Back in 1996, Hizb ut Tahrir’s Khalifah magazine ran a story about a pipeline running from Egypt to Israel. Because they were writing about Israel and natural gas, a hilarious headline suggested itself:
Egypt Considers ‘Gassing’ The Jews !
Israel and Egypt are considering building a pipeline to bring natural gas from Egypt to Israel. Among companies developing the Egyptian gas fields is Amoco. At least two other U.S. companies, Brooklyn Gas and Enserch, are said to be interested in building the Israeli portion of the pipeline.
… MORE WEALTH OF THE ISLAMIC UMMAH IS TO BE HANDED OVER TO HER ENEMIES BY THE EXISTING PUPPETS.
In 1996, Hizb ut Tahrir was relatively low profile, and certainly not subject to the sort of scrutiny which it has faced over the last few years. Jokes about the Holocaust and extermination camps were safe to make.
By 2008, things had changed slightly for Hizb ut Tahrir. They had spent the last few years working hard to remove the evidence of their past genocidal racism from their websites, set up a series of front organisations to create the impression that they were respectable moderate interlocutors for ordinary Muslims, held meetings in the House of Commons and so on. Khalifah’s was also remodelled, and given a makeover.
Nevertheless, when they covered the story in a this month’s Khalifah magazine, they took the opportunity to run the “gassing” joke:
MUBARAK GASSES GAZA
A pipeline supplying Israel with Egyptian natural gas for the first time began flowing May 1, state-owned Israel Electric Corp. said. In the first stage of the deal, signed in 2005 with East Mediterranean Gas Co., the gas will be delivered to power plants in Ashdod and Tel Aviv and will enable Israel Electric to increase electricity production from natural gas. Israel will receive an annual supply of 1.7 billion cubic meters of Egyptian natural gas over 20 years. At the same time the Israeli fuel blockade of Gaza means that over 1 million remain at grave risk.
Because if you’re Hizb ut Tahrir, there’s nothing so funny as a joke about gas and Jews!
