What a silly man. And what a horrible and unpleasant way to describe our coverage of the ELM/LMC:
Nonsense, comes the reply: there are plenty of Muslim moderates we could meet. Trouble is, most are rapidly deemed beyond the pale by our community’s self-appointed gatekeepers. Mohammad Aziz of the ELM, for one, has impressed Jewish groups with his openness and – confirming that the ELM is no monolith – attended Limmud. But he has been monstered by the anti-Islamist Harry’s Place blog as a dangerous radical. Are there more than a handful of Muslim leaders the watchdogs would deem acceptable? And would that handful be as unrepresentative of British Muslims as, say, Jewish radical anti-Zionists are of British Jews?
It’s easy to have dialogue with those you agree with. Far harder to talk to those who disagree, forcing them to rethink the stereotypes they have of your community. That’s what Rabbi Wittenberg does. It would be more comfortable for him to stay inside our cosy Jewish bubble but he dares venture outside. He should not be condemned for that. He should be praised.
What Freedland is basically saying is that liberals are as unrepresentative of British Muslims, as “radical anti-Zionists” are of Jews. He should really stop and think about precisely what he’s saying there.
The argument about the East London Mosque, in a nutshell, is this.
1. It is institutionally connected at its highest levels to the South Asian fascist party, Jamaat-e-Islami
2. It regularly hosts the absolute worst hate preachers in the United Kingdom, including those connected to Al Qaeda such as Anwar Al Awlaki. When challenged this point, they claim it was “all a mistake” and “will never happen again”. And then it does happen again. And again.
3. It has a strategy of protecting itself from criticism by persuading public figures and liberals to work with it, on non-controversial matters. That allows it to point to its critics by saying: “If what you claim about is true, then why would a Rabbi/Judge/MP participate in our activities?”
It would be one thing if “engagement” took the form of asking:
“Why do you continue to allow speakers who call for gays to be executed to appear at your mosque?”
But it never does. They never ask the hard questions.
If you want to find out about Aziz, you can read the piece here. This article was written by a prominent Muslim liberal, who has been working incredibly hard at huge personal cost against the British Jamaat-e-Islami network.
And this is the point. Jonathan Freedland, in his myopic Jewish solipsism, thinks that this is all about Jews. No doubt, he thinks that he’s a wonderful chap, bravely reaching out to the ‘other’, building bridges, establishing trust -with theologically driven antisemites. That’s essentially what he says here:
It’s easy to have dialogue with those you agree with. Far harder to talk to those who disagree, forcing them to rethink the stereotypes they have of your community. That’s what Rabbi Wittenberg does. It would be more comfortable for him to stay inside our cosy Jewish bubble but he dares venture outside. He should not be condemned for that. He should be praised.
Utter bollocks
This isn’t about Jews. This is about the need for liberals to show solidarity with other liberals.
That includes Muslim liberals, who are our comrades. When you establish links with, support or promote an Islamist institution, you are actively undermining Muslim liberals. You make their fight just a little bit harder, each time. These are, incidentally, individuals who receive death threats for their liberal politics, and who do not have the benefit of large publicly funded institutions like the East London Mosque providing them with a base and safety net.
Unfortunately, solidarity is not a word which means very much to some liberals. Jonathan Freedland certainly doesn’t understand it.
Here’s a thought, Jonathan.
If the only dialogue worth having is with Muslim institutions linked to Islamist far Right parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, then doesn’t the same rationale apply to “engagement” with Jewish groups? In short, what is the point of Jewish liberals? Surely the only ones worth talking to are those who support Kahanist politics!
A policy of ignoring Muslim liberals and their concerns and favouring institutions of the Islamist far Right is a recipe for polarisation. If we’re to meet in the middle, then it makes sense, first, to veer to the extremes.
Judy adds in the comments:
The big guns wheeled out to defend Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg against Martin Bright’s assertion that the latter is a Useful Idiot for his embrace of London Citizens!
Jonathan Freedland is the man who told the Jewish voters of London to vote for Ken Livingstone as Mayor at the 2008 election on the grounds that as they weren’t voting for a head of the United Synagogue or Board of Deputies, they should put aside their footling objections to Livingstone’s embrace of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi and his tendency to portray the Board of Deputies as the catspaw of Mossad.
I think there’s just a hint of a pattern here.
The late Kenneth Tynan once wrote that the characteristic sound of a Sunday morning was the sound of his rival theatre critic Harold Hobson barking up the wrong tree.
Now that they’re both up in the great critical circle in the sky, we could perhaps now say that the characteristic sound of a Guardian Freedland column day is him barking up the wrong tree. Or pissing on his own feet. As ever,he makes his main argument on the basis that most Jews are narrow-minded cosily self-centred inward lookers who need the inspiration of such noble grander souls as Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg and himself to see the wider picture.
Martin Bright, keep going! Your analysis of Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg’s involvement in London Citizens is on the money.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t already heard it, there’s only one day left to hear the wonderful BBCR4 doco “But they are only Russians”– all about how the most famous Useful Idiots of their day, Walter Duranty, Bernard Shaw, Doris Lessing and the like actively conspired to lie about Stalin’s great famine and trash the courageous honest journalist Gareth Jones who tried to put out report after report about what was going on, and died horribly for his pains.
Guess who Jonathan Freedland would have lined up with? Clue: to this day he ldolizes and celebrates his 1930s CP hack great uncle Mick Mindel….
