In my last article,[1] I tried to explain the imminent threat populism poses in the western world and asserted that Islamophobia is currently the populist tool of choice. Recent financial revelations in Holland have proven this beyond doubt and provided a strong link to their influence in the UK.
Politically-awake Muslims will be well aware of Robert Spencer, an Islam hater so extreme in his preaching that he is banned from entering the UK, a country that is not totally averse to promoting fear of Muslims. He runs a vitriolic blog called ‘Jihad Watch’ which received funding of nearly $1 million from the double-speak titled ‘David Horowitz Freedom Center’.[2] It has now emerged that David Horowitz has been one of the largest funders of Geert Wilders of the equally double-speak titled ‘People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy’,[3] currently leading in Dutch polls. In 2015 alone Horowitz donated $120,000, more than enough to run a political party with only one member in a country you can cross on £20 of petrol. It was the largest individual contribution in the Dutch political system.
Another six figure donor to Geert Wilders is the “Middle East Forum”. Founded by noted Islamophobe Daniel Pipes, it was cited 18 times in Anders Breivik’s anti-Islam manifesto.[4]
The principle donor to Pipes and Horowitz and onto Wilders is said to be the Koch brothers, American multi-billionaires and key funders of the right-wing infrastructure. In a two year period they invested over $21 million in groups promoting Islamophobia “contributing to an anti-Islamic hysteria in the United States”.[5] Rather than being the heads, Horowitz and Pipes are merely the paid mouthpieces and conduits funnelling right wing money into the pockets of populist agitators like Geert Wilders.
The New York Times reported senior Dutch MP Ronald van Raak as saying “It’s foreign interference in our democracy. We would not have thought that people from other countries would have been interested in our politics,” he said. “Maybe we underestimated ourselves.” Rather they have underestimated the strategic position the coming Dutch election has for suspiciously well-funded Machiavellian far-right provocateurs. This year the major western European nations have important elections and all have far-right parties riding higher in the polls than any time since the 1930s. The stars are aligning and the Dutch election next week is the first to the ballot box.
Also read:
How Islamophobia Will Destroy British Politics
“Democratic Subversion” of the Henry Jackson Society
The Henry Jackson Society and the British connection
The Henry Jackson Society’s Statement of Principles give a very clear picture of a white supremacist arrogance that seems out of step with Theresa May’s recent promise not to try to make the rest of the world in “our image”.[6] It “Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate”, “that modern liberal democracies set an example to which the rest of the world should aspire” and “Supports the maintenance of a strong military, by the United States, the countries of the European Union and other democratic powers, armed with expeditionary capabilities with a global reach.”[7]
In 2011 the emphasis of the HJS took a shift toward greater promotion of Islamophobia following a merger with Douglas Murray’s (yet another) double-speak titled ‘Centre for Social Cohesion’, and taking on many of the pro-Israel journalists from ‘Just Journalism’. According to a Spinwatch report this facilitated “a coup that led to the expulsion of most of the society’s more left-leaning or liberal members,” though in this context it is undoubtedly relative. This change of focus was accompanied by a sharp rise of income. From £98,000 in 2009 to £1,313,000 per annum in 2013, the sharpest rise happening in 2011.
Following the 2011 “coup”, a number of UK based pro-Israel groups started pouring in money into the HJS. From the USA one known funder is the ‘Abstraction Fund’ which has also funded an array of radical pro-zionist, anti-Islam and pro-Islamic deformation organisations including ‘Jihad watch’, ‘David Horowitz Freedom Center’, Daniel Pipes linked ‘American Islamic Forum for Democracy’ and ‘Center for Islamic Pluralism’, and the ‘Zionist Organisation of America’.[8]
The President and treasurer of this fund whose single donor is her family’s Sears Roebuck fortune, is Nina Rosenwald[9] the so called “Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate”.[10] She is the founder of the Gatestone Institute which publishes Douglas Murray’s and Geert Wilders Islamophobic bile. She is also on the board of the ‘Center for Security Policy’ which shares far-right Islamophobic funders with David Horowitz.[11]
The above change of focus and known sources of funding are more than enough to prove they are no longer the HJS originally conceived and cannot be thought of as an impartial “think tank”. They are beyond doubt a pro-Israel and anti-Islam lobby group. Moreover despite what is known the HJS are so ashamed of their other sources of funding they refuse to disclose them even on pain of functional death. For refusing they were forced to withdraw from parliamentary groups that were their main Trojan horse into Westminster,[12] suggesting that their donors are so disreputable it would be an even worse political suicide to disclose them.
Dr David Miller of Spinwatch says in his report into the HJS “By solidifying a transatlantic alliance between anti-Islam groups and those unconditionally supportive of Zionism, the Islamophobia network has successfully tapped into the financial and political resources of the Israel lobby.”[13]
It seems highly plausible that it could be to a large degree the other way around; that the Israel lobby has bought up parts of the right wing network and tapped into their enthusiasm for xenophobia and white supremacy, to push the Islamophobic populist narrative. They could be believing – correctly – that the more people will think ill of Muslims the more forgiving they will be of Israel’s crimes against the Muslim victims of its land grabbing. After all, the demonisation of any group serves to dehumanise and thus ultimately legitimise their persecution.
Dr Miller continues,
“The proponents of this agenda have sought to increase public support by conflating complex contemporary debates about immigration, austerity, multiculturalism and women’s rights with the anti-Muslim discourse associated with the on-going ‘War on Terror’.”
None of this is new. None of this should have been unknown to the political establishment of the UK before they rolled out the red carpet last week and invited the HJS into Westminster to trumpet the “research” anyone of reasonable intellect must surely realise will be skewed by the Islamophobic lens the HJS are well known for. It was well known before they rushed to declare the HJS as an unquestionably reliable source of research into the only extremism they go into with enthusiasm: “Islamist Terrorism”. That word itself needs to be strongly protested. The suffix “-ist” literally means “to be engaged in”, so they are using a blanket term for every practicing Muslim as a prefix to terrorism, and then claim not to promote Islamophobia.
Something common to all media reports on this was that David Anderson QC, who was the (previously believed to be) independent terror watchdog, was mentioned more than the HJS who authored the study. In fairness to the media his glowing introduction, which he penned while still in post, allowed himself to be walked out in front and used as a human respectability shield. It seems most likely that he would not have been able to thoroughly fact-check the 1000 page report before he dutifully declared, “I commend it to all who wish to ensure that their opinions on this subject are securely founded on the facts”.[14] The fact that it solely concentrated on convictions of Muslims didn’t noticeably trouble him at all in fact with no irony he praised it as defending us from people who work against “tolerance, pluralism and broad-mindedness on which democracy itself depends.”
Andrew Gilligan writing in The Times could see the benefit of their approach and made use of its singular focus. As though a study solely of Muslim convictions would find them growing up anywhere else, his article was titled:
“Terror map reveals danger of segregation: A detailed study of the origins of British Islamists has exposed a clear link between terrorist crimes and growing up in a predominantly Muslim area.”[15]
One angle that will have been deeply attractive to the government, and likely influenced their disregard of its provenance, is that this report appears to justify the much discredited Prevent agenda, though the full ramifications of traumatising hundreds of primary school children and radicalising non-Muslims against us might not yet be evident. Still, the publicity the report generated was being used to roll the Prevent ideology out more broadly to the public; “you are all on the frontline of the war against terror, be suspicious of ‘people’.” said Police spokespeople up and down the country, clearly ready with a rehearsed and unified message. Riding the same wave of publicity generated by a report concentrating solely on Muslim convictions it needs no imagination to know which ‘people’ will be in everyone’s minds.
Another aspect that I think really attracts the government to HJS’s research is that it is cheap. So what if it is slanted far to the right? So what if there are hard-core Islamophobic funders who will be expecting bang for their buck? The bottom line is it is cheap. In Austerity Britain, academic standards that would apply to medical research, specifically the obligatory declaration of who funded it, can be put aside for research of even this sensitive nature because they do not have to take the pill. They are not the ones whose wives and daughters will be attacked for wearing a headscarf. They are not the ones who are already 76% less likely to get a good job,[16] and then be abused for being in a poor economic position or not integrating.
But they are the ones who will be remembered for opening the door to highly practiced Machiavellian populist manipulators that make our fairly right wing government look like snowflake liberals. The Islamophobic subtext that came attached to this bargain basement research gained huge traction in the media and will have lodged in the public consciousness. As I tried to describe in my last article the public can only be pushed so far before they will want to bury the current establishment that “let this Muslim problem happen,” as Mrs Merkel is finding out, and bring in a new ‘braver’ type of politician that will not be afraid to take action against people they are repeatedly told are an enormous threat. What can be banked on is that American far-right and Zionist money will be at the ready to promote the right candidates to victory.
A few days after the HJS report was given so much Westminster fanfare and media attention the Home Office quietly released the official terrorism policing statistics for 2016. They show a combined Black, Asian & Other 42% fall in the number of arrests and a 20% increase of white people arrested for Terrorism offenses in the last year.[17] I can only find it mentioned in three newspapers. I am guessing facts are bad for the fearmongering business.
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Source: www.islam21c.com
Notes:
[1] https://www.islam21c.com/politics/how-islamophobia-will-destroy-british-politics/
[2] http://www.politico.com/story/2010/09/latest-mosque-issue-the-money-trail-041767
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/before-elections-dutch-fear-russian-meddling-but-also-us-cash.html
[4] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Middle_East_Forum
[5] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Donors_Capital_Fund#Funding_Islamophobia_in_the_United_States
[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-donald-trump-us-uk-no-longer-foreign-intervention-iraq-afghanistan-a7548551.html
[7] http://henryjacksonsociety.org/about-the-society/statement-of-principles/
[8] http://powerbase.info/index.php/Abstraction_Fund
[9] http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/politics/item/5706-henry-jackson-society-forced-to-quit-westminster-role-after-spinwatch-complaint
[10] https://www.thenation.com/article/sugar-mama-anti-muslim-hate/
[11] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Security_Policy#Funding
[12] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/30/rightwing-thinktank-pulls-funds-commons-groups-disclosure-rules
[13] https://www.thecordobafoundation.com/attach/spinwatch%20report_web.pdf
[14] http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Islamist-Terrorism-preview-1.pdf
[15] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/terror-map-reveals-danger-of-segregation-k33jddhk0
[16] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/muslim-names-on-cv-hit-job-chances-in-uk-report/articleshow/57006355.cms
[17] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-quarterly-update-to-december-2016
Hello Abdullah again. “Populism” is another word for majority opinion that the political elite wish to be ignored. Some of it is unpleasant and some perfectly reasonable and rational. It is democratic opinion being ignored by our crooked political masters, and it’s wholly unsurprising that somebody with your debating style should adopt it as a term of contempt and abuse from the EU, whence it came.
Your use of the term “Islamophobia” is another term of abuse, a neologism invented in order to say that people who fear, distrust or simply disagree with Islam are sick, namely neurotic.
It is in the same class as the Soviet practice of throwing dissenters (those who criticised the totalitarian government} into mental hospitals.
A PHOBIA IS AN IRRATIONAL FEAR OF A HARMLESS SUBJECT, not a fear with some justification in facts.
When I was nursing we had a phobic who was afraid of anything to do with coal. Some wit on the ward decided to tell her that I had been a coal-man in my youth. She kept her distance after that!
You also refer to “hysteria” regarding terrorism” as being “manufactured”. Hysteria is a subconscious defence mechanism and therefore by definition cannot be manufactured. Don’t use inaccurate terms that you don’t understand please, in an attempt to “manufacture” distrust.
Your style is highly-strung and verging on the phobias you attribute to anybody that disagrees with you.
I wonder how you would govern, given the freedom to rule.
watch Geert Wilders confirm what I have been saying about Islamophobia being the key for populist take overs of democracies.
“Any government that favours muslims will be voted out by the people.” Thats the direction of travel in the EU
https://youtu.be/Pi1Gfney9MM
Jzk for the author sharing his insiights and exposing the perverseness and depravity of godless preachers/ pedlers of hate lies, immorality, nonsense, gossip, innuendo. In the end those who peddle hate lies and immorality become ensnared themselves by the very hate lies and immorality that they peddled. Sad bunch. They know they don’t have the facts, so in desperation resort to noise, gossip lies and innuendo to further their godless nazi agendas. It seams that godless systems have an overwhelming propensity to decay to nazi systems at the end. God said of the criminals on the day of judgement that they exceeded all limits. God did not bother to qualify which limits, he just said all. That means the godless criminals passed all limits of civlised standards and values including terrorism and nazism…. O Muslims I would like to congratulate you on being the champions of civilisation. And God himself is the champion of truth and justice. God is sufficient for us…..
Dear Muslims – Given the nonsense arrogance and shallow nature of the discourse in the mainstream, I think it is prudent that we adjust the channels from which we receive news. I am happy to recommend Al Jazeera English, Islam21c website, ElectronicIntifada website, Islam Channel (TV channel), ‘Muslim News’ newspaper, ‘Cage’ Human Rights Org website, Friends of Al-Aqsa Human Rights Org, Quran – The universal book of truths, etc. I gave up following news in the mainstream five years ago. Lifes too short. Your time is valuable. If there are any important stories then they would get picked up by AJE and the moral principled outlets listed above. God warned of taking news from immoral/ corrupt sources. ‘Believers – If some immoral person comes to you with some news, then verify it lest you act unjustly against others then afterwards regret what you have done.’ Quran(49:6).
Godless systems always seam to end up in two tier systems of injustice. Indeed godless systems seam synonomous with injustice, which ultimately leads to their self destruction. I would encourage Muslims to do their best to head this situation off. The right wing extremists hanging around street corners and the right wing extremists in suits are two sides of the same coin. They are sleeping walking the country to destruction. Muslims are the true Brits since they are working to safeguard the future of the country by promoting justice. The Muslim call to faith in God and to justice is indeed the way to secure the future of the country. Please see story/ event below which I have paraphrased from a hadith.
A woman had been convicted of a crime. A man interceded for her and asked if the prophet could waive the punishment as she was a well to do person (rich/ social status). The prophets face became red. He said don’t you realise that people in the past (godless systems/ godless elements/ godless deviation) made the mistake of applying one rule to one set of people and one to others, and that their society was destructed as a result. The man petitioning the prohet was regretful. He conveyed the story/ event afterwards saying that he lived a long time after that, and there was nothing he regretted more than petitioning the prophet on this point….. Thinking about the matter further. The prophet being known for his meekness, and for not getting angry even under the most difficult and challenging of times, the fact that he got angry on this point, is an emphasis on the importance of applying justice, in order to safeguard society as a whole. Perhaps a parallel could be drawn with the event of Jesus (peace be upon him – may God shower him with the chociest of his blessings for bringing hte message of faith in One God to the people and calling them away from ignorant practices) turning over the tables of the money lenders. Jesus was a meek person, so for him to behave in this way is exceptional, yet it just empasises what a henious crime the act of taking usury/ taking interest is.
‘The passage of time bears testimony to the fact that everyone is losing out. Except for those who (i) believe (ii) do good (iii) exhort one another to the truth/ facts (iv) exhort one another to perseverance on the truth/ facts.’ Quran(103:1-3)
There will never be an end to extremism as long as Muslim children keep on attending state schools with non-Muslim teachers. Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Muslim children must develop their cultural, linguistic and spiritual identity before they are exposed to wider society, otherwise, they would be lost in western jungle.
Native Brits planned to bomb Parliament House and Buckingham Palace. They were convicted under the Explosive Act. If they were Muslims they would be tried under Terrorism Act. They are the product of British education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt like majority of British MPs.
Muslim rapes of non-Muslim girls and women should be counted terrorist crime. If Muslims fart or sneeze or both at the same time, that should be counted as biological terrorism. All Terrorists are Muslims… Except the 99,6% that Aren’t. We are not terrorist as west call us but we are victims of terrorist like BUSH.
Interesting we get all worried about Islamic terrorism yet the two biggest terror attacks in recent years, 9/11 and 7/7, were both false flags to drum up support for dubious middle East wars and usher in a surveillance state carried out by our own establishment. There is a mountain of hard evidence to support what I say as well just you won’t hear it coming from the mainstream media. I’m not saying there aren’t Islamic terrorists and terrorist acts I’m saying the two biggest alleged acts of Islamic terrorism were inside jobs and many millions of people share this view. The fact this isn’t acknowledged by the state and establishment types be it the media or the police demanding more intrusive powers leaves me very sceptical of there intentions. Are there Muslims wanting to bomb the UK definitely and I have no qualms about them being dealt with appropriately. The thing is they aren’t felt with appropriately they are left to fester while everyone else sees there rights and liberties eroded to protect us from these bogey men.
I suppose that whilst the security services are busy concentrating on the likes of IS, there’s also a possibility that other groups of terrorists with extremist ideologies – like the far left and far right – could take advantage of the spotlight being off them and exploit this to launch an attack from an unexpected quarter? It’s not foreigners who are being radicalised and becoming jihadists. It’s second and third generation Brits of Pakistani / Bangladeshi descent. Muslims constitute 5% of the UK population. The threat is massively exaggerated. The nut cases signing up to Jihad are second and third generation Brits (of Pakistani / Bangladeshi) descent, well educated and relatively wealthy. Most of them went over there to help Syrians they thought were being butchered by the super-evil Assad who our media/government told them was super-evil so spare us the BS propaganda. Oh please, the ‘terror threat’ is minimal and entirely manufactured. The arrests have gone up because the political climate for war demands it. We are back to the Blair years here of endless fear mongering. Most of the arrested will never be convicted of anything, let alone terrorism. Of course this is also propaganda to make people accept the snooping charter and even more surveillance.
There have been 218 terror-related arrests so far this year, a significant increase, as a result of police “running exceptionally high numbers of counter-terrorism investigations”. EVERY RELIGIOUS TEXT contains violent calls to action. Including the Bible. Its not about the text, its about the people who read it. A book about Paddington Bear could equally drive people to violence if they were predisposed to see violence within the text or imagery. Extremism is growing with extremism in regard to English nationalism. The two are not unconnected = with increasing nationalistic views which seek to divide people based on their cultural origins, colour of skins and traditions which have real lasting effects in real life, it is no wonder that those same people seek welcome in organisations that make no such judgements upon them.
Number of arrests is irrelevant. Number charged, tried and convicted is the only reliable gauge of terror-related (whatever that actually means) offences. By being “pro-active” (fishing), and investing more resources in “counter-terrorism”, the police will make more arrests. By gauging effectiveness of increased police activity through number of arrests, police actions become self-justifying. “Terrorism” has become the perfect excuse for erosion of civil liberties and the expansion of the police state. And when trials do happen, the authorities have ensured the facts of the cases are withheld from public knowledge.
This hysteria regarding terrorism is manufactured. Fear of the highly improbable presented as the likely results in an ill-informed, propagandised populace accepting greater intrusion by the state into personal lives.
It’s a con, and “DE radicalisation” is an insidious act that cements “thought crime” as an increasing reality. Radicalism is essential for addressing the systemic failures of modern society. It is no coincidence that the ruling elites are gradually criminalising ideologies (not restricted to Islamism) that threaten the acceptability of the status quo. We are all being silenced. It is nearly impossible to independently verify claims of the scale of threat to Britain made by senior counter-terrorism officials, and mistrust among sections of the public remains high. There’s an easy way to get rid of the threat; but I bet there isn’t a single politician brave enough to do what is required. So we’re left with deep unease on all sides and permanent crisis management. The worst of both worlds. How very modern.
I thought there were between 200 and 300 fatal stabbings each year. I suppose they are motivated by non-terrorist action so not taken as seriously. I remember reading this summer about Hollie Gazzard, she went to the police on February 16 to warn them that security guard Asher Maslin had grabbed her round the throat and had threatened after she ended their relationship. Next day he stabbed her to death in public while she cut someone hair. They were probably too busy to help her because of all the terrorist activity.
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
Iftikhar says “Godless systems of government always seam (sic) to end up with two-tier justice”
I’ve got news for him: most systems of law are two-tier due to the rich and important having privileges.
The difference with sharia law is that the two tiers are institutionally built-in between men and women.