Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Daud Abdullah is a baddun, but the MCB is moving in the right direction

An interesting piece by the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, in the magazine this week on the government apparently backtracking on the issue of the Muslim Council of Britain, and talking to it once again. The MCB was removed from the officially designated category of Good Islam a while back and placed in the ever expanding arena of Bad Islam, along with suicide bombers, Hizb ut Tahrir, women who wear copious veils etc etc. This was at least partly as a consequence of its boss, Daud Abdullah, signing something called The Istanbul Declaration, which demands that all Muslims must regard countries or individuals which “stand alongside” the “Zionist Entity” (I think they mean Israel) should be fought against with the same fervour as one would fight against “the usurper” (that’s Israel again.) The MCB seems deeply embarrassed that Abdullah appended his name to this fatuous, blood-curdling document and not, I think, simply for opportunistic reasons.

Stephen also makes the point that the MCB will not be attending the “Holocaust Memorial Day”, where we commemorate the victims of Nazi genocide. This was always a sticking point for me; the MCB’s refusal to attend struck me as pure and untrammeled anti-semitism. Not anti-Zionism, because Holocaust Memorial Day has nothing to do with Israel, but anti-semitism.

However, a couple of points. The MCB has decided that it WILL attend the Holocaust Memorial Day, after a vote which followed The Spectator going to press last week. You might well argue that attendance should not be a fraught issue for anyone with a semblance of humanity and decency, regardless of their religion or ideology, but it HAS been a fraught issue for many Muslims and the MCB deserves a little spoonful of credit for swallowing its inherent racism and agreeing to attend.

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