BBC Sunday Programme: Hamas and religious Jews two sides of the same coin

The New York Times has just published their online review of Dr. Matthias Kuentzel's prize-winning book, Jihad and Jew Hatred:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Goldberg-t.html

The writer, Jeffrey Goldberg, tells us that he was recently in the Sheraton Hotel, Damascus and this is what he found in the gift-shop, together with some John Grishams:

The International Jew, published 2000 in Beirut. This collection states the following about 'the Jews':

Wherever the seat of power may be, there they swarm obsequiously

The book is based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and is therefore a plagiarism of a forgery. Next to this book, Goldberg found The Bible Came from Arabia, a piece of 'twaddle' putting out the lie that Jews are not Jews and Israel isn't Israel.

Like many people in England, including the BBC apparently (for which see below), Goldberg used not to take anti-semitism of this kind seriously. However, Goldberg now realises that this response is a mistake and praises Kuentzel for pointing out this mistake to the world. In fact, Goldberg goes further and states that Kuentzel's

invaluable contribution ... is his capacity to be shocked

Goldberg reports what a Hamas leader once said to him:

The former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi once told me that "the question is not what the Germans did to the Jews, but what the Jews did to the Germans". The Jews, he said, deserved their punishment. Kunetzel argues that we should see men like Rantisi for what they are: heirs to the mufti and heirs to the Nazis.

Which is why the New Years Eve December 30th BBC Sunday Programme should worry us greatly:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/sunday/index.shtml

Discussing their views on how 2008 will pan out religiously were a Christian who writes for the Independent newspaper; a Jew who runs an Institute for the 'Abrahamic Faiths' and a Muslim from York University, now in the House of Lords (of course).

This is what the Christian, Paul Vallely (also married to the BBC's Head of Radio Religious Broadcasting, who has been responsible for a great many inaccurate and defamatory programmes about Israel) had to say about the historic 2005 evacuation from Gaza.

If you remember, the Palestinian Authority had asked the Israelis to assist in razing houses there, in order to make way for the new buildings that the Palestinians wanted to build:

http://churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=12714

Vallely's interpretation of the events was quite different. Comparing the situation to that of the whites leaving Mozambique he stated in the paper of the religion of peace that the 'white' [sic] Israelis had a

horror that a black bottom might now sit on [white toilets]

In other words, Israelis (i.e. people like me) are out-and-out racists. Funny that!

According to last week's Sunday Programme, religious Jews and Hamas are two sides of the same coin. And of course, Hamas has been elected, so of course Israel should talk to them. What is the problem with that, oozed Vallely.

No-one demurred. One might have expected the Jewish contributor to do so, but maybe he dislikes religious Jews as much as the BBC does, or maybe as much as Vallely appears to do. I have no idea.

It was just one of those inane BBC programmes in which three people sit around talking, dismissing Muslim terror and extremism as nothing to do with religion per se, but only with culture. Whitewashing (excuse my French) and appeasement, naturally.

A real case of Rome fiddling, but this is what it is really about:

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2008/01/british-blogger-to-be-arrested.html

So, no wonder Matthais Kuentzel was banned from giving his invited lecture on the subject of Nazi-Muslim links at Leeds University. For Leeds is just next door to York, seat of the worst pogrom against Jews in British history. And, no wonder York's Muslim professor of politics is a member of the House of Lords.

But to go back to the quote from the book about The International Jew, found by The New York Times reviewer on open sale in one of the best hotels in Syria - the idea of 'swarming' is also taken up by today's parsha in Exodus.

But, here, it's certainly not the Jews who are swarming, but the flies around those who would oppress the Jews, which is the symbolic meaning of 'Egypt', after all:

http://www.aish.com/torahportion/moray/Pharaohs_Heart.asp

And as I tucked into a delicious lunch with the elderly German couple over the road, we had a good laugh when they reminisced about the fact that as primary school kids under the British mandate in Haifa, they had had to be armed with staves in order to fend off the drunken British soldiers who were likely to attack them as they made their way home from school.

So it's not only Africans who have plenty of tales to tell of Colonialism, Colonialism of the British variety, that is!

Comments

[dumbledoresarmy]

Dear Irene

as regards Kuentzel's book. He picks up on some disturbing connections. But Muslim antisemitism is a lot older, and deeper, than the sources that Kuentzel identifies. Hatred of Jews, in Islam, is ultimately modelled upon the example of Mohammed himself.

Please read Robert Spencer's "The Truth About Muhammad", in particular his analysis of what happened to the Jews of the Khaybar Oasis, and to the Banu Nadir, and the Banu Qurayza.

Very soon Andrew Bostom - author of the comprehensive historical anthology, "The Legacy of Jihad" - will be bringing out a new book entitled, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism". The cover picture is a 19th century painting inspired by the martyrdom of Sol Hachuel in Morocco in 1834.

Look up that story. Sol's Muslima 'friend' claimed, falsely, that Sol had converted to Islam; when Sol denied doing this, indignantly affirming her Jewish faith, the Muslims of Morocco rose up in rage, accusing her of 'apostasy' (i.e. they believed the 'friend's' lie, so, Sol saying she was Jewish could only mean she had returned to Judaism from Islam!). In the end Sol, steadfastly asserting that she had never converted to Islam, and that she always was and would remain Jewish, was publicly executed by the Muslim authorities. Even at the last, as she faced the executioner, with the Muslims yelling at her that she would not be killed if only she would 'return' to Islam, she did not flinch: but defiantly recited the Shema Yisroel. She was seventeen.