“Run by Zionists”
CST (which I had to look hard to discover stands for Community Security Trust) on anti-Semitism and Dilly Hussain.
Antisemitism comes in lots of different guises. It can be blatant, subtle or hidden. It can invent new antisemitic charges, or rely on a reservoir of old antisemitic language and images. Or, sometimes, it just swaps the word “Zionist” for “Jew”, in the naïve hope that doing so will change an antisemitic statement into a political one.
This is what appears to have happened in an online campaign against Tell MAMA, an organisation that works to combat anti-Muslim hatred. CST’s relationship with Tell MAMA is no secret. We advised its Director, Fiyaz Mughal, before and after he set it up and CST’s former Chief Executive, Richard Benson, is now one of its two co-chairs.
As the post points out, an example of Jews and Muslims working together instead of quarreling.
Some people, though, seem to dislike this approach to anti-racism. One of them is Muhammad Dilwar Hussain (better known as Dilly Hussain) of the Islamist blog, 5 Pillars. Hussain is angry because Fiyaz Mughal criticised the use of the racially-loaded phrases “Uncle Tom” and “House Muslim” by another Muslim journalist, Channel 4’s Assed Baig.
As part of his public criticism of Fiyaz Mughal, Hussain has tweeted that Tell MAMA is, in his words, “run by Zionists who support murder of children” and that it supposedly has “militant Zionist patrons and trustees”.
Dilly Hussain tweets a lot of horrible things, as we saw just the other day.
Hussain has written a longer Facebook post in which he attacks Tell MAMA because he believes “their board of trustees and patrons are infested with hardcore Zionists.”
It’s a public post; he writes a lot of public posts.
So the use of “coconut”, “Uncle Tom”, “choc-ice”, and calling those who are in cahoots with the current neocon government as “sell-outs” are deemed “racist”.
Who decides that the above terms are “racist”? Some crappy anonymous right-wing blog, Daily Mail and…Tell Mama?
I wouldn’t exactly call them racist, but they’re certainly likely to be illiberal, and they certainly are here. The issue isn’t race in the first place, it’s theocracy versus liberalism (secularism, equality, human rights). It’s not “selling out” or being an “Uncle Tom” to prefer liberalism to Islamism. It’s far-right and fascist to prefer Islamism to liberalism. Islamism is not part of the left and it’s not an anti-racist movement. Dilly Hussain is using the vocabulary of anti-racism activists to attack liberals. That’s not exactly racist but it is bullshit.
Back to the CST post:
This is not the first time that Tell MAMA has been attacked for working with CST. The Muslim lobbying group MEND did so previously. Their Chief Executive at the time, Sufyan Ismail, also swapped the word “Zionist” for “Jewish”, warning a Muslim audience in Greater Manchester not to work with Tell MAMA because they had a “pro-Zionist pretty much heading it”. Ismail also said that the “Israeli lobby” had lost a vote in Parliament for the first time in 300 years. Again, this only made sense if he meant “Israeli” as a synonym for “Jew”.
No surprise that MEND’s Azad Ali has tweeted a link to this latest attack on Tell MAMA.
This language reflects a more serious problem with antisemitic conspiracy theories in parts of British Muslim life. A new opinion poll by ICM shows that antisemitic attitudes are much more common amongst British Muslims than in the population as a whole.
And Dilly Hussain is doing his bit to help that trend along.
I’m not interested in the opinions of Islamists, but by any objective standard the CST seems problematic:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ei-exclusive-uk-charity-mossad-links-secretly-denounced-anti-zionist-jews-government/10717
How reliable is that source? Is that what you’re calling objective?
You may be right. I haven’t heard of CST before and don’t know anything about it (except that I saw the link via what I consider a reliable source). But the name doesn’t hint at “objective” above all.
I’m not saying that Electronic Intifada are objective. I’m saying that an outsider to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be disturbed if some NGO had direct links to Mossad.
The name ‘electronic intifada’ is pretty much a declaration of untrustworthiness. How about ‘cyber final solution?’
There’s a really good historical project in unravelling how cold-war rivalry for hegemony led to the insane co-opting of ‘progressives’ by theocratic fascists.
Nice to know you read the article carefully. ☺
The CST – according to a very reputable English correspondent – are a thoroughly middle-of-the-road Jewish organization, an adjunct to the Board of Deputies in the UK and akin to the ADL in the US. As for Electronic Intifada, I think John the Drunkard has it pegged… Islamic apologists (whenever it suits them). Note – with sour amusement – that the linked EI item defends a notorious Islamist, Raed Salah, and a vile group of Jewish fundamentalists, the Neturei Karta, surely an alliance made in theocratic heaven.
justinr @ 3 – Well actually you did say that Electronic Intifada are objective, whether you intended to or not. Making a claim and ending with a colon and a link equals making a claim and saying “here is the source for that claim.”
If that’s not what you intended, why did you connect the link to the claim? If that’s not what you intended, why didn’t you explain what the link was meant to demonstrate or explain?
Also – “I’m saying that an outsider to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be disturbed if some NGO had direct links to Mossad.” What do you mean you’re saying that? You said no such thing.
CST are thoroughly reputable and scrupulous in their reporting of anti-semitic incidents. They have taught TellMAMA a thing or two in that respect. Some FB friends I know via Harry’s Place are involved in it.
It’s a disgrace that in the UK that synagogues and Jewish community centres have to have such heavy security. I don’t think it was the case 20 or so years ago.
As for Dilly Hussain – he is a 24 carat full weight piece of shit.
“Even among the Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox [Jewish] circles, the Neturei Karta are regarded as a wild fringe.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/25/religion.uk
Electronic Intifada likes them because they are anti-Israel, even to the point of marching with virulent antisemites! http://archive.adl.org/extremism/karta/#
And Raed Salah is your typical Salafist imam, an equal-opportunity hater of women, gays and Jews. Not to mention apostates or even moderate Muslims. But as long as he hates Israel (and, by extension, “the West”) he gets a pass in in some circles.
Yes, Electronic Intifada are the source for the claim, but so what? They have their own agenda, but I find them no less reliable than WaPo or The Daily Beast.
Yes, NK are religious kooks, but are no more kooky than the pro-Israel kooks. That ADL profile is comical.
I should probably know who Raed Salah is, but I can’t keep track of every Islamofreak on the planet. Not relevant to the CST/Mossad thing anyway.
jeez
@11
no less reliable than WaPo or The Daily Beast
Yes, from that perspective I suppose the over 70 posts mentioning Raed Salah on Electronic Intifada might become invisible.
And btw, I read the EI article. The CST/Mossad “thing” is essentially a claim that some CST guards defending Jewish community centres in the UK may have received self-defence training from Mossad. In light of recent events in Brussels and Paris – and the Trevor Philipps report http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trevor-phillips-muslims_uk_570b5d63e4b0ae22c1dff5aa – I regard that as perfectly understandable, if unfortunate.
justinr @ 11 –
This is getting tiresome.
The so what is that you introduced it into the discussion as “by any objective standard.” That’s so what.
Then they’re not “by any objective standard.” This is very simple and clear.
that’s because you are being deliberately obtuse
A piece on CST. As usual, they are sober and unpolemical:-
“This latest poll showed something else that is interesting, and is not specific to Muslims: that people who believe antisemitic things about Jews rarely think of themselves as antisemitic.
For example, 35% of British Muslims agreed that “Jewish people have too much power in Britain”. 39% agreed “Jewish people have too much power over the media.” 44 % said they have “too much power in the business world”. 26% said “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” and 27% said
“People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave.”
All unpleasant stuff. Put it together and you have somewhere around a third of British Muslims who believe conspiratorial ideas about Jews that are drawn directly from classical antisemitism, and (on the surface at least) have little to do with anger over the Israel/Palestine conflict..”
https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2016/04/14/what-antisemites-really-think
Something resembling the attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris is pretty much bound to happen in the UK. It’s depressing how unshocking it will be. It would have been shocking ten or fifteen years ago.
Oh, and Dilly Hussain is undiluted, distilled 130 proof shittery.
@15
Depressing. In Europe once again: “Die Juden sind unser Unglück!”