous American policy very much at all. The Bush administration, too, was dedicated (in theory, at least) to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, as is the Netanyahu government and, yes…even the Sharon government. Tzipi Livni, who actually won more votes than Bibi, is outspoken on the issue.

Israel pulled out of Gaza when George W. Bush was in the White House and Ariel Sharon in the Knesset. Would this today not be labeled “suicidal” by Melanie Phillips? That an eventual Palestinian state should pose no threat to Israel is a position shared by all of them, Obama included. He cannot and will not say, “Let the Jordanians take them in and give historic, biblical Judea to the settlers.”

Is this what Phillips advocates? Dershowitz, in his book The Case for Peace, lays out a point by point peace plan. Has Phillips ever proposed a viable solution to a problem that will not go away until it is resolved? What exactly does all this fiery criticism of Obama’s supposed ransoming of Israel come to? His “roots” on the hard left? Or is he the de facto President Chomsky? What was it about the Bush administration that people think was so much more friendly to the Jewish people and their only country than the current one? Is it that Bush is perceived as having been “tough” on Islamists-Iran-the Palestinians? The man who lost no opportunity to proclaim that “Islam is a religion of peace?” Why was he not the “dhimmi in the White House?”  The Bush years solved nothing. They did nothing to curb the Iranian threat in its infancy, knowing that could be left to the incoming administration.

The Bush years were not the golden years of American-Israeli relations any more than Muslim Spain was a golden age for convivencia. We should stop lionizing George W. Bush just because Obama’s middle name is Hussein.

Support for the State of Israel is a moral position that should have nothing to do with being liberal or conservative, Christian, Jewish or Muslim, religious or atheist, black or white, male or female. It is a moral issue just as women’s rights are a moral issue, just as racism and bigotry are moral issues. It should, as Dershowitz wrote, be a bipartisan issue. There is no other way.

I wasn’t expecting much from a Melanie Phillips article titled “Hooray! The Tories are backing marriage – but they’re wrong to pretend that all relationships are equal”, but nevertheless I braced myself and dived in.

After the first few paragraphs inevitabley trundle on about how the breakdown of ‘tradional family life’ is the root of all evil in society, paragraphs at which she scorns at “deliberate attempts” by  ‘progresseives’  to give people more ‘equality’ and ‘rights’ (how very dare they!), my fears were realised when she casually dropped in:

The problem, however, is that his [David Cameron's] intention to repair the family is undermined by his support for gay rights.

I knew it was going to be bad, but that’s just outright homophobic nonsense. And it gets worse:

The far more serious point, however, is that the gay rights agenda undermines marriage.

Because as everyone knows, gay people aren’t allowed to get married. Because they’re different and weird and they challenge the nice little right-wing fantasy world Melanie has dreamed up for herself.

And she goes on:

But is the gay rights agenda really about tolerance, or is it about trying to stop heterosexuality being the behavioural norm?

Aaaah! Gay people are trying to turn us all gay and cause the end of human civilisation! Burn them! Burn them!

To counter this nonsense I was going to write a lot about the nature of sexual preference, but since I can’t put it as nicely as The Angry Mob I’ll quote him instead:

[homosexuality is not] something we can be forced into or converted to by interacting with gay people, or by attending diversity or awareness sessions. Therefore, can it be concluded that as sexual preference is not a result of nurture, it must be the result of nature? This conclusion would mean that homosexuality is perfectly natural and must be biologically determined…

The point I am trying to make is that gay people are not making a choice about their sexuality anymore than a straight person is. What equality is trying to achieve is the freedom for a person to be comfortable with whatever biological attraction they are born with. The message that being a homosexual is normal is being delivered because as a society we do not want people wandering around suppressing their nature in fear that they will be victimised or ostracised for simply being who they are.

But, if Melanie were to accept this, it would mean that the hateful propaganda her newspaper has been publishing recently over David Cameron’s apology over Section 28 was wrong, and so this completely rational argument has been ignored.

And I was so looking forward to this week as well. The Ashes is starting on Wednesday, the weather is lovely and all was well – and then I wake up on Monday morning to this hateful bile. Well thanks Melanie, thanks for putting a dampner on my week. I almost didn’t have the willpower to point out how horrible this particular article actually was, and I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt the start to your week as well by pointing you in the direction of it, but national newspapers really shouldn’t be allowed to push this vile homophobic agenda.

So next time Melanie, if your going to go on another hate-filled, homophobic tirade, do you think you could publish it on a Friday evening when we’re all out? Or, better still, keep it to yourself.

Today’s winner is Melanie Phillips:

What a disgrace that this man is leader of the free world; and at such a point in history. If he had put America stoutly behind the protesters and championed them against the regime, by now they might have toppled it.

This wins the day not because I find the notion that putting America “stoutly behind the protesters” would help them completely laughable, though I do.  That’s an honest disagreement.

No, she wins because she’s managed to say something extremely inflammatory, yet almost completely devoid of meaning and completely unfalsifiable.  You could put almost anything in that first clause, and her sentence would still be logically valid . . . and completely unfalsifiable.

If Obama had put 10 bucks on the protesters with his local bookie, by now they might have toppled the regime.

If George Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq, by now they might have toppled the regime.

If Fonzie had tried to jump only 12 barrels instead of 13, by now they might have toppled the regime.

If the moon came down and danced a foxtrot around my room with Ayatollah Khamenei every night, by now they might have toppled the regime.

So here’s to you, Ms. Phillips, and thanks for ruining my love life.  Because if you hadn’t written such a silly and tendentious column, Natalie Portman might be sitting in my lap just now.

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Comment at end

7th June, 2009

If it Were Done When Tis Done ….

Melanie Phillips has some fun at the present government’s expense.

And this morning on Radio 4 Labour MP Frank Dobson pinched her idea! No original thoughts these present Labour MPs. Even this regicide business had a full scale dress rehearsal a couple of years ago.

Maybe this time it’ll be all right on the night.

Break a leg.

For the sake of a commenter at Ms Philips’ site, it’s “Macbeth” by the way by William Shakespeare.  The suspicion among the acting profession is that it is bad luck to use its title – thus “The Scottish Play”.

In brief, if you haven’t read it, the ambitious Macbeth kills the King (Duncan) in a moment of great self-delusion and overestimation of his own powers and abilities.  Duncan then has to deal with his own consequential downfall.

If the commenter didn’t know what was being parodied, here’s a quick run-down:

The ambitious Brown kills the King (Blair) in a moment of great self-delusion and overestimation of his own powers and abilities.  Brown then has to deal with his own consequential downfall.

All the world’s a stage and each of us plays a part.

My main contrbution to the line-up, as I commented at Ms Phillips’ blog, was that Banquo is just the part for David Miliband.

After all, when push came to shove, Banquo was wise enough to reject murder.  Macbeth made the opposite, foolish decision.

And now look where it’s got him!  Back to Act 1, Scene 1.

BANQUO – MACBETH

While the witches do not directly advise Macbeth to kill King Duncan, they use a subtle form of temptation when they inform Macbeth that he is destined to be king. By placing this thought in his mind, they effectively guide him on the path to his own destruction. This follows the pattern of temptation many believed the Devil used at the time of Shakespeare. First, they argued, a thought is put in a man’s mind, then the person may either indulge in the thought or reject it. Macbeth indulges in it, while Banquo rejects.

“RECAST – RECAST. Peter, do stop stage managing for a mo, precious heart, and try on this sword for size.

But whatever you do, don’t wave it around too much.

YET.”

Comment at end

7th June, 2009

BLAIR COUP LEADER SADIQ KHAN NAMED (BY BROWN) AS FIRST MUSLIM CABINET MEMBER

According to reports at Politicana. This man, who owes his first steps on the political ladder to Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair, is now Transport Minister.

This is the same Sadiq Khan who put his mark to a lettter to oust Tony Blair.

For that disloyalty, along with his co-conspirators of ANY religion or none, I will NEVER forgive this member of Brown’s Plotting Bully Boys.

And that means NEVER.

But Brown, or so it looks, has rewarded him for his coup efforts against Blair.  At the same time he has sent a message out to today’s coup plotters. I wonder if they give a damn. 

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE OK … WESTMINSTER CORAL

Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor under Blair, but until now loyal to Brown, says that a new leader is needed.

Today Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, and until today loyal to Brown, boosts the ranks of the critics of the present prime minister. He says that Brown cannot unite the party and is leading Labour to disaster. “We need unity above all … under the current leadership? … I am not sure that we can … I suspect the only way to get unity is by a change of leader.”

Normally loyal MP Nick Raynsford says he fears Labour is heading back to its long years in the political outback, disunited and unable to achieve power, perhaps for decades.

In other words the pre-Blair days. Remember those? You soon may.

Frank Dobson quoted Macbeth today, but Melanie Phillips beat him to it:

“If it were done when tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”.

Who says no-one reads blogs?

RELATED

“Bring Back Tony Blair” calls growing

I’ve recently been involved in a conversation over at Liberal Conspiracy (see posts 100 to 102).

Discussing Melanie Phillips, I said:

She’s a creationist. Therefore she is stupid.

Someone going by the name of Kojak replied:

Just because you think a person is wrong it doesn’t necessarily mean they are stupid.

Which is indeed true; for example I might be wrong about that person being wrong. However, as I pointed out…

It’s not just me who thinks Phillips is wrong regarding creationism, it’s essentially all competent scientists, including many thousands of people who’re more intelligent than Phillips.

The weight of scientific evidence in favour of evolution is overwhelming. Anyone who disputes this either believes that (1) they are cleverer than all the world’s top scientists put together, or (2) that the entire scientific establishment, hundred of thousands of people worldwide, is part of secret conspiracy to suppress the truth.

Either of these beliefs is literally incredible. Creationism has therefore about as much intellectual credibility as loony nonsense such as: holocaust denial, the theory that 9/11 was caused by Mossad (and thousands of Jewish workers were secretly tipped off not to go to work at the WTC on 9/11), AIDS was a plot by the US government to kill black people, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, flat earthism, or homeopathy.

All creationists, by definition, are incapable of understanding complex issues or of weighing competing evidence. Their judgement on all other complex issues is therefore suspect; they can simply not be relied upon to get it right. Or to compress it into one word, they are “stupid”.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has given back a grant from the Israeli Embassy after film maker Ken Loach and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have issued threats.

The 300-pound grant was to be used to fund Israeli film maker Tali Shalom Ezer’s travel expenses to Scotland to exhibit her award-winning short film Surrogate. Festival organizers will fund the trip instead.

The Festival issued a statement saying:

Although the Festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we always acknowledge and consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole, and as such accept that one filmmaker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community.

Ken Loach speaks on behaf of the film community? Mr. Loach urged a boycott of the Festival through the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, stating that film makers would be ”horrified” to learn that the organization accepted money from Israel.

With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation, and stay away.

Perhaps Loach doesn’t realize that the word “Palestine” historically refers to Israel; not, as it has been abused in recent years, to the terrorist organization known as the Palestinian Authority (formerly the Palestine Liberation Organization).

Sir Jeremy Isaacs, former chief executive of the UK’s Channel Four and former associate of Loach, accused the festival’s organisers of making an “appalling decision.”

The idea that Ken Loach should lend himself to the denial of a film-maker’s right to show her work is absolutely appalling. I would like to think this appalling decision will be rescinded. They must not allow someone who has no real position, no rock to stand on, to interfere with their programming.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor said it is regrettable that the Festival has chosen to compromise its artistic integrity.

Rather than encourage an open dialogue through cultural exchange, the festival is promoting bigotry by denying the British public the opportunity to hear all points of view.

The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign formed in 2000 to support terrorist activities in and around Israel. The organization leverages anti-Semitism and media misinformation to spread fallacies about the state of Israel and call for demonstrations of hate against Jews in both the public and private sectors.

Ironically, the group’s very name can be considered an affront to Jews: Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPiC). To the best of my knowledge, they do not use this acronym publicly.

Tali Shalom Ezer’s film makes no reference to war or politics, but is about the relationship between a man and his “sex therapist.” Surrogate recently won an audience choice award at an international women’s film festival in Israel.

Melanie Phillips of the Spectator writes about the situation far more eloquently than I. Please take a moment to read her column.

You can express your support of the arts and disgust with bigotry at these e-mail addresses:

• SPSP (SPiC) campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk
• EIFF info@edfilmfest.org.uk