Tel-Chai Nation

Melanie Phillips tells how Jewish community leaders are not being helpful in the fight against Islamofascism, though it's hardly new anywhere if you discover this kind of dhimmitude taking place:

My column in last week’s Jewish Chronicle, which you can read here, ignited a firestorm of controversy – most of it abusive, much of it tendentious, and all of it missing the point of or actively misrepresenting what I actually wrote.

In the piece I argued that, while attacks on Muslims should be condemned, the specific charge of Islamophobia was designed to silence any criticism of the Islamic world. I further argued that it was terribly wrong to equate antisemitism with Islamophobia, the accusation of which provided cover for Muslim antisemitism.

So how did the badly educated leadership respond?

In this week’s issue, however, the JC has published a letter signed jointly by the president of the Board of Deputies, Marie van der Zyl, the head of the Jewish Leadership Council, Jonathan Goldstein, and the Chief Executive of the Community Security Trust, David Delew (letter not yet on line).

In their letter, they say they object to my reference to “Islamophobia” being “profoundly anti-Jew”.

This was what I wrote:

“‘Islamophobia’ was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood to mimic antisemitism, the concept which these Islamists falsely believe immunises Jews from criticism — itself an antisemitic belief. So ‘Islamophobia’ appropriates to itself the unique attribute of antisemitism — that it is deranged — in order falsely to label any adverse comment about the Islamic world as a form of mental disorder. The concept of ‘Islamophobia’ is thus profoundly anti-Jew. To equate it with the dehumanising, insane and essentially murderous outpourings of Jew-hatred is obscene.”

I stand by this argument (although the term “Islamophobia” is said to be of older provenance, it was unknown in the west until the Brotherhood deployed it to render the Islamic world immune from criticism). The three leaders do not provide any evidence that it is wrong, nor indeed do they engage with it at all. Instead, they say this:

“We know how hurtful it is when people claim that allegations of antisemitism are just as smear to silence any and all criticism of Israel or when they say they oppose genuine Jew-hatred before then picking apart the word antisemitism as if implying that no such thing really exists. Essentially, Phillips’s article did just that, but there is plenty of survey evidence showing that anti-Muslim prejudice is widespread this country, and it is clear that Islamists’ use of ‘Islamophobia’ has not somehow resulted in ‘the Islamic world’ escaping criticism, regardless of how fair or harsh that criticism may be”.

This is a truly shocking paragraph.

First, it falsely suggests I implied that anti-Muslim prejudice does not exist. I wrote precisely the opposite: “Of course, true prejudice against Muslims should be condemned, just like prejudice against Hindus, Sikhs or anyone else”.

Not only do the three thus misrepresent the whole point of my piece, but they use my own words above to impute to me bad faith in writing them – and imply that I am therefore the equivalent of an antisemitism-denier.

Well I guess it figures even in Europe - and maybe mainly in Britain - there'd be Jews and Judaists too cowardly to make any distinctions between good and bad religions. Who just can't gather the courage to say they disapprove of customs that can be considered inhumane. It's prevalent even here. And it has to grind to a halt if anybody wants to rid the world of Islamic influence.

For a community supposedly concerned about anti-semitism in Britain, they sure aren't helping by turning against Phillips over this.

Labels: anti-semitism, dhimmitude, islam, jihad, londonistan, Moonbattery