Taking the airbrush to evil
Amazing sequel over at Harry’s Place to its report -- which I commented upon here -- of remarks made by Mohammad Sawalha, President of the British Muslim Initiative, speaking to Al Jazeera in Arabic about his demonstration against last Sunday’s celebration of the foundation of the State of Israel. Dave M on Harry’s Place translated his comments in a speech on al Jazeera thus:
‘We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the evil/noxious Jew in Britain’.
[والوبيل اليهودي في بريطانيا]Translation by DaveM
In brief, this is what was said on that thread. The word ‘evil’ was a mistranslation of the Arabic which was actually the word for ‘lobby’. So instead of ‘evil Jew’ Sawalha had referred to ‘Jewish lobby’. Dave M and HP were guilty therefore of a wicked mistranslation, spreading racial hatred (sic), evil Zionists and so forth, and causing Melanie Phillips (collective gasp) to repeat it on her own blog.
Then Dave T of Harry’s Place revealed that al Jazeera had actually changed the word, removing ‘evil’ and replacing it by ‘lobby’, and HP had a screenshot of the original which showed that the word was the Arabic for 'evil'.
Then an Al Jazeera reporter called Medyan Dairieh said he had written the report, and that the original word had been ‘lobby’ but he had mistyped it so that it appeared in Arabic as ‘evil’. That’s quite a typo.
Then Dave T (2.29 pm) pointed out that Medyan Dairieh appeared to have actually misquoted his own misquote, since he claimed to have mistakenly typed one Arabic word whereas a quite different word – the Arabic for evil – was what actually appeared on al Jazeera.
Then the BMI threatened to sue HP for libel. Apparently the BMI are very upset that anyone might think that one of their number was a ‘Jew-hater’ or 'antisemitic’. Fancy! As HP has pointed out, Sawalha has been identified by the BBC as
the mastermind of ‘much of Hamas’ political and military strategy’, and as responsible for directing ‘funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah’.
They stood behind the French and the Communist Revolutions and behind most of the revolutions we hear about here and there. They also used the money to establish clandestine organizations which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests. Such organizations are: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, B’nai B’rith and the like. All of them are destructive spying organizations. They also used the money to take over control of the Imperialist states and made them colonize many countries in order to exploit the wealth of those countries and spread their corruption therein. As regards local and world wars, it has come to pass and no one objects, that they stood behind World War I, so as to wipe out the Islamic Caliphate. They collected material gains and took control of many sources of wealth. They obtained the Balfour Declaration and established the League of Nations in order to rule the world by means of that organization. They also stood behind World War II, where they collected immense benefits from trading with war materials and prepared for the establishment of their state. They inspired the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council to replace the League of Nations, in order to rule the world by their intermediary. There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it... The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree...
From this instructive little affair we learn, among other things, the following:
The BMI believe that inveighing against ‘the Jewish lobby’ is not antisemitic.
The BMI are very sensitive indeed to what is said about them.
That is because they are accustomed to pulling the wool over the eyes of many journalists. That is because a) some journalists are sheep b) some journalists have the bee of bigotry buzzing in their bonnet c) virtually no British journalists know any Arabic.
It is clearly very important indeed to these Islamists not to allow the false image of moderation they have so carefully constructed for themselves to be punctured at all. It is very important indeed, therefore, that it is punctured as much as possible. Well done, Dave T and all at Harry’s Place.