OPINION: Successive Governments have allowed extremists to wreck Muslim–Jewish relations
A series of senior ministers have been warned over the years of the effect of extremist organisations on Jewish-Muslim relations in this country. Will the government now finally act?
In 2019, a Muslim community centre, or Markaz, in north-west London planned an exhibition, together with Jewish interfaith activists, focusing on Muslim Albanians who had defied their Nazi occupiers and had saved Jews during the Holocaust.
That exhibition never took place.
Why? Well, 5 Pillars, an extremist ‘news’ outlet operating within the Muslim community, heard about it and published pieces bitterly condemning it.
The story was picked up by the Iranian State’s English-language channel, Press TV, as well as its Mehr News Agency – hardly surprising, as the editor in chief of 5 Pillars, Roshan Salih, was also working for Press TV in London.
The community centre followed a specific stream of Shia Islam which has long been subject to repression from the Ayatollahs, and there were fears that the Iran-based relatives of members of the Markaz would be directly persecuted as a result of the exhibition. So it was cancelled.
It is hard to describe an organisation which has done more to damage interfaith cohesion between Jews and Muslims in this country than 5 Pillars. In 2018, as reported by CST at the time, Salih gave a speech in which he set out his views on efforts to strengthen inter-community cohesion between Jews and Muslims in the UK. Of course, he described it rather differently, referring to it as “Zionist infiltration of Muslim communities… happening in our mosques and happening in our institutions generally.”
He added that “if you read unfortunately papers like the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle you get an insight into Israel’s strategy in the UK and their strategy vis-a-vis the Muslim community is to make links with the Muslim community for two goals, one is to make them shut up about Israel and secondly to drive a wedge between different parts of that community.”
It is hard to describe an organisation which has done more to damage interfaith cohesion between Jews and Muslims in this country than 5 Pillars
5 Pillars has continued this behaviour for some time. As detailed by CST, in 2019, an event due to be held at a mosque in Harrow featuring a Liberal rabbi was cancelled, after Salih called for activists to campaign against her presence. Last year, Phil Rosenberg, then running to be president of the Board of Deputies, attended an Iftar event at a mosque in Brent. 5 Pillars ran a video segment titled, “Central Mosque of Brent invites Zionist to Iftar”.
The aim of such actions is obvious; it was set out by Salih in 2019: “Zionists must be no-platformed in every mosque and Islamic centre in this country.”
But 5 Pillars has gone further – much further. It hosts a podcast called ‘Blood Brothers’, presided over by the organisation’s deputy editor, Dilly Hussain. Among the guests of ‘Blood Brothers’ over the last couple of years have been a rogues’ gallery of some of the UK’s most notorious far-right and Neo-Nazi figures. Nick Griffin, former leader of the BNP. Mark Collett, leader of the Neo-Nazi ‘Patriotic Alternative’ group. Jayda Fransen, former deputy leader of Britain First.
The press regulator which 5 Pillars had signed up to, Impress, rapped the organisation on the knuckles for some of these appearances. Jewish News reported last November about how Impress had ruled that in the ‘Blood Brothers’ interview with Fransen, she had made “unchallenged assertions that Jews were responsible for Pornhub, for ‘the abortion industry’ and for ‘the LGBTQPZ plus agenda’, and that there was a ‘disproportionate number of Jews occupying positions of authority’, had the effect of perpetuating a narrative of prejudice against Jewish people”, and said it considered that “the lack of challenge by the interviewer to the claims enabled the interviewee to encourage hatred or abuse of Jews”.
In November, 5 Pillars published an article which began by saying: “5Pillars has decided to leave the media regulator Impress because we do not want non-Muslims who do not share our values to have editorial control over our content.”
I want to stress this, because I believe it needs to be said frankly if it is to stand the slightest chance of people paying attention to it: In the last couple of years we have effectively been seeing, in front of our eyes, attempts to create a Neo-Nazi-Islamist alliance, united by a mutual loathing of “Zionism”.
Successive governments have been well-aware of what 5 Pillars and a variety of other aligned organisations are doing. I worked for the Board of Deputies for more than six years, latterly serving as its director of public affairs, and I can tell you that numerous secretaries of state – both home secretaries and communities secretaries – were informed and warned about the damage to community cohesion. Nothing has been done – after all, in its actions, neither 5 Pillars or Blood Brothers are breaking the law.
In the last couple of years we have effectively been seeing, in front of our eyes, attempts to create a Neo-Nazi-Islamist alliance, united by a mutual loathing of “Zionism”
What can be done? Well, last year, Phil Rosenberg, now president of the Board of Deputies, proposed the introduction of what he described as Community Cohesion Behaviour Orders, which would specifically target the activities of organisations deemed by the government to be actively harming interfaith and inter-community efforts. It is unclear whether the government embraced the idea, but it’s surely time to bring it back to the table.
The British Jewish community is not immune to the lure of extremism either. Within the last few years, we have seen a small, but increasing number of British Jews actively declare their sympathies with Tommy Robinson, who leads a section of the British far-right which – at least at the moment – appears to hate Muslims slightly more than Jews.
It’s worth noting that some of those people were also vocally opposed to interfaith outreach efforts with the Markaz, which was based in Golders Green at the time. Of all the ‘arguments’ put forward for why the Muslim community centre shouldn’t be in the area, probably the most stupidly bigoted were the dark mutterings accusing the Markaz of links to Al Qaeda – a terror group which loathes Shia Muslims and whose affiliates have carried out multiple attacks on Shias.
The so-called “logic” appeared to be that ‘Al Qaeda are terrorists, Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism, these are Muslims, therefore they must be connected to Al Qaeda’. With such a basic lack of thinking skills, it’s no wonder some have since latched on to a thug like Robinson.
In the last few days, Robinson has been amplified by the Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, who appears to be unable of moving beyond the remarkably flawed concept that ‘my enemies’ enemy is my friend’ – ironically, the same thought process employed by the Blood Brothers podcast.
The primary difference, I would say, is that every single major Jewish communal organisation in this country has vocally condemned Robinson and deeply pathetic attempts by some Jewish people to ally with him. Regrettably, we have not seen the equivalent public condemnation of the actions of outfits like 5 Pillars from any major British Muslim communal group.
The last few days has been a period of deep anger for many in our community. There is a strong belief, which I agree with, that our community has been let down by consecutive governments who have demonstrated a complete inability to face down extremism. The government can turn that around, but it cannot afford to wait any longer.
The time for committees and commissions is over. It needs to act.
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