Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Daphne Anson

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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Shtum Sisterhood and the War on Western Women (Daphne Anson)

Some decades ago in Australia there were a number of horrific murders of young backpackers by an evil sadist of Hungarian origin. Among the victims was a young German couple, and the reportage of their ordeal and deaths was, I recall, particularly harrowing. I recall mentioning this in passing to a (Jewish) friend at the time, who surprised me by snapping: “I don’t care what happens to Germans!” The angry emphatic response caught me off guard, as it was so out of character, and needless to say the two young German backpackers bore absolutely no responsibility for the Nazis’ crimes. Fast forward to Facebook a few days ago, and I was saddened to notice one or two messages from (male) Jews gloating at the sexual harassment of women in Cologne and Hamburg: the vengeful hope that German women would suffer the rapes and sexual humiliation inflicted by Nazis and their collaborators on captive Jewish women during the war was deeply troubling and unjustified. We must all, regardless of ethnicity, stand united against the abuse of western women by members of a repellent benighted “culture” that not only holds women in contempt but denies values that our Judeo-Christian heritage and modern societies born of the European Enlightenment hold dear; we all face a common threat.

At the end of a report that Mein Kampf is now out of copyright, the BBC’s Damian McGuinness , in that incorrigible way BBC reporters have in intruding their own leftist propaganda into what should (by the terms of Al-Beeb’s Charter and producers’ guidelines) be neutral reportage, can’t resist labelling Germans who are, understandably, aghast at what has been happening in Germany (and in the process he advances the trope that Muslims are the new Jews, “Islamophobia” the new antisemitism):

‘The shadow of the Nazis is also why the current debate over the sexual harassment of more than 100 women in Cologne on New Year's Eve is particularly difficult. The attackers appeared to be of Arabic or North African origin. For far-right extremists, this is an ideal opportunity to enflame xenophobia using an old Nazi trope: the pure German woman abused by the "foreigner." In the 1930s, for Nazis, it was the Jew. Today, for neo-Nazis, that "foreigner" is the Muslim. Hitler's book may be back in the mainstream. But Germans are determined to make sure that his ideas never are.’ (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35258807)

It is not politically correct to use the term “invaders” of the young men, unaccompanied by family and womenfolk, the usual appurtenances of “refugees,” who have poured into Europe in recent years, many of whom are now behaving like frontline troops in that war against the west foreshadowed by Gaddafi when he pronounced that Europe would be conquered by the wombs of “our women”.

He is hardly alone in that. One of the most recent proponents of that breed-and-conquer theme was a certain delightful imam at the Al Aqsa mosque in September:

‘“Germany is not a compassionate country that wishes to absorb refugees from Syria and Iraq, and Palestinian refugees in the Levant and elsewhere,” the preacher said, according to a translation of the recorded speech published by media monitor MEMRI. “Europe has become old and decrepit, and needs human reinforcement. No force is more powerful than the human force of us Muslims.” Over half a million migrants have arrived in Europe thus far in 2015, the bulk of whom are Muslims hailing from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea, according to the EU’s external border force. “They are not motivated by compassion for the Levant, its people, and its refugees,” Ayed continued. “Throughout Europe, all the hearts are infused with hatred toward Muslims. They wish that we were dead. But they have lost their fertility, so they look for fertility in their midst.” He thereupon called on his fellow Muslims to “breed children with them, because we shall conquer their countries.” “Take the refugees!” he exhorted European states. “We shall soon collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate. Will will say to you: These are our sons. Send them, or we will send our armies to you.” “This dark night will be over, and soon, we will trample them underfoot, Allah willing.” (http://www.timesofisrael.com/breed-and-conquer-europe-al-aqsa-preacher-exhorts-muslims/)

A manifestation of “Rape Jihad” is what some people are calling the coordinated sexual attacks by Muslim men on women in Germany – as well as in Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Scandinavia – and who can blame them? At the very least, the attacks are a sort of pogrom against women. Perhaps western men have yet to fully appreciate that they, too, are being victimised along with the women: the perpetrators see women as chattels, and in attacking them they are effectively emasculating the male kaffir whose chattels they are. Remember the vow of some Islamic hotheads following the publication in Denmark of the Mohammad cartoons, that vengeance would be wreaked on the Danes by taking their wives as sex slaves?
Predictably, given that perversity and hypocrisy that is the Left’s hallmark, the socialist sisterhood is seething, but not at the Muslim perpetrators:

‘Politicians and the media establishment haven’t connected the events in Cologne and Hamburg to everyday sexist violence. Instead they have focused above all on the alleged perpetrators’ backgrounds and on questions of public security. Where sexual molestation is acknowledged, it is only in relation to the “culture” in the perpetrators’ supposed countries of origin. This has been used from the get-go, in line with a classic racist line of argument, to stereotype Muslims and refugees. Mainstream media and politicians are stoking pre-existing anti-Muslim racism and further strengthening a smear campaign against refugees. The president of North Rhine-Westphalia region Hannelore Kraft said that foreign offenders must be deported. And the Sat1 TV network’s breakfast show featured the demand to “defend our values, way of life and beliefs” against “Muslim men”…. The feminist Alice Schwarzer has long sympathised with conservatives and even expressed “understanding” for the core ideas of the racist Pegida movement. Now she is singing their tune, speaking of a misguided tolerance towards Muslim men, connecting the issue to terrorism and demanding compulsory integration for migrants…. We should demand of the media and the political parties that they take action against the ever-stronger right-wing groups instead of supporting them with untenable arguments….’ (https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/41957/Sexism+is+not+a+foreign+import%E2%80%94German+socialists+respond+to+Cologne+attacks)

At least the socialist women featured in that article acknowledged, albeit begrudgingly since the German male is their primary focus for wrath, that the offenders in the present case must be brought to justice. Predictably, far too many if not most of the sisterhood appears to be keeping a studied silence regarding the treatment of women in Europe at the hands of these men. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that Twitter can be searched mainly in vain for even the teeniest condemnatory tweet out of the “big name” leaders of the Women’s Movement.

The London Daily Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson stated the situation rather well last week in observing, inter alia:

‘In Germany … they are still pretending that there is a moral equivalence between racist attitudes and actual bodily harm to women. (Fear of racism trumps feminism every single time.) Ralf Jaeger, interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, epitomised that cultural cringe when he warned that anti-immigrant groups were using the attacks to stir up hatred against refugees. "What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chat rooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women," he said. Nein, nein, nein, mein Herr. Attitudes are not the same as deeds. Women in Europe have not fought for equal rights all these long years only to be told to start modifying their behaviour to avoid being molested. How long before the frauleins of Cologne are advised to stay indoors, or even cover their heads, out of respect to new arrivals? Sharia law shall not be imposed on us by stealth or cowardly accommodation with repellent thugs. And if anyone needs a “code of conduct” it is not German women, but men from conservative societies who must learn sharpish what our values entail, or return from whence they came. I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that the grotesque mass attack on women in Cologne was not an isolated incident, but the first of many battles in a clash of civilisations.’ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12087780/Cologne-assault-Cultural-difference-is-no-excuse-for-rape.html)

Exactly, Ms Pearson. Exactly.

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Too Nice A Naïveté (Daphne Anson)

“Europe needs more inward migration, even though we don’t think we do – we’re an ageing, and shrinking, population. Somehow, peace will return to Syria, and it will be a just peace. Isis will, in the end, collapse. Europe will learn to welcome its refugees, and the land will be tilled again, and crops will grow, and the hungry will be fed and the poor will be lifted up.” So blogged London-based Canon Giles Goddard (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/6974) an Anglican vicar critical of the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England.

And again (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1541) ‘Yesterday I was in France, and came back through the Eurotunnel terminal from Calais… I was shocked … by how different the terminal is from when I was last there a year ago. High fences topped with barbed wire are now all round the site, and it feels as if you are entering a fortress when you drive through to board the train… I remind you that we are making a collection for those in Calais this Sunday: Tricia says "we are asking specifically for men’s things: jeans, jumpers, training shoes, Bibles, games (scrabble, chess), toiletries etc., but I am sure a few women’s and children’s things wouldn’t go amiss" so do bring anything you have to church.’

This is the same well-meaning but naïve clergyman who earlier in the year that’s just ended caused uproar in the Church of England by contravening canon law with a full Muslim prayer service (an idiosyncratic, unrepresentative one at that: http://anglicanmainstream.org/inclusive-mosque-meets-to-pray-in-waterloo-church/ ) in his church and during proceedings asked his congregation to praise “the God that we love, Allah”. His pronouncements regarding the “refugees” ignore what is effectively an Islamic invasion of the European continent and a menace to Judeo-Christian values, and he appears to disregard the fact that according to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees an “asylum seeker” should apply for sanctuary in the first “safe country” he/she arrives in; manifestly, the hordes of mainly young males milling around Calais attempting to smuggle themselves into Britain have not complied with that expectation. The fact that they are young and male, with all that implies for the demographic future of Europe should ring alarm bells. As for those Bibles so earnestly solicited, I’d hazard a guess that there are unlikely to be many grateful takers.

In his admirably lucid and much-recommended book The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, the Australian scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie, himself an Anglican clergyman, notes that “Classical Islamic law did not allow non-Muslims who lived in an Islamic state to gain a deep understanding of Islam … Today there can be considerable pressure upon non-Muslims not to investigate the primary sources of Islam for themselves, but to refer all their questions about Islam to a Muslim expert. Interfaith dialogue is an increasingly important forum for exploring Islam in Western countries, and these forums tend to follow principles of mutual respect, listening attentively to the other party and accepting their interpretations of their own faith. While this is a common-sense approach to sustaining productive and mutually satisfying relationships between people, it does however tend to have the same impact as traditional Sharia restrictions, inhibiting non-Muslims from studying about [sic] Islam for themselves … One very good reason why Christians should study Islam for themselves is that Islam defines its spiritual identity, not merely in terms of Muslims’ standing before Allah, but in opposition and contrast to Jews and Christians. This self-definition includes a deep rejection of Christianity and Judaism. It is a sad fact that incitement against non-Muslims, and specifically followers of Biblical faiths, is an integral part of Islam, being hard-wired into the Quran and Sunna.”

Such knowledge would empower non-Muslim congregations when listening to addresses like this at Canon Goddard’s church (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1516) and this ill-conceived fiasco (http://jewsdownunder.com/2014/06/21/melbourne-jewish-temples-interfaith-deception/) at Australia’s largest Progressive Jewish synagogue, for example.

Back to the “refugee” issue. It might be natural for Jews, mindful of their own tragic history, to side with people fleeing persecution. As a perusal of the Jewish Chronicle shows, among the British Jews vocally championing the argument that Britain should strive strenuously to accommodate those displaced by the current upheaval in the Middle East are Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Sir Mick Davis, who heads the (unelected) Jewish Leadership Council. But for every genuine refugee family there are single males, mainly young ones, trying to take advantage of porous borders for their own ends.

An article every bit as naïve as Canon Goddard’s, and disturbingly tendentious, appeared a few months ago in Britain’s odious Israel-baiting Guardian newspaper (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jewish-people-calais-migrants-kindertransport-children-nazis). Its author, Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner, daughter of a Labour life peer, did not speak for all Jews, though she gave the impression she did: ‘For the Jewish people, for thousands of years a dispersed nation without guaranteed safety, the sight of the Calais “jungle” camp on our doorstep is especially painful. We remember with gratitude the great deeds of the Kindertransport, and with hurt the rejection we have also known. What is the Jewish response to hearing that thousands are living in squalor just a few miles away? When we look across the English Channel, we see ourselves.’

No, Laura, not so; rather, some of us know a ruse and a threat when we see one. The present situation at Calais, where young economic migrants determined to get to Britain cluster and try to hide aboard cross-Channel transport, is not analogous to the plight of Jews desperate to escape the Reich. Nor will there be any supportable analogy between them and those refugees if and when they manage to penetrate Britain’s coasts. We align ourselves with the welfare of the British Isles.

As Daniel Greenfield observes (http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261127/lefts-muslim-replacement-theology-jews-daniel-greenfield) there’s grave danger in too nice a naïveté:

"Muslims are the new Jews. You can find this offensive claim repeated everywhere in the media. The Jews, a small ethnic minority of millions that was stateless for thousands of years, are a terrible analogy for a global Muslim population of 1.6 billion and around 50 countries that do not comprise a single ethnicity or race… The only thing the Muslims and the Jews have ever had in common is that the former conquered, persecuted and enslaved the latter. Any religious similarities are the product of Muslim cultural appropriation of Jewish beliefs and any cultural similarities are the result of Muslim colonization... In this twisted historical revisionism, the Jews, a beleaguered minority hanging on to a country slightly bigger than Fiji, who have spent the last 40 years cutting pieces off their small slice of the world to hand over to the region’s massive Muslim majority in the hopes of being left alone, are the new Nazis... The constant claims that Muslims are the new Jews carry with them a whiff of progressive replacement theology. The old Jews have been found wanting. Setting up a country and defending it against Muslim terrorism made them bad victims. The Muslims are superior replacement victims. They have the right to Israel and to Jewish history...."

Naïve well-meaning Jews, and Christians, would do well to heed his words.

Duping a Dhimmi: A Glimpse of Old Palestine (Daphne Anson)

Considered the most authoritative specialist on matters pertaining to the Jewish homeland since the medieval scholar and author Estori Farhi, Rabbi Joseph Schwarz (1804-65) was a Bavarian-born Talmudist who settled in Jerusalem in 1833 and immersed himself in the history, natural history, geology and geography of Eretz Israel. His notable works include Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine (1850), from which the London-based Jewish Chronicle (3 October 1851), took the following extract:

‘Some years before Mahmud Ali [ruled 1805-48] had assumed the government, and the Arabs had the ability and power to tyrannize over the Jews, a very rich Jew of Constantinople emigrated hither [Jerusalem]. The Mahomedans ardently desired to find some pretext against this rich man, in order to extort money from him, according to their fashion.

One day a Mahomedan, accompanied by a Bedouin, leading two camels loaded with charcoal, entered the courtyard of the Jew, and said that, as no doubt he was in want of coal, he would spare him the trouble to go to market for it, and brought therefore to his house two heavily loaded camels with this necessary article. But the Jew, fearing some evil, made some excuses – was very grateful for the kindness of the other, yet averred that he could not make any use of it, as he was well supplied already.

But all subterfuges were in vain, and the Mahomedan forced him fairly to take the coal; and when the other asked after the price, he answered, “Never mind, give what you think the article is worth.

"Yet, as thou camest but lately in our holy city, it is no more than becoming that thou shouldst invite us, as faithful fellow citizens, into thy house, and entertain us with pipes and coffee, until the camels be unloaded by the servants.”
“Let it be so,” answered the rich man; and, opening the door of his saloon, he told them to enter. Coffee and pipes were brought in; they drank and smoked, spoke of indifferent things, when suddenly the Bedouin sunk down as dead, and gave no signs of animation.

The Mahomedan jumped up from his seat in a great rage, and addressed the Jew with a loud voice—“Murderer! What hast thou done? Thy coffee is poisoned! Shall we tolerate the Jews among us, that they may lay plots against our lives? This murder shall be washed out by the blood of all the Jews.”

The other protested his innocence, trembling, with tears in his eyes, saying, “Have I not drunk myself of this coffee? How, then, can it be poisoned?”

“Then must the Bedouin’s cup have contained poison,” was the furious reply of the other.

The Jew adduced all sorts of proofs of his entire innocence.

At length the Mahomedan was moved, and said, “My friend, I indeed pity thee and all the Jews of the city; but I can think of only one remedy by which thou and thy people can be saved. Have thy courtyard immediately locked up, so that no one from without will be able to enter. I will employ all possible means to suppress this affair and keep it a profound secret; and this evening I will send thee two confidential persons, who shall fetch away the corpse and bury it in all secrecy; and in this way thou and thy brothers will be saved. But to effect this a large sum of money is necessary, which I am sure thou wilt readily and willingly furnish on the spot.”

The trembling Jew esteemed himself happy that the matter could be settled with money, and gave immediately the sum which the Mahomedan had demanded, large as it was, with great willingness and with the utmost unconcern. The other went away, and the corpse was left lying in the saloon.

After sunset two Bedouins arrived with a large sack, in which they thrust the corpse, took it on their shoulders in profound silence, and walked away greatly terrified.
But scarcely were they a few steps distant from the house of the rich man, when the dead Arab jumped out of the sack; and the Jew now learned for the first time that the whole affair was a gross deception, contrived merely to extort from him the large sum he paid for his ransom.’

Oy!

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A Nice One State Solution – Not (Daphne Anson)

Gresham College in London dates from Tudor times, established through a bequest by wealthy merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, and is a kind of quasi-university that presents lectures and discussions that members of the public may attend. It current professor of law is a prominent international human rights lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice. Back in October Sir Geoffrey chaired a panel discussion addressing the issue of whether during its operations against Hamas in Gaza Israel committed “war crimes”. The panel was apparently cherry-picked in order to achieve a pre-ordained outcome and, as Nice’s own speech showed, over-relied upon the historical narrative of one of the panellists, ProfessorAvi Shlaim. If Colonel Richard Kemp had been a member of the panel, he would certainly have put Nice right about the true and precise military meaning of a “disproportionate” response.

Little wonder that, during the question-and-answer session that followed the speeches, distinguished educator Baroness Deech – daughter of renowned Yiddishist and biographer of Herzl Josef Fraenkel – declared that fellow members of the audience should be aware that they “have been subjected to the most inaccurate and one-sided history that I have heard in recent years”. And so it was – an absolute disgrace, in fact, with no mention by Nice during his speech of the fledgling Jewish State’s immediate invasion by several exterminatory Arab armies, and with Shlaim inveighing (to applause) that since its birth Israel has been “too ready” to participate in military conflict! (Arab aggression and rejectionism, anyone?)

British blogger Richard Millett has provided a neat critique of Nice’s views, quoting some of the most noxious passages, such as: “Israel as a state was thus imposed on and within Palestine in 1948 … an as yet unfinished state project because the territorial ambitions of Israel were not satisfied. Thereafter, claiming to fight for the security of their people and preservation of their land, Israel fought their Arab neighbours, expanding Israel’s borders.”

Having watched the relevant video, one assertion by Sir Geoffrey strikes me as singularly noisome.

During the question-and-answer session he volunteered how, not so long ago, his eyes were opened to the fact that a “one state” solution is probably the way to proceed. After all, he pointed out, “we in Northern Europe” no longer live in countries composed of a single ethnicity or culture … (you really have to watch the video to appreciate the casual obnoxiousness of the remarks).

No consideration, of course, of what a single state would entail, demographically, for the Jews of Israel. No nod to the fact that Israel is a thriving democracy and already home to minorities who are equal before the law, including, let’s not forget, people of Vietnamese origin taken in as refugees from Communism when much of the world shunned them. No remembrance of the fact that Arab women, still treated as mere chattels and subject to “honour” killings in much of the Arab and Muslim world, were enfranchised in 1948 by Israel, the first Middle Eastern nation to give them the vote. No acknowledgment that it is effrontery in the extreme to suggest that a sovereign state should be dismantled in order to be incorporated in the entity that Sir Geoffrey Nice and his cohorts will find acceptable. No recognition of the fact that many people would consider such a suggestion antisemitic since the sovereign state offered up on the altar of abolition is the world’s only Jewish one.

No admitting of the fact that there is just one Jewish State on planet Earth and a very significant number of Arab ones, indeed a large number of states that are constitutionally, to a greater or lesser degree, self-defined as Islamic states in which, to some extent at least, disabling legislation against non-Muslims and the operation of sharia law applies.

There is, of course, Saudi Arabia, that most extreme of fundamentalist Arab states, in which no Jews may officially set foot and no churches are allowed, towards which a discrete silence reigns in view of the West’s reliance on the desert kingdom for oil and, Saudi Arabia’s export of Wahhabism notwithstanding, its tacit alliance with the West and Israel: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State with Islam as its religion. God’s Book and the Sunna of His Prophet … are its Constitution ... Government in Saudi Arabia derives from the Holy Quran and the Prophet’s traditions ... the State protects Islam, it implements its Sharia...”

And then there’s post-Taliban Afghanistan, whose Constitution proclaims: “the religion of the State of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam ... The state shall devise and implement a unified educational curriculum based on the provisions of the sacred religion of Islam ... Presidential candidates ... should be ... Muslim.” Post-Saddam Iraq: “Islam is the official religion of the state and it is a fundamental source of legislation. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.”

And take Mauretania: its Constitution (1991) declares that country “an indivisible, democratic, and social Islamic republic … Islam shall be the religion of the people and of the state … the President of the Republic shall be a Muslim”. Or Pakistan, proclaimed as an “Islamic Republic” in 1956, which oversaw a radical islamification of its Constitution in 1985, and the following year foreshadowed the persecution of Christians with the making of blasphemy against Islam a capital offence, and where since 1993 basic constitutional rights are based upon the Quran and Sunna. Or Egypt (“the Egyptian people form part of both the Arab and Islamic community … Islam is the state religion .... The principles of Islamic law form the main source of legislation’), Iran, and Malaysia, where conversion to a religion other than Islam is regarded as apostasy and in Iran liable to capital punishment.

With the exception of Turkey, officially still secular as Ataturk intended yet showing increasing signs of re-islamification under Erdogan, Islam is, I believe I’m correct in saying, entrenched in the constitutions of the remaining Muslim states.

I think we can all make an educated guess as to how long Nice’s “one state solution” would last before it, too, adopted a Constitution that enshrined the supremacy of Islam and the effective dhimmitude of its minorities.

Under The Ottomans, an Anglo-Jewish Lady under Arrest (Daphne Anson)

I’ve decided, after the heavy contemporary themes of the past couple of weeks, dip into the historical archives.

Marcus Landau (c1837-1913), a native of Gomel in the Pale of Settlement, worked as a shochet in his adopted London, where he married a girl from Bavaria and fathered eighteen children. To his credit, this interesting and clever man – among his inventions was a safety lamp for use in coal mines – insisted that his nine daughters should be well-educated and encouraged to achieve their full potential in life, just as their brothers were. As a result, his progeny, both male and female, included some notable figures in the annals of Britain’s Jewish community.

In 1900 his daughter Annie (1873-1945) became headmistress of the famous Evelina de Rothschild School for Girls in Jerusalem, founded in 1854 and renamed in memory of a member of the Rothschild family who died in childbirth in 1866. Miss Landau became the school’s headmistress, and remained so until her death.

During a visit to London on extended sick leave in 1903, Annie Landau gave the Jewish Chronicle (30 October 1903) her impressions of Jerusalem – giving its population as 40,000 Jews, 14,000 Muslims and 6000 Christians – and recalling the difficulty she encountered when she first arrived in Eretz Israel three years previously:

'There is no ill-feeling on the part of the rest of the population to the Jewish inhabitants, according to Miss Landau, except that the Israelites are kept at arm's length from the holy places – even the tombs of their own Kings and Prophets. But the Turkish Government are still very careful about the settlement of Jews in the Holy Land. Very often, by expedients well-known in Oriental countries, Jews are enabled to evade the law which forbids them to settle in Palestine. But whenever the Zionists give signs of activity the screw is put on, it appears, and even the almighty [Thomas] Cook himself is unable to smuggle his Jewish tourists in with the rest of his company. This extra care on the part of the Turk was noticeable at the time of the El Arish negotiations [1902], and a similar cause placed Miss Landau herself in an unpleasant situation the very first day she touched holy soil, which was ... shortly after the meeting of the Kaiser and Dr Herzl [October 1898] ...

When Miss Landau reached the Port of Jaffa and attempted to disembark, a Turkish official intercepted her.

"Ĕtes vous Chrétienne?" he asked.

"Je suis Anglaise," answered Miss Landau, with intentional irrelevance.

The official glanced at her. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "Vous êtes Juive." Miss Landau could not deny the soft impeachment, and the name of Rothschild (the Rothschild School) on Miss Landau's luggage confirmed the man's worst fears.

So off the lady was marched to a sort of hut, and a guard of fifty villainous-looking soldiers was placed over her. Fifty soldiers! If Miss Landau had tried to escape, one feels that the Sublime Porte would have mobilised at least the first division of the Reserves.

However, the lady kept quite quiet, and in the hut she remained for an hour. Meanwhile, the people who had come to meet her had hied [i.e. sped] to the British Vice-Consul for help. This gentleman (a Jew) replied that Miss Landau was to be marched to his place. But Miss Landau, like the brave British subject she is, strongly declined the escort. The Vice-Consul must come to her!

The Jewish Mahomet duly came to the mountain. But all he could suggest was that Miss Landau should sign a declaration undertaking to leave the country for thirty days, and agreeing to deposit fifty napoleons as surety. One napoleon is twenty francs and fifty napoleons was, therefore, a big sum – more than Miss Landau had in her possession. But even if she had had the money she could have entered into no such foolish understanding, seeing that she had come out to Palestine to take up the post of Head Mistress of the Rothschild School. So she declined the Vice-Consul's suggestion.

In the end Miss Landau was allowed to land and proceed to her hotel, the idea being to refer her case to the British Consul at Jerusalem (who was expected that day). Sure enough the Consul, Mr Dickson, arrived, and smoothed things over. Miss Landau was allowed to settle in Jerusalem - but only by virtue of a firman especially issued by the Sultan.

The Cadi [judge] came to Miss Landau and apologised for the trouble to which she had been put. The gentleman was very anxious to be forgiven, and as a sign that he had found grace in Miss Landau's eyes he begged but one thing – that she should pay a visit to his harem. Miss Landau agreed. In the harem she found a whole room of women – from 15 to 20 of them. Their faces were painted, they had belladonna [sic; kohl] under their eyes, their fingernails and hair were coloured with henna, and they lay in what Miss Landau calls "languishing attitudes".

When the visitor entered, they sat and stared at her. Some of them regarded her, no doubt, as the latest recruit to the harem. One of them, with embarrassing politeness, took the narghileh [hookah pipe] from her mouth and offered it to Miss Landau for a smoke. But in those days ladies did not smoke in England, and this Miss Landau duly explained. However, no unpleasant contretemps occurred as a result. The lady resumed her narghileh [hookah pipe]; Miss Landau left the harem; and there was peace between the Cadi and the teacher all the days of their lives.

But two doubtful consolations remain to Miss Landau as a result of her adventures at Jaffa. She is the first British woman that has ever been under arrest in Palestine, and she is the only Jewess on whose behalf the Sultan has issue a special firman.'

Joshua Fights the Battle of Their Echo (Daphne Anson)

“Nothing to do with Islam.” “Islam is not the problem.” “Islam is a religion of peace.” “All religions have their extremists.” How the denials echo in the wake of every atrocity on infidel soil enacted by terrorists screaming in Arabic the message that their deity is superior to everyone else’s. How thin the denial sounds. How craven the politicians who mouth it. How noisome the complacency from quarters that should know better, yet dice with the futures not only of ourselves but of Western generations yet unborn. And among those quarters I include certain naïve or perverse souls in the Jewish community.

To quote the British journalist Charles Moore, former editor of the London Daily Telegraph, writing last month in the wake of the atrocities in Paris
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11997070/How-many-more-people-have-to-die-before-we-stop-appeasing-Islamists.html)

“[It is] extraordinary … that a great many modern European leaders and policymakers still do not understand … the implacable enmity of Islamism… Essentially, Islamism is a doctrine which provides a reason to hate and kill everyone who does not subscribe to it. Start with the people in the front line of your malice – Jews, Christians in the Arab world, the professional soldiers of infidel countries. Progress to those who transgress your morality. And then end up with anyone – everyone – who does not submit to the will of Allah, as interpreted by your pop-up theologians… It would be harder to imagine a clearer foe, yet we still have difficulty making policy in the light of the threat… What brings it all home, literally, is immigration… If a million Muslims … are reaching Germany this year, and even if only one per cent of them subscribe to the doctrines of Isil, that still means 10,000 people dedicated to killing their hosts and assailing the society that accommodates them.”

Half a world away from the troubles of Europe lies Australia, yet “the Lucky Country” is not impervious to the threat of Islamic terrorism: we have seen that twice so far this year. As Joshua (Josh) Frydenberg, federal Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia in the Malcolm Turnbull government, wrote on his blog (http://www.joshfrydenberg.com.au/guest/opinionDetails.aspx?id=194):

“[W]hile this barbaric attack happened in the heart of France, all Australians know but for the grace of God it could have been us. Frighteningly, hundreds of Australians are either fighting with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq or lending their support back at home. More than 40 Australians have already died in the conflict, some of whom were suicide bombers. More than 140 Australian passports have been cancelled and our security agencies have said that they have more than 400 high-priority terrorist investigations under way. The Lindt cafe siege and the shooting outside the NSW Police headquarters in Parramatta were painful reminders that Australia is not immune. Were the perpetrators of these crimes able to access even more devastating weaponry than they did, I have no doubt they would have used it. The question becomes for freedom-loving nations such as Australia and France: what do we do to prevent religious zealots from taking democracy hostage and destroying innocent lives? Australia is like France, a sport-loving, diverse society where a strong safety net exists to help those who cannot help themselves. We are not responsible for these heinous acts and we should not make excuses for those who are. Their evil barbarity now seen well inside the gate must be tackled head on with all the resources we have available. It is a battle that must be won because our way of life as we know it is being challenged. Terrorism in our cities must never be accepted as the new normal.”

Journalist Paul Sheehan, in deploring the myth of “victimology” of Muslims that’s endorsed by the
federal Human Rights Commissioner, reminds us (http://www.smh.com.au/comment/paul-sheehan-the-victimology-myth-about-muslims-in-australia-sells-the-country-short-20151115-gkzdeq.html) that

“Of the 20 organisations proscribed by the federal government as terrorist organisations with links to Australia, all 20 are Islamic. The most spectacular race crimes in Australia over the past three years, involving murder, attempted murder, threats to kill and plots to kill – the highest form of racial discrimination – involved Muslims planning or carrying out attacks against non-Muslims… More Muslims are fighting for Islamic State than are enlisted in the Australian Defence Force.”

Indeed, it would appear that it’s precisely that “victim” mentality which has this week prompted five campus affiliates of the Muslim Students’ Association of Victoria to indignantly refuse to participate in a governmental “Countering Violent Extremism” initiative amid claims that the initiative is “Islamophobic” and undermines “core Islamic values and ideas”.

In his response to the November atrocities in Paris, the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, an Egyptian who’s been in this country for 20 years yet cannot speak the language, and who earlier this year defended the extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir (http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/crisis_point_mufti_attacks_abbott_whitewashes_hizb_ut_tahrir/) issued a statement which reflected that victim mentality and placed the blame for the atrocities on Western governments); it read, inter alia:

“These recent incidents highlight the fact that current strategies to deal with the threat of terrorism are not working. It is therefore imperative that all causative factors, such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed.”

Among those criticising the Grand Mufti for this and a follow-up statement have been the popular conservative columnist Andew Bolt, the new Liberal MP Andrew Hastie (a former SAS commander who’s done three tours of duty in Afghanistan, and says “Modern Islam needs to cohere with the Australian way of life, our values and institutions. In so far as it doesn’t, it needs reform’’), and Josh Frydenberg, who – in contrast to Prime Minister Turnbull, on record as describing Islamic State as godless terrorists who “defame and blaspheme Islam” – has said that endemic to the current global terror threat

“is a problem with Islam. The point about Islam is that this is a minority of extremists, and you could argue it’s even a small minority of extremists, but it’s a significant minority of extremists and it does pose a challenge to our way of life in Australia. We need to acknowledge the significance of this threat, to acknowledge that religion is part of this problem, and … because this is the key point, we need to deal with it at a hard edge – with a military response – but we also need to deal with it a counter-narrative…”

As columnist Miranda Devine observes (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/your-morals-as-a-muslim-dont-give-you-a-free-pass/) regarding their views on this issue, leftist ABC radio host Jon Faine (who’s Jewish himself, incidentally) dismissively noted that Frydenberg is “a Jew” and Hastie “an evangelical Christian”.

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, who as Immigration Minister under Tony Abbott was crucial to the policy of “turning back the boats” (of illegal immigrants and so-called asylum seekers attempting to jump the queue of people applying for Aussie visas through lawful channels) declared (http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/scott-morrison-says-critics-of-grand-mufti-and-muslim-community-dont-get-it/) has attempted to undermine the issues raised by
Frydenberg, Hastie, and their supporters in and outside Federal parliament:

“I think all religions go through phases in this country. My own (Christianity) and many others. Over a period of time religions become more indigenised in this country. And the cultural component of our religious faiths, I think, become more indigenised. There is the pure religion side of things, the teachings and so on, and then there is how it is expressed in a particular culture. And that is true of Christianity as it is of Christianity, as it is true of the Jewish faith as it is of the Muslim faith.”

What outrageous bulldust! As if either Christianity or Judaism (“The Law of the Land is the Law”) have ever been in any sense inimical to the Australian way of life and the country’s democratic values! As if either Christianity or Judaism have inspired Jihadist attacks on fellow-Australians or on non-followers of their religion overseas. As if either Christianity or Judaism have spawned individuals who consider themselves above the Australian judicial system because their religion trounces civil jurisdiction and individuals who in consequence refuse to acknowledge or accede the respect due to civil magistrates (Miranda Devine’s column has Islamic examples!).

Peter Costello – federal Treasurer under Prime Minister John Howard, who should have groomed him as his successor but failed to so, ensuring that Costello eventually left politics, a severe loss to the Liberal Party and to the nation – wrote very reasonably:

‘…. After each atrocity complacent political leaders trot out the same platitudes. They tell us: “This has nothing to do with Islam, etc.” It is wearing thin with the public. All these attacks are coming from people who subscribe to one religion …Plainly it has something to do with Islam. And the people who are doing it think it has everything to do with Islam. That is why they shout Allahu Akbar while firing their guns and detonating their explosives… Religions are not all the same. Christ never sought to establish an earthly kingdom — “My kingdom is not of this world,” he said. But Mohammed did. He led an army in the conquest of Mecca. As an earthly ruler he had quite a lot to say about how to wage war and make peace. These are the teachings radical Islamists rely on to justify their conduct. So what we need from the Islamic scholars is to tell us, and more importantly to tell would-be jihadis, why these difficult sections of the Koran and the Hadiths are not to be taken literally and not to be followed today. They should explain why “jihad”, which once did include warfare, no longer means that…’

As Andrew Bolt (whose writings are a treat for newspaper readers every Monday and Thursday, and online in between) comments on the above: (http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/costello_it_is_about_islam_which_needs_reform/):

“Fourteen years after the September 11 attacks we are still waiting for signs that senior Muslim clerics are working on this reform of Islam. If this work does not start soon, we may have to conclude that reform is not possible.”

Labor shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who’s Jewish, told Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, that he hadn’t read Peter Costello’s article, “but if he in fact said that Islam was the problem then that is a tremendously wrong-headed approach. What we have here is Islamist extremists, or to be even more precise, Salafi jihadist extremists and it’s not Islam, it’s not the religion. This is a political ideology claiming to be based on aspects of a religion but it’s very distinct from the whole religion… What I’ve heard from Muslim leaders across Australia for years now is complete condemnation of this extremist Islamist ideology… ”

To which Josh Frydenberg, on the same program, retorted (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/2015/11/P50/):

“We’re dealing with a global terrorist threat that we face significantly here at home. [L]eaders of the Muslim community, including the Grand Mufti, did not condemn the attacks in the way that he should have and that has been a very big sore point… “

As Andrew Bolt has shown in previous items of his regarding the Mufti, the latter, when visiting Hamas officials in Gaza, declared:

”I am pleased to stand on the land of jihad to learn from its sons and I have the honour to be among the people of Gaza where the weakness always becomes strength, the few becomes many and the humiliation turns into pride … We came here in order to learn from Gaza. We will make the stones, trees and people of Gaza talk in order to learn steadfastness, sacrifice, and the defence of one’s rights from them….”

And by threatening the withdrawal of Muslim support for the ALP, the Mufti stymied the bid to enter federal politics of a moderate member of the ALP, the staunchly pro-Israel Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union.

Meanwhile, Diaa Mohamed, founder of the new Australian Muslim Party, which is hoping to get representation in the federal Senate, has condemned Frydenberg’s views as “offensive”. Condemning them also are two ALP (Australian Labor Party) heavies who just happen to represent heavily Muslim constituencies in western Sydney. One is Tony Burke, who recently made loathsome comments against Israel (http://www.jewishnews.net.au/burke-slammed-over-settlement-comments/37593).

It seems Joshua and his ilk have a lot of fighting still to do before the walls of wilful blindness come tumbling down.

Jews and Freemasons (Daphne Anson)

A few days ago an Australian newspaper carried a small item headlined “Freemasons exposed”. It reported that one of the largest online genealogical websites, Ancestry.com, has added historic records of two million British Freemasons to its resources. Unfortunately, the newspaper seemed to pander to popular prejudice against what it called “the secretive Freemasons,” by noting gratuitously that those records contain “5500 policemen, 170 judges, 169 MPs, 16 bishops and an Indian prince” – thus implying, in the light of that headline, that these men’s membership of the craft was somehow improper, self-serving, and not in the public interest. It thus fed a canard long thrown at Freemasons, at least in Britain and Australia – that they look after their own, and form a shadowy nefarious powerful elite.

How a friend’s long-dead great-grandfather would have smiled at the notion that he was part of an elite. He was a British sailor from a lower middle class family who joined the Royal Navy as a teenager, retiring from the service with the rank of chief petty officer having spent many years on board a succession of ironclads as a stoker in the boiler room. Hardly an elite job. He became a Freemason when he was serving in a squadron based for a long period in Bermuda, jocularly recalling that “it was either the Lodge or the brothel”. He remained a loyal Freemason until the end of his life, as well as an active member of his local Anglican church, for he saw no contradiction in belonging to either. After all, Freemasonry is open to those who believe in a “Supreme Being”.

Far from being an organisation that promotes divisiveness and harm, Freemasonry, though not particularly fashionable these days, promotes camaraderie and charitableness. On the European Continent during the eighteenth century Freemasons were in the forefront of the Enlightenment and of liberalism. It was this that made the Roman Catholic Church fear and resent them, leading to Pope Leo X’s edict forbidding Catholics to join lodges. Yet a notion persists that Freemasonry bans Catholics, which is untrue; in the English-speaking world there are certainly Catholic members, and indeed there are members of most major faiths, including Jews.

Freemasonry contains numerous affinities to Judaism. In their article on Freemasonry in the Jewish Encyclopedia published in 1904 (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6335-freemasonry), scholars Cyrus Adler and Australian-born Joseph Jacobs, provide the eye-opening very long list of “chief technical terms of freemasonry which are connected with Jewish ideas and expressions”. They describe Freemasonry as an organisation “devoted to the promotion of fraternal feeling and morality” which in “its modern form … appears to have arisen in London in 1717, and thence spread through the British Isles to the Continent, reaching North America about 1729. In the preliminary stages which led up to freemasonry, there are traces of the influence of Judah Templo, the constructor of a model of Solomon's Temple, who visited England in the reign of Charles II. A coat of arms said to have been used or painted by him resembles greatly that adopted later by the freemasons of England … “

Emeritus Professor Aubrey Newman, of the University of Leicester, in a published talk to the Jewish Historical Society of England about Jews in English Freemasonry (http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/england_articles/Jews_in_English_Freemasonry.htm) tells us that the Grand Lodge’s records “of 1723 show the names of several Jews, such as Benjamin Deluze and Simon Ansell, and in 1725 Israel Segalas and Nicholas Abrahams; by 1732 Solomon Mountford, Solomon Mendez, Abraham Ximenes, and Abraham Cortissos. Grand Lodge each year appointed a number of Grand Stewards who had the very responsible and very public task of organizing the annual Grand Festival; among the lists of stewards can be found such names as Solomon Mendez (1732), Dr Meyer Schomberg (1734), Benjamin da Costa (1736), and Isaac
Barrett, Joseph Harris, Samuel Lowman, and Moses Mendez (all in 1738).”

Furthermore, “From the records of individual Lodges we find that when Lebeck's Head Lodge was constituted in 1759 thirteen of its founders had Jewish names. The Lodge of the Nine Muses which was founded in 1777 included amongst its earliest members Francis Franco, Raphael Franco, Dr Isaac Sequira, and Abraham Teixera. There are other Lodges of distinction and prestige which contain Jews. The Prince of Wales' Lodge – admission to which was in practice restricted to associates of the Prince himself – has several Jews and equally we find that in the Grand Master's Lodge No. 1 that a Jew was its Master in 1800.” They were Sephardim, but “The records of the Lodge of Israel, founded in 1793, show that its founders and members came largely from Ashkenazi tradesmen in the East End of London. In 1802 Nathan Meyer Rothschild was initiated in Emulation Lodge, while his [Sephardi] brother-in-law, Moses Montefiore, was initiated into Moira Lodge in 1812. There were then four other Jewish members – Benjamin Cohen, Isaac Cohen, Moses Asher Goldsmid, and Myer Solomon Solomon – all Ashkenazim. The records of these Lodges usually give details of the occupations of their new members and there is a very wide variety of them - Dealer, Chapman, distiller, doctor, feather dresser, draper, merchant, musician, jeweler are all to be found.”

There is no doubt that the lodges helped to facilitate the integration of Jews into British society. Granted, in both Britain and the United States there were isolated instances of lodge members looking askance at the notion of accepting Jews, but such bigotry, which was common in nineteenth-century Germany and occurred in certain other continental locations, was very much the exception that proves the rule. To quote Aubrey Newman: “In the Lodge of Friendship there is a minute for 2nd November 1752; 'Br Oliver Newman proposed a Jew to be made a Mason; the question being put for and against it was by order of the Master to be decided by a holding up of hands which was carried in the negative and concluded for the future no Jew should be recommended or admitted into the Lodge.' I would add that despite that ruling later that same month a Jew was apparently initiated in that very Lodge, and three years later he was elected Master of that Lodge. Two other Lodges at the end of the century passed similar resolutions but they all seem to have been ignored, as testified by the number of Jews on their lists of members…. In England a number of lodges exist formed exclusively of Jews, but as a rule the latter have joined the ordinary lodges, in which some of them have reached a very high rank.”

I mention the cordiality of British and American lodges towards Jews because one or two Jewish friends have over the years made derogatory remarks about Freemasonry, no doubt influenced by the prejudicial attitude towards Freemasonry that still exists in far too many minds, especially on the political left, as was seen in Britain a couple of decades ago when a leftist MP mounted a campaign against them that was almost persecutory. It is as well to remember not only that Freemasons have been allies of Jews but that they, too, have been agents of modernity and liberalism, and that in consequence the enemies of the one have typically been enemies of the other.

Take the renegade Jew Jacob Brafman, for example. That obnoxious denizen of Tsarist Russia, a former Hebrew teacher in Minsk who left Judaism and turned government informer, censoring Hebrew and Yiddish books in St Petersburg and Vilna, authored in the mid-nineteenth century the vile Kniga Kahala (Book of the Kahal) which seriously traduced Russian Jewry. A precursor to the notorious “warrant for genocide” (in Norman Cohn’s phrase) Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion concocted some decades later, it was, as far as I’m aware, the first publication to link Jews and Freemasons as partners in some gigantic conspiracy against the established order.

Then, too, the ultramontane and fascist persecutors of Jews in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France classed Jews, Freemasons, and Protestants as the trio of so-called métèque elements held, absurdly, to be deliberately and perversely undermining the nation. Hitler, of course, actively persecuted Freemasons.

Indeed, there are numerous contemporary internet examples of the same sick mindset, combining grotesque antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-Masonic tripe that routinely blames Judaism, Zionism, and Freemasonry for the world's troubles.

The video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxxWlQhkbGI), dating to 2012, is an example of the genre: an insight into the raw antisemitism that still lurks in some quarters – the kind of meshugge Jew-hatred, with references to rule by the Rothschilds and a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy – that really should have had the decency to have died along with Hitler. In the same vein is this pathetic guy, Kalen Ockerman, painting a mural with antisemitic content that same year on a wall in London’s East End (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9p8Og6-YcY). Not to mention this excrescence (http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/2707.htm), a Hamas TV drama aired five years ago that contains (as translated by Memri.org) the immortal lines: “The hands of Freemasonry have shaken the filthy hands of the hypocrites – of the Union and Progress Party, for example. One conspiracy followed another, until a coup d'etat took place. The coup ended the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, on March 10, 1909. The greatest obstacle was removed from the path of the Jews. Jewish minds and defiled hands have brought down the Caliphate, and a new stage in the conflict has begun.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are further examples from that neck of the woods in the ensuing years. After all, just as Islamic extremism is a sworn enemy to Jews and Israel, so is it a sworn enemy to Freemasonry. This chilling piece is indicative (http://freemasoninformation.com/masonic-education/anti-masonry/anti-freemasonry-in-islam/hamas-and-al-qaeda-on-freemasonry/). Let’s all support each other.

Running Afoul of the Political Correctniks (Daphne Anson)

The very day following the terror attack in Paris in which Islamists claimed 130 lives, the following tin-rattling post by the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) appeared on Facebook: “CAN YOU HELP? The Online Hate Prevention Institute's Spotlight on Anti-Muslim Internet Hate campaign (SAMIH) is gathering the world's largest record of anti-Muslim hate content on social media. So far we have 451 unique items collected. We will keep taking reports until the end of November, but the crowd funding campaign supporting this project ends in 54 hours time. So far we have only raised 49% of our crowdfunding goal. Time is rapidly running out to support this vital project. Please help?” A more specific link was provided: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/samih-spotlight-on-anti-muslim-internet-hate#/ On November 15 the appeal closed, having met 68 per cent of its target.

Despite the timing of the OHPI’s post the comments beneath the Facebook appeal – mainly written by non-Muslim women, it seems – were singularly free of “anti-Muslim hate”. Virtually the first person to set the comments rolling ventured: “Sorry but after Paris event unfolding it is hard not to be angry”. Immediately challenged by another commenter with “Angry at who?” she explained: “The terrorist and the people who support them. This will only exacerbate the distrust of the Muslim people”. A little later she was obliged to clarify that with “…what worries me [is] that the average person will not be able to differentiate between Muslims and terrorists its so sad that so many will suffer the wrath because of the actions of those who say they are doing this in the name of "Allah".’
Despite these reasonable enough observations she was lectured almost to the point of harassment by other commenters.

Observed another woman: “Hatred against Muslims has no place .... online or anywhere. Speaking out against acts of violence and terrorism which are supposedly carried out by fanatics in the name of ISLAM or Allah does have a place....everywhere. Unfortunately, many people don't understand the difference between the peaceful principles that underpin the Muslim faith and the idiotic acts of violence by those who can't possibly be true Muslims. I urge all true believers of the Muslim faith to proclaim loudly and constantly that you do not condone these acts of violence. You must speak and act now. This will help to turn the tide of growing misplaced hatred against ALL Muslims. Show that you are united with the world and declare your outrage against all acts of violence done in the name of Allah. We will stand with you, will you stand with us ??”

Not exactly “Islamophobic” was she? Indeed, rather too naïve. But, boy, did she cop a scolding from others. This for instance, from someone with a female western name: “Remind me again when i was supposed to apologise for Westboro Baptists? Also, have you noticed we dont need a Spotlight on Christian Hate Campaign because of Westboro Baptists filthy behaviours? Christians did not need to seek the spotlight to publicly vocally condemn Anders Brievek [sic]? I didnt notice any Pagans apologising for the extreme right wing Pagans that were arrested through the week? I dont see a lot of Jewish people being expected to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians? (but hey, wouldnt it be nice if so many stopped defending them..) … It is not your place to tell Muslim people what to do. Speak up on their behalf, but stop placing your expectations on other people. They already speak out and they do enough… Have you asked Muslim people what you can do to help? Have you considered that it may mean you need to speak out more publicly to condemn the terrorism of your own people - the west? Do you have a right to tell others to condemn terrorism if you don't do it sufficiently yourself? Do you speak out to condemn terrorism when it is directed at thousands of people in Africa or Beirut or Baghdad or just when it is directed at "us"?’

“Not even 24 hours and the Arabs are blaming Israel and America for the terrorist attacks in Paris” observed somebody archly.

The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) was founded by forces within the Australian Jewish community in 2012 to counter antisemitism, and with exceptions, members of that community, including the current head of the Zionist Federation, constitute its present Board, while its International Advisory Board is composed mainly of Jews. Since its foundation, though, it has considerably widened its sphere, as its website shows:

‘[It] is Australia’s National Charity dedicated to tackling the problem of online hate including online extremism, cyber-racism, cyber-bullying, online religious vilification, online misogyny, and other forms of online hate attacking individuals and groups in society. We aim to be a world leader in combating online hate and a critical partner who works with key stakeholders to improve the prevention and mitigation of online hate and the harm it causes. Ultimately, OHPI seeks to facilitate a change in online culture so that hate in all its forms becomes as socially unacceptable online as it is in “real life”… OHPI monitors all forms of online hate. This includes both “hate speech” directed against groups, or against individuals because of they belong to an identifiable group, and cyberbullying which can involve hateful content directed against an individual for any reason, or for no apparant [sic] reason at all… Our definition is wider than both that of the law and that of platform providers. We aim to promote debate about the type of society we, the internet-using public, wish to see. We also seek to raise awareness about the dangers that hate, whatever form it takes, can have on individuals and their physical and emotional health.’

Having myself endured four years of appalling and sustained cyberstalking and online abuse by an repugnant anti-Israel (male) leftist in the UK on various web forums (a major reason why I use an alias) I fully realise how extremely worthy many of OHPI’s aims are.

Nonetheless, despite its good intentions, its adoption of the term “Islamophobia,” and its consequent zeal for exposing and suppressing instances of what it considers “Islamophobia” smacks of authoritarianism and thought control – and, crucially, legitimate and necessary debate on perhaps the most pressing problem of our time.

Take, for instance, the report “Islamophobia on the Web” issued in 2013 by the OHPI in collaboration with the Islamic Council of Victoria. According to the OHPI’s website, “The authors divide the hate messages appearing in several different categories around which focuses Islamophobic activity of Internet users: Muslims as a threat to safety or a threat to public safety; Muslims as a threat to culture; Muslims as a threat to the economy; Content dehumanizing or demonizing Muslims; Threat of violence, genocide, and direct hatred directed at Muslims; The hatred directed at refugees or asylum seekers; Other forms of hatred.”

And take this pronouncement of the OHPI regarding these Facebook groups in parentheses (The United Patriots Front; Crusade against the Islamisation of the World; 1 Million Aussies Against ISLAM by Election Day 2016; Aussie Pride – No Islam – No Shariah Law; Australian Defence League; Exposing islam; Australian Patriot; Australians Against Islam – Melbourne; Australian Infidel Resistance Fighters; Stop the mosque in Kalgoorlie Boulder; All countries together against radical ISLAM; English Defence League; Britain First; BAN the Islamic Extremist Group ‘Sharia4Australia’):

“These pages promote hatred of the Muslim community, many of them focused specifically on the Australian Muslim community. Please take a moment to look at the pages and their content, and to report both to Facebook and to FightAgainstHate.com… Pages promote the idea that one group is [sic] society should dictate how others conduct themselves, which make them a fertile ground for a minority who wish to promote vilification and engaging in bullying.”

Does this foreshadow shutting down debate on the effects on Western nations and society of mass Muslim migration? And what of the very misogyny that the OHPI purports to fight when the misogyny emanates from and exists within Muslim communities? One example of anti-Muslim hatred shown on OHPI’s website is a poster showing the words “Sharia Law” with a traffic stop sign superimposed upon it. Does the OHPI deny that the supposed inferiority and the subjugation of women in all sorts of ways is endemic in that law? Does it consider as “hate speech” criticism of that law and of the sharia courts that are springing up around the Western world as “Islamophobia?” Do the writings of online experts on Islam, such as the distinguished Australian scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie, constitute “Islamophobia” in the OHPI’s eyes?

Yes, the OHPI’s road is paved with good intentions. But we all know the old adage that warns where that road leads.

As the splendid Brendan O’Neill wrote in Saturday’s The Australian:

…The Islamophobia industry, funded by officials, uncritically fawned over by much of the media, does two really bad things. First, it gives Muslims the impression that criticism of their religion is wicked. Indeed, when the idea of Islamophobia was invented in the 1990s, primarily by aloof think tanks such as the Britain-based Runnymede Trust, the concern was entirely with policing criticism of Islam and shooting down the idea that Western values are superior.

The second bad thing this industry does is convince Muslims that the world hates them.
With their bumped-up stats and often shrill claims, it’s surely the Islamophobia-obsessed think tanks and journalists, not isolated Islamophobes, who have made some Muslims feel like aliens. The consequences of the elite project of cultivating Muslim fear are dire. The Islamophobia industry censors and divides, making whites feel they can’t express moral concerns about Islam and making Muslims feel like an utterly removed group. It may not cause but it certainly contributes to a feeling of injury among some Muslims, especially younger ones. I’ve seen this on campuses in Britain, where radical Islam is growing. When I speak for Islamic societies at universities, I’m often shocked by people’s attitudes. Their capacity for self-pity is profound; their suspicion of Western society is palpable…

Runnymede, whose 20-year-old definition of Islamophobia informs the global debate, said Islamophobic speech included claims that Islam was “inferior to the West”. It implored the political classes to present Islam as “distinctively different but not deficient”, as being as “equally worthy of respect (as Western values)”. So from the get-go, the Islamophobia industry was about reprimanding opinion, punishing moral judgment, so that even the belief that Western democratic values trumped Islamic ones came to be pathologised as a phobia.

It was about imposing relativism, not challenging racism. And we wonder why some radical Western Islamists hate and threaten those who mock their faith. They’ve grown up in nations in which criticism of Islam and a preference for Western values have been demonised. They’re kind of the armed wing of the Islamophobia industry.

The Islamophobia industry, and more importantly the late 20th-century creed of relativistic non-judgmentalism that fuels it, makes it harder to do the very thing we must do post-Paris: argue unapologetically for the values of liberty and democracy, for all the good, amazing stuff about Western society, and assert that these things are better than Islamism.