Sadly, the Beth Israel antisemitic terrorist attack has seen Jewish communities targeted because they are Jews.
British Islamist twitter feeds are playing out sympathy for the convicted extremist Aafia Siddiqui, rather than focusing on the antisemitic hostage taking of four people at the Beth Israel synagogue in Texas. This alone demonstrates the callous, political and highly inflammatory nature of Islamists.
When Aafia Siddiqui was tried in the U.S. in 2010, her outbursts were full of antisemitism, something that Islamists fail to mention in their perverse sympathies with her. During her trial Siddiqui demanded that Jews be excluded from the jury trial in New York.
Siddiqui’s antisemitism was more than just an outburst. It was systemic and encompassed a mindset that thought of Jews as being part of a global elite that was out to get Muslims and people like her. In an outburst in federal court in Manhattan in 2010 she called for jurors to undergo genetic testing saying, “If they have a Zionist or Israeli background….they are all mad at me”. She went onto say that, “I have a feeling everyone here is them [sic] – subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair”, she told the judge.
Siddiqui was educated in the United States and had a PhD from Brandeis University. She married an Al-Qaeda operative, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, (known as Ammar al-Balluchi), who was a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and a cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
Muslims Against Antisemitism has consistently spoken out against Islamist antisemitism, yet even after the latest antisemitic hostage taking attack, few fellow British Muslims are willing to speak out. Yet, unless our fellow co-religionists speak out, Islamist hate will be seen as being normalised in parts of the community, instead of a viral toxin that needs to be eradicated.
Islam teaches us to protect life. At the core of Islam, is a belief in the functional nature of life and thereby the sanctity of life itself. By allowing Islamists to spread their hate, we also debase the value of life, our care for others and Islam itself.
Read More: We Muslims Need to Talk About Muslim Antisemitism