I make no secret of the fact that I dislike the ideology of Islam. I dislike it because of what it does to individuals and societies. I dislike seeing nations and cultures, such as that of Pakistan, places that could be better than they are, but which have been culturally, spiritually and economically retarded by the ideology of Islam. Islam is a waste of precious humanity that could be doing better things with its existence. Unless a nation takes a supreme effort to curtail the more negative aspects of this ideology, as is the case in some of the Gulf States, Islam curtails all forms of growth in a society. Part of the reason why places like Dubai are relatively peaceful with regards to Islamic extremism is because the authorities there treat Islamic extremism as the obvious threat that it is.
My dislike of Islam doesn’t extend to individual Moslems and I hold that view because when you encounter a Moslem you have no idea what that particular Moslem is. On first encounter you have no information to say whether this particular Moslem is an extremist or crypto-extremist or a member of one of the minority peaceable sects of Islam or whether that individual Moslem is a potential ex-Moslem screaming to get out of their spiritual prison. I remember the Biblical story of Abraham and Sarah and their hospitality to guests who turned out to be Angels in disguise, therefore until I talk someone, whether they are Moslem or not, in order to gauge their views I would have no idea whether they are friend or foe, an angel or something much darker.
However there are a few Moslems out there and I speak of individuals such as Dr Taj Hargey or the ‘Imam of Peace’ or today’s featured individual Dr Rakib Ehsan who are such decent individuals that they can make me want to dance around my kitchen singing ‘Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu’. Decency comes in many forms, including in the form of decent Moslem individuals. These are the people who have taken the sow’s ear of Islam and have fashioned as close an approximation to a silk purse as they can with it and that action at least in my view commands respect.
Dr Ehsan has, in his writings, often shown concern about the rise of Islamic extremism and the failures of integration and the promulgation and acceptance by authority of some rather troubling forms of Islam. His writings on these subjects make him one of my ‘must read’ writers whenever I see his tagline.
However, in an article in Spiked Magazine Dr Ehsan has turned his attention towards something that many people have ignored, either because they don’t know or understand it or they are deliberately ignoring it and that is Islamic Jew hatred. Dr Ehsan posed the question about what can moderate Moslems do to fight back against the Jew hatred that is embedded in too many Islamic communities? Dr Ehsan then said:
*We have known of this threat for too long. Back in 2020, I warned that while the UK had then yet to suffer a lethal Islamist terrorist attack specifically targeting Jews, there was no room for complacency.
There had long been warning signs. Back in July 2012, married couple Mohammed Sajid Khan and Shasta Khan were both jailed for planning terror attacks on Jewish targets in Greater Manchester. After a domestic dispute at their home, police discovered a stash of terror-related material which included beheading videos, Islamist propaganda glorifying Osama bin Laden, and bomb-making manuals. Another married couple, Ummarayiat Mirza and Madihah Taheer, were both sentenced to prison in December 2017 for plotting a terror attack in Birmingham. Targets included a city-centre synagogue.*
Many of us have been aware of the problem of Islamic Jew hatred for years and have watched this issue increase in seriousness as time has gone by. Lots of people and organisations have warned about Islamic Jew hatred in the United Kingdom but to very little positive end. Voices such as those of Tommy Robinson, the British Jewish political Right, various Israelis, political commentators such as Douglas Murray and many more have spoken up but have been ignored by both Government and the British Jewish Establishment. Others have not just been ignored they’ve been silenced. The representative body for British Jews the Board of Deputies has on occasion silenced British Jews who have been vehemently critical of Islam and its Jew hatred by removing them from the Board whilst at the same time using resources extracted from the Jewish community to whine loudly and publicly about ‘Islamophobia’. I myself was subjected to a quasi-Herem (exclusion) from one synagogue for expressing cynicism about interfaith work with Moslems and pointing out the issue of Islamic Jew hatred. I was in the position of being allowed to attend services but not contribute to internal political discussion. In effect I could pray but not warn others of great dangers to Jews.
Dr Ehsan also points out that the entire British Moslem community should not be held accountable for the jihadist nutters in their midst. That is a reasonable position to take as there are going to be many Moslems whose views and lives are as far as they could possibly be from those of the jihadis. In addition Dr Ehsan points out that other factors outside of the Moslem community have played a part in increasing the danger of jihadism both to the general public as a whole and with regards to the specific threat to Jews. Dr Ehsan said that Britain’s dysfunctional migration system has allowed into the UK too many people who should not be here and hold incompatible views to the rest of us and policing agencies have failed to get to grips with what is now in my view clearly an enemy within. Too often those who should be stamped down on by the police and justice system are instead indulged. This is especially notable in the case of the perpetrator of the Manchester Synagogue Atrocity who was on bail accused of rape at the time he carried out his attack. If he’d been remanded in custody for this alleged rape, then he would not have had the opportunity to carry out this attack at this time. Dr Ehsan also said that those Moslems in Britain who had reported Islamic extremism concerns have also not been well served.
Dr Ehsan said:
*Part of the problem is that the authorities haven’t listened to British Muslims when they have raised the alarm over Islamist extremism. Before carrying out the Manchester Arena suicide bombing in May 2017, Islamist terrorist Salman Abedi was banned from a mosque for his pro-ISIS views. Relatives and members of the local community warned the authorities of Abedi’s radical beliefs, but to no avail.
This is not a surprise. The British state is not equipped to hear the concerns of ordinary British Muslims about the threat in our midst. State-sponsored multiculturalism has tended to treat the more vocal, assertive and extremist elements of our communities as the authentic voice of Muslims – as our so-called community leaders. *
Dr Ehsan has hit on a very big problem that has been created by the British Establishment regarding Islam. It has indeed treated the loudmouths and extremists as being representatives of ‘authentic’ Islam and treated the ordinary loyal and law abiding ‘Joe Mohammed From the Tyre Shop’ types as inauthentic. This has empowered Islamic extremists and sidelined every other sort of Moslem including those who are as horrified by Islamic extremism as anyone else in Britain would be.
Whilst I agree with Dr Ehsan that Jew hatred is not just a Moslem problem as there has always been and always will be those who irrationally hate Jews, it’s one of those negative constants in British society. However we should not ignore or minimise the fact that the vast bulk of Jew hatred in modern Britain and the increase in violent Jew hatred has been brought to the UK by Islam and that this Islamic Jew hatred has been supported by the wilder shores of the political Left.
After the Manchester Synagogue Atrocity we cannot afford to ignore the problem of Islamic Jew hatred in Britain any more. We do not have the luxury of lying back and allowing us to continue to be led as a Jewish community by those who are more concerned about expressions of ‘Islamophobia’ than the danger of nutcases pumped up on extremist readings of Islamic theology taking their fantasies of harming Jews and turning them into reality. For at least twenty years the security situation for British Jews has got more and more difficult. Synagogues and Jewish schools have had to invest more time and more money into security, we’ve also seen more and more physical attacks on Jews that have carried out by Moslems or Islam-aligned Leftists and not those from the traditional bogeyman of the ‘far right’. It’s time for a change of mind, it’s time for honesty about where the Jew hate problems are coming from and it’s time for British Jews not to be cowed into silence by those who wish to protect their own personal or communal ideologies instead of the wider British Jewish community.
To those outside of the British Jewish community I say this: Don’t ever think that the hatred felt by too many of the followers of Islam for Jews will stop with Jews, it won’t. If you are a Christian, a Hindu, a Sikh, an Atheist, a woman, an LGB person or just anyone who wants to see a free and functioning society, then radical Islam will be coming for YOU after they’ve finished with the Jews in Britain.
This terrible situation in the UK can be turned around, it doesn’t have to end with Britain turning into Lebanon. The problem can be, if not solved but significantly ameliorated, by securing Britain’s borders, being more choosy whom we allow in, ceasing the constant Islamopandering by police forces and government department and agencies along with being more on the side of those Moslems who are aligned with the rest of us regarding the issue of Islamic extremism. The Manchester Synagogue Atrocity was the wake up call we never hoped to have heard and like the sound of the Shofar at Rosh Hashanah is a call that demands that we pay attention. Islamic Jew hatred is not going to go away of its own accord or by naive interfaith activities, it will only go away if it is robustly countered by everyone in Britain.
Link
Dr Ehsan’s piece at Spiked Magazine
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/10/06/the-threat-of-islamist-anti-semitism-is-too-lethal-to-ignore