PRESS RELEASE: MUSLIMS AGAINST ANTISEMITISM ACKNOWLEDGES & CONFIRMS THE ONGOING RISK OF ISLAMIST ANTISEMITISM TO OUR COMMUNITIES AND NATION
“I was alarmed at the prevalence of extreme antisemitism in the Channel cases I observed”.
“Such examples I saw in Channel include:
- individuals expressing the intent to kill, assault or harm Jewish people or a particular Jewish individual
- threats to burn, desecrate or blow up a Synagogue
- the conduct of hostile reconnaissance on local Synagogues
- claiming religious or political justification for the murder of Jewish people • refusing consent to be situated in a city with Jewish people
- demonstrating an obsession with Jews • adherence to extreme antisemitic conspiracies” – Sir William Shawcross, (Prevent Review, Feb 2023)
These are the striking words of Sir William Shawcross in the Prevent Review of the community counter-extremism programme.
Muslims Against Antisemitism (MAAS) was created to inform and work with British Muslim communities in raising their awareness of antisemitism and its discourse; this work also includes countering and challenging antisemitic discourse from those within parts of Muslim communities, and in particular, Islamist groups who seek to divide British Muslim and Jewish communities.
MAAS fully endorses the findings and the opinions of the Sir William Shawcross and our work has demonstrated an ongoing risk to Jewish communities from Islamist antisemitism. This risk has developed and consolidated itself on social media and in the ‘real world’ as cases of Islamist antisemitism make up about a quarter of antisemitic attacks annually reported to the Community Security Trust (CST), the national antisemitism monitoring body. This indicates a basal level of Islamist antisemitism that remain continually high.
MAAS is clear that Islamism, does not and should be the lens through which all British Muslim communities are viewed and the vast majority of Muslims are anti-Islamists and they seek to develop better relations with their neighbours, faith and non-faith communities.
We call on the Government to do more work on tackling Islamist antisemitism and corresponding groups who seek to agitate and affect the social fabric of our society.
As British Muslims, we find it unacceptable that our Jewish brothers and sisters are targeted by Islamist antisemitism. We will continue to challenge it wherever we come across it and in whichever guises it takes.
Signatories: Ghanem Nuseibeh (Chair),
Fiyaz Mughal OBE (Founder),
Haras Rafiq (Trustee),
Elizabeth Arif-Fear (Trustee),
Wasiq Wasiq (Trustee),
Rakib Ehsan (Patron),
Noor Dahri (Patron)