If not broken up altogether, as the malign, libellous and morally corrupt organisation it really is. I’ve commented already on a post Mike put up on Thursday, reporting the barrage of criticism the Board of Deputies had called upon itself from outraged citizens up and down this country. They were enraged at the Board’s comments on the Gaza massacre, and the way they placed the blame, not on the Israeli squaddies, who murdered 60 people and wounded 200 more, but on the victims. Ah, it was all the fault of Hamas, who put all the 40,000 or so Palestinians massing at the fence, up to it. After all, 50 of those killed were members of Hamas.
It doesn’t matter if they were members of Hamas or not. They were unarmed. This makes their killings assassinations, which is the mark of a death squad. Which is Fascism.
Also, what about the 10 that weren’t members of Hamas? They didn’t deserve to die. Not least the baby that was killed when Israeli squaddies threw a tear gas grenade into a tent.
Liberal Judaism and Yachad wrote letters to the Board stating that the Board had grotesquely misrepresented their views. And ordinary, individual Jews were also incensed. One of them was the comic actor David Schneider, who said very plainly that the Board didn’t represent Jews like him.
Mike opened his article with the smug face of the Board’s president, Jonathan Arkush, who he said was soon to be ex-president of the Board.
Arkush is a nasty piece of work, not least for the way he’s weaponised the anti-Semitism smears against the Labour party, and tried to make Corbyn the sole person responsible for it. It’s a lie, as he must surely know, as anti-Semitism has gone down in the Labour party under Corbyn. It’s now lower than in ordinary British society. And as Mike’s repeatedly pointed out, if you want to see real, baying racists and anti-Semites, with the vilest of views, you have to look at the Tory and Tory affiliated web-pages.
But when Arkush and the Board attack the Labour party for being anti-Semitic, this is only a cover for their real concern: to stifle criticism of Israel. And the Israel lobby has been using that smear since the 1980s. So much so that the American Jewish critic of Israel, Dr. Norman Finkelstein, has described it as a machine for manufacturing anti-Semites.
It’s a tactic shared and employed wholesale by the odious Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. And it was explicitly set up to stifle criticism of Israel caused by their treatment of Gaza. It’s founder, Gideon Falter, was left unnerved by the popular opposition to Israel aroused by the bombardment of Gaza in 2007 or so. He did what the Israel lobby always do in such circumstances, and defined criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Oh yes, in debates the pro-Israel pundits and speakers will allow that Israel should rightly be the subject of criticism where it’s justified. But in practice, any support for the Palestinians is met with outrage, and claims of anti-Semitism. Especially if you call it an apartheid state, or point out just how similar it is to Fascism or the Nazi policies towards the Jews before they embarked on the horrors of the ‘Final Solution’ in 1942.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism hasn’t said a peep about the Gaza massacre. They don’t represent British Jewry in the same way as the Board, and so there’s no call for them to. But you can bet they’ve been watching the wave of outrage against the Board for its vile comments, and been taking notes, if not names. The Israel lobby hates even the reporting of atrocities committed by Israel or its allies. They alleged that respected BBC foreign correspondents Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin were anti-Semites for their reports on the conflicts between Israel and its neighbours. They were particularly upset by Bowen’s report that the massacres of Muslim Palestinians by the Christian phalange in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon were committed by Israel’s allies. Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, described in an interview with Peter Oborne in his Despatches programme on the Israel lobby how he was regularly placed under pressure by the Board demanding that he retract articles on Israeli crimes and human rights violations because they are anti-Semitic.
It isn’t just the Board that needs to be investigated and reformed because of their support for the shooting of unarmed civilians. It’s the entire Israel lobby, including the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. Their patrons, as Mike and Tony Greenstein has pointed out, are largely Tories with a history of racism and Islamophobia. And they have been principally involved with the anti-Semitism smears against members of the Labour party, in conjunction with pro-Israel organs like the Labour Friends of Israel. There have been calls for the latter group to be expelled from the party, just as there has been an internet petition on Change.org to have the CAA deregistered with the Charity Commission for being a political organisation, not a charity.
It has been the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism that libelled Mike as an anti-Semite and holocaust denier just because he had the temerity to defend Ken Livingstone. Just like they’ve libelled and smeared so many other decent people, Jew and gentile, even those, who have spent their lives combating racism and anti-Semitism. Even those, who have suffered genuine anti-Semitic abuse and assault themselves.
And just as many British Jews were rightly angered by the Board’s comments about Gaza, so Jewish Brits have also been annoyed by the way the Campaign presumes to speak for them. Especially when its pronouncements are made by gentiles like Luke Akehurst or Stephen Pollard, who then go on to declare that all British Jews, as Jew, must support Israel. They are rightly incensed at being told what they must believe as Jews by those, who aren’t.
Criticism of the Israel lobby should not stop at the Board and its vile president. It has to go beyond, to organisations like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, BICOM and others.
Arkush should be called on to resign for his comments. And so should Gideon Falter, and his wretched smear group be broken up for its similar tactics, libels and goals.
On Wednesday Mike put up a post questioning why Britain and many other countries had not made stronger condemnations of the Gaza massacre by Israeli soldiers. He also attacked the statement issued by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, justifying the shootings by stating that Hamas is a terrorist movement intent on the destruction of Israel that ruthlessly uses unarmed civilians and children, and so put them up to massing at and trying to break through the fence. Mike points out that, whatever the Israeli state has claimed, no Israelis were harmed, while 55 – the number of dead reported at the time – Palestinians had been killed. He also pointed out that this is blaming the victims, exactly what the Nazis did to justify their own persecution and genocide of the Jews.
And other Jews in this country and Israel have similarly been appalled and disgusted at the Israeli’s violence. They include tweeter Tom London, whose avatar is the fizzog of 18th century radical Tom Paine. Haggai Matar, whose first name is that of one of the lesser prophets of the Hebrew Bible, also posted a piccie of 500 Israeli protesters blocking the Tel Aviv road.
Muslims and those of Arab descent have naturally not been silent. Aleesha has expressed her utter disgust, and Mehdi Hasan has stated that the comments on the massacre by various organisations, which don’t condemn the Israeli state, mean that nothing they say on the subject of Israel should ever be taken seriously again.
Alistair Burt, speaking for the government, just made a very anodyne and half-hearted condemnation urging restraint of both sides, stating he was very saddened by the massacre and the use of live fire, but also the use of civilians by terrorists, and that all this was a threat to the peace process and a two state solution.
He was immediately torn into by Tom London, who found this weak condemnation also ‘cowardly, immoral and shameful’.
Rupert Colville, the UN’s spokesman on human rights, declared that the massacre was a violation.
And Linda Sarsour pointed out that South Africa, which has also lived through apartheid, has just broken off diplomatic relations with Israel. South Africa was a strong supporter of Israel under apartheid, something that appalled and disgusted many Israelis, even those who supported their own apartheid against the Palestinians. Will this loss of an erstwhile ally upset the Israelis? Not while they’ve got new, extreme right-wing allies in Europe like the present Polish administration and Fidesz in Hungary.
So why is the British government’s own response so muted? According to Marsha de Cordova, it’s because last year Britain sold the Israelis £216 million of arms, including sniper rifles. And coincidently, many of those murdered in Gaza were killed by snipers. The tweeter radicals put the figure at £445 million, including snipers.
Jeremy Corbyn issued a much more robust, statesmanlike response stating that the massacre came after weeks of Palestinians being killed while demonstrating for their right of return. He mentioned Trump’s movement of the American embassy to Jerusalem as a further emphasis to the threat to peace and the injustices inflicted on the Palestinians. He condemned the weak response by western governments to the massacre, and urged them to take a lead from Israei campaigners for peace and justice. There should be an end to the 11 years siege of Gaza, and the 50 year occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
He concluded:
“We cannot turn a blind eye to such wanton disregard for international law. That is why Labour is committed to reviewing UK arms sales to Israel while these violations continue.
“The international community must at last put its collective authority and weight behind achieving a lasting settlement that delivers peace, justice and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, who have waited so long to achieve their rights.”
Corbyn’s speech is excellent, gives due credit and emphasis to Israeli campaigners for peace and justice for the Palestinians, and rightly condemns the ‘merchants of death’. So we can expect it will be seized upon and twisted by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism for alleged Jew hatred. As soon as the Israel lobby finds a way of fending off public outrage against them, of course. Mike’s put up a piece today reporting that the Board of Deputies of British Jews is being torn to shreds by British Jews, who like Tom London, find their statement disgusting. Liberal Judaism is particularly appalled, as is Yachad. Many joined a demonstration held outside Downing Street by Jewdas, while others held a ‘Kaddish for Israel’. The Kaddish is the lament at Jewish funerals, and comes from the passage in the Hebrew Bible ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord’. MPs have also condemned the shooting, and the board’s excuse that 50 of those killed were Hamas terrorists has been dismissed by one blogger as ‘a load of Fascist crap’. It’s another comparison between Israel and the Nazis. But as Mike points out, it isn’t anti-Semitic as it’s accurate.
He ends his article with the rhetorical question that if the side of reason is winning the argument, then
Why is the Duke of Cambridge – Prince William – determined to continue with a planned visit to Israel that will amount to an endorsement of that country’s murder of innocent people?
This issue becomes more complicated by the second.
Which is precisely the point Dr. Basem Naim, the former Gaza Health Minister raised when interviewed by Afshin Rattansi earlier this week.
Apart from arms sales, there are also other geopolitical reasons why Britain supports Israel. It’s one of the two pillars of British foreign policy in the reason, the other being Saudi Arabia. They’re supposed to represent islands of stability in the region, and were our allies against the Soviet bloc and its Arab allies.
In fact the various statements that have been made justifying this situation are just so much guff. Israel isn’t the only democratic state in the region – so was Lebanon. And what the Americans and our governments feared was Arab nationalism, which was also considered pro-Soviet. Many of the Arab socialist regimes were pro-Russian, but not Communist. And almost from the moment the Balfour declaration was issued, there were suspicions that this was an attempt to create a pro-British Jewish island in the region, just like Belfast was a pro-British island of Ulster Protestants.
The Conservatives have always had a very close relationship with the arms industry, and I don’t doubt for an instant that many of them have shares in arms companies. The excuse for backing the arms industry is that it will open up these countries to the import of other British products. It doesn’t. They don’t buy other British goods, just our arms.
And earlier this week people compared the British attitude to the Gaza massacre with the Saudis using British arms to kill children and babies in Yemen. Well, once again, the accusation is correct. The Israelis have also been using British weapons to kill the innocent. Especially as one of those who died was a baby after Israeli squaddies threw CS gas into a tent.
Israel is an apartheid state engaged in ethnic cleansing. It is a disgrace, like every other nation with the same policies. We should stop arms sales now, and give every effort to support a secure, just peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And those organisations justifying such massacres and persecutions should be marginalised and destroyed.
The Blairites have been falsely accusing anyone they can of being an anti-Semite. Most of those smeared have been so libelled simply because they were opponents of Israel’s oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The victims of this disgraceful smear, as I have pointed out time and again, include Jews and anti-racist activists like Tony Greenstein, Rachel Nesbitt, Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone. One of the most disgusting examples of this was last weekend, when Mark Foster, a Jewish donor to Labour, denounced Momentum and the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn as Nazi ‘stormtroopers’.
This is more than a little hypocritical, considering the Israel lobby’s own attempts render Israel’s racist policies against the indigenous Arab population off-limits through the abuse of such accusations, and the appalling contempt the founders of the state of Israel had for Arab Jews and European Jews, who wished to stay in their traditional European homelands. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion wished to see increased Nazi persecution of European Jews during the Second World War, in order to encourage them to emigrate to Israel. One of the two even said that if there was a choice, between all of the Jews in Europe emigrating to Britain, and being saved, or half of the European Jewish population emigrating to Israel, while the other half were murdered by the Nazis, he’d prefer the latter.
They considered the Mizrahim, Arab Jews, culturally inferior, and only took them in because there was a shortage of labour after their expulsion of the Palestinians. They were segregated, given the lowest-paid and most menial of jobs to perform, and taught in special schools in order to remove any trace of their inferior Arab culture. This included the theft of Arab Jewish children from their parents, who were then given to childless European Jewish couples to bring up.
Lobster has also been a persistent critic of Tony Blair and New Labour. It has also not been shy of pointing out the similarity between Blair and the Nazis. For example, Blair’s warmongering in Iraq is exactly the same war crime committed by the Nazi leader Ribbentrop. And Blair’s rhetoric was also very close to that used by Oswald Mosley when he was the leader of the British Union of Fascists. So close is this resemblance that Robert Henderson published an article on the similarity, ‘New Labour, New Fascism?’ in issue 38 of the magazine, for Winter 1999. He opened with the statement
Tony Blair’s rhetoric is heavily if unconsciously littered with fascist buzz words: NATION, NEW, RENEWAL and so on. But there is a greater similarity than single words: Blair frequently expresses ideas which have a remarkable similarity to those of Oswald Mosley. To demonstrate this, I have compiled a series of quotes from Blair and Mosley.
He then provides a series of quotes, and challenges the reader to decide which is Blair and which is Mosley. There was a key at the bottom of the article giving the answers. All the quotes from Mosley were taken from Eugene Weber’s Varieties of Fascism, shortened to VoF. Those from Blair came from Iain Dale’s, The Blair Necessities, and were abbreviated to BN.
Here are the quotes. See how you do. There is obviously no prize, but I feel that if there was one, it should consist of a speech in the winner’s favour by Tom Mann at the Nuremberg Stadium.
1. It combines the dynamic urge to change and progress, with the authority, the discipline and the order without which nothing great can be achieved.
2. It is largely from family discipline that social discipline and a sense of responsibility is learnt.
3. Our challenge to be a young country is not just economic, it is a social and moral challenge.
4. I believe we have broken through the traditional barriers of right and left; they were are developing a new radical economic approach for the left and centre.
5. Above all it is a realistic creed. It has no use for immortal princip0les in relation to the facts of bread-and-butter; and it despises the windy rhetoric which ascribes importance to mere formula.
6. One Britain. That is the patriotism for the future.
7. The steel creed of an iron age, it cuts through the verbiage of illusion to the achievement of a new reality…
8. It is no good waving the fabric of our flag when you have spent the last sixteen years tearing apart the fabric of our nation.
9. A young country that wants to be a strong country cannot be morally neutral about the family.
10. We have in unison in our case the economic facts and the spiritual tendencies of our age…
11. We need a new social reality.
12. We seek to establish a new ideal of public service, and a new authority based on merit.
13. It must be absolutely clear to the British people that we are apolitical arm of no one other than the British people themselves.
14. The mild tinkering with the economy proposed by the Social Democrats nowhere near measures up to the problem. A massive reconstruction of industry is needed… The resources required to reconstruct manufacturing industry call for enormous state guidance and intervention.
15. We will protect British industry against unfair foreign competition.
16. There is nothing odd about subsidizing an industry.
17. It is true that within the old parties and even within the old parliament are many young men whose real place is with us and who sympathise with our ieas. The real political division of the past decade has not been a division of parties, but a division of generations.
18. The market collapsed: its guardians, the City whizz-kids with salaries fractionally less than their greed, now seem not just morally dubious, but incompetent. They failed miserably, proving themselves ut5terly unfit to have such power.
19. Politically, the fall-out from the events of the past two weeks will be immense. There will be few politicians standing for election next time on a budget advocating ‘free markets’.
20. The new establishment is not a meritocracy, but a power elite of money-shifters, middle men and speculators… people whose self-interest will always come before the national or the public interest.
21. The case advanced in these pages covers, not only a new political policy, but also a new conception of life. In our view, these purposes can only be achieved by the creation of a modern movement invading every sphere of national life.
22. We will speak up for a country that knows the good sense of a public industry in public hands.
23. A nation at work, not on benefit. That is our pledge.
24. Social aims without economic means are empty wishes. By uniting the two we can build a better future for all of our people.
25. In our project of national renewal, education renewal must be at the forefront. Our watchwords will be aspiration, opportunity and achievement.
26.I want a negotiated settlement and I believe that given the starkness of the military options we need to compromise on certain things.
27. It is the primary responsibility of any government to defend the country. That much is obvious. But my contention here is that a strong defence capability is an essential part of Britain’s foreign policy.
28. To change our country, we must show that we have the courage to change ourselves.
29. I think that you should always put the national interest before any section of interest in your party.
30. Our task now is nothing less than the rebirth of our nation. A new Britain. National renewal…The task of building new Britain now to come.
31. We ask them (our supporters) to rewrite the greatest pages of British History by finding for the spirit of their age its highest mission in these islands.
32. Without an active interventionist industrial policy… Britain faces the future of having to compete on dangerously unequal terms.
33. [We aim to] convert the existing chaotic survival of laissez-faire liberalism into a planned economy serving the needs of the State as a whole.
Key
1. VoF p. 170.
2. BN p. 18 1993
3. BN p. 19 1995
4. BN p. 14 1996
5 VoF p. 170.
6. BN p. 13 1996
7. VoF p. 171
8 Bn p. 13 1996
9. BN p. 12 1995
10. VoF p.172.
11. BN p. 19 1996
12. VoF. p. 111.
13. BN p. 28 1996
14. BN p. 39 1982
15. BN p. 39 1983
16. BN p. 40 1983
17. VoF p. 172
18. BN p. 41 1987.
19. BN p. 41 1987.
20. BN p. 42 1994
21. VoF p. 171.
22 BN p. 521988.
23. BN p. 65 1995.
24. BN p. 65 1995
25. BN p. 69 1994
26. BN p. 89 1982
27. BN p. 90 1997
28. BN p. 94 1993
29. BN. p. 98 1996
30. BN p. 106 1995
31. VoF p. 175.
32. BN p. 57 1988
33. VoF p. 116.
This is another episode of Israeli history that will leave you feeling sick. Counterpunch today carried an article by Jonathan Cook, ‘The Dark Secret of Israel’s Stolen Babies’. This is about the emerging scandal that in the years following Israel’s founding in 1948, the hospitals and other institutions had stolen hundreds of Arab Jewish babies away from their mothers. It’s been a secret for decades, but last month the head of national security, Tzachi Hanegbi, finally admitted it had occurred. In actual fact, the numbers of children stolen from their parents is likely to be an underestimate. The real figure is probably in the thousands. Campaigners in Israel believe that as many as 8,000 children were taken in this way. The children were given to childless Jewish couples. The parents were told that their babies had died. In some cases, the nurses simply snatched them away, telling the mothers that they were wrong for having more children than they could look after.
Hanegbi, who was given the task of looking into the scandal by Netanyahu, remains unclear whether there was official involvement. Testimonies from those involved suggest that staff from the health ministry, judges and lawmakers were aware of what was going on. The papers relating to these poor children have been sealed until 2071, which certain suggests the Israeli state was involved, and that the government is trying to keep a lid on the scandal.
Cook’s article places the theft of these children in the context of the establishment of Israel as a colonial settler state. Israel was colonised by mainly eastern European Jews. The Zionist organisations, and its first president, David Ben Gurion, fully accepted the racist belief that European culture was innately superior to that of the Arabs and the Middle East. The children belonged to Arab families, who had immigrated to Israel, in the hope of finding sanctuary there from persecution. Ben Gurion and his fellows were afraid their Arab culture would contaminate and spoil that of the European settlers. The children were stolen in order to be raised by European Jewish colonists, who would bring them up in this supposedly superior culture.
Cook notes that Israel’s treatment of its indigenous population follows the pattern of other settler states in their persecution of their indigenous peoples, through genocide – such as of the Amerindians in America and the Aborigines in Australia, and apartheid and segregation, as in South Africa. He also notes that the theft of children was also used against Native American and Aboriginal Australian children. He also describes how campaigners in Israel have observed that the forcible transfer of children from one ethnic group to another constitutes genocide under international law. Cook concludes from the article that the lesson to be learned from this isn’t that the European Jewish establishment in Israeli hasn’t changed, but that it is resolutely opposed to living in peace with the peoples of the region, including its indigenous Jews as well as other Arabs.
The number of genocidal regimes and states that have stolen children is a longer than just the few described in Cook’s article, although they’re probably the best known. During the Second World War, the Nazis stole blond, ‘Aryan’ babies from Polish families. They were taken to be raised by German families, on the grounds that the Reich was rescuing supposedly lost ‘Aryan’ bloodlines. During the Dirty War in Argentina, the children of dissidents imprisoned by the Fascist state were also taken away from their mothers to be raised by respectable families. And there’s also been a scandal in Britain about babies from poor, working class mothers, who were also stolen, to be sent to Australia to aid in its colonisation.
Reading this, I also wondered if this scandal may also have been a contributory cause of Michael Foster throwing around renewed accusations about anti-Semitism in the Labour party. Reading between the lines, it looks very much like Foster is part of the Zionist lobby, which has come under fire from Corbyn, and which is very strongly linked to the Blairites. The best form of defence, as Clausewitz said, is attack, and it looks to me like Foster’s attack may have been partly to divert attention away from this latest scandal erupting in Israel.
Okay, this is another video from The Young Turks news programme. I thought this one was well worth posting up, as it tackles and disproves the right-wing, Conservative assertion that welfare payments make people lazy. Presented by John Iadarola, the show presents the findings by Harvard and MIT of a study of the effect of cash transfer programmes in seven countries. This shows that by and large such payments do not affect how hard people work.
In fact, they may even encourage people to work harder. Two of the studies were of programmes in African countries, in which the recipients were paid while learning new employment skills. In both of these programmes, the recipients worked even harder than before. This included a programme in Uganda, in which women were taught basic business skills. This resulted in the women working 61 per cent harder.
The programme also mentions the effect of a welfare programme in Canada, in which a whole town was guaranteed a basic income through ‘negative income tax’. Despite having a fixed income, everyone continued to work as hard as before. The only exceptions were new mothers, who chose to spend more time with their newborns, and teenagers. Iadarola points out that both of these are probably beneficial. Certainly for the babies, and also for teenagers, who could use that time to study for college. Here’s the programme.
Now I realise that this applies only to welfare payments made to people, who are already working. But nevertheless, this is a powerful blow against the Tory and Republican ideology that claims that welfare makes people lazy. The whole of New Labour/ Conservative welfare policy is based on this idea. After all, the Tories introduced their harsh requirements for the unemployed to spend all their time looking for work on the grounds that if they didn’t, those poor, hard-working people on whose behalf the Conservatives so despise the unemployed, would be upset by having to see their closed curtains in the morning as they all had a long lie-in.
And then there’s IDS’ plan to cut benefits made to people in poorly-paid jobs, and give them a ‘job coach’ to encourage them to go for better paid work. That’s scuppered by this finding as well.
And you can imagine heads at the Daily Heil exploding over the news about the Canadian town, whose new mothers were able to spend more time with their babies due to the government granting them a fixed income. Since forever and a day it seems the Mail and other right-wing rags have been criticising women for daring to go to work, rather than staying at home to look after their children. This is part of the paper’s general anti-feminist bias. Now they should be delighted that, if women are given a guaranteed income, more of them will take time off to care for their children. But as it involves people being given money by the state – ordinary people, that is, not hard-working multi-millionaires like Viscount Rothermere – you can feel their hackles rising from here. The paper and its proprietor clearly believe that only the rich should be allowed to avoid paying tax. It’s why Lord Rothermere is another one whose non-dom, despite having lived all his life in the UK. And as for women taking time off work, rather than leaving work altogether, they really resent that, as it means that firms have to pay them for not working, as well as keep their jobs open and find someone else to do the job while they’re off lazing about, not having sleepless nights feeding their baby, changing nappies and cleaning infantile vomit off of everything.
I was told by a friend of mine with a background in economics and finance that a number of European parties, like the German Social Democrats, have advocated policy of a national wage – a payment everyone gets in order for them to live, and live decently. The experiment by the Canadians seems to show that it’s a good idea.
Which means that this is one finding you definitely won’t see published in the press.
And the study as a whole definitively shows that when IDS, Osbo and the rest of the carrion-eaters over at Tory HQ start going on about how lazy the unemployed or low paid are, they really don’t know what they’re talking about.
This is another couple of videos from The Young Turks internet news show. Although this is an American news programme, it addresses an issue that is also very much in the news over here: that of western girls running away from home to join ISIS as jihadi brides.
Western Girls Joining ISIS
This was in the news about a month or so ago, when three Muslim girls from London ran away from their families and school to go to Syria to join the Islamic State there. As the video below shows, this isn’t just confined to Britain. It’s also happened in America. In the video, the Turks’ anchors Cenk Uyghur and Ana Kasparian discuss the case of three girls from Colorado, who ran away from their homes to try and join the jihadis. The were of Somali and Sudanese heritage, and aged between 15-17 years old. They were caught by the German police trying to go from there to Syria after the authorities were contacted by the girls’ families.
Muslim Feelings of Disenfranchisement and Isolation
Uyghur and Kasparian discuss the girls’ motives for going, and the fundamental stupidity of their actions. They make the point that however marginalised and disenfranchised the girls may feel in America, nevertheless they are leaving America and its immense freedoms for ISIS. Uyghur makes it very clear that the girls could only expect a loss of freedom over there. He states that Islamic fundamentalists view women in a lot of ways as chattels, and would regard them as more property arriving.
Low Status of Women in Islamists like ISIS
It’s a very good point. You can certainly find passages in the Qu’ran and Hadith where Muhammad urges Muslims to treat their wives well – he himself helped his wives with the housework, and the Qu’ran, while allowing polygyny, states that a man must treat all his wives equally. Nevertheless, a movement that twists the words of Muslim scripture to justify the terrorisation and mass butchery of civilians and non-combatants probably isn’t going to be too punctilious about observing those verses that encourage respect for women. Especially as one factor in these movements appears to be a reaction against western feminism.
Uyghur himself is from a Turkish Muslim background, although he’s an agnostic/ atheist like most of the Turks. His comments thus come from his experience from within Muslim culture, and therefore should carry far more weight than the bonkers utterances of various members of the Repugs, who frankly haven’t a clue about the Middle East or its peoples.
Jihadi Brides and Western Idolisation of Serial Killers
He also connects the motives of the girls and young women joining ISIS with those of the westerners, who idolise masked killers. They feel disconnected and powerless. Watching murderers like ISIS and domestic serial killers makes them feel powerful. It’s the same motive that inspired Adam Lanza, the maniac responsible for shooting the audience in an American cinema. He was absolutely obsessed with masked spree killers.
Western Recruits to ISIS Will also Kill Other Muslims
Uyghur also makes the point that once there, those westerners joining ISIS would spend most of their time butchering other Muslims, whose religious views don’t match those of the Islamic State, like the Shi’a. Rather than fighting against non-Muslims, they probably wouldn’t see them, and would spend all their time killing their co-religionists. Again, it’s an excellent point, though following Sayyid Qutb, radical Islamic ideology views liberal or secular Muslims as part of the jaihiliyya, the non-Muslim forces of darkness and ignorance. They are seen as irredeemably corrupt through their acceptance of non-Muslim, western ideas and culture.
As for the Shi’a, extremist Sunnis, like the Wahhabis, consider them to be heretics, who are an enemy of true Islam. The grand mufti in Saudi Arabia even declared them to be ‘worthy of death’, in a chilling exhortation to religious genocide. In addition to murdering and enslaving non-Muslims, ISIS also present a murderous threat to other Muslims, who don’t share their brutal views.
Girls Joining ISIS Should also be Prosecuted for Terrorist Offences
They also make another good point in that the girls joining ISIS should, if caught, face some kind of judicial process and punishment for aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation. This shouldn’t mean an adult court, as they are minors, but nevertheless they should face some kind of judicial punishment.
Women’s Lives in ISIS-Controlled Syria
In this second video, John Iadorola and the others discuss a film made by the French showing the reality of life for women in the part of Syria controlled by ISIS. It was made by a courageous lady, who made it with a hidden camera. For western audiences, it’s chilling. There are armed men everywhere, including one woman calmly pushing a baby buggy with a Kalashnikov slung over her shoulder. The dress code for women is very strictly enforced. All the women are swathed with the niqab. At one point a soldier or cop flags the female journalist down, and tells her to cover up properly. Too much of her face is showing, as her veil is transparent. Her face is fully covered, apart from a slit for the eyes.
Women in Internet Café Refuse Parents’ Pleas to Return
In the second segment of the film the Turks show, the journalist goes to an internet café to talk to the women there about why they joined ISIS. They’re talking to their families, who are clearly distraught and desperately trying to persuade them to come back to France. The girls refuse, saying that they want to stay there, and are very definite about this.
Women Motivated not from Lust for Bad Boys, but also Rage at Western Treatment Middle East
Talking about the video, Ana Kasparian makes the point that she isn’t convinced that it’s just about women falling in love with ‘bad boys’, like criminals in jail. She argues instead that much of the girls’ motives for joining ISIS probably comes from rage at the way the Western powers have treated and abused these countries.
No Choice about Wearing Niqab under ISIS and Extreme Muslim States
She also makes a good point about the headscarf. She states that she was against the French mandatory ban on the scarf, as it was a part of their religion. It should, however, be a woman’s own decision whether or not she wears it. Under ISIS, women don’t have a choice. They have to wear the niqab.
On this last point, it needs to be said that the penalties for women, who don’t dress ‘modestly’ under extremely hard-line Islamic states can be fatal. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, women were legally required to wear the veil. If they did not, the police shot them as prostitutes. I’ve heard that things have loosened up a bit since then. For example, at one time if the Iranian police caught a group of youths with a bottle of vodka, they’d shoot them. Now they just pour the bottle away.
That, however, is contemporary Iran. This is the Islamic State, who seem to have taken over as the most violent and repressive state in the Middle East.
Ban on Music by ISIS; Pop Music in Revolutionary Iran
On a more trivial point, amongst the things the Islamic State has banned is music. The Turks are astonished at this, and can’t work out why. Now there has always been a debate within Islam on whether music is lawful. It is, however, very much a part of modern life and contemporary youth culture around the world. So much so, that many people, like the Turks, cannot imagine a world without music, and would find such a situation almost unbearable.
Again, Iran provides an example. In Iran it was illegal to play contemporary pop music so loud that another person could hear it. It’s not a complete ban on music by any means, and there was no problem with listening to western classical music. Traditional Iranian music was actively discouraged because it had been promoted by the Shah as part of his programme of creating a secular, national identity against that of Islam.
The Beeb’s reporter, John Simpson, in his book on Iran describes the case of an Iranian trucker, who was playing a piece of western pop in his truck. He had the window down, but the sound of the hip ‘n’ happening sounds were drowned out by the noise of the traffic. Except when he had to stop at the traffic lights. He was overheard, arrest, and given something like 60 lashes.
As I’ve said, Iran appears to have become somewhat looser since then. There are pop groups in Iran, including one that made the news by having both male and female musicians on stage together at the same time. This contravenes the regime’s policy of strictly segregating the sexes. Nevertheless, the Iranian experience after the Revolution gives some idea of the nature of the strictures imposed by the regime in ISIS. Any westerner going there should know that when they do, they’re going to have to give up their ipods and CDs.
Jihadi Girls Want to Marry ‘Warriors’
I’ve posted these videos as they add an interesting, foreign perspective on something that has happened here, and is being discussed in the British press and the BBC. After the three London girls from Bethnal Green fled to Syria, the Beeb’s One Show had one of the Corporation’s female Muslim newsreaders on as a guest to discuss the issue. She put some of it down to the attraction to some girls of marrying a warrior, and the excitement of joining a military organisation, especially one that claimed it was defending their faith.
Girls who Go Won’t Return
She also made the point that those who went, probably wouldn’t come back. It was extremely difficult for those, who wanted to leave, to return to Europe. She cited the case of a foreign women, who joined ISIS, married one of the commanders and had his child. She then decided she’d had enough, and wanted to leave. She couldn’t, and her situation became very difficult.
But she also made the bleak point that most of the girls wouldn’t be returning to Europe and America, simply because they wanted to be there, a fact that must surely break their parents’ hearts.
Difficulty and Dangers in Pregnancy and Child Birth in War Zone
She also made the point that if the girls wanted to get pregnant and have children, then they would have to give birth in a warzone with very limited medical provision. Pregnancy and childbirth is a difficult time for expectant mothers and their partners anyway, even with advanced western medical care. In those areas fought over by ISIS, the risks become much higher.
ISIS Propaganda Tailored to Appeal to Girls and Women
Following this brief item on the One Show, the Beeb are screening this week a documentary on women joining the Islamic State. This makes the point that the internet propaganda perpetrated by the jihadis is extremely pernicious and insidious. Along with the propaganda about fighting for Islam, or rather, ISIS’ version of it, their propaganda also includes items designed to appeal to young women and girls, like fluffy kittens and food.
Girls’ Applause of Brutal Murder American Aid Worker Shows Them to be Sadistic Psychopaths
Now it strikes me as bizarre that the women and girls, who have got drawn into ISIS, have any kind of finer feelings at all, including sentimentality over cute animals. One of the British girls, who ran off to join ISIS, was a fan of beheading videos. She had commented on the video of the brutal execution of an American aid worker ISIS had captured, saying ‘that was gut-wrenchingly awesome’ and pleading ‘more beheadings please!’ I see absolutely nothing in that comment except sadism and bloodlust. It’s the comment of a psychopath, who has absolutely no feelings for the suffering of others, and in fact only derives pleasure and amusement from them.
I realise that kids getting sick pleasure from watching the suffering and deaths of others on video is hardly confined to Muslims. A friend of mine told me years ago how one of his friends – who was definitely White, and non-Muslim – had a copy of the video, Executions. This was ostensibly produced by an organisation opposed to the death penalty, and purported to show how horrific execution actually was. My friend was shocked by the way his friend was just laughing and sniggering at the last, desperate actions of those killed.
The girl’s applauding of the murder of the American aid worker goes beyond this. She wasn’t just a passive spectator; she demanded more, and in doing so became complicit in further atrocities, even if she did not, in fact, commit them herself. As for the victim, if he is the person of whom I’m thinking, then his death was even more iniquitous than the usual run of murders. The man was an aid worker, who had dedicated his life to helping the local people. He had identified with them so much, that he had converted to Islam. By no stretch of the imagination could he ever be considered a threat to Islam or its people.
Except in the twisted minds of ISIS, who captured him purely because he was an American. When the Americans refused to make a deal for his release, they butchered him. Just like they’ve butchered so many others.
I have every sympathy for the parents of children, who have gone to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, from those of the girls from Bethnal Green to the parents of ‘Jihadi John’ Emwezee. Clearly they wanted the best for their children, as most parents do across the world, regardless of race or faith. The last thing they wanted was for them to join monsters and mass-murderers.
But this is what has happened. And I’m not convinced that the girls, who ran off to join ISIS should be seen as somehow more innocent than the boys and young men, who did so. Considering the atrocities committed by the Islamic State, they should be seen exactly as modern counterparts to the women, who volunteered as guards for the female sections of the Nazi concentration camps, and who showed themselves as brutal as the men.
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