“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)

The post Muslims Against Antisemitism Acknowledges the Ongoing Risk from Islamist Antisemitism appeared first on Muslims Against Antisemitism.

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

The post Even After the Beth Israel Terrorist Attack Few Voices Tackle Islamism Within appeared first on Muslims Against Antisemitism.