"Muslims organise against Labour"

Peter Black, Liberal Democrat spokesman on Education in the Welsh Assembly, declares triumphantly, under the title “Muslims organise against Labour”:

Things really are starting to get serious for Tony Blair and New Labour. The loss of support amongst Muslims has been quite dramatic (and traumatic) for Labour. According to one poll they have slipped from 75% of the Muslim vote to 38%. This does not bode well for them in the local and European Elections on June 10th nor for the impending by-election in Leicester South, which has a very high concentration of Muslim voters.

Well, perhaps. But the evidence he links to in order to explicate his first sentence - a report from yesterday’s Guardian – is worth looking at more closely, for it appears to hinge on the activities of a particular organisation:

Tony Blair's hopes of patching up relations with the Muslim community have been dealt a fresh blow by a leading Islamic organisation which is urging its members not to vote Labour at next week's European elections.

Underlining the government's fear that it is facing a hammering at the polls because of Iraq, the Muslim Association of Britain is calling on Muslims across the country to back anti-war candidates. The association, which formed part of the Stop the War coalition, has published tactical voting guidance on its website, suggesting which candidates should be backed in certain areas….

At local council level, the guidance says that on Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, "the Liberal Democrats are considered far better than Labour or the Conservatives".

I am not competent to assess whether the Muslim Association of Britain is a ‘leading’ organisation or not, but I do know its ideological character. (According to the Guardian report, however, MAB itself claims a membership of only 1000; it has a mere ten branches. I have some knowledge of the parliamentary constituency of Leicester South, in which Mr Black has lately developed an interest after the sad and premature death of the Labour MP Jim Marshall, as I grew up there and dutifully helped deliver leaflets from the local Community Relations Council when the National Front was strong. Admittedly that's a long time ago, but I should still be surprised if the city's Muslims, far more of whom trace descent from the Indian sub-continent than from the Arab world, were sympathetic to MAB's world-view.)

The organisation was founded in 1997 and is an off-shoot of the (Egyptian) Muslim Brotherhood. It is thus strictly true to describe MAB as the ideological cousin of Hamas, successive leaders of which have recently been assassinated by Israel. After the second of these assassinations, MAB stated in a press release:

The Muslim Association of Britain, on behalf of the Muslims of Britain, and on behalf of the vast majority of our fellow citizens, who will see this attack as an attack against peace in the region, condemn in no uncertain terms the cowardly murder of Dr Abdel Aziz Rantissi and those with him. A doctor of medicine, father and statesman fighting for the rights of Palestinian people across the globe, Dr Rantissi will be sorely missed. His commitment to the success of the Palestinian resistance and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, free from Zionist aggression, was second to none; [it was] a passion he paid for with his life. “Dr Rantissi lived to see the rights of a nation re-established, the right to live without fear, the right to a life free of occupation, the right to live as men and not as slaves. This is what Dr Rantissi lived for, this is what he died for,” said Ahmed Shaykh, President of the Muslim Association of Britain.

It’s not my purpose here to reopen the discussion of whether Israel’s action in this case was justified or prudent; I want merely to direct attention to MAB’s own diagnosis. MAB claims not only that Rantisi’s assassination will hinder peace, but that Rantisi himself was a heroic figure. That’s not a characteristic that would be apparent to anyone of civilised views. Last summer, in a post urging the banning of Hamas by the European Union, I cited a translation, from the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute, of Rantisi’s idiosyncratic approach to Jewish affairs. The MEMRI document appears no longer to be on-line, but here is a quotation from Rantisi that I took from it:

Many thinkers and historians have exposed the lies of the Zionists, thus becoming a target of Zionist persecution. Some have been assassinated, some arrested, and some are prevented from making a living. For example, Jewish associations and organizations have filed lawsuits against famous French philosopher Roger Garaudy, who in 1995 published his book 'The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics' in which he disproves the myth of the 'gas chambers,' saying, 'This idea is not technically possible. So far, no one has clarified how these false gas chambers worked, and what proof there is of their existence. Anyone with proof of their existence must show it.'

In short, Rantisi was a promoter of the most grotesque antisemitic libel it is possible to conceive of: that the planned annihilation of all European Jews, and the actual murder of two-thirds of them, was a hoax concocted by international Jewry for territorial aggrandisement and financial gain. (For more on Garaudy and his ideological tergiversations, see my original post.)

Of course Peter Black and all other serving Liberal Democrat politicians would regard such sentiments, and their obfuscation, with revulsion. I therefore invite him, and them, to issue a simple, unambiguous and unexceptionable statement. It should read:

We unreservedly condemn the views of the Muslim Association of Britain. Those sentiments are abhorrent, and antithetical to the principles of the Liberal Democrats. We did not seek, and do not welcome, MAB’s recommendation of our party above Labour and the Conservatives on certain issues of international conflict. We accordingly urge anyone who is swayed by MAB’s advice to support the Liberal Democrats to reconsider that stance. Any votes cast for the Liberal Democrats in accordance with MAB’s lobbying will be wasted, for we have no intention of acting on that organisation’s views.

There are nine days till the European and municipal elections. Mr Black – who has before now sportingly defended his party’s cause on this blog – thus has plenty of time to compose his statement, solicit his colleagues’ support for it, and make his electoral intervention.

Comments

[Peter Black]

All I did was link to the report. I do not accept that this amounts to endorsing the organisation nor to accepting their endorsement. If you want to read it that way then that is your prerogative but it is a pecularly twisted point of view even for you.

[Oliver Kamm]

I didn't say you endorsed the organisation or accepted its endorsement. I said, to the contrary, that you and other serving Liberal Democrat politicians would regard MAB's views with revulsion. I even, in order to avoid blurring that point, scrupulously refrained from mentioning that your party leader spoke from the platform of the Muslim Association of Britain (jointly organised with CND and the Stop the War Coalition - a front organisation for the totalitarian and antisemitic Left) last year. I merely suggested that, given the conjunction of MAB's favourable view of your party and its grotesque opinions on an issue that it specifically cites when praising the Lib Dems, you and other Liberal Democrat politicians would wish explicitly to reject that endorsement and urge anyone swayed by MAB's recommendation to vote for other candidates. I infer from your comment that my supposition was mistaken, but I am unclear why it was twisted. There is an important issue here about, metaphorically speaking, the hygiene of British politics, and for reasons of their own the Liberal Democrats have not been taking it seriously.

[windowlicker]

The MEMRI article referred to is still available here.

[Jimmy]

Astoundingly the BBC described the MAB as a mainstream and pretty moderate organisation, a few weeks ago. I do not have statistics on this, but it appears that news organisations have increasingly opted to go to MAB for a "Muslim view", rather than The Muslim Council of Great Britain, which I find slightly disturbing.

[GrimReaper]

Presumably the MAB's views are more in tune with the BBC's views. We should not be surprised.