The UK Govt has stated its intention to “take the lead” in the “EU designation of the Hezbollah military wing”.

The announcement came in a House of Commons exchange on 9 May between Alistair Burt MP (Under-Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs) and Michael McCann MP (a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel).

The debate may be read in full, here on Hansard and includes the Government’s rationale (dialogue with Lebanon) for distinguishing between Hizbollah’s “political and military wings”. There is, of course, really no such distinction, as Alistair Burt all but acknowledges, saying “it is a difficult distinction to make”.  

The diplomacy-geared distinction between Hizbollah’s “political and military wings” continues the situation from the previous Government’s 2008 proscription of the military wing. Burt describes it as “…the whole of Hizbollah’s military apparatus, namely the Jihad Council and all the units reporting to it – that is, the military wing”.

The 2008 banning followed the 2001 proscription of Hizbollah’s External Security Organisation, which is Hizbollah’s outright “terrorism wing”. For example, see this Australian Govt explanation of these terrorists’ work, including their being widely blamed for the appalling 18th July 1994 truck bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. 

84 people were murdered in the AMIA bombing and Iranian Defence Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, was amongst other Iranians indicted for the attack. The antisemitic outrage in Buenos Aires exemplifies the interlinked nature of international Iranian and Hizbollah terrorism. In parallel, the political and military manifestations of the Iran-Hizbollah linkage are far more blatant and now include the shoring up of Assad’s regime in Syria.

In 2012, on the 18th anniversary of the antisemitic Buenos Aires bombing, five Israelis and a Bulgarian were murdered in a bomb attack upon a bus carrying Israeli tourists at Burgas airport in Bulgaria. The authorities believe Hizbollah was responsible. (See here for a detailed analysis by expert, Matthew Levitt of such Hizbollah activities.) In March 2013, a Cyprus court found a Lebanese-Swedish national, Hosem Taleb Yaacub, guilty of plotting terrorism on the island and of working with cells in France, Holland and Turkey. Yaacub admitted to being a member of Hizbollah and told the court:

I was just collecting information about the Jews. This is what my organisation is doing, everywhere in the world.

The cases in Cyprus and Bulgaria bring Hizbollah-Iranian terrorism to Europe and the European Union, whether that is via Hizbollah’s terrorist operations or those of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds force. Having previously committed terrorism in the Middle East, South America, Far East, Africa (including a Nairobi synagogue), India and Georgia, and Azerbaijan (including a Jewish school), their geographical creep into relatively peripheral EU states is no accident. This terrorism is not simply getting closer to the EU, it is now within the EU: posing a particular threat to the EU’s Jewish citizens and any Israeli visitors or residents.    

Given the gradual approach of the Iran-Hizbollah terrorist threat (in all its guises), it is proper that the UK Govt should seek to encourage the EU to act now. Indeed, a failure to act will also send its own signal – both to the terrorists and to those whom they threaten. Alistair Burt has now laid out the UK Govt position and expects to discuss it at EU level “within the next four weeks”. CST wishes him and his colleagues every success.

Excerpts from Alistair Burt’s reply to Michael McCann MP: 

I thank the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) for raising this important issue; for the clear and unequivocal support that he has given to the forces of stability in the middle east; for the way that he has pointed out the risks and the dangers that Hezbollah action poses in the area; for his support for the state of Israel; and for his courtesy in sending me a copy of his speech, which has helped me to tailor my response. I will make some comments for the record on the activities of Hezbollah, and on how the United Kingdom Government see Hezbollah and other Iranian-supported terrorist organisations.

…My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has asserted yet again that the EU proscription of Hezbollah, which the hon. Gentleman made a significant part of his remarks, has become a topical issue in recent months with the announcement by the previous Bulgarian Government on 5 February, implicating Hezbollah’s military wing in the atrocious bomb attack on a bus in Burgas last July, which killed five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver. The assessment of the involvement of Hezbollah’s military wing is shared by the United Kingdom. The guilty verdict in the trial of a Hezbollah operative in Cyprus, concluded on 21 March, is still further evidence of Hezbollah’s role in terrorist attacks or planned attacks on EU soil over the past 12 months.

In response, therefore, to the murderous terrorist attack at Burgas airport, and in light of the disrupted plot in Cyprus, we are calling for Europe to deliver a robust response. We firmly believe that an appropriate EU response would be to designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organisation. 

…I believe very firmly that EU designation of the Hezbollah military wing would send out a clear message, as the hon. Gentleman stated, that we condemn the terrorist activities of the military wing of Hezbollah and that terrorist activities on European soil will not go unpunished. We believe the evidence gathered from the investigation into the Burgas attack and from the Cypriot trial into the foiled attack by a Hezbollah operative to be sufficient to warrant designation action under the EU common position 931—the EU’s designation process. We will continue to work closely with our European partners on this issue.

…We will take the lead in the EU in initiating CP 931 action in response to what we believe has been an attack on EU soil…We are sharing information with our EU partners before calling for a meeting of the common position 931 working group to discuss our proposal for a designation. We expect this meeting to take place in the coming weeks—within the next four weeks. The UK has compiled a core script to address any concerns raised by member states ahead of the working group and to explain the implications of proceeding with designation.

…Turning to other Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups, we are seriously concerned by Iran’s support for terrorist groups that undermine regional stability.

…We are also increasingly concerned by Iran’s involvement in terrorism outside its borders through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds force, including in Thailand, India, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kenya, where two Iranian men were recently sentenced to life in prison by a Kenyan court for planning to carry out bombings in Nairobi and other cities last year. We are committed to the toughest possible international response to Iran’s support for terrorism and its refusal to operate within the bounds of international law.

I confirm for clarity that we recognise the grave concerns regarding Hezbollah and Iranian-supported terrorist groups and we are taking what action we can accordingly. We believe in particular, very much on the lines set out by the hon. Gentleman, that Europe can and must act, and I hope that I have been able to persuade him that I and my ministerial colleagues will continue to engage with our European counterparts in pursuance of that objective. What the middle east needs most desperately now is peace and stability. It is difficult to see the part being played by Hezbollah’s military wing or by Iran in relation to that. The time for ending the cycle of violence perpetuated by Assad and his regime is now, and the time to bring peace and stability to the middle east is now. We will support all attempts that aim to do that, but we will be ruthless in our condemnation of those who seek to upset it.

Last night Tottenham Hotspur played Chelsea in a Premier League football match. As is sadly often the case, antisemitic abuse was directed at Spurs both online and at the match itself.

James Masters, a sports writer, has done sterling work in collecting examples of antisemitic tweets relating to last night’s game on his twitter timeline. You can read some of these tweets below (not all of the tweets below are antisemitic; some are from people criticising the antisemitic tweets).

A word of warning: some contain foul and offensive language as well as vile antisemitism. We do not publish such language lightly on the CST blog.

We have shared all the material below with football’s anti-racist body, Kick It Out, and we will report the antisemitic tweets to the Police.

One of the tweets tells of a chant heard from Chelsea fans at the match, that went: “Adolf Hitler, he’s coming for you”. Another tells of seeing a Chelsea fan arrested at a station after the match for singing “Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz”. Other antisemitic comments are made by fans on twitter itself. Some involve antisemitic abuse directed at Spurs; in others, Chelsea fans direct antisemitism at their own Israeli player, Yossi Benayoun.

CST Blog has written before about the evidence of Hizbollah’s involvement in terrorism against Jews outside Israel, after details emerged from the trial in Cyprus of Hizbollah member Hossam Yaacoub who was convicted last month of helping to plan terrorist attacks against Israeli tourists on the island. Yaacoub denied this, and told Cypriot police:

I don’t believe that the missions I executed in Cyprus were connected with the preparation of a terrorist attack in Cyprus. It was just collecting information about the Jews, and this is what my organization is doing everywhere in the world.

A new report in CTC Sentinel, written by Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, reveals in detail the training and missions that Yaacoub undertook for Hizbollah. Titled Hizb Allah Resurrected: The Party of God’s Return to Tradecraft, the report explains the strategic decision taken by Hizbollah and Iran to return to the overseas terrorism that they deployed during the 1980s and 1990s (based in part on an earlier Washington Institute report); failed plots in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Turkey; and some details about Hizbollah’s operations in Europe. This included missions by Yaacoub  to deliver and accept packages from Hizbollah operatives in France, Holland and Turkey.

The evidence in the report of Hizbollah’s terrorist activities in Europe further underlines why the European Union should proscribe the organisation. Levitt concludes:

Taken together, the Bulgarian and Cypriot cases present compelling evidence of Hizb Allah’s return to traditional tradecraft. As the Yaacoub case makes clear, several years before the Qods Force instructed Hizb Allah to rejuvenate its IJO terrorist wing in January 2010, the group had already been recruiting operatives with foreign passports, and providing new recruits with military training and surveillance skills. Yaacoub was recruited in 2007, while Mughniyyeh was still alive. Indeed, while Mughniyyeh’s assassination prompted the group to resume international operations in a way they had not since before 9/11, Hizb Allah never stopped identifying and recruiting new operatives for a variety of different types of missions at home and around the world.

There is no question, however, that the operational failures that followed Mughniyyeh’s assassination demonstrated that the group’s foreign operational capabilities had weakened over time. When Mughniyyeh was killed, and later when Iran wanted Hizb Allah to play a role in its “shadow war” with the West, Hizb Allah was not yet fully prepared to do so. Yet the Bulgaria and Cyprus cases suggest that this may no longer be the case. Yaacoub was no anomaly, as the Burgas attacks made clear. Like Yaacoub and the Burgas operatives, some of those new recruits are Western citizens. During one of his training sessions, Yaacoub heard another trainee speaking fluent Arabic with some English words mixed in. According to Yaacoub, the trainee spoke with a distinctly American accent.

Read it all here.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on 19th April 1943.

To mark this occasion this week’s Jewish Chronicle essay, by Martin Winstone of the Holocaust Educational Trust, details the many different ways in which Jews resisted the Nazi Holocaust:

The landscape of Holocaust remembrance is punctuated by anniversaries, but few dates are as resonant as April 19, which marked the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Its enduring symbolism is attested to by the fact that it is the national Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland, the country from which more than half of the victims of the Shoah came. This year, the 70th anniversary, represents one of the last landmark commemorations in which survivors and witnesses will be able to participate.

In Warsaw, memorial events will continue until May 16, the date commonly accepted as the end of the revolt. This in itself shows why the uprising occupies such a central place in both Jewish and Polish narratives of the Holocaust: a group of poorly armed, inexperienced guerrilla fighters resisted German forces for almost a month in what was the first major civilian revolt in occupied Europe. It is thus hardly surprising that it has become the supreme symbol of Jewish resistance.

Despite this, Jewish resistance is often marginalised in accounts of the Shoah. Even some of those who have celebrated the uprising have used it to reproach other European Jews for alleged passivity. During the war itself, many critics – Jewish and non-Jewish – claimed that the victims had allowed themselves, in an oft-used phrase, to be “led like sheep to the slaughter”. But such arguments simply do not stand up to serious scrutiny.

[...]

Of course, one should be careful not to exaggerate. As Bauer reminds us, we should not assume that the majority of Europe’s Jews were fighting or writing diaries. The Holocaust brought untold misery and destruction, and it was only human that many succumbed to despair, and that ties of communal and even familial solidarity were often frayed. “It is wrong”, he writes, “to demand… that these tortured individuals and communities should have behaved as mythical heroes.” Rather, “the fact that so many of them did is a matter of wonderment.”

April 19 2013 ought to encourage us to consider not how little resistance was offered by Jews during the Shoah but how much. Amid the speeches and laying of flowers in the Ghetto Heroes’ Square in Warsaw, we will be reminded of the myriad ways in which ordinary human beings, confronted with the most extraordinary of circumstances, sought to assert basic values of dignity and solidarity. No one could have demanded more.

The essay can be read in full here.

The Wiener Library’s conference of 7^th March 2013 on the history of British Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Jewish Defence included lectures by Professor Nigel Copsey and Dr John Richardson on the evolution of fascism from its 1930s version to the present; and how its public face has also changed.

Neither speaker directly addressed modern antisemitism, nor anti-Zionism, but their lectures provide useful analogies with both topics, particularly the question of how far a modern phenomenon can stray from its earlier types before becoming something new altogether. Just how elastic can a term such as fascism, or antisemitism, actually be – before we have to find a new word for them?

Professor Copsey noted that for decades after World War Two, most academics airily assumed that fascism was pretty much dead. By the mid 1980s, they were forced into a rethink by the electoral success of the French Front National. Prof Copsey noted that Europe had not exactly stood still during this time, and he asked if the changes in Europe and its far right parties meant that they should be termed fascist, neo-fascist, populist, nationalist, or just what exactly? If a 21^st Century ‘fascist’ party is basically pro-free market and is not committed to overthrowing democracy, can it still be properly called fascist, or do we need to call it something else?

Both academics stressed that categorising modern groups as being fascist, neo-fascist, populist etc must not obscure their sheer variety. The English Defence League differs from the British National Party, both differ from the French Front National, which differs from the Flemish Vlaams Blok; and none are the same as Golden Dawn in Greece.

Dr Richardson observed that after WW2 there was no electoral cachet for any party that admitted to being fascist. Such groups had to either subtly rehabilitate fascism, or disassociate from it. So, we cannot – and do not – take such groups at their word, regarding whether they are, or are not, fascists, pro-Nazis etc.

Dr Richardson used antisemitism as one marker regarding the true ideology of fascist groups. He charted the shifts in antisemitic discourse – sometimes blatant, sometimes coded, sometimes both – within the post-war UK fascist publication Combat as a striking example of this phenomenon.

For example, when the British National Party took over Combat in 1960, it replaced existing euphemisms about “money power” and “international finance” with explicit mentions of Jews. In 1962, the BNP split and openly Nazi elements lost control of Combat: whereupon the Jews disappeared again, replaced by a Washington/Moscow common enemy – a conspiracy that was implicitly Jewish, but did not need to be explicitly stated as such.

By 1965, new race relations laws had further tightened Combat’s language, but its readers still understood that “immigrants” meant non-white people. So, the racist ideology remained, with the wording now further encoded. Similarly, articles about Jews (or those alleged to be) did not need to actually state that the individuals were Jewish: the coding was understood, just as it had been in “money power” and “international finance”.

These lessons about defining and recognising various fascisms can assist our understanding of antisemitism, especially concerning its contested relationship with anti-Zionism (which, we must remember, is itself a hugely varied term). Some useful points:

• After WW2, many educated people assumed that fascism was pretty much dead: and they made the same mistaken assumption about antisemitism. It took decades for these assumptions to change.  

• There is no intellectual cachet for any ideology or group that admits to being fascist: and neither is there for anyone who admits to being antisemitic. You cannot rely solely on the word of someone who denies being a fascist. Similarly, you cannot rely solely on the word of someone who denies being antisemitic.

• There are big variations between different ‘fascist’ groups. Analysis of groups, including their distinctions (such as for or against democracy) must be rigorous. The same rigour is also needed when studying openly antisemitic groups, of which there are relatively very few; and especially when studying anti-Zionist groups, of which there are relatively very many. These anti-Zionist groups come from all manner of ideological positions, ranging from the obviously antisemitic to the obviously not antisemitic (such as Bundists).

• Environments and contexts change and the words that are used change accordingly. This is the nature of things. It is political and ideological evolution; and the course of history. There is a need to attract and retain adherents, to comply with what is legally and/or socially acceptable and you must react to whatever is politically relevant. In Europe, fascism has its post WW2, post Soviet bloc and existing European Union context. Antisemitism has its post Holocaust and Israel context. Neither subject can remain in its 1930s/40s variant under these conditions.

The above is not to claim that either fascism or antisemitism are forever inevitable. Nevertheless, in their recent pomp, both phenomena clearly fulfilled deep needs for millions of adherents. It is most unlikely that the psychological drivers behind them have diminished to irrelevancy. 

Today, it is quite straightforward to argue that fascism did not die after its disgrace and its defeat in WW2, and to observe that it lay low and adapted until contemporary circumstances enabled it to re-emerge in various forms. Some recalibrations went deeper than others, some merited the old label and some arguably did not. But for all the changes, these different groups essentially remained under the same part of the political spectrum, and they are still reflexively opposed by those who defend liberal principles.

Once again, the same guidance ought to apply to antisemitism, especially as it predates fascism by centuries, millennia even. And yet there are vital contrasts. For example:

• Those who afford the most elasticity to terms such as ‘fascism’ and ‘far Right’, or even ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’, will too often be those who also argue for the most restrictive definition of antisemitism, boiling it down to a forever fossilised WW2 Nazi model, in which an antisemite must profess to hate all Jews as Jews. This, despite antisemitism having had so many variations throughout its long history (which, other than Nazism, mostly offered escape via conversion). 

• The impulse to be wary of suspected fascists is not repeated with antisemitism. All too often, those accused of antisemitism are defended, rather than scrutinised. (The exception being if the accused is allegedly a white fascist.) Similarly, some circles may express deep concern about awakening or encouraging fascism by, for example, debating immigration: but apply different standards and analyses regarding antisemitic consequences arising from anti-Zionist or extreme anti-Israel agitation.

• Fascists and anti-fascists share the same basic meaning of the word “fascism”. Zionists and anti-Zionists do not share the same basic meaning of the word “Zionism”. Most Jews self-identify as Zionists, so many perceive anti-Zionism as quite obviously being anti-Jewish, within the antisemitic ballpark, part of the antisemitic family tree, call it what you will. Consequently, there is an associated perception that the word “Zionist” operates (either intentionally or not) as a code for “Jew”: and that Jews are the likeliest, or only, physical target for rhetorical hatred of “Zionists”. Many anti-Zionists and opponents of Israel are oblivious to this perception, which – accurate or not – is heartfelt.

• Fascism and antisemitism are words that bear enormous historical weight. The word ‘fascism’ sits firmly within a wider context of far right politics. One may dispute whether a group is fascist, but compromise and calmly agree that it sits within a broader far right context. Antisemitism has a broader context of racism and prejudice, but this certainly does not assist anti-Zionism’s supporters and opponents to compromise upon its relationship with antisemitism.

• A disagreement over whether or not a group is fascist, tends not to rapidly descend into furious allegations of bad faith. By contrast, disagreements over antisemitism, especially regarding hatred of Zionism and/or Israel, are dominated by allegations of bad faith (in both directions).

It is this final point that really sums up the contrast when antisemitism, not fascism, is the subject of debate. To be more precise, the debate is most heated when Zionism or Israel are claimed to be the subject under scrutiny: but Jews perceive that they themselves are what is actually being scrutinised, or that it is they themselves who will end up suffering the consequences.  

Indeed, even the mere suggestion that a specific example of anti-Zionist or anti-Israel invective may be antisemitic is, in itself, taken by many as proof that “all criticism of Israel” is being castigated as antisemitic; that those expressing concerns are trying to shut up legitimate debate; and that it is all part of a callous exploitation of antisemitism to knowingly cover Israel’s (or Zionism’s) crimes. On the flip side, such responses are taken by many Jews as proof that something fundamentally antisemitic is at play: and so the vicious cycle of mutual alienation and contempt is spun again.

To conclude, this is where the contrast with the study and discussion of fascism is at its most profound. 

You can disagree with categorising the EDL as being fascist, without being reflexively denounced as a fascist and/or EDL sympathiser. Alternatively, you can argue that the EDL is indeed fascist, without being reflexively denounced as someone who wishes to shut down democratic debate in order to destroy English culture, heritage and nationhood.

If only the same standards of decency and solidarity prevailed when antisemitism, not fascism, was the subject of discussion…if only.

 
A new publication from the Cordoba Foundation, a UK-based think tank that is generally supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, lays bare the sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that currently divide the Middle East, and the associated intolerance at the heart of Islamist politics. It also shows how Iran’s reputation has been transformed, via the Syrian crisis, from an ally of Sunni Islamists to a mistrusted adversary.

Called Arab and Muslim National Security: Debating the Iranian Dimension, the paper is a summary of a debate hosted by the Cordoba Foundation for “a group of prominent and influential Islamic figures, comprising of activists, leaders, thinkers and scholars from different backgrounds”. The group discussed the concept of Arab or Muslim national security now that Islamist movements are in power, or close to it, in several countries; and how they should relate to Iran. The participants are not named in the paper and consequently the comments in the debate are all anonymous.

The primary theme is that Iran uses its Shiite identity to pose a grave cultural, demographic and political threat to Sunni Arab states, and thereby threatens their security.

A secondary theme is that Islamist movements need to coordinate better, both in their theoretical understanding of national security and in their actual policies. One participant notes that the UK used to be the location for precisely this coordination:

Prior to the Arab Spring, there was a political apparatus in the UK regulating and coordinating, albeit quite loosely, the work of the Islamic movements but that is no longer the case although the need of such an apparatus now is more than ever.

What is most striking about the debate as reported in the Cordoba Foundation paper is the level of sheer contempt amongst some of the participants for Shiite beliefs, and the suspicion that falls on all Shiite Muslims as a result:

Threats to national security are those that represent an existential danger to country or a population, not a system of government. A group of people converting from one religion to another would constitute a great demographic threat that could give rise to sectarian and intellectual conflict. Such demographic pockets in some Arab countries pose a threat to society regardless of how small they are.

[...]

The difference between the US and Iran is that the former and its agents are rejected by our societies but Iran infiltrates through people who carry out its agenda under the cover of religion with the aim of destroying our history, religion and culture.

[...]

We need cultural programmes that would protect Muslim societies and similar approaches to reform Shiite thought if at all possible. We should strive to encourage Shiites to rethink many of their theories and approaches if they wished to avoid conflict and play a positive role in the region.

[...]

We are not worried about Iran’s cultural project because it is irrational and holds a belief system too absurd to attract anyone. It is the demographic expansion, such as the one in Syria that we should be worried about.

[...]

It is in the very nature of Shiite thought to reject any other identity. It thrives on disagreements and differences with other sects and is constantly in search for a political being.

[...]

We are all in agreement that Iran has a sectarian, ethnic, Persian agenda and that it buys people’s loyalties and leaders in the Muslim world. If we had our own agenda, we would be doing the same.

This narrative of a demographic threat to a society posed by religious conversions, or of people of strange belief using religion as a cover to fundamentally change a national culture, is reminiscent of the anti-Muslim propaganda of the English Defence League or the British National Party. And this, astonishingly, is how the participants spoke about fellow Muslims.

Just the framing of the debate in religious terms is revealing:

In contemplating the relationship between Iran and the Islamic movements in the Arab world there is very little to prevent the latter from organising the tenets of this relationship from a religious, Sunni perspective. The real dilemma, however, lies in the wheels of history which has pulled the world much closer to a modern democratic state with very little role for religion and religious discourse. Iran, on other hand, draws upon history and past events to revive sectarian belief systems in many Arab countries as part of its efforts to shore up its political influence through religious sectarianism.

A definition of national security that includes cultural or religious security is counterposed to existing global human rights standards  that treat religion as a personal matter, but which, the paper claims, Western nations are also questioning due to changes within their own societies:

Conversely, should we adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principles of democracy and UN resolutions whose own Enlightenment project championed faith as a purely personal matter. It is worth noting that countries like France, the US and Britain are revisiting their own Enlightenment-based modes of thinking due to a firm belief that these modes have negatively impacted their national security.

According to one participant, Western countries are coming to accept the concept of “cultural security” as a result of  immigration:

Democratic countries usually avoid references to cultural security allowing for more individual freedoms, what Western politicians fondly refer to as “the Western way of life”. A sudden realisation that local cultures are losing ground to immigrant cultures and religions has prompted Europe and the US to reconsider their original position on the matter especially in light of the  fact that most Westerners are not very keen on the religious aspects of their identities.

Iran, the paper claims, has wrought demographic and religious changes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Turkey, all examples of its threat to “Arab national security”. Furthermore, it has gained “strategic victories” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Yemen and eastern Saudi Arabia, which is “almost under the sway of the Iranian government.”

Some participants warned that it would be a mistake to treat Iran as an equal threat to Israel and the United States, but others argue that it poses an even greater threat than those two traditional enemies, precisely because its threat is cultural and religious. One relays a remark from an Iraqi military leader that while the US was an occupying force in Iraq, “the bigger threat comes from Iran which has sought to change the cultural and religious identity of Iraq by gradually controlling all its institutions.”

Others warned that the political realities of leadership mean that Islamist movements, and particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, have to find a way to engage with Iran. Last month’s revival of direct flights between Cairo and Tehran, after a break of 34 years, is one example of this.

A couple of participants made the excuse for Iran that it has fallen for a Western trap to sow hatred between Sunnis and Shiites, but others argued that Iran knowingly colludes with Western countries, and even Israel, “to launch attacks against Arab and Muslim countries to alter their religious identities.”

It was not always this way. Twenty years ago, in November 1993, the now-defunct Muslim Parliament held a conference in London on ‘Bosnia and the Global Islamic Movement’, a concept with Iran at its heart. Kalim Siddiqui, who ran the Muslim Parliament, was a strong supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran and is even credited with having come up with the idea of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. In the Muslim Parliament’s own account, at the conference:

Hizbullah stood shoulder to shoulder to FIS, Al-Nahda of Tunisia stood alongside PAS from Malaysia; and the Sudanese Ikhwan stood alongside those from revolutionary Iran. Representatives from the Islamic Movement of Bosnia and the Balkan republics were also present in force, together with those from the US and Canada across to Central Asia and South Africa…The conference was quite truly a microcosm of the Ummah.

The collapse of this unity is best illustrated by the report in last week’s Times (£) that Hamas fighters in Damascus are training the Free Syrian Army to bring down President Assad of Syria, while Hizbollah sends increasing numbers of fighters to defend his rule. Behind both stand the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, respectively.

Any reduction in the global influence of Iran is to be welcomed. Iranian state media routinely promotes vile antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, while their foreign policy includes terrorism against disapora Jewish communities. But opposition to Iranian policy should never stretch to this kind of religious bigotry. One participant in the Cordoba-run debate pointed out that “The raison d’etre of the Islamic Movement is essentially political”. This is true; and in this form it represents a type of politics with intolerance at its core.

Below is the Thought For The Day by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks as broadcast this morning on BBC Radio 4: -  

This coming Sunday is Yom HaShoah, the day we in the Jewish community observe our Holocaust Remembrance Day. And this year it will coincide with the seventieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable moments of that long dark night: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The Nazis deliberately timed some of their worst programmes of mass murder to take place on Jewish festivals, as a way of killing not only Jews but also Jewish faith. So they planned to liquidate the ghetto and murder all its inhabitants on Passover 1943, to prove on the Jewish festival of freedom that the God of freedom did not exist.

Somehow Jews within the ghetto heard about this in advance, and though they were weakened by starvation and disease, and had only a handful of weapons, they determined on a collective act of defiance. They knew that, surrounded by the German army, they couldn’t win, but they held out for a month, and sporadic fighting continued for another three weeks. It was a turning point in Jewish history.

Great rabbis in the ghetto supported the Uprising. They said: this persecution is different from any other in Jewish history. In the past, Jews were persecuted by people who wanted them to convert. So Jews were willing to go to their deaths as martyrs rather than betray their faith. But the Nazis did not want Jews to convert. They wanted them to die. So, said the rabbis, we must defy them by refusing to die, by fighting for the right to live.

They knew that almost all of them would die anyway, but they wanted to make a protest in the name of life, and they did so with immense courage.

After the Holocaust, Jews, and much of the world, vowed, “Never again.” Yet in the last few years antisemitism has returned to Europe, from Greece in the south to Norway in the north, from France in the west to Russia in the east. Nothing like what it was in the past, yet enough to make Jews fear what the future may bring.

Antisemitism matters not because it is an assault on Jews but because it’s an assault on humanity. Jews were hated because they were a minority and because they were different. But we’re all different, and any group may one day find itself a minority. It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Hitler.

Which is why we must learn to fight hate together.  We owe the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto no less.