Trojan Elephant.

There are several pieces on the web about Robert Fisk’s disgraceful report in the Independent, a newspaper that has acquired a reputation for being even more antisemitic than the Guardian. Fisk himself couldn’t have Fisked it any more Fiskishly than Cif Watch has here.

Hamas…handed Israel a gift by bombarding Sderot from Gaza with thousands of inaccurate rockets, most of them home-made. It allowed Israel to kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians as it sought revenge, and deprived the Israeli left (that which still existed) of their support for the original Israeli withdrawal from Gaza;

Amongst a sack of disingenuous chaff in that paragraph there is one grain of truth. 

Of course anything that harms your enemy hands them a potential propaganda gift at the same time.  It’s when only the gift is seized upon and any injury or harm is all but forgotten that things become more complex. For example, when the Fogel family were butchered by Palestinian youths, some of us used that  (and still do) to illustrate the sadistic nature of individual acts of Palestinian “resistance”. But there would be something deeply wrong if we relished its impact as a weapon more than we anguished over the stark brutality of the act and its impact on the survivors. Not to mention the very idea that this deed had handed anyone a gift.

Similarly, when the Israeli army (arguably legitimately) rashly used white phosphorus near civilians, they too could be said to have handed a ghastly gift to their enemies. The fact that this has been interpreted as a deliberate attack on civilians and is now embedded into the narrative as such was so predictable that the mind boggles as to why its use was ever authorised. As we would all know, if the BBC hadn’t systematically avoided reporting it, the Israelis take great pains to avoid harming civilians even when responding to deliberate and outrageous provocation, often to the detriment of their own safety. No wonder it’s so easy to seize upon such things when there is little or no interest from the BBC in countering them.

The BBC’s habit of allowing a litany of embellished falsehoods to be repeated on air, unchallenged, was demonstrated in Sunday’s The Big Questions. “Is Islamism the biggest threat to the modern world?”

This was supposed to be a debate about Tony Blair’s infamous warning about the threat from Islamism. 

Anne Marie Waters (Sharia Watch) and Sam Westrop (Gatestone institute) were pitted against a gaggle of the BBC’s favourite Muslims, ranging from Usama Hasan (Quilliam)  through Bangladeshi-born British Imam Ajmal Masroor to Abdel Bari Atwan (from multiple BBC appearances as ‘expert on the Middle East’, the most inappropriate description that there ever in this world could be, as well as a regular on the panel of the BBC’s Dateline.)

 “It’s an exaggerated threat” opines Atwan, and “Tony Blair is responsible”  before launching into an  illogical diatribe of exquisite stupidity, ending “we-in-the-West *created* Islamism.”  Predictable Blair-bashing ensued.

“Mr Atwan, you famously said ‘Were nuclear missiles ever to strike Israel I would dance in Trafalgar Square’  so I don’t think...”
“This is misquotation. This is not true..”
“It’s not true? You never said that?”
“no no no no. It was out of context”
“What does that mean?”
“I was talking an hour programme, they took few seconds and anyway who is bomb-bing? Who is bomb-bing the Arabs now? The Israelis. Who is committing massacres against Arabs? The Israelis!”

You cannot call this a debate. The Muslims seem incapable of listening to anything but their own voices. Once they start, they cannot be stopped.

Sam Westrop promises to post, on the Stand for Peace website, conclusive proof that Ajmal Masroor did claim that American security forces orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and also that the Westgate shopping mall attack by Boko Haram was  the work of shadowy forces. Which he denies.

“Hamas leader is honest and great man as opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu anytime” announces Masroor, to loud applause.

Nasr Emam (Muslim Chaplain in Scarborough) is wearing an distinctly unIslamic tie. He splutters:

“I don’t support Hamas. Hamas isn’t even an Islamic ideology.”

“What is it then?”

“Waffle waffle. They want their country back. Waffle waffle inanity splutter. Who is funding you (Anne Marie) to pay for Sharia Watch?”

UnIslamic tie

Uh oh. Palestinian Musher el-Farra of Sheffield PSC is on the programme. On the front row.

Why? Obviously to tell us that Hamas is the outcome of Israeli Zionist aggression and repeat the lies that have embedded themselves into the narrative. “Phosphoric bombs” “Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” “Massacres” Lies that are accepted as the truth; so embedded that they can be uttered unchallenged.

“... ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which started in 1948 when they destroyed five hundred thirty two villages.” 

Musher el-Farra wants Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes against the Iraqi people. Thunderous applause.

 “The killin’ of fishermen... just for fishin’ in the waters. The killin' of farmers, the pollutin’ of Palestinian waters..” ”Killin’ of people wavin’ white flags, all this.. don’t talk to me about threat radicalism and threat to global... Islamism........Zionism is....... Israel is big power....” 

No more Mrs. nice-guy; I use dialect in a denigrating manner because I’m fed up with half-wits being afforded credibility by the BBC in their relentless unprincipled pursuit of ratings. 

This man cannot be stopped. He’s in full flow, eyes blazing. Nicky Campbell  has to put a hand on his arm to get him to stop.

In my opinion the BBC introduced this person and Abdel Bari Atwan into the mix solely because the BBC knew they would automatically launch themselves off into anti-Israel tirades, thereby tidily diverting the topic away from facing the undeniable truth. That Islam is incompatible with the West and it is indeed the biggest threat to the modern world.

In my opinion, no Imam, no spokesperson for Islam, no community leader, no Islamic authority I've ever seen or heard is sure about what exactly Islam is. They cannot agree on what Islam is as a religion, they are evasive about what Islamism is as an ideology and no-one can agree upon the legitimacy of much of the weighty paraphernalia that surrounds the whole doom-ridden palaver. 

The one motivating, unifying element, the only thing that they’ll readily agree upon, the glue that holds them together, is their hatred of Israel and the Jews. That is what sets them on fire. Their eyes glow, their hands flail and their tongues lash. 

Why do I think the bulk of the audience is so ready to clap at any anti-Israel utterance, and boo and hiss at the slightest mention of the Israeli Prime Minister? 

Because of the BBC’s anti-Israel bias by omission, its susceptibility to pro-Palestinian emoting and its politically correct kow-towing to half-wits. 

Look at this document (H/T Biased BBC) download from here  setting out rules for Muslim education. What a load of restrictive, repressive, cruel orders.

My husband’s “Rules Concerning Toast” make more sense. And they were (half) tongue-in-cheek.

One minute The MCB issues a 72 page document detailing a list of intrusive demands that schools adapt to 72 pages-worth of Islamic superstitions, the next this statement:  'Education and Muslims: End this Witch-Hunt of British Muslims' denying that state schools are the target of a 'Muslim takeover', where supposedly conservative Muslim views and mores are imposed, and where non-compliant teachers are forced out.

Never mind the Trojan Elephant. It’s Islam itself that is ‘in the room’, and this room ain’t big enough for both of us.