“‘I Spy with My Little Eye something beginning with ‘I’”

I apologise in advance if the reader finds the title of this article a little too flippant given the subject matter. My aim is not to rake over the appalling events in southern Israel last week, but rather to evaluate the response in this country and how our appallingly weak media and politicians have refused to identify the chief culprits behind this dark cloud of anti-Semitism.

Many of you will already know the tragic history of the Jewish people. How, after the Holocaust, it was essential to provide them with a state of their own where they could live in peace and freedom. The Levant, as the original home of the Jews predating biblical times, was the obvious choice. I am not saying that the manner in which modern Israel was established in 1948 was ideal or without controversy. But what I am saying it its existence and legitimacy is sine qua non in protecting Jewish people, their religion and their way of life. That the tiny state of Israel (the only majority Jewish territory on the planet) has been under, more or less, constant attack from various parts of the Islamic Middle East since its inception is an atrocious inculpation of a religion whose ability to conquer large parts of the world over the centuries – from the entirety of northern and sub-Saharan Africa, to the furthest reaches of the Indonesian archipelago – is testament to its own theologically-inspired imperial ideas.

Since the slaughter of Israelis close to the Gaza border occurred on October 7th, the scenes we’ve witnessed here in the United Kingdom have been nothing less than sickening. From cavalcades of motor vehicles on the streets in central London cheering on Hamas loudly into the night air, to the daubing of pro-Palestinian graffiti and vandalism at a restaurant in Golders Green, to large-scale marches in Bradford and London and Manchester (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67110119). Despite clear images of the vast majority of the participants, mainstream media organisations have been loath to mention the thread of commonality behind most of these outrages. Dr David Bull’s show on TalkTV this morning asked the question: ‘Are you afraid to speak out against what you’re seeing?’, with a large number of viewers and listeners evidently of that opinion. Well, I’m not afraid to speak the truth, irrespective of how many it may offend. So here’s my tuppence-worth…..and then some.

BOTH THE UNITED KINGDOM AND LARGE PARTS OF EUROPE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ISLAM! There, I’ve said it! The ‘I’ word that refuses to be uttered by the spineless cretins in Parliament and in the newsrooms of the BBC has been stated by me in block capital letters! What’s more, we have a problem with Islam that simply does not exist with regard to any other minority mainstream religion – be it Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism or Buddhism. You doubt my veracity? Look at the situations as they’ve presented themselves over the years. Were the Underground stations in London in 2005 spattered in blood as a result of terrorist bombs in the name of Waheguru? Of course not! Was the controversy over those hideous face veils that have sprung up in various parts of the UK induced by the followers of Shiva? No! Do 23% of British or European Jews demand their own religious code be adopted into respective domestic law (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law)? Not a chance! Are Buddhists up and down the land protesting outside schools and threatening revenge if RE teachers show pupils images of the fat man himself? Don’t be silly!

Do you see the pattern here? When you have a creed where a significant percentage (possibly even a majority) place the tenets of that creed above and beyond any responsibility they have – culturally, economically or socially – to the country they live in, then that is the recipe for major trouble. Add in the exponential growth of that same creed into the bargain and all the ingredients are there for the dysfunctional atomisation of large parts of urban Britain and Europe as time progresses. In 1991, there were approximately 900,000 Muslims in the UK. By 2001, that had risen to 1.5 million. Fast forward a decade and we were up to 2.7 million. In the most recent Census of 2021, it was revealed to have grown again to 3.9 million adherents. Now it goes without saying that not all Muslims have extreme or theologically conservative views (there are decent folk in all religions), but it is also important to stress that such a cohort will inevitably grow in size as the overall number of Muslims increases within a typical Western society. Having been joined in their protests by the British anti-Semitic Left and the boneheads who call themselves ‘Irish republicans’, the results are the rivers of depraved humanity flowing through the major city centres of our country waving Palestinian flags as they appraise the largest single loss of Jewish life since the end of World War 2.

Yet what do we have in response? A supine ruling by the FA not to light up the Wembley Arch in the colours of the Israeli state for fear of ‘a backlash from some communities’. Oh yeah! Who might those ‘communities’ be? Zoroastrians? No, don’t tell me, Jehovah’s Witnesses right? Then we have an England football manager who’s too faint-hearted to speak out against that decision. Then again, Gareth Southgate lives less than an hour’s drive from downtown Bradford. Perhaps he was worried about getting a visit from the ‘Manningham Chapter of Hezbollah’ (” Does such an organisation exist in Bradford, Andy?”, you say. “I’m not sure, dear reader. But if it does, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest given the sorry state of that city today!!”). All these politicians, news readers and pundits seem incapable of saying the ‘I’ word when covering all this. It puts me in mind of a scenario where a martial arts black belt malodorously farts at a party, but everyone’s too scared to point the finger of blame lest they get a karate chop to the throat.

Britain and Europe simply can’t go on like this. Those many moderate Muslims have to start kicking back against this nasty tide of extremism among their co-religionists. It’s also incumbent on the rest of our society – from the powerful to the humble – to defend our value systems and sacred principles. For if we don’t, our descendants will wake up in a century’s time to find that large parts of Europe will morphed into just more verdant versions of the Gaza Strip!