Sir Mick Davis suggests that by showing the documentary film ‘Homelands’ we have joined “a small number of fringe groups and individuals within the Jewish community who could, by any definition, be described as far right“. This is absurd. Whilst Katie Hopkins may not be everyone’s cup of tea, we suspect that many journalists and JC readers will identify with some aspect of the documentary ‘Homelands’:
- Mehdi Hassan (New Statesman, 2013) writes that “The sorry truth is that the virus of anti- Semitism has infected the British Muslim community …. It’s our dirty little secret”
- A recent survey undertaken by the EU found that almost 90 percent of European Jews have suffered some violence (including offensive online messages). Nearly one third of these are dispensed by “someone with an extremist Muslim view”.
- Journalist Hardeep Singh says that We need to talk about Muslim anti-Semitism‘. Nobody accuses him of hijack when he broaches the subject of Mireille Knoll, the 85-year-old wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor, who was stabbed 11 times and set alight by a Muslim neighbour.
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali says that “Islamic anti-Semitism is of a “scale and scope” that most people in the West do not understand and is therefore all the more insidious”
Organising events with speakers is one aspect of what we do. In fact we have platformed some of the social media bullies now attacking us. We believe in free speech and democracy, and have hosted speakers from across the political divide, encouraging debate and dialogue. An example can be found here.
In his race to find Kahanists under the bed, Mick Davis thoroughly misrepresents us:
We do not perceive the threat from extremism as coming from “all Muslims and only Muslims”, but we will not serve the issue of interfaith relations by ignoring what is a very real problem.
We screened ‘Homelands’ because it highlights the issue of Islamic antisemitism and extremism which is underreported, including in the Jewish Press. It includes for example the overlooked account of Nadia Remadna, a Muslim woman in Paris who is trying to curb extremism in Muslim youth and who was thrown out of a café for being – yes – a woman.
None of the establishment leadership – Sir Mick included – has ever attended any of our events. We don’t recall seeing Sir Mick at demonstrations either. He would therefore not know of the changing demographic of what are antisemitic, anti Israel demonstrations and events across the UK that pose a real and present danger to UK Jews as well as the wider population.
As the son of Revisionist Jews, Sir Mick must surely be aware of the attempts through the ages to eradicate the Jewish people. He would know that it is not we who adhere to the “Great Replacement Theory”, but rather this demographic that uses Palestinianism, a belief in ‘replacement theology’ that makes obsolete the Jewish faith, to spread its hatred for everything Jewish, under the guise of anti Zionism. It is comprised increasingly from across the Islamic/Left spectrum including Islamists like FOA (Friends of Al Aqsa), IHRC (Islamic Human Rights Committee), Palestine Return Centre etc and diehard western antisemites of Jeremy Corbyn’s PSC (he remains a Patron of the PSC/BDS) and Stop the War Coalition, amongst others.
If Sir Mick followed our work, he’d find amongst other material, a log of almost every antisemitic, anti Israel meetings organised by the collective force of these groups.
Sir Mick is the CEO and Treasurer of the Conservative Party. He is ideally placed to bring such racist anti Jewish events to the attention of Government. Of course he could also have helped with our petition to have notorious antisemite Linda Sarsour excluded from her MEND speaking tour of major UK cities.
Had Sir Mick instead paid attention to the Palestine Expo at Olympia in London just 4 days after our screening of ‘Homelands’, he’d have found on sale children’s books that brainwash British children, airbrushing Judaism out of our bible stories. Instead of turning his fire on Zionist activists, Sir Mick ought have been focussing on the antisemites gathered in London where speaker after speaker called for the demise of the world’s only Jewish State, Israel.
All of this information is readily available to those who care to Google. It is therefore disingenuous for anyone to label those who speak about Islamic antisemitism as “racist against Muslims“. And no it is not a matter of “when they’re done with the Muslims they’ll come for the Jews“. It’s a matter of Jews – right here and right now – being the target of the alliance between Islamic/Left antisemitism.
What does Sir Mick think the entire issue of Labour antisemitism is all about? What flag was waived at the Labour Party Conference last year? Who does Jeremy Corbyn refer to as his ‘friends’? These matters have hogged the headlines for some years now and the very least we could expect from the CEO of the Conservative party is to have carried out in depth research. For who is best placed to brief the Government on these issues?
Does the Israeli Government owe this CEO aforethought over and above its own security? Isi Leibler wrote of Mick Davis in 2010 “for a person holding senior public office in a major Diaspora community to indulge in crude public attacks on Israeli leaders and relate to Israel’s security requirements in relation to their impact on his image in non-Jewish circles is surely bizarre and utterly unconscionable.” Now those “crude public attacks” are focused on us in much the same manner.
We have not claimed that we are “the only people challenging the threat of Islamic extremism” or “the only people fighting antisemitism.” Indeed plenty of people fight antisemitism. But those who do not attend the many antisemitic demonstrations, nor the Iran backed annual antisemitic Al Quds day marches through London, nor any of the hundreds of antisemitic meetings throughout our country in church halls and on university campuses, ought not to rely on third party reports by a JC journalist who comes with an agenda.
It could be said that Sir Mick has used the language of our enemies in suggesting there is a risk of Israel becoming an “apartheid state”. Should the government of Israel make its policy decisions with as much attention to the impact on him as on the Israeli population – “And the impact on me is as significant as it is on Jews living in Israel… I want them to recognise that”? And he seemingly fails to accept that sometimes live fire has to be used by the IDF defending the Gaza border.
Sir Mick says in the Jewish Chronicle that support for Katie Hopkins is an “outrageous betrayal of Jewish values and history” when it is those who ignore the real and present dangers we outline who betray those values and history. One wonders therefore why the Jewish Chronicle feels the need to give space to his sanctimonious outpourings.
Being attacked by such a man is in truth a badge of honour.
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