as-salaamu 'alaykum everyone,
Your UNSPUN Moderators predicted here last week that the pro-Israeli lobby would use their friends in the media to try and pressure British Muslims into attending the annual Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony that was held in London on Thursday 27th January 2005.
The Nazi Holocaust was indeed an enormous crime against humanity. Yet in recent years, their have also been also other genocides and mass killings and systematic 'ethnic cleansing' including in Rwanda, Bosnia and Chechnya – where it still continues. Many of the Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust later went to the Middle East to dispossess the Palestinians of their land. Should not all this also be remembered? Are the lives of other peoples not to be valued as that of the Jews? Is it not just and correct that the day should rather be called ‘Genocide Memorial Day’ to send a more inclusive message?
The decision of the Muslim Council of Britain to decline the invitation to the Holocaust Memorial Day - as it has consistently done since the inception of HMD in 2001 – was therefore inevitably going to attract immense pressure from the Zionist lobby. It is the last mainstream institution in the country not to have rolled over in the face of the Holocaust industry. This year, even the Monarchy had succumbed and the Queen attended the HMD. If the MCB insisted on renaming the memorial day then maybe next time this might give the same idea to others. So the Zionists were expected to pull out all the stops to break the MCB’s resistance and force it to attend.
And the Zionists would be expected to try and get other British Muslims to attend and thereby undermine the MCB’s position.
Here is a summary of the media’s coverage over the past week:
Sunday Jan 23 2005
The Sunday Times runs a high-profile report on Page 2 by David Leppard headlined ‘Muslims Boycott Holocaust Remembrance’ in which he neglects to mention that this is not the first time the MCB is not going to attend the HMD.
Monday Jan 24 2005
The Daily Express (Proprietor: the Jewish pornographer Richard Desmond) runs a story headlined ‘Muslims in Snub to Auschwitz Ceremony’.
In a lengthy entry in her Online Diary (click here to read it in full) , the Jewish writer Melanie Phillips (also a columnist at the Daily Mail and the Jewish Chronicle) says: “So now we start to see their true colours. The Muslim Council of Britain is getting bolder about expressing the crude anti-Jewish prejudice which it has previously been at such pains to conceal.”
Tuesday Jan 25 2005
The Daily Telegraph’s pugnacious pro-Israeli columnist Mark Steyn criticises the MCB’s stance and warns of the ‘Islamisation of Europe’.
Wednesday Jan 26 2005
Daniel Finkelstein – the Associate Editor of The Times and a columnist at the Jewish Chronicle – writes an opinion piece for The Times called ‘Boycott Is A Disgrace’ in which he blasts the MCB’s decision as ‘extraordinary’ and ‘disgraceful’.
The Guardian – in an editorial piece – describes the MCB’s position on the HMD as ‘unfortunate’.
Reuters – the financial and news information provider – runs a neutral story in which the MCB’s position is portrayed more fairly. Click here to read the story.
Thursday Jan 27 2005 – Holocaust Memorial Day
The Guardian prints a letter from Iqbal Sacranie in which he explains the MCB’s reasoning behind declining the invitation to the HMD. He says: “We must do more than just reflect on the past. We must be able to recognise when similar abuses occur in our own time. Not to acknowledge current and recent genocides would be to undermine the benefits of remembrance, deprecate lessons learnt from the Nazi Holocaust and call into question our commitment to prevent current and future inhumanity.” Click here to read the full letter.
The Totally Jewish website runs an item called ‘MCB Boycott’ in which they quote the Home Office as criticising the MCB’s stance saying: “We regret that MCB remains unwilling to support HMD. It is a shame if any group does not feel that they are able to be involved in HMD.” It also reveals that “Gul Mohammad, the general secretary of the British Muslim Forum, representing some 600 mosques” will be attending the Holocaust Memorial Day.
Your UNSPUN moderators have tried to find out more about Gul Mohammad and the so-called British Muslim Forum. Its website www.britishmuslimforum.org is suspiciously threadbare for a body which claims to represent 600 mosques and we understand that it was set up with the help of Maqsood Ahmed – an official in the Home Office. It appears that as the Govt cannot make the MCB do its bidding, it wants to create other organisations that will.
So, which British Muslims attended the HMD? Your UNSPUN Moderators can reveal the Muslims who attended - their names and contact details are as follows:
Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid (Brighton) – Email: x Mobile: x [Email and mobile phone no. deleted by Natalie Solent - much as I might wish to praise the Imam, I imagine he has been inconvenienced enough by unsolicited calls and emails, as the publishers of this message must have known would happen. The same goes for the personal contact details of those listed below.]
Gul Mohammad (British Muslim Forum - Nottingham) – Email: x Mobile: x
Imam Shahid Raza (Leicester) – Email: x
Maqsood Ahmad of Alif-Aleph (Muslim-Jewish interfaith group)
If you decide to contact them please remember to always be polite. Do also send us a copy of your emails at unspun-list@unspun.org.uk.
At UNSPUN we believe that the attendance of these British Muslims at the HMD is nothing less than shameful. Remember that apart from the MCB not attending, not a single Muslim parliamentarian or Muslim Ambassador attended the HMD event either.
Friday Jan 28 2005
The Times in an editorial piece describes the MCB’s decision as ‘reprehensible’ and a story in the paper by the Times’s religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, quotes the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks as saying he was ‘saddened’ by the MCB’s position and it also claims – incorrectly as it happens - that Baroness Pola Uddin led the Muslim delegation to the HMD.
Saturday Jan 29 2005
Stephen Pollard – the Jewish columnist and recent biographer of David Blunkett – says in The Times that the MCB equates genocide with “the defence of Israel against terror.”
Well, we at UNSPUN would be very interested in hearing about your thoughts on the matter of the annual Holocaust Memorial Day is an annual event. Is the MCB right to insist on a more inclusive title of ‘Genocide Memorial Day’? Do you think many of the affiliates of the MCB would have disaffiliated from it if the MCB had decided to attend? We want to hear from you and print your replies in an UNSPUN alert so let us know if you want to remain anonymous. Send your responses to unspun-list@unspun.org.uk .
We are also emailing this alert to the Muslims who attended the HMD in case they also want to respond to us.
salaams,
Moderators,
UNSPUN
These people are the moderates.
