1:31pm
I was travelling yesterday morning, so I didn't hear the Today programme. (By the way; why does everyone call it that rather than just Today? No one refers to the East Enders programme.) But David T did:
Lord Ahmed was on Radio 4's Today programme complaining that the Prime Minister has "hijacked" a Cambrige University conference on Islam by preventing what the BBC describes as "mainstream British Muslims" from taking part.
Specifically, he complained that the Government had "deliberately chosen to exclude those Muslims who disagree with government policy" The Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, which organised the Conference on Islam and Muslims in the World Today, denies this slur.
Indeed, if you look at the list of speakers, they include a large number of well respected scholars and other muslims, including:
- Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad
- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson
- His Eminence Shaykh Ali Gomaa
- Asim Siddiqui
- Professor Mona Siddiqui
The groups whose exclusion so aggrieves Lord Ahmed apparently includes "Jamaat". I assume that he is refering to activists the extremist and racist Mawdudist fringe political party, Jamaat-e-Islami: the south Asian sibling of the Muslim Brotherhood. Jamaat's key United Kingdom bases are the East London Mosque and the Islamic Foundation. Its politics are shared by key figures in the now-discredited Muslim Council of Britain.
As David T points out:
Disappointingly, Lord Ahmed seems to be developing into something of a champion for extreme racists. A couple of years ago, he hosted a book launch at the House of Lords for the notorious jew baiter, "Israel Shamir". I wonder if Lord Ahmed would insist on the British National Party being invited to a conference on Britishness, and gripe if they were not included in the guest list?
He links to
a piece I wrote about Lord Ahmed and Israel Shamir:
On February 23 [2005], Lord Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a man going by the name of Israel Shamir. “Israel Shamir” is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also known as Jöran Jermas.
The gist of Shamir/Jermas’s speech at the meeting can be gleaned from its title, “Jews and the Empire”. It included observations such as: “All the [political] parties are Zionist-infiltrated.” “Your newspapers belong to Zionists . . . Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking.” “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive . . . in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.” “The Jews like an Empire . . . This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance . . . Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire per se.” “Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England . . . they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”
Why would Lord Ahmed have hosted such a man in the Lords? It is, of course, possible that Lord Ahmed had no idea that Shamir/Jermas was a rabid anti-Semite. Yet it takes only a quick Google to discover his views and background. He has worked for Zavtra, Russia’s most anti-Semitic publication, and is allied with the Vanguard News Network, set up by an American, Alex Linder — a man so extreme that he was even ostracised by the US neo-Nazi National Alliance.
...Other figures at the forefront of campaigns against Israel are wise to Shamir/Jermas’s toxic anti-Semitism; Ali Abunimah, for example, who writes for the Electronic Intifada website and Hussein Ibish, press spokesman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, gave warning in 2001 that Shamir/Jermas was not anti-Israeli but anti-Semitic.
It is surely not unreasonable to expect Lord Ahmed to have exercised a cursory check on his guest. If, however, Lord Ahmed does feel that he made a mistake in inviting him, he has yet to demonstrate it. Shamir/Jermas’s speech was made nearly two months ago.
On learning of its contents, I wrote to Lord Ahmed, asking him two questions. Did he consider the invitation to have been a mistake? Did he condemn the remarks? He did not reply. Yesterday, I phoned him. When I told him that I planned to write a piece drawing attention to his actions in hosting Shamir/Jermas and that I wanted to give him every opportunity to respond, he replied: “I am not even going to speak with you.” He then put the phone down.
Lord Ahmed’s refusal to condemn the remarks seems to indicate that he sees nothing wrong with inviting such a man to speak, or with the words Shamir/Jermas used.
Two years on, I am unaware of any change of heart by Lord Ahmed. I hope I am wrong, and he has indeed condemned Shamir/Jermas. If Lord Ahmed would like to make clear his condemnation of Shamir/Jermas, I am happy to offer to reproduce such a condemnation on this site.
But on the evidence of his remarks yesterday, it seems, to say the least, unlikely that he will take me up on this offer.
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10:43am
Gerard Baker puts the climate change aspect of the G8 in perspective:
The parties meeting at the G8 this week will do their best to hide their divisions on the subject, but there is no getting away from it. Europe remains intent, at least in its public declarations, to commit itself to policies that are based on what can only be called an ideology of climate change, a faith-based approach to long-term environmental policy, with scant reference to hard political and economic facts. The US has opted for pragmatism. The broad outlines of the American approach can be summarised as follows. Yes, global warming is a reality. Yes, it is caused in significant part by human activity and, yes, much of that is the result of the production of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.
But, no, we will not sign up to targets that are either unattainable or meaningless, or worse, if taken seriously will prove economically self-immolating.
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9:15am
This week our bloggers will be looking at the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and its consequences.
(Georgina Henry on Comment Is Free.)
She hasn't even said anything yet, but that hasn't put off the Grauniad's commenters. This is the fourth in the thread:
yes, Israel will do anything to minimise and divert the international interest in this issue, - good for the Guardian for not letting them get away with their shameful murder, ethnic cleansing and occupation without a fight from all those who oppose these crimes,
Then this:
I really dont know how the Zionist lobby manages to shut down debate on this so effectively.
Etc.
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8:59am
Unlike Mr Editor, I am not a fan of the London Olympics. In fact whatever the polar opposite of fan is, that's me. It's still not too late to give it to Paris.
As for the logo...as someone has just pointed out to me: it looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blow job.
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8:14am
Perhaps I should start a strand: phrases you'll never hear. I have in mind such things as
Gordon will be out of contact - he's spending next weekend at Glastonbury
Have you read Sir Cliff's latest article on game theory?
Steve McClaren: competent
(They remind me of a New Statesman competition from twenty years ago or so, for the most depressing thing to hear on arriving at a party. The winner was: "Sir Geoffrey's on fine form tonight". His reputation was, I think, undeserved; I sat next to Lord Howe at a lunch last year - the first time I had ever met him - and a more delightful man you could not meet.)
Here's another one you'll never hear: Martin Woollacott's column is a must read. The Guardian's foreign columnist is usually not just wrong but wrong and deadly dull. He has a cracker of its type today: it takes a special talent to write a dull piece about the Middle East, especially when it's totally off beam:
The completeness of Israeli victory in 1967 shackled the peoples of the Middle East to a ball and chain which has ever since crippled their development. The shackle was Israeli military dominance, the chain was the unwavering alliance between Israel and America, the ball was the ever more oppressive and onerous occupation of Palestinian lands.
I wouldn't bother reading the rest. Life's too short. Do, however, read
Brett Stephens in th WSJ, who takes on directly the Woollacott view that 1967 was a disaster:
The Six Day War is supposed to be the great pivot on which the modern history of the Middle East hinges, the moment the Palestinian question came into focus and Israel went from being the David to the Goliath of the conflict. It's a reading of history that has the convenience of offering a political prescription: Rewind to the status quo ante June 5, arrange a peace deal, and the problems that have arisen since more or less go away. Or so the thinking goes.
Yet the striking fact is that all of Israel's peace agreements -- with Egypt in 1979, with the Palestinians in 1993, with Jordan and Morocco in 1994 -- were achieved in the wake of the war. The Jewish state had gained territory; the Arab states wanted it back. Whatever else might be said for the land-for-peace formula, it's odd that the people who are its strongest advocates are usually the same ones who bemoan the apparent completeness of Israel's victory in 1967.
...[W]hen the sun rose on June 5, 1967, Israel was a poor, desperately vulnerable country, which threw the dice on its own survival in the most audacious military strike of the 20th century. It is infinitely richer and more powerful today, sure in its alliance with the U.S. and capable of making concessions inconceivable 40 years ago. If these are the fruits of Israel's "Pyrrhic Victory," it needs more such of them.
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10:37pm
Last week I posted on the three worst films ever made. It prompted a fair number of comments.
This is clearly an issue of immense importance, and so I commend to you a fun site, Turkey Or Not, which deals with just this, allowing readers to vote for and comment on turkeys - or not.
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5:10pm
Apologies for the lack of posts today. I've been travelling to Dresden, and got caught up in a minor work crisis. Posts will resume any moment...
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5:02pm
Even without his background as a player, MIke Atherton would be one of the best sports journalists around. As it is, his experience as an England captain informs his pieces and thus us, the reader. His piece today on the decline of West Indies cricket is typically insghtful. This passage is especially shocking:
This is a team who have to learn again the meaning of such terms as 'work ethic' and 'professionalism'.
If you don't believe me, then you should read the remarkable report of the physiotherapist, Stephen Partridge, following the 2006 home series (it was released on a website called CaribbeanCricket.com). In it he outlines how the players held a meeting in St Lucia during which they decided that the training regime was too intense and forced its cancellation. Of Dwayne Bravo, the brightest of the young players around whom you'd think a team might develop, Partridge said this: his ''approach to bowling training is minimalist''; that he has ''largely moved away from adhering to his personalised physical program''; that ''his diet is of major concern, consisting of sugar and little else'', and that any gains in physical conditioning would be ''gradual and directly linked to the support we gain from his fellow countryman and patron [Lara]''.
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11:04am
Charles Moore had an excellent piece in the Telegraph yesterday on the double standards which apply to the Israeli government and Palestinian terrorists, imagining that it had been the Israelis who kidnapped Alan Johnstone. I won't extract it: do read it all.
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