The meeting, on 12 June 2013, used a book by British Islamist, Ibrahim Hewitt, as the basis for discussion about the media’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The discussion, between Hewitt, ex-BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn, and Guardian foreign leader writer David Hearst, was chaired by Mark McDonald, a founder of Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East.

Under the title, “Anti-Zionism: the Frontline”, CST Blog had already warned what might happen at this meeting. We related some of the overblown anti-Zionist conspiracy theory and imagery that Hewitt’s group, MEMO, had previously published. We noted that Llewellyn might be worse than Hewitt. We recalled Hearst’s silence in the Guardian after a judge had found against Sheikh Ra’ed Salah’s denials of having made a blood libel speech. (The judge still granted Salah his appeal.) We asked, without optimism, if Hearst or McDonald might intervene if either of their fellow Frontline speakers strayed into territory occupied by antisemitism.

The footage shows that Hewitt did not repeat the wilder material from MEMO, and that Llewellyn was indeed worse than him. Hearst explained things calmly and without resort to conspiracy theory, but does not seem to have directly rebutted either Hewitt or, especially, Llewellyn. If anything, Hearst surely normalised his fellow speakers to the mainly young audience – rather than undermined them.

The footage also shows that there was only one intervention against a speaker who took things too far. This was against Llewellyn, when Hewitt pulled him up for saying “the Jewish Lobby”: whereupon the meeting chair, Mark McDonald, said that it should be “the Zionist Lobby” or “pro-Israel Lobby” instead.

Any serious objection to antisemitism must go far deeper than swapping “Zionist” for “Jewish”. Otherwise, it simply becomes an exercise in how to swap an antisemitic conspiracy theory for an ‘anti-Zionist’ one. The anti-Zionist left claims, furiously, to oppose antisemitism, but swapping “Zionist” for “Jew” is advising upon camouflage, not anti-racism.

The salient moment occurs approximately 30 minutes and 45 seconds (30:45) into the footage, when Tim Llewellyn asks David Hearst to explain why he says that newspaper editors “wilt under pressure”. Llewellyn:

Is it because. I can see it in the BBC. They’re frighten’, these people are quite aggressive, right. The Jewish Lobby is not much fun. They come at you from every direction.

Off camera, Hewitt says “no”, then, “its the pro-Israel lobby”. It is not exactly clear who says what after this, but it includes McDonald talking over Llewellyn, stating:

I mean that’s a very important thing to say, that its not a Jewish lobby. Can I interrupt a second. Its not a Jewish lobby. It might be a Zionist lobby. It may be a pro-Israel lobby.

But Llewellyn won’t give it up. He retorts:

Yes, but they use Jewish connections to get you.

McDonald’s anti-racism intervention now wilts. He wants consensus, not a discursive analysis on the meaning of “they use Jewish connections to get you”. So, he lamely replies:

Yes, but its not necessarily a Jewish lobby, as in

McDonald’s words trail off. He does not say ‘its not necessarily a Jewish lobby as in the way that antisemites allege Jews run the media and politics, via intimidation, money and power’. Llewellyn gives an inch:

Alright, its an Israeli lobby. A friends of Israel lets say. Lets not be too polite about them, because they’re not very polite about us.

Llewellyn continues, asking why “we are afraid of them”:

Why are we afraid of them. That’s what I don’t understand. You know, I mean, we’re all British…I may be Welsh, but I’m British.

Nobody intervenes. Nobody asks Llewellyn to clarify if he is meaning to say that these lobbying, connected Jews are somehow not British. There are no more anti-racist interventions, not even half-hearted ones.

And so the meeting goes on, showing how easily anti-Zionist conspiracy can be normalised when people are willing to sit alongside it and treat it with respect.  In particular, Hearst and McDonald treat Llewellyn’s interventions as if they are entirely normal and legitimate. They are not merely bystanders in this, they facilitate it. The audience takes it all in.

Contemplate the following low points and note that all of them were treated as being entirely normal:

06.20 Ibrahim Hewitt stresses England football manager Roy Hodgson was right to visit Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, but asks about his not visiting the nearby remains of Palestinian village, Deir Yassin.

08.57 Hewitt says that Abraham Foxman (of the Anti Defamation League) is the only person “guaranteed”  to get their letters published in the New York Times.

11.30 Hewitt says he enjoys reading the obituaries in the Guardian. Llewellyn interrupts, “any day now”.

21.55 Llewellyn asks “a deeper question” about BBC reporting:

why is it like this?…is it a sinister conspiracy…a lazy way of looking at, you know, the fact that the Israeli lobby is very powerful in all three of our main political parties. Is it the BBC being very fearful?

40.44 Hewitt’s curious use of the word “diaspora”: “one of the paradoxes…that the media in Israel is often more lively and robust on this issue than the media in the so-called diaspora in New York and Europe”.

41.11 Llewellyn jokily tells Hewitt, “learn to write in Yiddish”, to get his letters published in Israeli media. Someone (from the audience) says “Hebrew”, Llewellyn counters, “No, Yiddish”.

50.04 A well spoken English woman cites Moses, her ‘them and us’ style is a classic of the genre:

AIPAC, America’s Jewish Israeli lobby, they are sooooo well organised. And we’re too nice. Whether we’re the Palestinians, or the British, we are awfully nice, we, as you say, go make a cup of tea. They don’t make cups of tea…they are desperately tough…Moses said that they were a hard-necked people. They are. And they are so well organised… 

58.40 Llewellyn adds more about what “troubles” him. He objects to Europeans regarding Israelis as being like themselves, whereas Palestinians are not seen that way. He says “the Jewish lobby”, interchangeably with “the Israeli lobby”:

We talk about the Jewish lobby, the Israeli lobby, the friends of Israel. There is this people like us thing…   

1.01.20 Llewellyn brings the lobby’s political power into the BBC equation:

The BBC is pressured because its part of a Governmental system. There’s no question about the friends of Israel are big in each three political parties, right.

1.14.08 Hewitt reveals his theory about the “sleepers” that the Israelis are now allegedly activating in media positions of power around the world:

Its very telling that…the Israeli Foreign Ministry actually issued a directive to the hasbara people, the propaganda people, around the world, start placing articles…so they were very confident that they had the ability, the people in place to be able to do that…said a lot, if they can just basically give this directive and all these sleepers all of a sudden wake up and start doing things. There are clearly people in positions of influence who are able to do this.

1.32.06 Finally, the last word at the meeting went to Tim Llewellyn:

The editor of the Guardian who said that comments were free and facts were sacred: was the biggest Zionist who ever lived.

(The footage link, again, is here.)

The conference was arranged by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to look at the challenges posed by threats to Jewish security from terrorism and hate crime. Over 100 delegates from the governments of OSCE participating states and Jewish community and security organisations heard warnings of the threat of anti-Jewish terrorism posed by Hizbollah and global Jihadists, while also learning about the joint work done by Jewish communities, police and government in several countries to counter this danger.

Dave Rich gave a joint presentation with Sally Sealey, Senior Policy Adviser at the Department for Communities and Local Government, that detailed the close cooperation between CST and government on combating antisemitism and anti-Jewish terrorism. In particular, they presented case studies about UK government funding for security guards at Voluntary Aided Jewish schools; about the work of the Cross-Governmental Antisemitism Working Group, which allows Jewish community organisations and relevant government departments to coordinate and plan their efforts against antisemitism; and the way that CST, government and police manage the community impact of major incidents.

CST’s model as a community-based security organisation that works in close partnership with police and government as an example for other countries to adopt was recognised by several speakers at the conference.

Hewitt is central to this meeting. He is senior editor of Islamist news outfit, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) and runs Interpal, a pro-Palestinian charity. In 2010, CST stated that MEMO’s beliefs about “Zionist” control of media and politicians, made it “unsuitable for Labour MPs and senior Guardian personnel to work with”.

CST could equally have said that no senior Labour or Guardian figures ought to work with Tim Llewellyn, who perhaps even surpasses MEMO in his anti-Zionist conspiracy theorising. At the Frontline Club, we can expect Hewitt and Llewellyn to fervently claim that the media runs to a Zionist agenda. Whether Hearst and McDonald endorse this, do a bystander act, or intervene with the occasional “hold on, you’ve taken that a bit far” remains to be seen.

‘Jews run the media’ is intrinsic to any ‘Jews and Jewish money run the world’ way of thinking. Neither Hewitt or Llewellyn would be so crass, or so racist, as to actually expound a full-on antisemitic conspiracy, run by Jews, for Jews. Nevertheless, with anti-Zionists such as these, who really needs stupid antisemites?

By contrast, there is Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party (BNP). Griffin is not attending the Frontline Club meeting, because his “anti-Zionism” is the wrong type for such company; and he is currently in Damascus. (Perhaps seeking other “anti-Zionist” allies?).

One of Griffin’s explicitly antisemitic BNP ventures was his publication, in 1997, of the infamous “MIND-BENDERS“. Its full title:

Who are the MIND-BENDERS? The people who rule Britain through control of the mass media

Surprise, surprise:

…very few people in Britain are aware of the huge influence over the mass media exercised by a certain ethnic minority, namely the Jews.

Griffin goes on to stress, “We in the British National Party do nowhere advocate ill-treatment of Jews”. He explains how to distinguish good Jews from bad Jews:

Those Jews who are loyal to Britain, observe the laws of Britain and play no part in poisoning the minds of the people of Britain have absolutely nothing to fear from us…those who are disloyal, break the law and/or play a part in poisoning the public mind – whether by means of the press, TV or any other medium – Gentiles are equally guilty as Jews and should be treated equally.  

One presumes that there is simply no way that the Guardian’s David Hearst, or Mark McDonald would dream of sharing a stage with Nick Griffin. So, they should compare the above, with this below, including the “Jewish” mentions, by Tim Llewellyn (from 2006):

No alien polity has so successfully penetrated the British government and British institutions during the past ninety years as the Zionist movement and its manifestation as the state of Israel…the Zionists have manipulated British systems as expertly as maestros, here a massive major chord, there a minor refrain, the audience, for the most part, spellbound.

…this cuckoo in the nest of British politics…

… Israel had worked its spells well, with a lot of help from its friends: these lined the benches of parliament, wrote the news stories and editorials, framed the way we saw and heard almost everything about the Middle East on TV, radio and in the press. History, the Bible, Nazi Germany’s slaughter of the Jews, Russian pogroms, the Jewish narrative relayed and parlayed through a thousand books, films, TV plays and series, radio programmes, the skills of Jewish writers, diarists, memoirists, artists and musicians, people like us and among us, all had played their part.

…the fervent Zionist Labour MPs, some of them little better than bully-boys, Richard Crossman (not a Jew), Ian Mikardo, Maurice Edelman, Emmanuel “Manny” Shinwell, Sidney Silverman, Konni Zilliacus et al, are, mercifully, not only no longer with us but have not been replaced, not in such virulent form.

… the Union of Jewish Students, which elbows and induces Zionistically inclined undergraduates towards influential positions in British public life, especially the media, the banking sector and information technology.

In all seriousness, with such “anti-Zionism” from an ex-BBC man, is there really any need for BNP antisemitism?

Next, consider Ibrahim Hewitt. His MEMO outfit has featured many times previously on CST blog. For example, here, asking if David Cameron had appointed a British Jewish ambassador to Israel for the benefit of Britain, or of Israel. Or, here, running an article that included “the long, poisonous tentacles of Zionism”.  Or, here, Hewitt’s take on George Osborne MP addressing the 250th anniversary dinner of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. And, here, on their use of this graphic:

MEMO also loomed large in the Sheikh Ra’ed Salah controversy (2011-2012). CST had supported the Home Secretary’s banning of Salah and provided information towards this end. Salah was supported to the hilt by the Guardian and UK Islamist groups, primarily MEMO, who had invited him to Britain. (Again, CST Blog covered this on numerous occasions, including MEMO’s various shifting stories, for example, here and here.)

The case was complex. Salah lost an appeal, then won another appeal and left the UK. Throughout, the Guardian acted as little more than an outrider for Salah and his MEMO hosts. The paper carried extensive coverage, but failed to adequately explain Jewish communal fears; never admitted that Salah had been due to meet with senior Guardian staff (as revealed by MEMO); and did not even tell its readers that the last judicial ruling in Salah’s favour had, nevertheless, dismissed the Sheikh’s denial of having made a blood libel speech. (Yes, that blood libel, the one about Jews needing non-Jewish blood for matzos.)

As a lengthy case study in why the Guardian attracts such singular criticism from those who care about antisemitism, the entire episode was hard to beat.

David Hearst concluded the paper’s disgraceful and extensive coverage of the affair with an article that praised CST’s “expertise” on antisemitic hate crime, but then attacked CST’s role. Crucially, he failed to state that the judge had not found against CST’s central concern, Salah’s use of the blood libel. He then wrongly claimed:

As the CST makes clear in its reports, there is a world of difference between antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and criticism of the actions of the Israeli state. All three discourses have their own dynamic. There are grave dangers in conflating the three.

Actually, CST’s reports usually say the opposite, because most antisemitic controversies in the mainstream are in some kind of Israel-related context. CST is constantly trying to explain the porous nature of antisemitic arguments, impacts and actions in these ostensibly anti-Zionist or anti-Israel settings. Yes, there is grave and dangerous conflation of “the three” issues, but it is done by those who run with wild anti-Zionist conspiracy theories: not by CST.

Hearst ended with:

The home secretary and the police should continue to consult organisations like the CST on all matters which pertain to antisemitism. But the CST should also examine its conscience. Was it wise to allow itself to stray from its natural terrain, the legitimate and necessary pursuit of antisemites, and be drawn into the snake pit of the Arab-Israeli conflict?

The Arab-Israel conflict is, indeed, a “snake pit”, but Hearst is very wrong to imply a disconnect with local antisemitism. In Britain, and even more obviously in France and elsewhere, the overseas conflict contributes greatly to local antisemitic attitudes and hate crimes, causing Jews to fear for their future well-being. (This will be better understood after a forthcoming EU report on Jewish perceptions is published later this year.)

One way of limiting the Arab-Israel conflict’s impact upon British Jews is to limit the importation of sheer hatred into this country. That is why CST opposed Sheikh Salah’s entry. It is also why we condemn the kind of anti-Zionist hysteria that we fear will characterise this meeting in the trendy heart of Britain’s media establishment.

——-

Further reading:

Pages 18-22 of CST’s 2011 Antisemitic Discourse Report (full pdf here) explain the Salah controversy and the roles of MEMO and the Guardian.

Tim Llewellyn, on how Israelis cunningly speak differently accented forms of English; and on how Dennis Ross, American Middle East ambassador “is not just a Jew, he is a Zionist”. See MEMO website here (May 2013) for Llewellyn alleging that “The BBC is now culturally and socially stuck in the Zionist frame”.

Tim Llewellyn, at another MEMO meeting, saying “Zionists are scattered at strategic points throughout British business”. This meeting was also attended by David Hearst’s colleague Seumas Milne (Guardian associate editor) and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent columnist).

He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!

A similar logic underpins a new report on the ‘promised land’, voted through by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Jews, it seems, have long been naughty boys (and girls), and this misbehaviour is now manifest in Zionism and the actions of Israel.

The Church report seems unsure if Jewish scripture itself is to blame; if Jews misunderstand their own scripture; if Christian Zionists misunderstand Jewish (and Christian) scripture; or if Jews have been especially naughty for rejecting the perfection of Christianity and the New Testament. Whatever the case, the report explains that the ‘promised land’ is spiritual and universal. It “can be found – or built – anywhere”, belonging to all people, not just Jews, and both Jewish and Christian Zionists need to stop claiming otherwise.

The first of the report’s “Deliverances” sums it up:

Refute claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory.

It was understandable that Life of Brian would cause many Christians to feel that their faith was being singled out for misinterpretation and ridicule. Any Jews reading the Church of Scotland report may experience a similar feeling, but they are not the intended audience. Rather, it aims to educate Scottish Christians, to rebuke Christian Zionists, and to reassure Christians who feel guilty about antisemitism.

For most of these last 2,013 years, Christian attitudes to Jews have not been the best of adverts for the creed of ‘love thy neighbour’. We had hoped that the modern day Church of Scotland would be a living contrast to this history, but that hope is now exposed as naive and outmoded, superseded by the Church’s anxiety to argue against the ‘promised land’ ideology of (mainly American) Christian Zionists. 

It is natural that a Christian report should employ Christian theology when speaking to Christians, but ultimately the subject of this report is not Christian Zionism, it is Jews, Judaism, the ‘promised land’ and how it manifests in modern day Israel. As Ben Cohen explains here in Haaretz newspaper, the report’s knowledge of Jews, Torah etc is little more than a “parody of Judaism…not only the delegitimization of political Zionism – but of Judaism itself”.

Beyond the theology, the saddest thing is that this episode will cause the small Scottish Jewish community to now ask if the Church of Scotland is antisemitic: either in intention, or in effect, or if the opposite is in fact the case. This will largely depend upon whether the Church shows itself genuinely open to hearing (and understanding) Jewish perspectives, or if it simply does not care.  The distinction is crucial. Misunderstandings can be overcome with good faith and dialogue. To simply not care is entirely different, and in this context, amounts to malevolence.  

The Church claims to care very deeply indeed. So, did these concerns extend to consulting with Jews when drawing up the offending report? Well, sort of, because this report is actually a revised version of an original edition that was far, far worse, but was removed and significantly amended following furious and unprecedented protest by the leadership of the Scottish Jewish community in early May 2013. (Their utter denunciation of the report’s content, its non-consultation with Jews and its impact upon interfaith relations really should be read here.) This included their describing the report as:

an outrage to everything that interfaith dialogue stands for. It reads like an Inquisition-era polemic against Jews and Judaism. It is biased, weak on sources, and contradictory. The picture it paints of both Judaism and Israel is barely even a caricature. The arrogance of telling the Jewish people how to interpret Jewish texts and Jewish theology is breathtaking.

The following week, after a request from the Council for Christians and Jews, the Church hosted Jewish leaders and later thanked them for being “gracious in their concern”. The new report was issued “acknowledging that some of the original language, on reflection, was misguided”. The new report still gets nowhere near the sophistication and breadth of Jewish views – often sharply divergent – on the subject of Jews and the land of Israel, but it does at least ensure that the worst “misguided” elements are given a Stalinist makeover and wholly removed. For example, the following have all disappeared:

Politically, the wild claim that, “the visionary concept Eretz Yisrael Ha’shlema (from the Nile to the Euphrates) was fundamental to Ben-Gurion’s ideology”.

On antisemitism, the Holocaust and Christian superiority, “[Mark] Braverman is adamant that Christians must not sacrifice the universalist, inclusive dimension of Christianity and revert to the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith because we feel guilty about the Holocaust. He is equally clear that the Jewish people have to repent of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians…They must be challenged, too, to stop thinking of themselves as victims and special…”.

Theologically, terming Judaism as “exclusive” and “particular”. These had indicated Judaism’s alleged moral and theological inferiority to Christianity.

Furthermore, there are some new and very important additions, such as “Israel is a country which is recognised within the international community of states”, and also condemnation of “anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”. (Why the report references Islamophobia in this context is curious. Anti-Christian hate or bias gets no specific name check.)

For a detailed analysis of the new report’s theological revisions see the Kippah and the Collar blog here. It explains, for example, how the rewrite of the Jonah section removes the worst anti-Jewish excesses, but retains, “For Christians, G-d in Jonah is merciful”, as if Jews, by contrast, would not believe G-d to be merciful.   

The new report states that it does not “suggest that one perspective supersedes another”, i.e. that Christianity does not replace Judaism. You cannot, however, polish one thing into being another thing. For all its added veneer, the new version comes from the same thinking as its predecessor, only more politely. The Church hierarchy have not rethought the doctrine of the report, they just speedily rewrote it in time for the General Assembly on 23rd May. Engaging in a long dialogue with Jews was never part of the plan: not for the year prior to the first report’s release, nor after the first tranche of Jewish concerns were heard.

Indeed, the General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected a suggestion that everything be postponed until next year’s meeting, so as the Church might have proper dialogue with Scottish Jews. The rejection came after the Assembly received an assurance from the Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton that the Church was “looking forward to, and expecting” future dialogue with Scottish Jews. This assurance is questionable, especially when the Reverend also admitted in her opening of the Assembly debate that there had been no such prior dialogue within the “past year”. The new report will make no difference to Israel’s actions concerning Palestinians, but it (and its process) will significantly affect how Scottish Jews regard the Church. 

The report (and the controversy) may also affect how Scottish Christians regard Scottish Jews, or at least how their leadership regards its Jewish counterpart. Never mind the theological infantilising of highly complex Jewish and Jewish Zionist attitudes to the land of Israel, there is also a grave risk of bad faith: as has occurred many times in settings where professed Jewish concerns are rejected as fake cover for Israel’s alleged crimes. Complain as a Jew in such a context and you get dismissed as a conspirator and a liar. The Church may well have to consciously reject such attitudes if it wants a meaningful future dialogue.

Unfortunately, the report’s authors are already steering the Church towards exactly this bad faith. Whereas the new report still does not quote a single Jewish theologian or Jewish authority on actual Jewish issues (including antisemitism), it now – following the Jewish complaints – includes an ugly and lengthy quotation from the politically charged Mondoweiss website. The quotation ends with a disgusting allegation, in the very worst of faith, concerning Jews who engage in dialogue with their Christian neighbours, but actually only care about covering Israel’s back with the smear of antisemitism:

…Non-support and, worse, criticism of Israeli policies, was seen by Jewish dialoguers as backtracking to anti-Semitism. That’s where the dialogue became a deal: Silence on the Christian side brings no criticism of anti-Semitism from the Jewish side.

Is this really how the Church of Scotland wishes its attitude to Jews and Jewish concerns about antisemitism to be understood?

Finally, there is what this new report says about what the Church is and is not, willing to target.

The report condemns the notion of a faith claiming a land, but it only names the Jews’ “privileged claim” to Israel.

No mention is made of truly embattled Christians in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria or elsewhere. The Church may try and defend Christians who face persecution for merely being Christian, but its explicit moralising on others’ beliefs is, for now, strictly limited to those from whom there is no threat of anti-Christian riots and murders.

Frankly, it is impossible to imagine that the Church of Scotland would ever dare to write such a report that claimed to analyse the Koran, Mecca, concepts of Muslim land, dhimmitude and how all of this impacts against Christians today. What message does that double-standard send out?

Ultimately then, this report not only risks directly betraying Christian relations with Jews; it is also an indirect betrayal of all those Christians who most need the Church’s focus, energy, support, charity and prayers right now.

—-

Further reading:

The original Church report is enthusiastically retained here on Stephen Sizer’s website. It is an extraordinary document, many times worse than its sanitised rewrite. (Sizer’s website contains many other examples of Christian pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist theology.)

Various responses to the Church by SCOJEC, representative body of Scotland’s Jewish communities, may be read here on their website. This shows the development of each stage of the controversy.

It ought not to be controversial to argue that Western interventions in Muslim-majority countries influence the actions of jihadist terrorists: it would be strange if they didn’t. However, in making this argumnent it is important to remember that jihadists’ idea of what Western foreign policy should look like is sometimes a long way from what Western policy ever could, or should, be.

Mehdi Hasan is a firm advocate of the ‘foreign policy grievance’ theory and he set out his views in the Huffington Post this week, pointing out quite rightly that most jihadist terrorists justify their actions by reference to foreign policy grievances such as the current war in Afghanistan and the most recent one in Iraq.

But a simple model of cause-and-effect won’t suffice to explain how these grievances translate into terrorism, because the overwhelming majority of British Muslims (and others) who feel intense anger about the deaths of foreign Muslims at the hands of British forces and our allies do not turn to violence as a remedy. There must be other factors that need to be present in order for a person to kill their fellow citizens in pursuit of this particular political aim. These include an ideology that persuades them that such violence is justified, morally, politically and (for jihadists) theologically; dehumanisation of the people they are going to kill; peer group support; and a whole range of other factors that relate to each individual’s path to terrorism.

Hasan acknowledges this, writing:

It would be disingenuous of me to claim that foreign policy is the only factor driving radicalisation and extremism, just as it would be naive of me to pretend that terrorist attacks would cease overnight if the US, the UK and their allies stopped bombing, invading and occupying Muslim-majority countries. They wouldn’t. There would still be hate-filled, messed up individuals, such as the group of British Islamists who plotted to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub in 2004 because of the “slags dancing around” inside, bent on acts of spectacular violence.

As Hasan rightly points out, foreign policy grievances did not begin with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, in doing so he inadvertently highlights an important flaw in the ‘foreign policy grievance’ theory:

Ah, say the critics, but 9/11 preceded both the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama’s drone war in Pakistan. They did – but the west’s support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians preceded 9/11. As did the murderous Anglo-American sanctions against Iraq.

The mid-1990s ought to have been the time when the power of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to mobilize the grievances on which terrorism relies was at its weakest. The Oslo Accords had been signed in 1993 involving Israeli recognition of the PLO; limited Palestinian self-governance had been established in Gaza and Jericho in 1994 for the first time in Palestinian history; and America was fully-engaged in a peace process that held out the promise of genuine progress.

The response to this peace process from terrorist groups was the opposite of what the ‘foreign policy grievance’ theory might suppose. Hamas tried to destroy the peace process by sending suicide bombers to attack public transportation in Israeli city centres, popularising a form of terrorism whose legacy was felt so horribly in London and Madrid several years later. Palestinians linked to the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine set off two car bombs in London. Algerian jihadists in France detonated a car bomb outside a Jewish school in Lyon. In Afghanistan, the networks of global jihad that coalesced around al-Qaeda were plotting terrorist attacks against Jews in Europe.

At the same time, British non-violent Islamist organisations launched a concerted campaign to fix Hamas as the political point of reference for British Muslims. One popular Muslim youth magazine, Trends, dedicated a whole issue to Hamas. The centrefold was a full colour poster of a map of Palestine – including the whole of Israel – superimposed with a picture of an AK-47 assault rifle. The Mawdudist Young Muslims UK declared: “The decline of the PLO and the rise of HAMAS – the Palestinian wing of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun – symbolises the end of a new era and the beginning of a new one.” Hizb ut-Tahrir, then under the leadership of Omar Bakri Mohammed who would go on to form al-Muhajiroun, distributed leaflets on British campuses declaring “Battlefield – The only place for Muslims and Jews”.

The people who wrote Trends magazine were not the same as Hamas, which is not the same as al-Qaeda. But all three shared a political vision regarding what kind of Western foreign policy in relation to Israel/Palestine would have satisfied them. Islamist rejection of the Oslo peace process was uniform, because any deal that secured Israel’s permanent existence in the region was seen as an unacceptable betrayal. The only Western foreign policy that would have satisfied both the terrorists of Hamas and the campaigners of UK Islamism was a policy that aimed at Israel’s complete disappearance. Those who promoted this foreign policy goal  – one which was never going to be conceded by any Western government – contributed to a grievance narrative (and therefore the potential recruitment pool) that could be exploited by terrorists, whether they intended to or not.

Anger over Western foreign policy does act as a proximate cause for jihadist terrorism in the West, and it is wrong to pretend otherwise. But while transitory political triggers change over time, the ideology and worldview that  are necessary to develop that anger into a rationale for terrorism are much more profound, enduring and subversive. As their attitudes to the peace process of the 1990s show, Islamists, both violent and not, have their own agenda and their actions are not always merely reactions to Western policy; and when they do react, it is not always in the way that most people might hope or expect.

The impact of the terrorist attack is magnified by the imagery: two Jihadists, not fleeing the scene, not attacking passers-by, and one of them standing with bloodied hands, bearing his meat cleaver and knife. His spoken words are clear and deliberate. They repeat the manner and message of the so-called ‘martyrdom’ videos that exemplify the importance of media for terrorism today.

Since the London Transport bombings of July 2005 we have almost become normalised to the high numbers of terrorist threats, arrests and prosecutions. We read the plotters’ intentions, we see the numbers of people attracted to such hatreds, but the accumulative psychological impact of this is nothing compared to witnessing the reality and the imagery of a single actual successful attack.

From CST’s specific mission of Jewish communal security, we are keenly aware that the same Jihadists who want to kill soldiers may well also want to kill Jews. This happened in Toulouse, in March 2012, when Mohamed Merah’s murder of French soldiers was the prelude to his killing three Jewish children and a rabbi at the Ozer HaTorah school. That morning, Merah apparently set out to kill a policeman. He failed, so simply switched targets.

Terrorism seeks to provoke fear and hatred, to polarise society and cause a counter-reaction that the terrorists hope they can eventually exploit. Within hours of the Woolwich murder, the English Defence League was playing its predictable role, cynically hyping up the outrage. CST’s Muslim counterparts at the Tell MAMA anti-hate crime group are already reporting a wave of violence and intimidation against random Muslim targets throughout Britain. This racist violence is as stupid and counterproductive as those waves of antisemitism repeatedly suffered by Jews in Britain (and elsewhere) since the Year 2000.

Looking forward, the risk of actual far Right terrorism against a Muslim target is surely heightened; as is the danger of other Jihadists trying to copy the Woolwich murderers, using the most basic of easily available ‘cold weapons’.

For Jewish community security, the primary lessons remain unchanged. Anyone can see how many people are arrested for terrorism and incitement each year; and we see, and hear, the hatreds expressed by Jihadist groups on our streets, our campuses and elsewhere. Worse, these hatreds are not solely restricted to supporters of Al Qaeda. Those who support Hamas, Hizbollah and other such extremists are not exactly opposed to the threat or reality of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence. CST is distributing a security notice across our community, stressing that security measures should continue to be fully implemented.

To conclude, rather than living in fear, we should be alert to the full picture of terrorist activities and rhetoric here in Britain, whether it be Jihadist, far Right or whatever; and we must keep on working with decent people of all faiths, and none, in opposition to extremism.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is an Islamist advocacy group that organises London’s al-Quds Rally, an annual event inaugurated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini for his followers around the world to call for Israel to be destroyed.

You can get a sense of what the IHRC wants people to think of Israel and Jews by the content of one of the DVDs for sale on its website, a 1998 film called Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven.

This film has a terrorist association of which the IHRC may not be aware, or that they may not want you to know about.

In April 2005 Saajid Badat, from Gloucester, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for plotting to blow up a transatlantic aircraft with a bomb secreted in his shoe. Unlike his colleague Richard Reid, Badat did not go through with the plan and cooperated with police after his arrest. He continued to cooperate with the authorities after his imprisonment and consequently had his sentence cut further. He was released from prison in 2010.

In 2012 Badat gave evidence in a US-based terrorist trial during which he revealed that he had been instructed by a senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan to collect intelligence about potential Jewish targets in South Africa for al-Qaeda to attack.

When Badat was arrested he directed the police to two suitcases in his possession that contained the explosive material he had been given, but had never used, for his aborted plot. Alongside this material, in the same suitcases as the explosives, the police found four propaganda videos relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The first suitcase was found underneath a bed in the front room on the ground floor and it was x-rayed. In it was found a fuse attached to an improvised detonator and then the second suitcase was found on the first floor landing and in that the police found the high explosive and as Badat had described, it was in a black sock. Also with it was a length of detonating cord. In addition to those explosive items, in the black suitcase video tapes were found entitled: “The Return”, a documentary about Palestinian refugees, another entitled “Blood in the Ibrahimi Mosque”, a documentary about a 1994 massacre in that mosque, “Minarets in the Face of Destruction”, a documentary about how the Israeli authorities have sold off Muslim places of worship, and “Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven”, another documentary about a mosque and its three different faiths that were worshipped there.

Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven can be watched in full below. It is particularly inflammatory and offensive. The narrator talks throughout of “Jews” rather than “Israelis” or “Zionists”.

Over footage of Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the narrator says [16:19]:

What on earth are they doing? What on earth are they wailing? Do they have any sense of guilt for what they have done and what they are causing?

Of the closed Omari Mosque in Jerusalem, the narrator says [28:53]:

Not satisfied with sealing up the mosque, the Jews set up a synagogue adjacent to its walls. The call for prayer was silenced. It was replaced with satanic rustles and whispers.

This last reference to “satanic rustles and whispers” is set over footage of Orthodox Jews at prayer.

There is a recurring theme associating Jews with gold. At 28:06 the narrator says:

Today the Jews are still going ahead with the war of eviction. They are using the temptation of gold in order to take what they could not gain by force.

At 47:28 the narrator says:

The systematic policy of dispersion persists, in order to empty the holy city from its people and to offer it on a golden platter to the Jews imported from abroad.

The film interviews officials from the al-Aqsa Mosque who are united in their rejection of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem and their denial of Jewish history. Akef Ishtayya, an assistant at the Islamic Museum in Al-Aqsa, says [11:44]:

Al-Aqsa is in need of clean and honourable hands, not polluted, profane hands which are stained with blood. The faith of the prophet Moses called for monotheism and taught the ethical commandments and values. But these people have no values or ethics. Where did they come from? The Pole tells you he has come to the land of his ancestors. It could not be true that the one who has come from Russia, Poland or Ethiopia has an ancestor who lived here once.

Najeh Bkeirat, Chairman of the Islamic Heritage Committee at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, says about the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives [20:22]:

Most of their graves are false. The Jews in this place, or in America or in Europe, pay thousands of dollars to have the names of their false ancestors written on these graves.

Mohammed Abu Sneineh, a guard at Al-Aqsa, says [17:53]:

They say they are the descendants of Abraham, but Abraham was no Jew or Christian, he was a Muslim.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, currently banned from entering the United Kingdom because of his support for Palestinian suicide bombing and his antisemitic statements, is also interviewed in the film. At 25:12 he delivers a typical dose of his theological anti-Judaism:

Ruthlessness, violence and immoral practices – the Quran says about them, because they say there is no callness (sic) to keep faith with the gentiles, they consider it lawful to do whatever they like with the blood of nations, and the wealth of nations, and the sanctity of nations, therefore they cannot be trusted to fulfil a commitment or an obligation.

Towards the end of the film, Qaradawi is shown making a rousing call to arms:

If a certain generation of people choose to forsake their right they will have to bear the guilt. The Muslim Ummah would never consent to such an evil thing and will defend the land of Isra and Miraj, the first Qibla, the land of steadfastness and Jihad. The Muslims will defend the third holiest city in Islam by all means and will not spare a drop of blood.

Why is the IHRC selling this film, a copy of which was found in the possession of an al-Qaeda terrorist who had been instructed to prepare terrorist attacks against Jews; a film that speaks of Jews as satanic, ruthless, immoral people who cannot be trusted; that claims Jews use gold to achieve their sinister aims and demands that Muslims defend Jerusalem to the last “drop of blood”?

According to the IHRC website, all profits from sales via their online shop go to their associated charity, the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust. The stated objectives of this charity include “cultivating a sentiment…in favour of good race relations.” If the IHRC are serious about this objective, they could make a start by withdrawing this foul film from sale.

Italian media said the sentence was more than the four years asked by the public prosecutor. Jarmoune, who has lived in Italy since childhood, was arrested in Brescia in March 2012.

Investigators found documents on his computer analysing the security measures of Milan’s main synagogue. He was also suspected of planning attacks and organizing terrorist groups through internet social network sites.

Milan Central Synagogue, targeted alongside the Jewish school.

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.

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.