The Assault on Western Civilisation

Watching and reading of the activities of the ISIS in Syria, Iraq, Libya and now Tunisia, one can only wonder at the motivation of the fanatics who flock to support this vile and psychopathic movement. It is obvious that the appeal, for young Muslims living in western countries where they have not integrated, do not wish to integrate, and are fed the ‘dream’ of a perfect Islamic ‘paradise’ founded on the Quran and the forced conversion to Islam of everyone in it, is a very complex problem. What is less obvious, to those who do not understand the roots and origins of this ideology — and one does get the impression that includes all of our political leaders, all the ‘multi-culty’ promoters and our ‘foreign policy wonks — is why it is so well supported, and why it is so violent, so barbaric in its conquests.

If they perhaps knew the real history of the Arab conquest of the Middle East in the 8th to 13th Centuries a bit better instead of the romanticised version cobbled up by the Victorian adventurers, it might be a little more understandable to them. Those who hailed the ‘Arab Spring’ and who still see ‘anyone who isn’t Assad’ as a preferable ruler in Syria, must accept a large part of responsibility for what has happened there. Their failure to understand the complex ideological, tribal, religious and internecine ‘politics’ of the region and these countries, the arming of ‘resistance’ and ‘populist’ groups — and the failure to grasp the reason local rulers are very reluctant to commit any of their armies to a fight against these psychopathic thugs makes us every bit as culpable for this mess as the ISIS itself. I sometimes wonder if it is genuine ignorance of other cultures, or arrogance that makes our western liberal thinkers assume that everyone, regardless of race, religion, culture or heritage shares the same desire of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’. 

This assumption simply ignores several facts, such as that ‘democracy’ as we know is barely 200 years old in most of Europe, and only slightly older in the US. It has long roots in the UK, but didn’t take its present form until the 1830s even there. It has no long standing cultural roots outside of Europe, and most countries outside of the spheres of control of the British Empire or the US didn’t get democratic government until after 1945. In the Arab controlled world it has no cultural base at all, and is an imposition totally foreign to their heritage and religion. 

So why are we surprised when it is rejected by the majority in those countries? Why are we surprised that the artificial boundaries civil servants in Whitehall and Paris drew on maps without considering ethnicities, religious affiliations, cultures, tribal boundaries and even languages are now being torn asunder? Why, when we invite people from these countries to come and live in ours, are we then told we must accept their desire to ‘preserve’ their cultural heritage, their desire to still dress as if they were living in a desert, or in the ‘tribal’ attire of their homelands, and refuse to integrate with our own society? Why, when the children of the first wave of families from those countries are brought up to consider themselves anything BUT British or European, are we surprised when they, or their children, reject our society and effectively declare war on it?

Travelling around the world I have perhaps been fortunate to see both the ‘official’ face presented by many of these places and the unofficial and more realistic face. The ‘official’ face would have you believe any place is next best thing to paradise. The trains (if they have any) run on time, the government looks after your best interests and everyone lives in peace and harmony. The unofficial face lets you see the hardship, the excluded members of society, the people working two, three or four jobs to try and get something better for themselves, and it lets you hear the dissenting voices. It makes you realise that while another culture may look idyllic, it may also have some nasty aspects lurking in the long grass you’d rather not have to face.

This is one of the problems when confronting Islam. The Quran is, for a large part, about ‘peace and love’. It is, like some versions of the Bible, wonderfully poetic in its language, but it also contains some commandments that are decidedly NOT about peace and love. The same can be said of parts of the Bible, certainly parts of the Old Testament, but where, in the Bible, there is a ‘New’ Testament and a ‘New Commandment’ which transcends the Old (if only some of the more fundamental among us would recognise it), there is no such ‘modifier’ in Islam. Nor is there a central hierarchy of teaching and control. Rome has its Curia, Anglicanism their Synods, Orthodoxy its Councils and even the Protestant churches have synods, councils and conferences which thrash out (sometimes with verbal if not physical blows) agreement on the meaning of texts, passages, injunctions. Islam has its ‘scholars’ and its Muftis, but everyone is able to place his own interpretation on the Quran. Anyone able to memorise large chunks of it can call himself a ‘scholar’ and anyone can set up a Madrassa or ‘school’.

That leaves the door wide open for the growth and development of the sort of fundamentalist theology that feeds organisations such as ISIS and their ideology.

I suspect that, to a very large extent, we will never see the Saudi Arabian Army, the Kuwaiti Defence Force, or the Royal Jordanian Army confront the ISIS directly. In part because the ISIS is a Sunni sect, and to a larger extent because the men who make up those armies might all to easily change sides. That, I think, is the greatest fear among the current ruling classes of the Middle East, and this is why, in the greater scheme of things I do not think the ISIS will be defeated any time soon. Nor do I think it would be a good idea for any western forces to be committed to engage them. Yes, we could probably win (assuming we didn’t have to fight with all the touchy-feely ‘rules of engagement’ tying our troops and commanders hands behind their backs), but the ISIS is more than just the barbaric scum it deploys in the field — it is also a very alluring and pernicious ideology. 

Even if we sent in the military and killed every single ISIS fighter in a wat of total annihilation, the idea would persist. And sometime in ten, twenty or thirty years time, a new ‘Caliphate’ group would emerge to start all over again. The sad thing is that western civilisation has to face up to the fact we have a choice. Accept the current ISIS as a fact and let them continue unchecked, which also means allowing young Muslims from our own countries to travel back and forth freely to join them and come home full of ideas to bring the war to us — or we can man up, stop pussyfooting, come down hard on their supporters on the internet, at home and abroad. Cut off the support, attack the ideology with fact and undermine its appeal, and then deal effectively and permanently with those who have joined their forces, fought for the ISIS and committed the atrocities. 

All very well crying about their ‘rights’ and wringing our hands over the brutality of our troops shooting someone shooting at them, we have a stark choice. Let the ISIS continue bombing, shooting and murdering its way into power — or annihilate it by whatever means it takes. That will also mean making every man or woman who has supported it, fought for it or tried to do so, pay for their criminal activity on its behalf.

Failure to do so will ensure, that like the Roman civilisation in the sixth and seventh centuries, ours is swept aside and replaced by an alien and frankly barbaric one in the not too distant future.

Apologists for Terror ...

In recent weeks I have noted that a number of organisations concerned with 'human rights' and others that seek to promote 'inclusion' or 'multiculturalism' have been joining up with organisations like CAGE - an advocacy group registered as a limited company in the UK. An article in today's Daily Telegraph is well worth reading. The latest group to throw their lot in with Cage is Amnesty International, thereby destroying the last vestiges of sympathy I once had for their cause. They join Liberty, Justice and five other 'human rights' and advocacy groups in supporting the outright lies peddled by CAGE. A visit to the Cage website quickly tells you everything you probably didn't want to know about them. Think of someone accused or convicted of terrorist activities in the name of Islam, and they have him on their page - with an article about why he or she was 'radicalised' by the British way of life, or our 'security' services.

The bit that really gets me going though, is the latest 'campaign' in which they defend - that's right, DEFEND - Jihadi John, or to give him his real name, Mohammad Emwazi. A Kuwaiti, naturalised as British, he is now the 'front man' executioner for the ISIS, his image appearing on their propaganda videos as he happily beheads 'Kufars', Christians, hostages and presumably anyone else this unspeakable group wish to exterminate. But, according to CAGE, and now Amnesty et al, poor Mohammad Emwazi is a deeply misunderstood victim of MI5. According to them, he was 'radicalised' by their having targeted him when he attempted to join al-Shabab in Somalia. The Kenyan authorities intercepted him, shipped him back to Amsterdam (his start point on the journey) and the Dutch handed him over to MI5.

MI5 didn't arrest him, they did interview him and told him they'd be keeping an eye on him in future. Of course, according to Emwazi he'd gone to Kenya to join a safari. Except there is NO trace of his name on any bookings for such a tour. He wasn't booked into a hotel either. Funny that. Or maybe he thought, 'what the heck - Africa. You just go there and do these things when you get there'. Of course Amnesty et al fail to mention that when he arrived in Kenya, he was met by a known al-Shabab operative - and in case anyone is still unaware, al-Shabab is one of the major supporters of ISIS, providing people and training for them. Who knows - possibly MI5 does - but they may also be providing funding as they are involved in piracy operations off the Somali coast ...

So poor innocent Jihadi John and all the other misguided morons and psychopaths fighting for ISIS are all our fault. It is we, the British hosts of these murderers and ungrateful oils, that have 'radicalised' them - presumably by our refusal to adopt their 'Sharia' laws, execute prisoners by beheading them, and failing to instantly adopt their twisted religion.

CAGE argues that to accuse these men, women and girls flocking to the ISIS of being 'Islamic Extremists' is 'Islamophobia' and racism. Yes, right. Genocide committed by Islamic extremists is, of course, all the fault of the victims, for not being Salafist/Wahabist Sunni Muslims.

One can but hope that Mr Blair and those of his coterie who rammed 'Multi-Culty' down our throats, and who still insist that in criticising the likes of CAGE, or the actions of the likes of Jihadi John is 'Islamophobic' and 'racist'. The fact that CAGE is linked to a body known as Islamic Education and Research Academy - known to be linked to Syrian terror groups. It is also headed by a man who describes Jewish people as the 'brethren of swine and pigs'. Funny that, if I or anyone else made such a public statement about Muslims or anyone else - we'd be in court and rightly so - but not, apparently if you're  Muslim hate preacher.

It is seriously time our politicians stopped pandering to these groups. It is time to cut them off at the rot. If they don't like our way of life, our society, or the opportunities it offers, there are plenty of 'paradise' countries run by those who think as they do. Just one thing - take the local morons who can't get over their guilt trips with you.

Here's Another Fine Mess ...

What a mess we find ourselves in. The now ex-Attorney-General, Julian Grieves, criticised what he calls the ‘Aggressive Secularisation’ of public life in the UK some weeks ago. As a practising Anglican and member of the Church of England, he raises a concern many of us have felt for some time. As he pointed out, Christians are being marginalised, banned from showing, discussing or even ‘confessing’ their faith. Some have been sacked for wearing crosses, or discussing their faith with others in the workplace. How ironic then, that the same corporate ‘secularisers’ fall over themselves to accommodate Muslims. 

In the same newspaper that carried Mr Grieves’ article, a photograph showed a ‘senior civil servant’ sporting a wonderful example of the ‘Mujahedin’ beard favoured by some Muslims who think it makes them look ‘faithful’ or that it is ‘required’ by their faith. A Christian in the civil service who dared to wear a crucifix, or some other token of their faith, would be ordered to remove it. A nurse was sacked for refusing to remove one on the grounds it was a ‘health risk’ - while Muslim nurses are given special dispensation to wear long sleeves, and the hijab on the grounds their faith ‘requires’ it, when, in fact, it is not a requirement in the Quran at all. British Airways has sacked a check-in desk worker who wore a cross, on the grounds that it was not in keeping with their ‘corporate dress’ code, yet I have had the experience of being ‘checked in’ by a BA worker in a hijab.

Then there is the supermarket chain I will no longer shop at, which allows its cashiers to refuse to serve people who wish to buy pork products or alcohol. This is defended on the grounds it would be a breach of their faith for them to do so, but, a Christian woman who objected to being compelled to give advice on abortion is sacked because her faith may not interfere with the organisations ‘policy’ of providing the information. The list goes on. Christians who refuse to provide bed space to Gays are dragged into court, yet Muslim B&B operators are not put to the test by the same activist organisations. That there is a very deep seated and, frankly, disgraceful, double standard being applied is all too obvious, and if that weren’t enough, there is the whole matter of ‘radical Islam’ and what can only be termed as ‘hate speech’ being spread in our universities, on our streets and in public life entirely without check.

How did we get here? How did this situation develop without someone, somewhere, putting on the brakes?

Sadly, it appears that two things apply here. The first is that our ‘liberal’ society is so afraid of being accused of racism, Islamophobia or any of the other artificial ‘phobias’ invented by them over the last 40 years, they cannot bring themselves to admit it is happening. Secondly, the good old Law of Unintended Consequences has come into play. The efforts - publicly stated by certain sections of our ‘intelligentsia’ - to ‘destroy Christianity and religion’ in Britain, has produced a society with nothing but the prejudices of the elite as a ‘moral’ compass. That has created a society in which the Islamic community can see no virtue, so, they look to their own values and want to impose those. That wish, coupled with the void created by the lack of faith in the majority (G K Chesterton had it right when he said an absence of ‘faith’ did not mean the absence of ‘belief’ - just that now people will believe anything) provides a gap into which the radicals can step with their twisted and warped version of religion and find fertile ground for converts.

In another article, an Imam points to the fact that this ‘radical’ brand of Islam is, in fact, anathema to the teaching of the Quran. One Imam has shown his disapproval to his Mosque Committee, by resigning his post after they invited a pro-IS preacher to deliver a sermon. Others, including the Muslim Council itself, have condemned the radical teachers, the recruiters for IS and the organisation and its actions - but get very little notice in the media, or, indeed, from the young men flocking to the IS Banner. An Oxford based Imam and part-time lecturer at one of the colleges there, has flagged up that the harassment of Christians and Jews (and others) is contrary to the Quran, specifically, to Sura (Chapter) 2 verse 256, which states that there is NO compulsion (forcing) in religion, each individual i free to worship as they choose. This is confirmed in Sura 109 verse 6, which states that everyone has the right to follow their own faith. Even more telling, Sura 22 verse 40 states that all ‘places of worship, whether Christian or Jewish, are to be ‘respected’ and ‘honoured’. So where does the problem with a radical version of Islam arise? 

There are two distinct problems here, and it is important that they be recognised. The first is what is termed ‘political Islam’, that is the root of the ideological movement which seeks to impose secular control through the Sharia. The second part of the problem is that, particularly in Sunni Islam, there is no recognised qualification for preachers. So anyone can claim to be a ‘preacher’ and it is easy for a radical preacher to gain acceptance - especially if he’s able to attract the support of disaffected youth. These ‘preachers’ often draw on the collection of material known as the Hadith (The Sayings …) for material, and it is from the Hadith that the concept of martyrdom comes. It is from the Hadith that the concept of a martyr being rewarded with a life of ease in heaven attended by 72 ‘virgins’ comes.

The Hadith is of very questionable origins. Purporting to be the ‘sayings of the Prophet’ it was first compiled around 300 years after his death, and was condemned then by many scholars. It has gained traction since, becoming the source for justification of many barbaric practices, and a source for much that makes up ‘Sharia’ Law today, and most of that was first ‘codified’ in the 18th Century. It is also the source of the nonsense that allows men to demand and dictate that every women must cover her hair, wear shapeless clothing and in extreme cases, wander round hidden beneath the all black ‘tent’ of the Burkha. It is from the Hadith that some Sunni sects have adopted the female genital mutilation practices, which are, in fact, forbidden by the Quran itself. It is this twisting of the message of the Quran by men of what can only be termed hatred, that gives rise to the ‘radical’ version we now see spreading like a cancer through all sections of Islamic society. 

The problem in the west is that most of those who argue for giving concessions to ‘devout’ Muslims with regard to setting their own ‘cultural’ boundaries and even allowing them to set up enclaves in our cities, is that they do not understand the origins of much of what they assume is ‘in the Quran’. Nor do they understand (and sometimes give the impression that they don’t want to) that there is no such thing as a single universal ‘Islamic Culture’. What is seen on British streets is largely imported from Pakistan and Bangladesh, and would be laughed at in Iran and many other ‘Islamic’ countries. The Burkha comes from Arabia, and is not native to most countries. In fact until fairly recently, none of this was ‘enforced’ on women outside of Arabia and some North African tribal cultures. Even the silly beards sported by young men (and some who should know better) are not at all ‘Islamic’. In fact they are the mark of the likes of the Taliban and Mujahedin. 

So what is seen by ‘liberals’ and supporters of Multi-Culturalism as ‘Islamic Culture' is a sham, but the problem now is that it has become the ‘badge’ of devotion to Islam - so every young man who thinks he’s found a ‘cause’ in his religious beliefs now dresses in this mishmash of costumes and demands that all women in his circle do the same. And with this twisted baggage has come all the other abuses - the ‘honour killings’, the forced marriages, the female genital mutilations, the treatment of ‘Dhimmi’ girls as sex toys and, of course, the demands for the entire English legal system to be suspended and replaced by Sharia Law.

Now the nastier problems are surfacing, the Multi-Culty promoters are desperately denying that any of this is a problem created by their idiocy. For years we have been forbidden to criticise the hate preachers, on the grounds it is their ‘right’ to express these opinions under our cherished ‘freedom of speech’ laws. Or that to criticise them was ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobic’ in that it was an attack on ‘the religious beliefs’ of the speaker. Anyone who dared speak out, was immediately branded a ‘racist’ or an ‘Islamophobe’ - or if they persisted, a ‘Fascist’. Even now, writers in The Guardian will go to great lengths to give the impression that the likes of the IS and the hate preachers recruiting for them in Britain, are ‘a violent minority’ who do not represent the majority. While I might accept that the majority of British Muslims (there are some 3 million of them) are not ‘violent’ and do not seek to overthrow British Society, they are funding the violent minority. They aren’t doing anything to stop the steadily increasing numbers of young men and women joining ISIS/L (currently estimated by Security Forces in Europe at between 500 and 2,000) and indulging in the murder, kidnapping and torture of Shi’ites, Eastern Christians and others. 

The use of ‘labels’ with a pejorative meaning is a deliberate ploy by those who wish to shut down any debate they don’t want held. By accusing those who dare to question anything, of racism, Islamophobia or fascism, they whip into a fury all the ignoramuses who never stop to look further than the half truths and sometimes downright lies they are fed, leading to the hounding of the inconvenient ‘target’ from the public stage. Now the tactics are coming home to roost with something of a vengeance. We are in this mess precisely because we have not been allowed to debate any aspect of the drive to impose ‘multi-culturalism’ without any regard for the very real, and very foreseeable, consequences. No one dared to challenge the poison being spread by hate preachers like Abu Hamza. We weren’t even allowed to deport them - on the grounds that sending many of them back to the countries they came from, would be a breach of their ‘human rights’.

And now, no doubt, the same ‘human rights’ lawyers are sharpening their ‘briefs’ in preparation to defend the 500 (or 2,000) British passport holders currently fighting under the IS banner. I have no doubt that when the Security Services do track down the funders, recruiters, IT experts and supporters working from inside the UK for the IS murderers, these same ‘human rights’ lawyers and organisations will rush to defend them from criminal charges. Frankly, these lawyers are a major part of the problem, and should be made to face the survivors and the relatives of their ‘client’s’ victims - if not charged with treason alongside the murderers and psychopaths of IS.

According to the Security Agencies in Europe, Britain is now the No.2 exporter of radicalised Islamic terrorists (France is currently No.1 by a small margin). We are an international joke, and our politicians and civil servants haven’t a clue what to do about it. And while they remain paralysed by fear of the consequences of speaking out, and of being accused of attempting to curb the ‘right’ to some extreme form of speech, religion or oppression. So, it appears inevitable, that we will be ‘sleep walked’ into a war for our very existence. 

Our fathers, grandfathers and their predecessors must be rolling in their graves.

A Reaction of Revulsion

In recent days I have read a great deal in the media about the average Muslim's response to ISIS, and listened with interest to a number of Islamic scholars explaining why they reject the 'Caliphate'. Their response to the excesses of the psychopaths of ISIS/ISIL/IS and one or two other fundamentalist groups is interesting. In fact it suggests, strongly, that the many followers of Islam are getting tired of the agenda being set by those on the extreme conservative end of their Faith. One item which leaped out at me this morning provides a case in point.

A Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Leicester (which is one of the 100 or so branches experimentally using 'Halaal' chicken) had banned its staff from issuing alcohol based finger wipes on the grounds this 'might offend their Muslim customers'. Islamic scholars there have reacted strongly, pointing out that their faith does NOT forbid the use of alcohol as a disinfectant, in medical preparations and one or two other applications. They were quite upset that someone, presumably not themselves a Muslim, would make that decision as it simply lends fuel to the fires of anti-Islamic feeling in many quarters. Unfortunately, they are the victims of Politically Correct attempts to meet what outsiders perceive as 'requirements' of their faith. The same thing happens again and again with health and safety matters, and with the same result. All such pettiness does, is stir up antipathy toward what is perceived as a 'killjoy' problem.

Returning to the subject of the response to ISIS, I have noted with considerable interest the assertion of an Oxford based Imam, who points out that the Qu'ran actually forbids forced conversion. Chapter 2 verse 256 is quite specific on this, and is reinforced in Chapter 109 verse 6 which makes clear that everyone should be free to worship as they please. Chapter 22 goes further, and states that Christian and Jewish 'Places of Worship' must be respected and honoured. According to Dr Taj Hargey, the Qu'ran actually forbids killing 'unbelievers' and provides only two reasons a Muslim may take up arms to defend themselves. These are, to 'resist religious persecution' and because they are being driven from their homes. Since no western country 'persecutes' Muslims for their faith, their 'jihad' against the West is rendered invalid.

The Council of Muslim Scholars in the UK has recently issued a 'fatwa' - essentially a 'legal opinion' in Sharia Law - which is echoed by similar declaration from Grand Muftis in several other countries (the Grand Mufti of a country is the senior 'law' expert in Sharia Law) and condemns the beheadings and the war on other Muslims and faiths.

I note too, that there are many younger Muslims commenting in 'social media' that they do not think they should have to continually 'apologise' for their religion, yet that is, in itself, a reaction to the excesses of the extremists. A case of 'they are not acting in my name, therefore I should not be associated with them'. In one way, this is an encouraging sign, but it should also flag up the fact that many in the west do make that association, and think that every Muslim is an extremist. Let's be clear, the vast majority of decent, law abiding, Muslims are not potential terrorists, just as the vast majority of those who belong to and practice the Christian Faith, Buddhist, Hindu or any other religion are likely to become militant terrorists because of their beliefs.

In an excellent article in The Guardian, entitled The myth of religious violence, the author, Karen Armstrong, traces the rise of the present trend in Muslim communities to adopt a 'puritan' style in dress, eating and so on, is a reaction against attempts to push religion out of the public domain by secularists. She mentions Kemal Ataturk's 'secularisation' of Turkey, with his bans on headscarves, burkhas, face veils and so on, citing these as one reason there is now a reactionary swing to the opposite extreme. Western 'imperial' powers fell into the same trap in Muslim lands they occupied, often imposing western models and ideals on cultures completely at odds with them - and no we reap the backlash. You cannot 'impose' change - you have to persuade a populace, and often that takes a lot longer than the 'modernisers' like. So they impose their ideas, riding roughshod over traditions, heritage and cultural issues - and are then surprised when the meet resistance, or outright rejection.

In Ms Armstrong's view, the attempts to impose westernism and liberal secularism in Iran (Persia), Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, gave the fundamentalists the opening they needed to seize the 'moral high ground' from the moderate voices within their faith. ISIS is the ultimate extreme of that.

The one ray of hope in this is that their extreme behaviour, their blatant use of murder, rape and torture to achieve their ends is turning more and more of their coreligionists away from such behaviour and belief. No, we will not see the collapse of Islam as a world faith as a result of this, but we may, just, have reached what Sir Winston Churchill would have described as 'the end of the beginning'. More and more I see Muslim Scholars sticking their heads above the parapet and denouncing violence, denouncing some of the more fundamentalist utterances and preaching against such actions. Among those who practice that religion there are wider debates beginning to take place as well. Among them many of the practices that have developed under the umbrella of Islam in places such as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and others.

Among the things that caught my eye this morning in the article concerning 'alcohol' in Islam, is the fact that many Muslim scholars argue that the Qu'ran does not forbid drinking alcohol - it forbids drunkenness. Many people will not know that until the late 1950s, alcoholic beverages were freely available in almost every Muslim country. Indeed, wine lovers will be familiar with the wonderful flavour of wine made from the Shiraz grape - and Persia was one of the largest wine producing countries in the Middle East. Much of the beautiful poetry of the great 12th Century Persian poet, Umar Khayyam, celebrates wine and the pleasure of drinking it.

If the opening of this and other debates is anything to go by, we may well be seeing the first tentative budding of a refutation of Salafism, Wahabi-ism and other brands of fundamentalist Islam. All I can say, is thank the Lord!

The Never Ending Conflict ...

The good news is that we have a new ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel at the moment. It is an incredibly fragile one, and it isn't clear why Hamas have suddenly accepted the terms they rejected less than a month ago. One does wonder just who they think they're fooling celebrating 'victory' on what remains of the streets of Gaza. Their campaign has seen the destruction of their tunnels, the demolition of hundreds of homes, the waste of lives and the misery visited on their people. In return they have killed a few Israeli soldiers, a tourist to Israel, a baby and a small number of civilians. Gaza lies in ruins. If this is 'victory' in Arab eyes, it is a travesty of it. It isn't even a 'Pyrrihic Victory'.

I have some very strong views on the debate over the Israeli action against Hamas, which does not mean an automatic endorsement of Israel's actions, nor of those on the Hamas side. In part this is because I have friends in both camps, and I know that my support for Israel has alienated some in the UK. I am a firm believer in the fact that Israel has the right to exist, and to defend itself against those that wish to deny her that right. There have been a lot of 'wrongs' on both sides, but there is something far more sinister at work here as well. The main stream media seldom mentioned, until forced to (and then usually qualified by words such as 'alleged' and, 'unverified sources'), the daily bombardment of Israeli towns and cities from Gaza. They make even less mention of the humanitarian efforts the Israelis are making 24/7 in Gaza and in the 'occupied' West Bank, such as food supplies, medical supplies or the supply of fresh water and electricity to 80% of Gaza. Yes, the Israelis are blockading Gaza, and they have good reason to do so. Why should Hamas and the other terror groups be given carte blanch to import missiles, munitions and other war materials unrestricted? How is that likely to produce peace?

Listening to the likes of Jon Snow and others calling the Israelis war criminals, murderers and 'apartheid' promoters simply makes me angry, since it also betrays the fact that these people find they can excuse anything and everything Hamas, Fatah and all the other Jihadist groups do against Israel, but the dirty, nasty, land stealing, baby killing Jews deserve no sympathy, no justice and definitely no homeland. The insistence on a 'return to the 1967 boundaries' is a recipe for yet another conflict, yet another attempt to annihilate Israel. East Jerusalem is the very heart of ancient Judea. It has no direct connection with either the Prophet or the Quran (it is mentioned only once in the entire Quran), and though under the terms of the 1949 UN Agreement, Jews were assured access - that was very quickly denied.

Jewish visitors to the Wailing Wall were subjected to abuse, harrassment and stone throwing. The Jordanian Army turned the Old City and the Temple Mount into an armed camp. Their 'engineering' works destroyed huge amounts of archaeologiocal evidence of the old Judean city, Christian remains and, in particular, surviving parts of the Temple itself. All of this is a matter of record, as is the use, prior to 1967, of the Golan Heights to fire random artillery, rockets and missiles into Israel by state supported terror groups. Gaza is the site of the ancient Philistine cities and settlements, and it is also the site of the tombs of several of the Old Testament prophets. Once again, devout Jews wishing to visit those sites - again a 'right' enshrined in the 1949 Agreement - found themselves harrassed, excluded on flimsy grounds and eventually denied access completely.

There are two ironies here. First that had the Arabs accepted the proposal by the 1947 UN Commission, they would today have the West Bank, a larger 'Gaza' and all of the Negev. The Jews accepted the proposal, the Arabs did not, and prepared to 'throw the Jews into the sea'. Despite all the odds, and even the fact the British had armed the Arabs, and blockaded the Jews - the Jews won, the Arabs lost. And the second irony is that they are unable to recognise that their own unwillingness to find a solution is what continues the conflict.

Suporters of 'Palestine' (a fiction dreamed up in Whitehall and now perpetuated for ideological purposes) like Mr Snow et al refuse to actually read Hamas and Fatah literature. If they did they would have to confront the fact that it clearly states these organisations have only one goal - the total annihilation of Israel. So, in the meantime, they continue to play the propaganda game, promoting the 'genocide of Palestinians' at the hands of those evil Jews. In their minds Israel has no right to exist except as a 'province' of greater Palestine under the total control of Hamas or Fatah.

Were I Jewish, I know what my response would be.

The longer this conflict continues, the worse it gets. Hamas and Fatah are funded by the same shadowy figures who funded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and who are funding the ISIS thugs in Iraq and Syria. Mr Snow obviously doesn't read either the Hamas or the IS website either. Hamas is committed, in its charter, and in every publication, to the destruction of Israel, and the 'eradication of Jewish settlement' in ALL of Israel. The IS website declares categorically that the new Caliphate is to be 'cleansed' of Jews, Christians and Apostates. Perhaps Mr Snow, and his fellow supporters of 'anti-Zionism' (which seems to mean anything to do with Israel), would care to live in this Islamic 'paradise' when it is created. He may get the chance, since their long term objective is the reconquest of all the lands held by the Ottoman Turks at the height of their power - and that included most of Eastern Europe, the Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, what is now Slovakia and a lot of what is now the southern parts of the Russian Federation, all of North Africa - and lately they have added Spain, Portugal and Sicily to their list.

The level of destruction the Israelis have gone to in Gaza does concern me, but I am equally concerned by the fact that UNWRA premises are being used to store rockets by Hamas and by the very biased presentation of anything supporting the Israeli case. Worse, each time the UNWRA people find munitions, instead of having them impounded or destroyed, they pass them back to the Hamas leaders. Reports from Asian news agencies (now excluded and barred by Hamas) reported that Hamas had its military command posts set up inside hospitals, and beneath schools - all carefully NOT reported by the sycophantic western 'anti-Zionist' media and the UN's 'people on the ground'.

This is not the behaviour of 'neutrals' which the UN claims it is. I am also deeply concerned by the fact that Hamas fires its rockets from children's playgrounds, from schools and from hospitals. We have recently seen footage on TV taken from a helicopter of armed terrorists commandeering an ambulance and using it to reach their target. There are other reports, of captured and killed terrorists caught in or emerging from their tunnels on the Istraeli side of the border, armed with suicide vests, and with tranquiliser darts and drugs. The plan, apparently, being to get behind Israeli lines and kidnap civilians - no doubt to be beheaded on YouTube as ISIS do.

When will the likes of Mr Snow admit the truth of the fact that Hamas is using women and children as human shields, knowing full well that as soon as their 'shields' are killed by a counter strike, Mr Snow and his media pals will be on TV wringing their hands and crying that Israel makes war on women and children? Why do they not report that the last ceasefire was broken by Hamas continually while the Israelis held theirs? Israel offered an extension - Hamas replied with rockets, and then cried foul when their own missiles fall short and hit a hospital and two other targets on their own side. Why do the Western 'Liberal' media insist on holding Israel to a higher standard of conduct than the terrorists they are fighting? No matter what Israel does to try and ease the situation, or to provide humanitarian aid, the western media either ignore it, or downplay it. The Israelis are always reported as 'alleging' something (if not actually being accused of lying), and anything and everything the Hamas or Fatah spokesmen say, is absolute 'truth' - even when it can be shown to be manifestly false.

If talks break down, it is always Israel's fault, never the 'Palestinians'. It is always reported that 'Israel refused to negotiate' when, in fact, there were never any 'negotiable' points on the table from the other side either. If Israel does concede anything it is reported that 'it wasn't sufficient' or it 'doesn't measure up to expectations'. One could be excused for thinking that nothing other than the total surrender of the Israeli government, and the handing over of everything to the Palestinian Authority-Hamas will ever satisfy sections of the UK Media in particular. Their reasoning is that Israel has no right to exist at all, and this stems from the often quoted statistic that in 1920 'only' 6% of the land was owned by Jews. What that statistic does not show is that under the Ottomans, Jews were severely restricted in buying or owning land, and it got worse under the British Mandate. It also does not cover the fact that  many Jews 'rented' land from Arab neighbours, nor is there any mention of the fact that from 1919 onwards there was a massive migration of Arabs to 'Palestine' as the British had named it.

Much is made of the claim that Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam. Yet it is mentioned ONCE in the entire Quran, and the supposed visit of the Prophet - on a winged horse, on the night of his death so he could 'ascend' to heaven from the Temple mount is a later 'tradition'. By contrast, it is the site of the Jewish capital until 77AD, and despite the best efforts of the Romans, the Arabs, Byzantines, Crusaders, Abbasids, Ottomans and just about everyone else, there has always been a Jewish presence here. This is verifiable by tax records (Dhimmi taxes), by orders from various governors and sultans and a long archaeological record (where it hasn't been deliberately destroyed by 'Palestinains' desperate to conceal it). An interesting comment from the Peel Commission, appointed to look into creating a 'Jewish Homeland' under the Hashemite Kingdom then being created to have control over the whole of what is today Israel and Jordan. The report states that the Arabs objected to the fact the 'Jews occupied all the best farmland' and wanted it confiscated and reallocated to them. The Commission felt obliged to point out that, until the Jews bought the land, it had been desert and sand dunes, and that the Jews had built irrigation systems, improved the soil and turned it into viable land for agriculture.

It is also forgotten that the UN Commission drew up plans to create a 'Two State' solution following the Arab uprising of 1936 - 39 against the British, and the conducting of a terror campaign against the Jewish population. This proposed dividing the country to create a long narrow 'Israel' along the coastal strip with a bulge inland toward Jerusalem, with a much larger 'West Bank' and a 'Gaza' double the present size. The 'West Bank' section would have included all of the Negev and Israels Gulf of Eilat port. Jerusalem would have belonged to no one and everyone, and would have been managed by an international council as a 'free city'. The plan was accepted by the Jews, and rejected by the Arabs - resulting in the 1947 - 48 war which saw the Arab side lose almost everything. The Egyptian army barely held onto the present area known as Gaza, and only the British Commanded and led forces of the Jordanian King succeeded in holding what is now the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Disgracefully, they immediately turned East Jerusalem into an armed camp and set about denying access to archaeological sites - many of which they destroyed. Until 1967 Jews had no access at all to their Holy sites in the West Bank, or the holiest of all - the Temple Mount.

It was recently said to me that 'someone has to tell the 'Zionists' to stop teaching their children to hate Palestinians'. Sadly, it isn't the Jews who actually teach this in their schools, that is what goes on in Palestinian schools - even those run by UNWRA.  While I can understand the 'Palestinian' people's frustration and anger, the solution does lay in their own hands. If they genuinely want peace, they have to be prepared to make a few concessions themselves. Only by reining in the hotheads who see killing Jews as a national sport, can they hope to bring an end to retaliation. Only when the PLA and its police actually start treating those who murder Jews as criminals instead of heroes can they expect the Jews to take them seriously. We have to bring down the levels of hatred between to the two groups, and that has to start with dropping the labels. Not every Jew is a 'Zionist'. In fact, I doubt any of them are, but it is a term certain parts of the Western Media, and all of the Arab media, have come to equate to 'Nazi'.

As I see it, we are all the losers, whoever wins this battle. As long as the 'Palestinians' think they can get away with playing the 'victim' card to the sycophantic western media gallery, supporters and politicians, they will continue the struggle, and prolong the agony. Israel will not give up Jerusalem, regardless of whether the British Foreign Office calls it Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The Israelis know that Mr Obama, with his Islamic sympathies, will soon be gone, and they will deal, as they always have done, with the realities and whoever comes next. They know they can depend on no one in the West, least of all the US and UK governments, both of whom have, at various times, tried to sell them down the river. They will not give up the Golan Heights either, since with an enemy occupying those, almost all of Israel is open to shell and rocket fire. Just today, there is new doubt cast on the UN 'Peace Force' stationed there, as the 'border crossing' has been seized by an al Qaeda splinter group affiliated to IS. I suspect the next move will be by IS to attempt to 'seize the Heights' for the Caliphate.

Then there is the question of 'settlements' - always portrayed by Hamas and the Western Media as being built on land 'seized' from Palestinians. In fact the 'settlers' have been buying this land from Palestinians (despite a decree from the PLA declaring this to be 'treason'), many of whom have taken the money and gone elsewhere (sometimes into Israel!) abroad. Many of those who have sold are Christians, desperate to leave because they are being persecuted by their Muslim neighbours and know what awaits them if Hamas or Fatah win. The best analogy with this is to consider a situation in which someone in England buys a house in North Wales and wants to live there. Suddenly his neighbours don't speak English, he can't get served in the local shop, his children are bullied, his pets terrorised, his rubbish bins go unemptied. Now, if he is a determined man, he finds other properties for sale in the area, invites, and assists, his friends to buy them, and soon the locals are complaining their land is being stolen and their country invaded. Who is to blame?

Something else never acknowledged in the western media is that Israel is the ONLY democracy in the Middle East. It is not a 'Theocracy' and everyone, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Arab or whatever, has a vote. There are even 'Palestinians' in the Knesset. Show me another Middle Eastern country where Jew, Christians and members of other faiths, or 'non-native' Muslims, have the same protections and rights. There isn't one. Much is made of the falling numbers of Christians in the 'occupied' territories - but the Israeli census shows that the numbers of Christians and other faiths is growing in Israel. The reason is not that hard to find when one looks at how Christians are treated elsewhere in the Middle East.

As with so  much else in today's world, the whole conflict in Israel/Gaza has become completely polarised.  Everyone is playing a game of all or nothing, and everyone - except, remarkably, the Israelis - is demanding that Israel must surrender security, land, peace to satisfy the 'Palestinians'. No one seems to be saying that peace negotiations are a two way affair, and that said 'Palestinians' must come to the table prepared to put aside their rhetoric and their weapons. Until they do accept that, I cannot see anyone achieving anything better than a stand-off.

As long as the supporters of 'Palestine' (which never existed between the Roman Empire's demise and the British occupation and Mandate) continue to foster the "Israel must surrender" rhetoric, there can never be a peaceful solution or settlement. As long as it continues on this path, we will continue to see these horrendous scenes, and as long as Hamas et al receive the acclamation and support of the Western Media and its 'Liberal' supporters, we will never see a willingness to negotiate. As long as that situation continues, we will all lose.

Dealing With A Cult Of Death.

Recently I have read an article by a Jewish Rabbi who makes a very good point on the subject of religious fundamentalism. In essence, once a person becomes so fixated on attaining ‘heaven’ they lose contact with reality, and with the essence of almost every religious teaching  - which is to live THIS life to the fullest possible extent, no matter how impoverished or hard it may be. The problem is that if we focus to intently on our vision of ‘heaven’ we very quickly find that it is a justification for every kind of evil act - in pursuit of the ‘greater good’.

This is what drives groups like Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and, I suspect, some elements of groups like Hamas, the Taliban (an ironic title if ever there was - it is said to mean ‘scholars’), Al Qaeda and others. It certainly motivates some Christian groups as well, fortunately, at this time, not to physical violence. The ISIS group, at present, provides us with the most visible evidence of what a group motivated by such a self-righteous ‘vision’ can produce. They justify their actions by arguing that the ‘final days’ and the return of ‘heavenly peace’ promised in the Quran can only be achieved by the recreation of the Caliphate. They further argue that the original Caliphate ‘failed’ because it allowed ‘kufars’ to continue practicing their ‘false’ faiths and live among the faithful.

Their solution is simple - forcibly convert the ‘kufars’ or kill them. Each death in the name of this programme is presumed to earn them brownie points in the heaven to come. Plus, of course, since it is a ‘holy’ war, if you die fighting for this cause you are a ‘holy’ martyr and assured of a place in ‘paradise’.

Interestingly, both Judaism and Christianity (mainstream, not the sectarian versions) have a very ‘physical’ view of the life hereafter and that is shared by Islam. Mainstream Christian teaching since early times has suggested that the ‘second coming’ and the ‘resurrection of the dead’ will be a physical event - with everyone restored to their physical bodies at the age that Jesus was when he died. The Jewish view is similar, and in Islam this is the leading concept as well. The Bible probably has the least to say on exactly what form the ‘life to come’ will take. While it contains many defences to a life after death, it uses a lot of allegorical descriptions to illustrate to the point. The problem comes down to trying to describe something outside of human understanding or experience, in human terms and within parameters the human mind can grasp. It is my understanding that the Quran follows a similar route - many references to ‘paradise’ or a ‘new Eden’ and to ‘the faithful’ populating it - but not a great deal on the details. Most of the teaching followed by extremists in that faith comes from something called the Hadith - a collection of ‘sayings’ attributed to the Prophet. It’s provenance is somewhat open to challenge since it was first written down a long time after the Prophet’s death.

The problem with obsessing about attaining the ‘life hereafter’ is that you stand a good chance of becoming insufferably ‘religious’ and ignoring the real tenets of the faith you supposedly follow. This was Christ’s problem with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, both groups obsessing about ‘The Law’ or ‘The Ritual’ (the Sadducees were the Temple priests) to the point they forgot, or perhaps ignored, the real teachings of their faith, which is, as Augustine of Hippo put it, to ‘Love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your being - and then do as you please.’ The truth is that if you really do the first, it is impossible to do anything ‘evil’ in the second part. In essence, this is what Jesus meant when he gave us the ‘Great Commandment’ (which Augustine paraphrased) and the second to love everyone else as we love ourselves. Follow those two commandments - which actually sum up the Ten Commandments very succinctly - and you cannot do what ISIS, Hamas or any other terror group are doing.

So where has it all gone wrong? Why are we seeing these black clad jihadis shooting, bombing and beheading their way across the Middle East? 

In part we have to acknowledge that Islam has historically a pretty dire record of conquest and forced conversion. Many today do not know that North Africa, the Middle East, most of modern Pakistan and the southern areas of what are now independent states of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire, were Christian. They were converted to Islam by force or coercion after being overrun by Arab, and later Seljuk, Ottoman and other Islamic conquerors. The Caliphate was centred on Baghdad and flourished - ostensibly liberally - until it was sacked by the Mongols in 1326 AD. While it is often described as ‘tolerant’ it depends on your viewpoint. Certainly it allowed alcohol and was fairly relaxed about the practice of other faiths - Jewish or Christian. But, what is less well known, is that Jews and Christians were banned from holding government office unless they converted, and that they paid a punitive ‘tax’ to retain their faith. Later this was extended to a requirement to provide the first born son to the Caliph as a ‘servant’. These boys were forced to convert, and in some cases were castrated as well. The Ottoman Empire was still practicing this in the late 19th Century in Bulgaria and the other Balkan states under their control. 

The Mongol invasion shattered the Caliphate, but the new rulers didn’t bring a new religion with them, and were themselves gradually converted to Islam. It is an unacknowledged fact that Islam has been the reason underlying more invasions and conquests than any other religion, and while Christianity has certainly had its moments - especially during the Reformation - it hardly holds a candle to Islam in this regard.

Why the difference? 

Judaism grew up in a world dominated by religions that glorified death. Some practiced human sacrifice, most practiced animal sacrifice, and some had some rather strange combinations of both. Perhaps the most shocking of all was the sacrifice of male infants by the Phoenicians (and some reports say the Philistines) by tossing the living child into the stylised maw of a furnace, still, according to the Roman histories, practiced in Carthage at the time of the Punic Wars. Many had fertility rites that today would shock even the most open minded ‘liberal’. This is where some of the Levitical strictures against certain practices and activities arise and though these are carried over into the Quran (which draws heavily on the Old Testament, parts of the New and on a huge amount of Gnostic literature now known as the Pseudepigraphica (False Books) - so called because they are not written by the claimed ‘authors’ and are even verifiably not from the period they are supposed to have been written in), their origin is not acknowledged by the adherents of the extremist groups - and sadly, by some of the ‘scholars’ who support them.

Christianity, for the first hundred or so years, remained closely linked to the Synagogue and the Jewish worship and even teaching. It did suffer, to an extent, from a ‘martyr complex’ in some areas, where, if one reads the history of some of the early martyrs, they deliberately sought martyrdom in the belief that Christ would return within their (curtailed) lifetimes. While this re-emerged during the Reformation, and is still marginally visible among the more fundamentalist branches of the Christian family who fixate on the prophecies they read into the Book of Revelations. Once again, the problem is the fixation on gaining ‘the next life’ and frequently a loss of the need to live the present one to the fullest extent.

One possible explanation for Islam’s more entrenched ‘martyr complex’ is that it has no ‘centralising authority’ structures like the ‘church’ hierarchies of Christianity. Thus everyone is able to place their own interpretation on the teachings they have inherited, and many are drawn to the question of bringing about the arrival of the promised ‘paradise’. It is this focus that gives rise to the unhealthy mindset that says no amount of suffering, no limit to the number of casualties, is too high to achieve the desired end. Thus Hamas can have no shortage of volunteers willing to sacrifice their lives in this world, to destroy the ‘enemy’ and attain ‘paradise’ where they can live in a state of bliss while awaiting the final call to rise with the faithful and take over the earth.

In focusing their thoughts on a ‘martyr’s death’ they lose the true message of faith which is, simply, to live, and to live well. Once again, turning to the teaching of Jesus and the Old Testament Prophets, the essence of the faiths they taught, is to live life to its fullest. Their teaching is simple, by following the simple instruction to love God, and to treat everyone you encounter with respect and kindness, you will reap the same treatment from them. Everything in the Bible - both Old and New Testaments is about living, not about dying, and, as I understand it, the same applies to the Quran. By turning that on its head, and focusing on death, those who do, create a ‘death cult’ whose purpose is no longer about love and life, but about power, murder and enslavement.

I would venture to suggest that this is one major reason we cannot hope to see peace in Gaza or the West Bank at any time in the near future. The Jewish state is founded on the ideals of Judaic teaching about ‘life’, while their opponents seek to destroy them, their faith and their state - and are prepared to die themselves to achieve it. Hamas, Fatah and the other factions are all members of what has become a Cult of Death. In their mindset death in achieving their aim will guarantee a place in Paradise. Their ‘holy’ struggle justifies anything and everything, even bringing death and destruction to those they love.


Islam has descended into being a ‘cult of death’ and, as such, sows the seeds of its own ultimate failure. The Huffington Post columnist, Mehdi Hassan, himself a follower of Islam, points out in a recent article (The Hand Choppers Of ISIS Are Deluded), that Islam as a ‘political’ movement has failed at every attempt to create an ‘Islamic State’. Look about you - all the ‘failed states’ causing problems in the world today are ‘Islamic’, and all of them try to impose the Sharia and the thinking of the 7th Century to government - with predictably disastrous results. In every attempt to create such a Utopia, all too rapidly power becomes entrenched in the hands a small and usually corrupt clique. Law and order break down as people find themselves compelled evade certain strictures and corruption spreads as policy is increasingly left in the hands of those who blind themselves to suffering or see only their own very narrow vision of 'heaven'. It is in this cesspit that the radical preachers, the haters and the violent find a ready field to develop and expand their perverted theology. 

It is the failure, among western ‘thinkers’, politicians and campaigners for ‘secularisation’, and their fellow travellers of humanism and atheism, to understand this difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam that will bring hardship and disaster to us all. Their constant assault on Christianity, and their open bias against Judaism, has created a vacuum, the perfect breeding ground for this radicalised and twisted version of Islam. The demonstrations over the last weekend in the UK, with hate filled slogans being chanted, and placards waved that should, frankly, have resulted in arrests, are a warning. We are not dealing with a movement that promises hope, peace or love - we are dealing with a cult that sees death and destruction as desirable ways to achieve their aims. Peace doesn’t stand a chance against that mindset. 

When is a Terrorist not a Terrorist?

When is a murderous gunman a 'freedom fighter', and when is he a 'terrorist'? This is a question we need to sort out pretty quickly. It has often been argued in the past, that it depends on which side of the relevant 'cause' you support. Alternately, it depends on how big a crowd you can 'persuade' to attend a demonstration against whoever they are against. So a 'demo' of 150,000 in London apparently turns Hamas into 'freedom fighters' and makes Israel 'aggressors'. This allows the demonstrators to demand that Israel stop defending its citizens and allows Hamas and all the splinter groups hiding under its mantel, to bomb, murder and kidnap their way into possession of all of Israel. For those who hate Israel and wish to see it destroyed, Hamas are 'freedom fighters' and not 'terrorists'. Their every excess is justified by the 'cause' they fight for, the total destruction of Israel, and the subjugation of all its inhabitants to Sharia Law, or at least their version of it. For their supporters, no 'bad' deed can be laid at their door, everything is Israel's 'fault' presumably simply for existing and for defending itself.

It is noteworthy that these same demonstrators argue that they are justified in NOT demonstrating against, or renouncing the excesses of, ISIS and the suppression of all other faiths in most Islamic lands, on the grounds that they are the result of 'western aggression' and support for Israel. As ever, when one looks at terrorists, one is confronted with a double standard. The government/people/nation under attack are always, in the minds of the terror group's sympathisers and supporters, "aggressors" or "abusers" and the terrorists are branded "liberators" and "freedom fighters". As always, there is a refusal to accept that there may be some justification for the vigorous defence of the status quo, and a refusal to condemn the excesses of the terrorist group. The favourite canard of the supporters is "it is always necessary that some must suffer for the greater good ..." George Orwell certainly knew the mind of the idiots who trot that out in defence of any excess perpetrated by their favourite ideologues or 'freedom fighters'.

The situation in Southern Africa thirty years ago was similarly divisive. To their supporters the ANC were 'freedom fighters' as, forty years ago, Mugabe's Patriotic Front were. To their supporters, every killing, every murder of their own people as well as every 'white man/woman/child' was a justifiable killing in the name of 'freedom', and every black person killed by the same terrorists, was an 'unfortunate casualty in the name of the struggle'. Of course, if you were on the receiving end of this, then the ANC and the PF were 'terrorists' and remain so. It is very easy to shout slogans, wave banners and pontificate about the 'justice' or the 'justification' when you are not the target, and will not have to live with the consequences resulting from the triumph of your favourite bunch of terrorists. The trouble is that there is no clear definition of either term, no generally agreed situation that makes you one or the other - and there is no dirtier, more inhumane or genocidal 'war' than a 'civil war' conducted by masked or disguised fighters from within a population.

The western Media (mostly 'liberal/left') has, at various times, hailed as 'liberators' the likes of Che Guevara, Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Sukarno, Ho Chi Min and any number of others - most of whom have turned out to be nothing other than vicious psychopaths hell bent on attaining and keeping power at all costs, no matter how many people die so they can achieve it. I frequently wonder how many of those who wear the teeshirts emblazoned with Che Guevara's image know they are celebrating a classic psychopath responsible for bringing misery and poverty (and possibly creating the drug cartels) to so much of South America and the Caribbean today. Not many, I suspect. And those that do, don't care. It was, and is, all about being a 'rebel' and having a 'cause'. That last is, in my view, borne out by the fact so many of those who do wear that image, or display it in homes and offices, are 'single issue' campaigners for something.

The truth is there is no such animal as a 'freedom fighter'. Those that do join such 'armies' are often seriously misguided, sometimes psychopathic or psychologically disturbed. They are often brutes whose only 'cause' is advancing their own form of tyranny. The current group terrorising the Middle East, ISIS, are classic examples. Yet again, they were hailed, among others, by the western liberal media, as the 'freedom' fighters 'striving to overthrow the oppressive dictatorships' of so many of the Arab countries. And now their true colours are emerging, we hear no word of condemnation from the same 'liberal/left'. Instead they try to divert attention to Israel's supposed 'war on children' - quietly ignoring the evidence that Hamas has used schools as munitions dumps, fires their rockets from heavily populated areas, and hides their 'soldiers' among groups of women and children.

We rejoiced as Libya was torn apart and Gaddafi overthrown. We rejoiced as Tunisia was riven, then Egypt, and finally Syria - and we poured money and arms into funding and supplying the 'rebels' of the 'Arab Spring'. The Muslim Brotherhood were beneficiaries, and through them, ISIS and Hamas got the latest weapons and munitions. Yes, we made a good call there then. ISIS is now said to have a 'fighting fund' of over $2 billion, and it's major funders are the State of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and - oh dear - the Muslim Brotherhood which has been enjoying funding from the US among others. Again and again, the liberal/left make the mistake of falling for their own prejudice. We loathe the government or the leader of a state - so those who seek to overthrown him must be good guys. They must be friends - and we throw resources at them.

Then we are surprised when they turn out to be worse then the 'devil they cast out'. We never seem to learn that a man with a gun, a bomb vest strapped to him, and a mortar or a rocket launcher in his hands is NOT a 'better' person than his 'enemy'. Above all we never seem to get it into our heads that 'the enemy of my enemy' is NOT necessarily a friend. He may well be an even worse enemy. A terrorist is a terrorist whatever his cause, however 'justified' it may be. A man who tries to shoot or bomb his way to power is filled with hatred, and hatred is a poison which eventually extends that hatred to everyone who doesn't agree with the first man's 'vision'.

There are some shocking images emerging from Syria and Iraq, images the majority of western governments and media seem determined to ignore. President Obama has authorised 'bombing' of ISIS groups and forces, but how does he propose to identify them? Not all of them are wearing anything identifiable as a uniform. So, like all terrorists - they hide among civilians. Bomb them and you kill civilians. Kill civilians and the liberal/left media scream 'murder' at the western military (or Israel), but justify Hamas, ISIS or any other 'terror' groups' campaign of murder.

ISIS brings us a further dimension. Children as young as 10 are being 'encouraged' to swear 'allegiance' to the new 'caliph'. Video footage they are putting out shows children declaring they want to 'die a martyrs death for the Caliph'. Where are the sensible heads in all of this? Ah, adorning fences after ISIS made examples of them for daring to oppose their vision of Paradise. As is often said, for evil to triumph, it is necessary only for good men to do nothing. And this is the fruit of the ideology that has driven the west for the last five or six decades. We are now afraid to speak out; to say what is obvious, because to do so will result in our being accused of Islamophobia, racism, or 'cultural ignorance' - which is ironic, because those who use that last, are generally utterly ignorant of the 'culture' they seek to defend.

Terrorism, in all its forms, is a cancer that erodes liberty, personal freedom and ultimately the nation state. Like cancer it requires radical treatment. There are NO half-measures. Either surrender to the terrorist immediately, or be prepared to embark on a campaign as vicious as theirs. There is no negotiation with them. We have to accept that they are fanatics, and you cannot negotiate with a fanatic, since they deal only in absolutes. We have to stop playing the semantic card, make up our minds, and suppress terrorism. Plant a bomb in the name of a 'cause' and you are a terrorist. Join up with others, and take up arms against a legitimately elected (which does not necessarily mean it has to be by what you or I consider 'democratic' process) government - and you are a terrorist. Terrorists cannot, and must not be tolerated, no matter what the cause.

Those who truly want to see peace in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank have to stop supporting kidnapping, shooting, stone throwing, bombing and rocket firing targeted at Israel and Israelis or any other state and ts people. They will retaliate, just as any of our nation states would. If you want 'peace' in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza or anywhere else, stop supporting those who think they can achieve their aims through the bombs, stones and bullets you are supplying through your donations. If Hamas, ISIS, or anyone else want peace, they must go to a negotiating table with no weapons and no preconditions. Otherwise they must be seen as terrorists.

Recently Gerry Doyle, a US based Radio and TV commentator, made the point that, with the support of gullible western 'liberal' sympathisers, terrorist groups have come to believe that they can win. Hamas think they can beat Israel no matter how many of their own civilians die in the attempt. ISIS believe they can overthrow every government in the world and impose their 'Caliph' on everyone. Both get  support through all manner of third parties, such as the state of Qatar, elements of the Saudi government, 'humanitarian' agencies who provide goods and materials they can trade for weapons, 'supporters' who raise money for them (often under various guises which conceal who it is really supporting) and the benign ignorance of politicians whose 'multi-cultural' ideology blinds them to what is really happening. Such as traffic being stopped in Bradford and 'donations' demanded, with threats implied, for the support of the 'Palestinian Resistance'. They will continue to thrive and to advance their cause as long as we are prepared to 'tolerate' their continued existence and activities of both the 'fighters' and their supporters.

It is said there are some 500 British 'fighters' with ISIS, a similar number from Germany, and from the US. There are others from France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands - from every European state in fact. We are told the police 'know', or suspect they know, who they are. Fine, but then, when they eventually return to their home countries they must be arrested and charged with the crimes they have committed in the name of their cause - and preferably subjected to the same 'sentence' they have handed out to those they have killed or captured in the course of their 'war' on the people of Iraq and Syria. Sadly, I doubt they will be - because the armies of 'human rights' lawyers are probably already lobbying and lining up to make sure these psychopaths are not subjected to any legal actions for their campaigns of murder.

I do not believe anyone can be called a 'freedom fighter', whether he is a Ukrainian 'Russian', a Chechen, a Pushtun Taliban or a Nigerian tribesman who thinks he should be in control of all the other tribes in his homeland. In my view they are all terrorists and must be captured and either executed, or put away in a place where they and their evil poison can never be imposed on anyone else. Frankly, those who support them should be treated the same way.

Islam in Britain - A Voice of Reason ...

Soon after I had settled in Britain, a huge hew and cry broke out in the national daily newspapers around a headmaster of a school in the North East. He'd committed, in the eyes of the politically correct brigade, the unforgiveable sin of saying that unless immigrants were encouraged to integrate, and to speak English, adopt English norms, standards and laws they risked being ghettoised, and becoming an alien society within ours. This drew the ire of the multiculturalists and their allies among the fundamentalists in certain communities who wanted to preserve their own, often very restrictive, culture.

By denying their wives the opportunity to learn and speak English, or to mix with their English neighbours, they created enclaves where their children could be taught to believe that everything English was evil, to be shunned and eventually changed to 'an Islamic state'. Headmaster Honeyford dared to challenge this - and lost his job for it. I have wondered since how those in the Bradford Council feel now, 30 years on, when exactly what he was concerned about has come to pass. An article in The Spectator covers the whole sorry saga - and, for me at least, raises some rather important questions about the morals of those who pursue these politically correct agendas. It seems they have few, if any, qualms about destroying someone who dares question their vision.

More recently I had the pleasure of reading another article, this time written by a leading Muslim academic, who wants the law in Britain changed to ban - that's right, BAN - the wearing of any form of face mask and the Burkha. As he rightly argues, this is NOT a 'requirement' of the faithful from the Quran, but from the far less reliable Hadith. Nor are the Burkha, the Hijab and the full face covers usual anywhere outside of Arabia and some other desert areas, such as the Sahara. In short, there is no such things as an 'Islamic Dress' or uniform for men or women. Dr Taj Hargey, writing in the Daily Mail, states -

Contrary to the claims of its advocates, it has nothing to do with Islam but is a cultural fad imported from Saudi Arabia and primitive parts of the Islamic world.

Interestingly, supporters of the Burkha, often non-religious promoters of "Multiculturalism" refuse to listen to these and other calls. The usual route is to dismiss them as the desire of lecherous non-Muslim men, as in a Huffington Post article on the subject by a self-proclaimed 'religious activist'. He states, inter alia (including the regurgitation of all the usual 'Most Muslim women choose to wear it out of respect) that -

Extremists who call for banning the burqa appear to be largely illiberal, patriotic, and non-Muslim men who use the burqa as a means to persecute Muslims.

He ignores completely the fact that many women are forced to wear it, and that it is not a matter of choice for many. He also states that the French ban on the Burkha is contrary to Art. 8 of the European Treaty on Human Rights - a charge now struck down by the much maligned European Court of Human Rights in a case brought by a British Muslim group and lawyers. I'm not a fan of either the Treaty or the Court concerned, but for once they seem to have been struck by a dose of plain common sense. Of course the Islamists and their supporters are up in arms about it and there are talks of defying it in France and forcing the authorities to act. I suspect they'll find the French authorities a lot less touchy-feely about it than we in the UK would be.

Dr. Hargey knows what he is talking about. He is, after all, an Imam and an associate professor at Oxford. That he is hated by his more fundamentalist fellow believers, reviled in their media and threatened with violence should not surprise anyone. He wants to see an end to the isolationism in the UK Muslim communities. He frequently points out that the Hijab is not worn by most women outside of the Middle East, or was not until fairly recently. Famously, Kemal Attaturk, in secularising and modernising Turkey in the 1920s, 'banned the Burkha' by a clever strategy - he ordered that henceforward all prostitutes MUST wear it in public. Overnight, no one wore it.

What Dr Hargey wants now is to petition Parliament to debate a ban on the Burkha, and unlike others, he has thought about the implications. In his address he states that such a ban would apply to people wearing Balaclavas and ski-masks in public places. I doubt he'll win, our political classes are far too afraid of upsetting the Islamist beast they have welcomed among us, and I have yet to hear any of the politically correct brigade recant or admit that their wonderful vision of a society of multiple cultures sharing the same place is a failure. Or to hear any of them admit that Mr Honeyford was never, as they painted him, a 'bigot and a racist'.

Still, when one Imam has the courage to stand up and say the, to fundamentalists, unsayable, there is hope that the wider society will start to wake up, reject the illiberal idiots who claim to be creatiung a 'free and fair society' and throw out their cockamamy ideologies. Islam is currently going through a massive internal power struggle for its heart and soul. As Dr Hargey says, the Arabisation of Islam is proceeding unchecked. The Hijab is not required by the Quran, nor is the Burkha, nor are the black gloves, facemasks and so on. These are all from the Hadith and the Berber culture of Saudi Arabia. They are not native to Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and any number of other 'Muslim' countries.

I hope he succeeds in his objective. It will be a first step toward breaking the current trend toward a return to the Dark Ages for us all.

Conflicts of Message

I cannot help wondering why there is so much “surprise” among liberals, the media, and the families of those who have gone off to indulge in a little ‘Holy War’ in Syria/Iraq. I am sure those who have been on TV and in the Press discussing the issues of how the children of immigrants, or the grandchildren in some cases, have turned their backs on Britain, or have become ‘disaffected’ by our society, are intelligent people. Unfortunately they seem to be totally blind to several, to my mind, very important points. 

First, let me be clear, I am an immigrant. I arrived in the UK at the age of 40 with a wife and three very young children. My wife and I were of British and European descent, but even so we were aware from the first of some very large cultural differences between what we had left and what we had now joined. We made a very definite decision to put aside everything we had known and embrace fully the ‘British’ way of doing things. It certainly wasn’t easy, and we had no safety net, no back-up of friends and relatives to lean on as we stumbled from one trip hazard to the next. But we survived. And our children are now adults, UK educated, UK integrated, and know no other ‘culture’. It hasn’t been easy for them either, but they have adapted and adjusted and that makes me very proud of them. 

This was why, when the cult of “Multi-Culty” first took off in the 1990s I wanted nothing to do with it. I predicted then, and I am now convinced I was right, that it would lead to division, conflict and tears. Consider this scenario; A family migrates from a non-European culture seeking better opportunities, better living standards, better education. They arrive, they find a home, employment and settle the children into schools - but they keep their own ‘culture’ at home. Immediately the children are isolated because they never have the chance to see how others live. Their parents continue to dress in the clothes they wore in the ‘old’ country, continue to speak the ‘old’ language (in some instances the mother is actively discouraged from learning English) and when they come home from school or work they eat the food of the ‘old’ country, speak the language and dress as they did there. Yet, as one young woman in this position candidly told the BBC, when she went ‘home’ on a visit to her parent’s family, she was treated as a stranger, a non-member of that community and told she was not of that ‘people’ any longer. 

But, back in the UK, she is told she is, or that though she lives in Britain, is British, has been educated and raised in Britain, she must keep her ‘cultural roots’ and practice her own culture, not the British one. As she remarked, she has a sense of no longer belonging anywhere, so why are we surprised when the children of immigrants feel they have no identity with the country that has educated, housed, fed and employed them? I assume the well intentioned injunction to ‘keep your own ethnicity, culture, etc.’, mantra was supposed to make them feel at home, but it has had the opposite effect in fact. How can I be British if I wear clothes more suited to the deserts of Arabia or the Indian sub-continent? How can I be British when I go home and have to speak a language from the Middle East or somewhere else because my parents haven’t learned to speak English?

Several commentators have in recent days held forth at some length on the subject of why these young men might have become ‘disillusioned’ with Western society. Some blame ‘British Culture’ for the alienation, one gave the excuse that ‘Britons have failed to understand the other cultures in our midst’. It seems the promoters of ‘Multi-culturalism’ simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that many of these recent immigrant cultures are at complete odds with our own, and the stress created by trying to maintain one which clashes on almost everything ‘British’ is bound to cause a problem. It is interesting that some of the parents involved appeared on television in the clothing of their homelands, not in what might be considered ‘Western’ dress. If, at home, the children have been encouraged to think of themselves as belonging to a different society to the one they are living in, why are their parents surprised that the children don’t respect the culture they live in?

Changing countries is not easy, and there is always a danger of handing down to the next generation an idyllic picture of ‘the Old Country’. The danger is that the next generation then develop that mythology - an example would be the idea that in a society ruled by Sharia Law would be a better regulated society, women would be in the home, behaving modestly, family honour would be protected, girls would do as they were told, and so on. Then they are faced with the reality of modern Britain. Morals are not those taught in the Quran, Sharia Law is not recognised, the majority of people either have no faith, or are Dhimmi’, women are allowed to do as they please and religion does not govern peoples’ lives. It certainly doesn’t take much persuasion to convince gullible young men to campaign for a ‘Religious State’ and the imposition of the idyllic society their parents have projected.

Add to this the officially promoted kowtow to every demand for these minority immigrant groups at ‘official’ level, which is resented and resisted at street level, and you have a youth which feels it does not belong. Their roots are not British, at home they do not experience ‘British’ home life, and they don’t fully experience what might be called ‘British life’ at all. Nor do they want to. They don’t go to Pubs with their ‘mates’, they don’t go ‘Clubbing’ with their girlfriends (officially at least), and tend to form friendships only with those from their own background and culture. So why do they stay?

A cynic might say that it is because they would find it difficult to survive if they went back to the ‘Old Country’. They might not get the Income Support, Housing Benefit or whatever, and they would certainly not enjoy the freedom they currently have, or the access to health care, education and leisure. Plus, they would find themselves to be strangers in a land not quite what they had been led to expect.

The lady commentator from a Pakistani background touched on a part of it when she said that when she visits Pakistan, she is definitely not regarded as anything other than someone from Britain, and not a Pakistani. If you were born in Britain, you are, at least in legal terms, British, and not whatever your parents ethnic background might be. But that also creates a conflict. 

The cultural conflict is not one we have had to face before this. I am frequently told that Britain is the ‘great melting pot’. That previous waves of immigrants have settled, retained their unique cultures and integrated. Oops, there’s the problem. Integrated. Those earlier waves of immigrants came from European cultures. The early Brythic peoples were followed by the Celts, the Gaels, the Romans, the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, Normans - and later the ‘quiet’ invasions, the Flemish, the French Huguenots, European Jews, Dutch, Polish, and others - all from Europe. They settled, they integrated, spoke English, dressed as we do, accepted British law, the authority of our courts, Parliament and so on. 

With Multi-culturalism, that is not happening. In fact it is being promoted as a bad thing to happen. So why are we surprised that we now have the children of immigrants who have a golden mythological vision of the society their parents left; a disaffection for the British culture and heritage (which they are constantly told isn’t theirs), and a burning desire to make it change to their vision of Utopia?

We reap what we sow. Unfortunately, those who sowed the seeds of “Multi-Culti” refuse to accept responsibility for the harvest we must all now reap.