June 28, 2013
With friends like these ......
With friends like Melanie Phillips, who needs enemies? Articulate and useless.
Melanie Phillips writes in her latest column, entitled The British government's jihad against free thought, "I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic."
What "other groups" is she talking about? Who would Phillips have fight this war? What does she suggest? And what is the elitist contempt for the EDL? I was there when they were formed as a result of vicious epithets and abuse being hurled at returning soldiers by devout Muslims. The rise of the EDL was a natural response, an organic repulsion to a hatred, to a violent movement bent on the destruction of our way of life.
I have monitored the group for the past four years. Are they perfect? Of course not, and I have expressed concerns in the past (here and here), and they do their best to purge their ranks of problems, but their heart is in the right place. I understand there is a class system still in Britain and these blokes are a bit rough round the edges and less than cultured, but so what? Who does Phillips think is going to fight this war? Dandies?
What's her answer, then? Seriously. The EDL is thuggish? I see. That reeks of elitism. These boys are a bit dirty and they don't do high tea at 4. But I know they have no racist agenda, and far from being neo-Nazis, they're one of the most (if not the most) pro-Israel groups in Britain. They've reached out to Jews, Sikhs, women, gays and others. They oppose violence and do not provoke it; they just fight back when attacked. Phillips ought to back up her taint with fact. I can't see past her argument. I want proof, Melanie. I have seen what they done to me. And Spencer. And every other effective counter jihadist. The lies, the libel. I want proof, Melanie. We live in a day and age where video, iphones, etc. make documenting such accusations easy. Why not them?
Phillips goes on to posit that the result of our sanction of the EDL "has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad."
I don't know what planet Phillips is on, but they have been calling any and all of us bigoted extremists long before the EDL came into being. That was always the strategy of the smear machine. CAIR et al haven't changed their tactics; the only difference now is that through money, media and men they have recruited many to their ....... jihad.
As for "splitting the defense against Islamic extremism" -- she harkens back to an era that exists only in her mind. Phillips has fashioned a fictional contruct unrelated to reality. Where did the polite talk get the hundreds of non-Muslim tween girls gang-raped and sex trafficked by scores of Muslim gangs in the past decade? Law enforcement ignored their pleas for years before the EDL existed, because they didn't want to offend the "Asian" community.
This kind of circular firing squad is the fatal weakness of the right. They accept and adopt the smears that our adversaries manufacture to destroy the most effective activists.
As for the ban, sign this petition.
The British government's jihad against free thought Melanie Phillips
By banning from the country as extremists the American anti-jihadis Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Home Secretary Teresa May has not only made herself look ridiculous but has sent the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run.
I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.
The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.
Nevertheless, the decision to ban this duo from Britain is unjustified, oppressive and comes perilously close to lining up the British government alongside those who wish to silence defenders of the west against the jihad, making a total mockery of Britain’s understanding of just who presents a danger to the state.
Neither Geller nor Spencer remotely presents such a danger. They intended to come to Britain to join an EDL rally in Woolwich, in the wake of the barbaric murder there of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Islamists last month.
Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join. Whether or not its rally is itself a threat to public order is, however, another issue. As far as is known, it is not being banned. It is only Geller and Spencer who have been banned from the country on the grounds that their presence is ‘not conducive to the public good’. The implication is that they will incite violence or disorder. But all the two of them do is criticise Islam, condemn jihadis and warn against the west’s failure to take seriously their machinations.
One may think they go too far, that some of their views are unpleasant or offensive or wrong; but that is surely no reason to ban them from the country. What on earth have we come to, after all, when the British Home Secretary is banning people on the basis that they criticise Islam and warn against jihadi violence? Is this not exactly the menacing argument mounted by Islamic extremists, that any condemnation of Islamic extremism is to be banned as ‘Islamophobic’?
Moreover, from the text of the Home Secretary’s letter to Spencer, it would appear that the reason for the the ban is that the British government is now telling people that certain interpretations of Islam are to be proscribed, even if they may be true – a truly terrifying and totalitarian development, and an open assault upon freedom of thought and expression, not to mention religious scholarship.
And if the argument is that any criticism of Islam may incite violence against Muslims, then by the same token Mrs May should ban all criticism of Israel -- on the much firmer grounds that there is a clearly demonstrated correlation between hate campaigns against Israel and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. Of course, that would be unthinkable. So why the double standard?
And that is what is particularly intolerable here -- that Mrs May is allowing people to run around Britain who really are stirring up hatred and worse, but who appear to be untouchable because they are Islamists. The Commentator has drawn attention to the recent entry to Britain of Muhammad Al-Arifi, a Saudi scholar who has declared that Shia Muslims are‘evil’ and also stated that ‘...al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Oussama Bin Laden, may his soul rest in peace, did not adopt many of the thoughts that are attributed to him today’.
The government also allowed into the country Shady Al-Suleiman, the Australian cleric who has called ‘for Allah to destroy the enemies of Islam’, who has endorsed Hamas which Britain recognises as a terrorist entity, and even endorsed the killing of British soldiers, saying, ‘Give victory to all the Mujahideen all over the world. Oh Allah, prepare us for the jihad’.
Aren’t these men, who foment sectarian division and endorse terrorism, not ‘conducive to the public good’?
So why did Mrs May ban Spencer and Geller? Was it because of the petition to do so by Hope not Hate -- which misrepresented and smeared them by claiming they called all Muslims savages (they did not)? Was it in response to one of the signatories to this petition, Tony Lloyd, Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner (who Spencer and Geller say also misrepresented what they have said) who termed them
‘hate preachers – every bit as bad as those who use the name of Islam to propagate hatred’?
What an extraordinary thing to say. Geller and Spencer don’t go round calling for people to be killed, or preaching genocide or holy war, or spreading conspiracy theories and lies to foment hysteria and hatred. But when he was chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tony Lloyd led a delegation to Gaza to meet leaders of Hamas, where he was photographed fraternally shaking the hand of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
So Lloyd is happy to meet with a group whose leader has called Israel a ‘cancerous tumour that must be removed’ and whose officials have said
‘the Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah…Allah will kill the Jews in the hell of the world to come, just like they killed the believers in the hell of this world’
and
‘...the Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder: “I kill, therefore I am”... Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah's will, through blood and shahids [martyrs]’
– and yet he called for Spencer and Geller to be banned as ‘hate preachers’, a demand which the Home Secretary agrees was justified even as she allows real hate preachers to spread their poison around Britain.
Has Britain now totally lost the plot?
UPDATE: Robert Spencer has it here:
Note in the first place that the letter from the Home Office barring me from the UK said nothing at all about the EDL or "others." (What others?) It quoted a statement of mine that Islam has a doctrine mandating warfare against unbelievers -- a statement that is demonstrably true. So Melanie Phillips' bringing up the EDL here is completely gratuitous, designed to distinguish her work from ours, and to show the British elites that she is not tainted with our taint. In fact, the EDL has nothing racist or xenophobic about its platform, and removes such individuals from its ranks when they're found. It is only "thuggish" in that its members fight back when attacked by Islamic supremacists. Melanie Phillips thinks that the EDL is racist and xenophobic because she has seen a thousand media reports insisting that it is. As someone who has been lied about in the same mainstream media, she ought to be a bit more skeptical of what they report. The people who claim that the EDL are racist and xenophobic are primarily the foes of the counter-jihad movement in general. I've seen how they lie about me; why should I believe them about the EDL? Melanie Phillips has seen how they lie about her; why should she believe them about the EDL?
Her fastidious distinguishing of herself from those among the foes of jihad and Islamic supremacism to which she objects will not win her a pass. Every last foe of jihad gets the same treatment. Phillips' fundamental error is to think that if she distances herself from the EDL (and those shadowy "others"), Pamela Geller, and me, that the Leftists and Islamic supremacists won't direct their fury on her, and subject her to the same campaign of smears and defamation to which they have subjected us. But they will. There are plenty of foes of "Islamic extremism" who think that if they utter nonsense about "moderate Islam" and "hijacking of religion," that they will outflank the politically correct narrative. They don't realize that the purveyors of political correctness really are fascist authoritarians -- that is not just Spencer's rhetorical flourish. They will give Melanie Phillips no quarter, no matter how much she concedes to them. And the more she does concede to them, the more she plays their game, the more she allows them to set the terms of the debate and define the parameters of the narrative, the more she empowers them, and sends the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run. That's the fundamental problem with her friendly fire.
The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.
If anyone has "split the defence against Islamic extremism," it is those such as Melanie Phillips and The Commentator who are careful to attack foes of "Islamic extremism" even while defending them. And the rest of this is outstandingly naive: the foes of freedom were portraying "all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad" as "bigoted extremists" long before the EDL existed. What she doesn't seem to understand is the game the Left and Islamic supremacists play: they pick a target, defame it, smear it, and demonize it, until finally it is completely marginalized. They demand that freedom fighters denounce and distance themselves from the targeted individual. Melanie Phillips is playing along with this game with alacrity. But no one of any position except their own will ultimately be acceptable them. They will just move on from the EDL to the next target, and demonize it as well, until the remaining foes of jihad denounce and distance themselves from the new target as well. Then they will pick another foe of jihad and do the same thing, until there is no one left. The worst thing foes of jihad could do in the face of this game is play it, and allow some individual or group to be destroyed on the basis of unsubstantiated claims and Leftist propaganda. But Melanie Phillips just keeps playing along.
Nevertheless, the decision to ban this duo from Britain is unjustified, oppressive and comes perilously close to lining up the British government alongside those who wish to silence defenders of the west against the jihad, making a total mockery of Britain’s understanding of just who presents a danger to the state.
Nevertheless!
Neither Geller nor Spencer remotely presents such a danger. They intended to come to Britain to join an EDL rally in Woolwich, in the wake of the barbaric murder there of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Islamists last month.
Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join. Whether or not its rally is itself a threat to public order is, however, another issue. As far as is known, it is not being banned. It is only Geller and Spencer who have been banned from the country on the grounds that their presence is ‘not conducive to the public good’. The implication is that they will incite violence or disorder. But all the two of them do is criticise Islam, condemn jihadis and warn against the west’s failure to take seriously their machinations.
"Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join." I am reminded of a time when I was in London, several years ago, and witnessed an uncomfortable scene in which a prominent English writer dressed down some EDL members with a cold fury. His accent was posh, theirs were not, and as he upbraided them it became increasingly clear that he was outraged at their insolence -- that these lower class lads would dare to approach him and speak with him as if he were an equal. The impression I got then has been reinforced many times since then: that the foes of jihad in Britain often oppose the EDL for the unspoken reason that it is made up of people from a lower social class, and people of lower social classes simply do not lead acceptable movements. Years ago I knew an Englishman who had emigrated to the U.S., he told me, because Britain was such a class society that there was a certain level beyond which he could not rise, no matter what his accomplishments and abilities. British class distinctions are, I believe, behind much of the sniffing at the EDL, and readiness to accept Leftist/Islamic supremacist propaganda about it on the part of people who would otherwise reject that propaganda.
But I am an American. We don't have social classes here. Anyone who works for the freedom of speech and equality of rights of all people, and rejects the genuine thuggishness and authoritarianism of the Left and its Islamic supremacist allies, is A-OK with me.
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