Harry's Place

To mark the occasion of Israel hosting the UEFA Under 21 Football Tournament next month, the folks at Philosophy Football are marketing a “Boycott Apartheid Israel” t-shirt with the dates of the tournament.

As far as I’m aware, none of the European football organizations will be boycotting the tournament. So I suppose the idea is to discourage fans of the various teams from traveling to Israel to cheer on their favorites– which seems rather unfair to the players on those teams.

According to Socialist Unity:

[N]o journalists question why Israel is hosting a European tournament. Every other country in that region plays football in the Asian Confederation but none will have any sporting ties with Israel. For one reason only, its brutally lethal mistreatment of Palestine.

At least SU acknowledges that it’s Asian Confederation countries which refuse sporting ties with Israel– not the other way around. And when it comes to “brutally lethal mistreatment,” many of the countries refusing to compete against “the Zionist entity” leave Israel in the dust.

Fortunately SU provides a link to the UEFA Under 21 website, at which we learn that the team representing “apartheid Israel” includes players named Ahad Azam, Taleb Twatha, Marouan Kabah, Mohammed Kalibat and Moanes Dabour.

More Zionist trickery, no doubt.

This is a cross-post from Howie’s Corner

Yesterday’s terrorist attack and the brutal murder of an off duty soldier on the streets of Woolwich has inevitably led to a widespread discussion about the place and presence of Islam in society, not only on the Internet and in the general media, but also inevitably in workplaces, pubs and people’s homes. The questions that are being asked include a debate on how, in a modern, open and democratic society, such a sadistic act could have even been contemplated when there are so many legitimate and peaceful ways to make a political protest.

It’s not as if this kind of act is limited in Britain to the extremist sections of “Islamism”. There was also the Soho “nail bomber” who targeted gays as part of a campaign of hate inspired by the indigenous far-right around the BNP and other neo-Nazi boneheads who inhabit the political fringe.

And then of course in Norway there was Brevik. Norway is probably one of the most tolerant and inclusive nations on the planet. Where did he spring from?

With this in mind I read at first with concern and then with a sense of relief about the publication of an Independent report on the Rochdale child sex scandal in The Times this morning. Given the current climate it might have been considered a little imprudent with the inevitable backlash against the Muslim community which invariably accompanies terrorist atrocities.

Whilst child abuse takes place in all communities regardless of religion, race or colour, it is important to note that the failure to act was in part due to the fear of a racial backlash motivated by so-called “political correctness” on the part of some council staff. If we are to truly integrate the various communities into mainstream society then we must not be afraid to tackle difficult and criminal activities undertaken by men (and women) just because of ill thought out “value judgements” made by those who are responsible for the welfare of others.

The girls in this case (and others that have come to light) have been let down by the politically correct crowd that seem to predominate in social services and other parts of the state and political establishment. This must not happen again.

A crime is a crime no matter what race, religion or colour an individual is. The law must apply equally to all or it will lose general acceptability.

The reason I find myself with hope this evening is because of something that was going on whilst travelling home from work. Stuck in the inevitable traffic jam that stretches between Putney and Hammersmith there was a quiet, but audible discussion going on behind me between two young Muslim women (hijabs et al) about the nature of the soul and quoting from the Koran about “God’s” role with humanity.

As an atheist I would normally despair as I do when approached by the Jehovah Witnesses or suchlike but this time it occurred to me that actually Britain is predominately a tolerant society and these two women felt able to discuss such views without fear in the public place. And so they should.

I was proud to be reminded that we do have a broad society which whilst far from perfect (will it ever be) is a place people feel free to talk.

That means we need to stand up against those who wish to destroy such freedoms. No one has a problem campaigning against the BNP or the EDL, so isn’t it time we also campaign against the Islamists, the Salafists and their ilk that spread a message of hate that is just as bad, if not worse, as they hijack a religion to do so?

If we truly are to tackle the very real issue of Islamic extremism then we must not be afraid to tackle the criminal activity (i.e. hate speech and racism) promoted by these bigots (and that is what they are).  That means there is no need to tread on eggshells around the Muslim “community” (and there is not just one, there are many) and do some straight talking.

Freedom of speech means that everyone has a right to their own opinion. We all have a right to express ourselves without fear of retribution by either the state or the self appointed zealots who seek to impose their distorted world views on the rest of us.

Promotion of hate and violence is criminal. Those who promote such views must be combated. There can be no appeasement. Remember what happened last time we tried that.

This is a cross-post by Marc Goldberg

In an article written the day after the terror attack in the UK that saw Lee Rigby murdered in broad daylight Glenn Greenwald questioned whether it was in fact a terror attack. In a rambling article he poses the question, essentially arguing that because this was a British soldier and not civilian killed then it cannot be an act of terror. One would expect that the first thing he would do is explain why he feels the question to be an important one to ask but he waits until the second half of that article arguing that:

“The reason it’s so crucial to ask this question is that there are few terms – if there are any – that pack the political, cultural and emotional punch that “terrorism” provides. When it comes to the actions of western governments, it is a conversation-stopper, justifying virtually anything those governments want to do. It’s a term that is used to start wars, engage in sustained military action, send people to prison for decades or life, to target suspects for due-process-free execution, shield government actions behind a wall of secrecy, and instantly shape public perceptions around the world. It matters what the definition of the term is, or whether there is a consistent and coherent definition. It matters a great deal.”

The thing is for something that is so important it is odd to me that the closest Greenwald actually comes to providing an answer to his own question is the following:

“It is very hard to escape the conclusion that, operationally, the term has no real definition at this point beyond “violence engaged in by Muslims in retaliation against western violence toward Muslims”.

“It’s very hard to escape the conclusion that” really? That’s it, nothing definitive, no real answer just a statement that gives enough room later to argue that he wasn’t in fact arguing for that perspective but simply throwing it out there, in the name of debate. I would have thought that Greenwald would go on to provide a suggested meaning for the word terrorism or some kind of categorical statement arguing that in his opinion this was not an act of terror. He doesn’t, the implication is that this is the result of Western actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and that ultimately if we don’t want to see it any more then we should stop attacking Muslim countries.But it’s only an implication, if anyone wants to actually find out Glenn’s point of view they are going to have to simply accept his innuendos and implications.

I don’t agree with much of his article but he is right in that there is no definition of the word terrorism that is accepted around the world. The worn out adage that one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist still applies, though actually not in Greenwald’s article. The murderers were never pretending to be fighting for freedom for anyone. They were making it quite clear that Lee Rigby was murdered as revenge for Muslim deaths in Muslim countries. There was no issue of freedom here at all. In fact thanks to the Daily Mail we now know that the Islam espoused by Michael Adebolajo one of the men suspected of murdering Rigby is the extremism of Al Muhajiroun where freedom is most certainly not an issue they are campaigning for

The comparisons between the actions of Western governments who kill civilians in their own attacks and terrorists who actively target civilians aren’t something new and they have never stood up to reason. Let’s take Greenwald’s point that Lee Rigby was a soldier:

“To begin with, in order for an act of violence to be “terrorism”, many argue that it must deliberately target civilians. That’s the most common means used by those who try to distinguish the violence engaged in by western nations from that used by the “terrorists”: sure, we kill civilians sometimes, but we don’t deliberately target them the way the “terrorists” do.

But here, just as was true for Nidal Hasan’s attack on a Fort Hood military base, the victim of the violence was a soldier of a nation at war, not a civilian. He was stationed at an army barracks quite close to the attack. The killer made clear that he knew he had attacked a soldier when he said afterward: “this British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

I am not sure who the many people that Greenwald refers to are but this idea that an act of terrorism is an act exclusively aimed at civilians is a new one to me. There is no exclusivity on who can be a victim of terror and who can’t. Imagine if that definition was in place during 9/11. Does that mean that every civilian who was killed would be considered a victim of terrorism but that those soldiers killed during the attack on the Pentagon were somehow legitimate targets? Or if there just happened to be an off duty soldier in one of the Twin towers that his death would be treated as somehow different to the thousands of others who died there? The attackers themselves didn’t care to differentiate, for them it was enough that they were in America and killing Americans.

By focusing on the victim rather than the perpetrator Greenwald is heading in the wrong direction. The men who perpetrated this crime wore no uniforms, were soldiers in no army, representatives of no one. When a soldier puts on their uniform the country or indeed organisation that has licensed them to wear that uniform is making a statement to the world, or at least to the enemy. They are defining who their combatants are, they’re telling the enemy that this is who we are and more importantly defining who they are not. Rigby wore a uniform in combat those who killed him did not. They were two guys who murdered someone and then declared that murder in the name of their religion.

I do find myself wanting to agree with Greenwald in arguing that this is an atrocious murder rather than an act of terror. Arguing that these men are terrorists seems to give them a title of which they are unworthy. Thinking of them as two nutters who wanted to kill someone and did sits better with me somehow than the idea that they had some kind of cause for which they were fighting. But the truth is that the moment they uttered the dogmatic nonsense about Western killings in Muslim lands this did, in fact, become a terror attack. That’s really what being a terrorist is, a person who kills in the name of a political cause who doesn’t belong to a national army. An act of terror is an act designed to change government policy through creating terror within a society.

Arguing that Western countries are committing acts of terror when they kill civilians is, I think, possible but arguing that US and other militaries are the same as terrorists is, by definition, not true. Our soldiers have legitimacy based on the fact that they are the representatives of our nations. We send them off to war to defend us or our national interests.

The word terrorist therefore covers a huge amount of ground and there is a large difference between Hezbollah fighters and two British guys who most likely woke up one morning and decided to murder a man and hide behind various injustices overseas as their reasoning. There is no shared ideology in terrorists and there is no shared methodology, simply the willingness to kill, murder and maim in the name of an ideal.

To most people this is pretty obvious stuff, but not for Glenn who prefers to use an act of terror as a way of beating up on his own country and the United Kingdom. There were several things that surprised me about his article as they were so counter intuitive for me to read. I say counter intuitive because I thought that his views were based on concern with human rights and being anti prejudice. It is for that reason that I was surprised by his consistent use of the word Muslim. His own rhetoric in fact mirrors the rhetoric of al Qaeda when he talks about Muslims. For example when he asks the question;

“Can it really be the case that when western nations continuously kill Muslim civilians, that’s not “terrorism”, but when Muslims kill western soldiers, that is terrorism?”

I can’t understand why he would hi-light Muslims in this question, when the British army killed IRA men in Northern Ireland was there ever a suggestion that this was state sanctioned terrorism against Catholics? He should remember that there are a billion Muslims in the world, treating them as one monolithic group is nonsensical. The point he makes above is nonsensical for the same reason. Were Iranian soldiers to kill Americans it is doubtful that many people would regard it is an act of terror, when Hezbollah did in Lebanon in 1982 it was, for the reasons I have outlined above.

When Glenn says the following;

“It is very hard to escape the conclusion that, operationally, the term has no real definition at this point beyond “violence engaged in by Muslims in retaliation against western violence toward Muslims”

I find this point to be precisely the opposite of the the truth. Society as a whole, from politicians to journalists, to law enforcement went out of its way to specify that the Muslim community was not responsible for this and that Islam as a religion is not responsible and to point out exactly which terror group (if there is one) is responsible for any particular act of violence. Immediately after this atrocity Muslim groups came out in huge numbers to condemn the attack.

It is for these reasons that I come to the conclusion that although Glenn Greenwald titles his article with the question Was the London killing of a British soldier ‘terrorism’? He isn’t really looking for an answer so much as a way to argue that the killing of a soldier on the streets of London by glorified thugs is entirely comparable with civilian deaths caused by Western nations in their hunt for terrorists in ‘Muslim’ lands (whatever that might mean). This reasoning is reinforced by the second part of the url for his article “woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

Furthermore he goes on to add the conclusion that this is due to British foreign policy is “so glaringly obvious that it is difficult to believe that it has to be repeated.” The implication being that if the UK were to change its policies then these attacks wouldn’t happen. But then the further conclusion is that if the UK were to change its policies every time there was a gruesome act of violence anyone could force a change of UK policy by grabbing a weapon and committing murder.

Given the url that he created it is pretty clear that this is the point he wanted to make all along and asking the technical question as to whether this was actually an act of terror is nothing more than a little device to allow him to do so. He didn’t even bother including any legal definitions of terrorism in his piece.

Gene adds: For those who haven’t seen it, I recommend this comment from UncleChris.

I guess CNN’s Wolf Blitzer won’t be asking that question again after this encounter with Oklahoma tornado survivor Rebecca Vitsmun– who handled the moment well.

Vitsmun fled her home in Moore with her 19-month-old son moments before the tornado flattened it.

Much of the blogo- and twitter-sphere seems to be split between those who absolutely refuse to see any link between the murder of Lee Rigby and Islam, and those who are equally adamant that UK foreign policy cannot possibly be behind this violence.  When I saw this tweet from Seumas Milne it struck me that it was remarkably similar to the kind of thing Tommy Robinson might say. I can even imagine the very same pairing – ‘political class & most media’ – being blamed for refusing to cover Islam4UK or grooming gangs.

Many commenters have invoked foreign policy when discussing Woolwich.  Some can’t wait five seconds before raising the topic – others slip it in quickly towards the end.  I don’t think many of these commenters would be too thrilled by someone who argued that, although what Breivik did was barbaric, the external factors causing his crime do need to be addressed to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again.  Of course disagreement with the UK’s foreign policy and anxieties about religious extremism are both entirely legitimate topics for discussion – but not when used to just hint at some kind of justification for murder, even if that truly is not the intention.  Here’s Norman Geras on this topic:

Nothing is wrong with genuine efforts at understanding; on these we all depend. But the genuine article is one thing, and root-causes advocacy that seeks to dissipate responsibility for atrocity, mass murder, crime against humanity, especially in the immediate aftermath of their occurrence, is something else.

Note, first, the selectivity in the general way root-causes arguments function. Purporting to be about causal explanation rather than excuse-making, they are invariably deployed on behalf of movements, actions, etc., for which the proponent wants to engage our sympathy or indulgence, and in order to direct blame towards some party for whom he or she has no sympathy.

Tommy Robinson oddly brought the two kinds of violence together here with his incongruous reference to an EDL suicide bomber:

“I think it’s disgusting, and my thoughts and prayers are with all the victims. We don’t want English lads blowing themselves up on our soil, but that will happen if they don’t give us a platform.”

There is another possible reason why too much focus on these ‘root causes’ – religious extremism and foreign policy – is of limited use.  Both kinds of extremist might well find other reasons to turn to violence even if these ‘root causes’ were no more.  For some Muslims hostility to the West may be exacerbated by foreign policy, but is by no means dependent on it.  And although some counterjihad/far right types may be genuinely exercised by extremism, many others would have supported the NF a few decades ago.

Norm Geras of normblog, one of the most thoughtful and decent (in the non-sneering sense) people in the blogosphere, has revealed that he is in hospital being treated for the spread of prostate cancer.

I was first diagnosed with early prostate cancer at the beginning of 2003, not long before starting normblog. Though my initial treatment failed to cure the condition, I have remained asymptomatic and in good health for 10 years under the first-rate care of Christie Hospital in Manchester and the treatments recommended and implemented there. But this decade of good fortune ran out for me at the end of February this year when I learned that the cancer had now spread and, simultaneously, I started to suffer the effects of that.

As someone who for years has appreciated Norm’s wisdom and good sense, who had the privilege of meeting him when he visited Washington several years ago, who was the subject of one of his blogger profiles, who is a fellow Emmylou Harris fan, and who was treated for early-stage prostate cancer almost three years ago (with apparent success up to now), my thoughts are with Norm and his family.

The good news is that Norm hopes to be out of the hospital soon, and that he continues to blog as often as he can– as in this excellent post about why the victory over fascism in World War II was (even with its dark side) a great achievement that, despite a recent Guardian editorial, should not be “put to rest.”

Update: amie reports that Norm has returned home from the hospital.

There you go.

Guest post by Mehrdad Amanpour

I live in Greenwich, South East London (a couple of miles from Woolwich). As someone from a Muslim family, I needed to write down my thoughts on this terrible and traumatic event. I feel that the result would be appropriate for this excellent blog.

I don’t need to come from a Muslim family background to be certain that the overwhelming majority of Muslims here and throughout the world will be as horrified as anyone by the terrible events in Woolwich.

Furthermore, I am certain that the overwhelming majority of Muslim organisations, imams and community leaders would describe the actions of the men concerned to be evil and un-Islamic – the accepted consensus among most scholars is that when you live in a non-Islamic country (where you are allowed live and practice your religion in peace), you are forbidden to make war on the people of that country.

That being said, surely it’s time for Muslims everywhere to confront some of the extreme views held within their communities and face up to the fact that such views may act as stepping-stones for some ignorant and impressionable people who go on to carry out atrocious acts of violence.

It is a fact that far too many Muslim scholars promote, and far too many Muslims believe, interpretations of Islam that are anything but moderate– for example, that non-Muslims are morally and spiritually ‘inferior’ beings to Muslims or that in an ideal ‘Islamic’ society, the death penalty should apply for a Muslim who leaves Islam, for anyone who insults the Prophet, has sex outside of marriage or takes part in a homosexual act.

Whilst I’m not suggesting that any significant number of the Muslims holding such views would ever commit or even condone the events we saw in Woolwich, I am suggesting that if someone already believes such interpretations of Islam, it would be easier for them to believe that it’s morally acceptable to behead an off-duty soldier in the street.

As we have seen in the various media exposés, extreme views such as those outlined above are being promoted, often with impunity, in mosques, madrassas, faith schools and Islamic student societies throughout Britain. The result of this, as numerous polls have demonstrated, is that an unacceptably high minority of British Muslims support extreme and illiberal interpretations of Islam; for example, a poll carried out by Policy Exchange suggested that over a third of young British Muslims believe that the death penalty should apply for apostasy.

In every other aspect of our society, an ‘extremist’ is defined by both their actions and their personally held views; it is perfectly reasonable to label a racist a ‘racist’, whether or not they carry out illegal acts or promote law-breaking. For some reason, however, such rational logic isn’t generally applied when it comes to describing members of religious groups.

It seems that any Muslim who states that they support obeying the laws of the land is defined by default as ‘moderate’ without regard to whether he or she might hold some views that are very extreme and unpleasant indeed. However, a large section of our media and institutions appear to only label a Muslim as an ‘extremist’ if he or she breaks the law or incites others to do so. This is illogical and irrational.

The time has come for Muslim organisations, scholars, imams and lay people to stand up and state unequivocally that interpretations such as those outlined above are unacceptable and should never be promoted, here or abroad. They should go further and distance themselves from anyone who promotes those views. What’s more, politicians, the media and all of us should ask questions of any person who refuses to condemn such bigotry, and to ostracise them just as we do with someone who refuses to condemn racism. Universities must ban Islamic societies that promote hateful views, and any mosque, madrassa or Islamic faith school that promotes extreme, illiberal interpretations of Islam should be closed down and the management prosecuted.

Stating that non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims or that people should be killed for leaving a religion or having gay sex is simple hate speech, whether or not the speaker believes that it is ordained by Allah. The fact that hate speech is illegal under English law recognises the fact that hateful speech can sometimes promote hateful action.

Surely it’s time for the people who promote the views outlined above are treated as the criminals they are.

Most important, the time has come for our media, politicians and anti-fascist organisations to expose, name and shame any Muslim organisation, mosque, imam, scholar or spokesperson who refuses to condemn and distance themselves from the unacceptable interpretations of Islam that are far-too-often promoted without challenge in Britain today.

This is a cross-post by Marc Goldberg

Living in Israel, fear comes, quite literally, with the territory. I was afraid when sitting eating hummus in a restaurant when I heard the sirens go off, followed by a rather loud explosion moments later. I was afraid when I was wearing green a couple of days later and waiting to be sent into Gaza. But this is the usual fear. It’s one that either hurts you or it doesn’t, one that as an immigrant you either get used to and stay or can’t handle and leave. I have stopped looking at it as a ‘genuine’ fear and simply regard it as the price I pay for living in the country I love.

This is why when an altogether different kind of fear grips me I feel it so deeply. Yesterday Ha’aretz reported that an Israeli was placed under arrest for a Facebook status. Omri Hayun, who lives in Tel Aviv criticized the state on Facebook and was therefore contacted by Police. His mother was contacted by Police also.

It’s this that really makes me afraid. It’s this that really makes me doubt my government and country. We Israelis are so proud of what we have built here, of what we have accomplished that we find it very difficult not to brag since “we’re the only flourishing democracy in the Middle East” don’t you know?

But are we?

I’m not quite sure what the police think they’re going to achieve by monitoring the Facebook statuses of various Israelis. For sure there is an intelligence element to Facebook, though the detectives who tried to arrest Hayun have no connection with the intelligence services.

This is about social (media) control and it makes me feel very uncomfortable indeed. The fact that as soon as Hayun’s lawyer got in touch with police they admitted that in fact he didn’t have to arrive in court makes me feel even more uneasy in some ways.

If the police knew they had no grounds to do anything then why were they bullying and threatening him in the first place? For that matter why were they even spending their time looking at his Facebook account and how many of our accounts are they looking at right now?

What’s the point in fighting for this country if it becomes everything we’re fighting against?

I would complain on Facebook but…

In contrast to the horrendous response of Asghar Bokhari – I’ve just seen Quilliam’s Usama Hasan being interviewed on BBC Breakfast.  He discussed the pernicious influence of extremist speakers in mosques and campuses, and asserted that it was not enough to come out with platitudes such as ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ in response to horrific attacks – it’s also necessary to identify and criticize the ideology behind the violence.  He also described how he came under fire for inviting a British Muslim serviceman to Leyton mosque (where he used to serve as Imam).  Usama Hasan particularly noted that extremists were too often lent support by left wing groups. If Bokhari’s response was horrendous so, obviously, were some comments from extremists on the other side – threats to behead Muslim children for example.  As Maajid Nawaz put it.

Gene adds: The BBC reports that the two alleged killers were known to the security services and that one, Michael Adebolajo, is a Muslim convert from a Christian family.