Islam

Friday

Tom Tugendhat

What has Hezbollah’s Secretary General been reading this summer?

In Britain we seem to be obsessed by what our politicians are reading this summer. It tells us, so we think, about the way they’re thinking or perhaps just what they want us to think they’re thinking. Why don’t we study what other political leaders are interested in? Lebanon’s Daily Star offered us a revealing vision of one regional actor, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Sitting with Lebanon’s veteran Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, in late July, Nasrallah has a copy of James Barr’s A Line in the Sand in front of him. The book, one of the best researched and most readable studies of the making of the modern

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

At last! An Archbishop of Canterbury recognises that Islamists slaughter Christians

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has just issued a statement about the slaughter of Christians in Iraq that is both brave and perfectly judged. What an outstanding representative of English Christianity he is turning out to be – in sorry contrast to his predecessor. Here is the section of Archbishop Welby’s statement that illustrates his keen judgment. It makes clear that he does not think that Christian lives are worth more than those of Yazidis or Muslims. (The ordained Anglican priest Chris Bryant MP accused me of believing this when I asked him on Twitter today why, in common with many liberal Christians, he had remained silent on the

Douglas Murray

The three golden rules of intervention

Barack Obama has authorised the use of targeted airstrikes in Iraq against forces of the Islamic State, which are hell-bent on massacring Yazidi and Christian minorities, and threatening American assets and citizens. David Cameron has welcomed Barack Obama’s decision. There are already voices calling for wider deeper intervention; special forces and conventional ground troops have been mentioned by former US generals and diplomats. Interventions have a habit of escalating, a point that Douglas Murray made in The Spectator this time last year when Barack Obama and David Cameron were preparing to intervene in Syria. Douglas urged Obama and Cameron (and any other statesmen considering intervention) to prepare throroughly: ‘The repercussions

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

Violence, threats and blackmail ought to have no place in politics

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]I have never issued a call for violence before, and I’m certainly not going to start now. But I wonder if people might consider the following, purely hypothetical situation. In her resignation letter over the UK government not being anti-Israel enough for her, Sayeeda Warsi backed up her ‘case’ by writing: ‘Early evidence from the Home Office and others shows that the fallout of the current conflict and the potential for the crisis in Gaza and our response to it becoming a basis for radicalisation could have consequences for us for years to come.’ Let us ignore

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

Baroness Warsi – commendable but stunningly wrong

I was a little saddened by Baroness Warsi’s resignation. I like the woman; it is an odd and disturbing thing to say, but I felt I had more in common with her – a Muslim, Asian, woman – than almost any other prominent Tory. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps class has something to do with it. I’m no Conservative but I think Cameron could have made more of her: he’s short of people who a). possess a vagina b). were state school educated c). come from ethnic minorities and d). talk as if they are members of the human race. She resigned on a point of principle, which

Douglas Murray

Baroness Warsi was over-promoted, incapable and incompetent

Farewell then Sayeeda, Baroness Warsi. The most over-promoted, incapable and incompetent minister of recent times has finally done the nation one service and resigned. This morning she announced on Twitter that she can ‘no longer support government policy on Gaza.’ That would be government policy that now includes reviewing all arms export licenses to Israel? Not strong enough for Sayeeda, it would seem. It was not hard to see this coming. Not just because Warsi’s Twitter activity in recent weeks has mainly consisted of pumping out support for Hamas-run Gaza and berating supporters of Israel for saying things she disagrees with, but also because she has shown a career-long sympathy

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Look where Tony Blair’s messianic fervour has left us

While trawling down the Mail Online’s right-hand-side of the page porno strip, to consider analytically the latest photographs of Jessica Alba in a swimming costume, I came across a rather good piece of journalism by Stephen Glover. Yes, yes; you know this already. But the horrors inflicted by US/UK liberal evangelism on the world (and then later, by extension, on ourselves) cannot be understated. Liberal evangelism and, as Glover has it, arrogance and narcissism on the part of primarily Tony Blair. To which we might add an abiding stupidity, too. And a messianic fervour. It was always the case that no matter how foul the despots who ran those ghastly

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Next to the great halal scandal, grouse is small beer. But which has M&S banned?

Last year I got my grouse at M&S. The birds, I mean. There’s a little fresh meat section in the Kensington branch round the corner from me at work, and it was dead handy to get game there when I was in money. In fact, if you want gastronomic popular elitism, grouse in supermarkets is as close as you get. Simply roasted with buttered breadcrumbs…nothing nicer, really. Tragically, the treat’s off this year. Mark Avery, the former conservation director of the RSPB, has been lobbying the chief executive Marc Bolland not to stock it, on the basis that ‘if you persist with selling grouse meat, it sends a clear signal

Wednesday

Damian Thompson

Now that Richard Dawkins is attacking Muslims and feminists, the atheist Left suddenly discover he’s a bigot

‘Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?’ asks Eleanor Robertson in the Guardian today. Ms Robertson is a ‘feminist and writer living in Sydney’. She follows to the letter the Guardian’s revised style guide for writing about Prof Dawkins: wring your hands until your fingers are raw, while muttering ‘Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown’. For some time now Dawkins has been saying rude things about Muslims and feminists. This makes him a bigot in the eyes of the Left — and especially the Guardian, which is extraordinarily and mysteriously protective of Islam. As Robertson puts it: ‘Sure, he wrote some pop science books back in the

Monday

Damian Thompson

In Iraq, ancient Christianity lies in ruins. But who cares?

The Mar Behnam monastery outside Mosul, seized by ISIS just over a week ago, bears an inscription in the Turkic language of the Mongols who invaded Iraq in the 13th century. It asks for ‘the peace of Mar [Saint] Behnam to come down and rest on the Khan, his elders and his wives’. Why should Mongols revere Behnam, a convert to Christianity who was martyred by the region’s Zoroastrian ruler in the fourth century? The answer is that the Church of East to which Behnam converted had been the world’s greatest Christian Church. Its missionaries were firmly established in China by the seventh century. It was independent of both Rome

Thursday

Sunder Katwala

Michael Fallon marks century of Muslim service in British armed forces

After nineteen hours without food, nor even a drop of water, the prospect of the single succulent date which breaks the fast looms ever larger in the mind as sunset nears. A few minutes after nine o’clock last night, similar scenes were doubtless playing out in mosques and Muslim homes around Britain. But this event was a little different. As the imam’s prayer rang out across the high ceilinged courtyard, many of those kneeling to pray were in khaki uniforms while others wore headscarves. The Ministry of Defence had invited Muslim soldiers and civic Muslim groups to break their Ramadan fast with a celebratory feast in the Whitehall citadel of

Douglas Murray

British Muslims must confront the truth of the ‘Trojan Horse’ schools

The Trojan Horse reports are in, and they make for damning reading.  ‘An aggressive Islamist agenda… a coordinated, deliberate and sustained action to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamist ethos’. Teachers who claimed that the Boston marathon bombing and the murder of Lee Rigby were in fact hoaxes and an ‘Attack on Islam’. And so on. The grim details are out. But there is a story behind this story which has not been thought about, though it ought to be. That is the response of Britain’s Muslim communities to these awful revelations. Ever since 9/11 a considerable appeal from the non-Muslim majority in the West has been ‘where are the moderates?

Wednesday

Charles Moore

The Trojan Horse affair is about subversion, and only Gove understood this

Peter Clarke’s powerful report on the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham schools is confirmation of the weakness of David Cameron in demoting Michael Gove. When Mr Gove appointed Mr Clarke to conduct the inquiry, there was execration — even from the local police chief — about how wickedly provocative it was to put a policeman with counter-terrorism experience into the role. But Mr Clarke was just the man and his inquiry has swiftly and efficiently uncovered serious problems of Islamist bullying and infiltration. Too late to reap a political reward, Mr Gove is vindicated. The next time this problem arises — and there undoubtedly will be a next time in another British city — what minister will have the courage to do what he did? The Clarke

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Celebrating diversity means imposing misogyny

People talk about their commitment to equality and diversity so readily they must assume there is no conflict between the two. The phrase falls off the tongue as if it were an all-in-one package, and people can ‘celebrate diversity’ and support equal rights without a smidgeon of self-doubt. Until, that is, they have to make a principled choice. Then, whether they admit it or not, they find that they can believe in equality or they can believe in diversity, but they cannot believe in both. If this sounds like the start of a patient exploration of a delicate philosophical distinction, don’t be deceived. There is nothing difficult to understand, and my

Douglas Murray

Britain has let Islamists run riot – as today’s report into the ‘Trojan horse’ plot reveals

Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, has published a report today which reveals that an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ was pursued in ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. He has found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. This piece by Douglas Murray was originally published in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 14 June 2014: Who’s up, who’s down? Who’s in, who’s out? While Westminster spent last week gossiping about which minister’s special adviser said what, in another city, not far away, a very different Britain was unveiled. On Monday, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, published his damning investigation into the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair. Ever since allegations

Thursday

Melanie McDonagh

Gilbert and George have lost their bottom over the burka

Let’s brood, shall we, on the following report in the Evening Standard about an exciting new departure by the winsome duo, Gilbert and George, on the back of their new exhibition, called ‘Scapegoating Pictures’ for London which opens tomorrow at the Bermondsey White Cube Gallery: ‘The artists Gilbert and George feature women in burkas in their new exhibition reflecting the changing face of the East End, their home for decades.  The veiled figures feature in giant photomontages demonstrating the artists’ long-standing hostility to all religions which they believe “terrorise” people.  They appear alongside images of the artists themselves and a string of typically foul-mouthed slogans urging “molest a mullah” and

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Warning to all fasting Muslims!

Are all of Britain’s fasting Muslims about to die because of the heatwave? This is what’s worrying me as I sit in my darkened room — curtains drawn and lights down low, according to the official government advice. Dr Paul Cosford of something called ‘Public Health England’ said: ‘Many members of the Muslim community may be fasting during the current period of Ramadan. During hot weather it’s important to balance food and fluid intake between fasts and especially to drink enough water.’ One can only hope and pray that as most of England’s Muslims come from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where the temperature exceeds on a daily basis what we’re

Melanie Phillips

Do Israel’s critics think there are not enough dead Jews?

   Jerusalem It’s the moral equivalence which is so devastating. When Egypt this week proposed its ceasefire in Gaza, a BBC presenter asked whether both sides would now conclude that there was no point carrying on with the war. From the start, restraint has been urged on both sides — as if more than 1,100 rocket attacks on Israel in three weeks had the same weight as trying to stop this onslaught once and for all. Israel has been bombing Gaza solely to stop Hamas and its associates from trying to kill Israeli citizens. But for many in the West, the driving necessity is not to stop Hamas but to

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Whatever happened to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’?

Whatever happened to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’? I only ask because it’s now three months since Twitter and all other social media, Michelle Obama, Christiane Amanpour, David Cameron etc. joined a hashtag group to ask Boko Haram to give back the hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls they had kidnapped. It almost filled the news cycle for a couple of weeks. And yet nothing seems to have happened. That was April. This is July. The Nigerian security forces continue to appear incompetent. The foreign dignitaries who signed up to the social media campaigns haven’t done much more. And the newspapers, 24-hour media and assorted celebrities seem to have just, well, moved on. Still. Another week.