Islam in Europe

[zameel]

No, I would be interested in articles showing Muslims vandalizing Jewish centres and attacking churchgoers in Europe, but I would like to see them as they happen in the news now (i.e. within the last month or so, although I included those only within the last week), as it is difficult to monitor the past. I just gave you four cases of a baby denied treatment because its mother was a niqabi in the Netherlands, a mosque burnt down in the West Midlands, UK (where I live) on Boxing Day, EDL in England becoming more and more powerful and organised, intimidating Muslims and attacking them (with stabbing incidents), and people threatening to bomb mosques in France - all in the last week. What is the Muslim equivilent in this last week?

As for your survey that supposedly "says it all", it only "says it all" if it is assumed one's being from a particular faith, in this case Islam, contradicts loyalty to one's country. So the conclusion is presumed from the start. But it is false, as Islamic history tells us - see: www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/british.htm

[penguinfan]

As for your survey that supposedly "says it all", it only "says it all" if it is assumed one's being from a particular faith, in this case Islam, contradicts loyalty to one's country.

Actually, the survey includes both Christians and Muslims. The second part of the survey shows Christians of particular countries who view themselves as Christians first or citizens of their country first.

Unsurprisingly, (and this is what I mean by 'common sense') America had the highest percentage of Christian respondents who said they were Christian first. On the other hand, (once again, 'common sense' here) the French (who were Christian) identify themselves as citizens first and Christians second.

What was interesting (or perhaps not really), however, was that Americans, even though they were the largest percentage of Christians polled who viewed themselves as members of their faith before citizens of their country, was still lower than any country where Muslims were asked the same question - French and Indonesian Muslims were the two highest countries that Muslims identified themselves as citizens first. But, again, this was still lower than the US, which is known for its 'religiosity' amongst liberals and Europeans.

This is what I would once again refer to as common sense. The findings were hardly surprising - French Muslims and Indonesians have typically been known for their more moderate views. In France's case, it would seem that society's overall secularism has left a mark on French Muslims, who some feared would be 'ghettoized' and susceptible to militant Islam (there was also a survey in which French Muslims were significantly less homophobic than British Muslims, whom the latter all expressed homophobic attitudes: "Not a single British Muslim said homosexuality was morally acceptable, compared to 58 per cent of the general public who believed it was. In other European countries with large Muslim populations such as France and Germany, the difference was far less pronounced: more than a third of French Muslims said they did not have a problem with homosexuality." www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/patriotic-respectful-and-homophobic-a-portrait-of-british-muslims-state-of-mind-1681062.html ).

Once again, nothing was surprising to me since I expected that Indonesians (and French Muslims based on past surveys of them) would be more moderate than Pakistani Muslims and British Muslims respectively. This is, all what I thought would be 'common sense'. Based on surveys, but also on reports of terrorism in Britain, in which there are/were dozens of terror cells in Britain - all of them Islamic, protests against the Danish cartoonists in Britain, 9/11 celebrations at Finsbury Park Mosque, attacks against people of other faiths, notably Jews in Britain by 'Asians', a significant British Muslim minority in support of a theocracy, the numerous disrupted or failed terror attacks in Britain in the past eight or so years by British Muslims, including Muslims who were converts, born here or given asylum and, nevertheless, sought to blow up 'their' country.

I could list attacks if you want, too, but I'm sure you would have a quaint explanation of why numerous terror plots, including suicide bombers whose explosives failed to detonate and British Muslims who traveled to Kashmir and Israel to blow themselves up, does not show any militancy among segments of the British Muslim population. Ditto with terrorism celebration rallies, Muslim protesters publicly calling for beheadings, hate sermons by Muslim imams in Britain's mosques and British Muslim spokesmen who frequently play the blame game (as you have done on this thread) and either support terrorism or apologize for it with the compulsory inclusion of 'yeah, it was bad, but....'.

As for your list of recent attacks carried out by Muslims, you could probably check any website that keeps track of this. I personally do not care to post news articles and resort to knee jerk reactions of 'aha! that proves I am right!'. Personally, I consider that sloppy logic that you seem to indulge in. No less, it helps with the victimhood status you seek to perpetuate for Muslims - you know, Muslims are now the 'new Jews of Europe' as some Muslims have recently claimed.

Attacks against Synagogues, Jewish centers and Jewish persons is out there and documented. I would rather look at overall figures, which is done in the United States. For example, I would imagine that once attacks are categorized in Britain, it would look something like this (from the United States):



Unfortunately, the stats do not support your victimhood belief. Indeed, Jews, it would appear, are the only religious group (in the US) who seem to have the right to cry victim.

Now, since you want to discuss racism and discrimination and such, why not reply to what I have said about French Muslims. Surely French Muslims have it worse than British Muslims, right? So why are there so few Muslim terror plots in France and why are French Muslims more secular and tolerant than British Muslims? Don't you want to blame Islamophobia for everything and cite news reports of how Muslims in Europe are being oppressed?

C'mon Zameel. Let's see some mental gymnastics. I'll get the popcorn out.

[zameel]

Dec 31, 2009 18:15:13 GMT penguinfan said:

As for your list of recent attacks carried out by Muslims, you could probably check any website that keeps track of this. I personally do not care to post news articles and resort to knee jerk reactions of 'aha! that proves I am right!'. Personally, I consider that sloppy logic that you seem to indulge in.

I consider it sloppy that you believe the fact that there are blogs and websites out there that propogate an anti-Islamic worldview, therefore it must be the case Muslims are constantly attacking synagogues or churchgoers in Europe. I would like to see Muslims behaving violently in Europe as the news unfolds, and I think the flip side of it (hostility to Muslims) should also be shown, so we can compare which is more frequent and damaging. As I wrote in my previous post: I gave you four cases of a baby denied treatment because its mother was a niqabi in the Netherlands, a mosque burnt down in the West Midlands, UK (where I live) on Boxing Day, EDL in England becoming more and more powerful and organised, intimidating Muslims and attacking them (with stabbing incidents), and people threatening to bomb mosques in France - all in the last week. What is the Muslim equivilent in this last week?

Dec 31, 2009 18:15:13 GMT penguinfan said:

I could list attacks if you want, too, but I'm sure you would have a quaint explanation of why numerous terror plots, including suicide bombers whose explosives failed to detonate and British Muslims who traveled to Kashmir and Israel to blow themselves up, does not show any militancy among segments of the British Muslim population. Ditto with terrorism celebration rallies, Muslim protesters publicly calling for beheadings, hate sermons by Muslim imams in Britain's mosques

This is not exclusive to Muslims, but because you refuse to see extremism in other religions, only Islam is culpable in your eyes. It is similar to what loonwatch have shown here: www.loonwatch.com/2009/12/glenn-greenwald-making-islam-synonymous-with-terrorism/

From Jeffrey Weiss, Politics Daily, today: “And we’re still left with a terrible problem for a free and multicultural society: Even though 99.999 percent of Muslims abhor attacks on innocent civilians on moral and theological grounds, 100 percent of attempted terrorist attacks on the U.S. (and, with the exception of the Basques in Spain, terrorists attacks on all Western nations) since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing have been committed by people claiming to act in the name of Islam.”

Compare that claim to reality:

“1998: Dozens die in Omagh bombing: At least 27 people are feared dead in the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict three decades ago The blast in the market town of Omagh, County Tyrone, at around 1500 BST on Saturday, left more than 100 people injured or maimed” – BBC.

“September 21, 2000: A rocket attack on MI6 headquarters in London is believed to be the work of dissident Irish republicans” – BBC.

“In a series of court documents that were at turns chilling and bizarre, federal investigators said U.S. Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins misled government agents investigating the 2001 anthrax mailings, sent emails with language closely matching the handwritten letters sent to victims and had access to the strain of anthrax used in the crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the evidence, including hundreds of pages of unsealed documents, proves that Dr. Ivins was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax mailings . . . The most compelling evidence points at Dr. Ivins and his laboratory at the U.S. Army biodefense facility at Fort Detrick, Md.” — Wall St. Journal, August 7, 2008.

“Olympic bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph — wanted in attacks that killed two people and injured more than 100 in the Southeast — was arrested early Saturday in western North Carolina and faces a Monday morning court date. Rudolph has been charged in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia; 1997 bombings at a gay nightclub and a clinic that performed abortions in the Atlanta area; and a bombing at a clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1998“ – CNN, May 31, 2003.

“U.S.-born Jewish terrorist suspected of series of attacks over past 12 years: The authorities have arrested a resident of the West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel for suspected murder and a role in a string of murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed Sunday after a gag order was lifted. Yaakov (Jack) Tytell, who was arrested last month, is suspected of involvement in the murder of two Palestinians and the rigging of a bomb that seriously injured a boy from a Messianic Jewish family in Ariel. . . . Some of his actions were allegedly motivated by hatred for gays and lesbians” - Haaretz, November 3, 2009.

“The Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday charged alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel with two murders, three attempted murders and other acts of violence. “It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said Teitel at the Jerusalem courthouse. “I have no regret and no doubt that God is pleased” — Haaretz, December 11, 2009.

“Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally Saturday night in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square, a top aide confirmed. He was reportedly shot in the arm and back by a Jewish man in his mid-20s who is allegedly affiliated with right-wing extremist groups. . . . Amir confessed to the assassination and reportedly told investigators, ‘I acted alone on God’s orders and I have no regrets‘.” — CNN, November 4, 1995.

“The chairman of the Jewish Defense League and a member of the extremist organization are accused of a bombing scheme aimed at the office of an Arab-American congressman and a prominent Los Angeles mosque. JDL chairman Irv Rubin, 56, and Earl Krugel, 59, were held without bail Wednesday after being charged with the failed bombing plot. Authorities said the two men held a series of meetings in October to plan the bombing of the King Fahd Mosque and the San Clemente office of freshman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif” — Fox News, December 13, 2001.

“Professor Zeev Sternhell knows as much as anyone about the current threat from Jewish terrorism. His right leg is recovering from shrapnel caused when a bomb, believed to have been the work of right-wing Jewish extremists, exploded outside the front door of his Jerusalem apartment last week. While Arab-Jewish violence is common, the attack on the 73-year-old historian has shocked public opinion in Israel because all the evidence points to it being intra-Jewish. ‘I consider it an act of Jewish terrorism,’ he said in an interview from the modest apartment where the bomb exploded” — Telegraph, October 3, 2008.

“A doctor who performed abortions was shot to death by a sniper in his western New York home Friday night in an attack denounced as ‘terrorism’ by the state’s governor. ‘It’s beyond a tragedy. It’s really an act of terrorism and, in my mind, a cold-blooded assassination,’ Gov. George Pataki said of the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian.’ — CNN, October 22, 1998.

“A white supremacist suspected of targeting blacks, Jews and Asians in a deadly Independence Day weekend drive-by shooting rampage from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana, died after a high-speed chase in Salem, Illinois on Sunday night, police said Monday” — CNN, July 5, 1999.

“Mountaineer Militia leader Floyd Looker, convicted in an alleged plot to blow up an FBI fingerprint complex, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison Friday” — Ocala Star-Ledger, October 11, 1996.

[penguinfan]

I consider it sloppy that you believe the fact that there are blogs and websites out there that propogate an anti-Islamic worldview, therefore it must be the case Muslims are constantly attacking synagogues or churchgoers in Europe.

I said there have been attacks against Synagogues and Jewish community centers in Britain carried out by Muslims. I didn't say this was constant, and I certainly do not believe that attacks against mosques and Islamic centers in Britain are carried out on a regular basis.

It helps to read.

I would like to see Muslims behaving violently in Europe as the news unfolds

I'll be happy to refer you to websites that chronicle violence committed by Muslims against non-Muslims.

It's also slightly odd that you do not take into account population differences between Muslims and non-Muslims of Europe - there are more non-Muslims (just as there are more non-Jews), so it stands to reason that there would, perhaps, be more attacks carried out by non-Muslims, right?

It's also interesting that your citing of attacks - including a group of 'Asians' who were attacked by both whites and blacks (perhaps that has something other to do with race or religion???), attempts to present these attacks as if they are the 'norm', or a weekly event in Europe - like how the sun rises every day or car bombs go off in Baghdad. Just something to be expected.

That's a slick tactic but, for instance, a few years ago I could have easily reported on terror attempts carried out by British Muslims 'as they were unfolding' to make it appear that British Muslims have tried to blow up (and sometimes successfully) non-Muslims regularly since they immigrated to Great Britain. A time span longer than one week should be looked at and then this could/should be compared to how many Synagogues, etc, have been vandalized in Britain over the same period.

We can also examine the number of attempted terror plots by Muslims there have been in the last eight years. How many of these were just some Muslims talkig 'jihad' and how many actually posed a serious danger, such as the four young Muslims who detonated their explosives on buses two weeks after the 7/7 bombings (thankfully, their explosives were a dud) or the convert who only managed to injure himself when he tried to blow up a restaurant. In other words, let's try and separate the numpties from the types who the authorities actually believe pose a serious thread. We can go ahead and take this one step further by quoting the British government to see which group of people currently poses the greatest security threat to Britain. Again, this is all in addition to small scale attacks carried out by small groups of Muslims that don't make it into the news - such as the Muslim who smeared fecal matter over everything to get people sick or Muslim gangs who attack 'whities' in certain 'no-go' areas of England.

But, as I said, perhaps you can also include attacks against Jews - carried out by both Muslims and non-Muslims, to see which religious group is actually the bigger victim. I'm guessing that if the attacks against religious groups in the United States is anything to go by, you will also see that attacks against Jews is higher in Britain than attacks against Muslims. You may also see that many of these attacks against Jews were carried out by Muslims.

so we can compare which is more frequent and damaging.

That would be interesting. How would you tally something like that? All crimes carried out by people from the Muslim faith? As I recall, 'Asians' are disproportionately represented in the British prison system.

Normally, I wouldn't include crimes carried out by people who happen to be of a certain religion. But you seem to have already included an article of Asians who were attacked by a group of blacks and whites. Until I learn more about the story, I would not consider the attack to have anything to do with religious or racial bigotry. But again, it doesn't look like that stopped you from posting it.

a mosque burnt down in the West Midlands, UK (where I live) on Boxing Day

Once again, I would like to see data for the whole year of how many mosques and Muslim centers were vandalized. This should exclude vandalism carried out by gangs - such as spray painting a gang symbol on a mosque or Muslim center and also attacks carried out by Muslims themselves, such as a prominent Muslim in Britain who recently claimed BNP members kidnapped him (the police instead arrested the Muslim spokesman for filing false charges) and the controversial imam of an Austrailan mosque who was caught on video tape surveillance vandalizing the masjid he was an imam of and blaming it on other Muslims.

EDL in England becoming more and more powerful and organised

So?

with stabbing incidents

The stabbing incidents were carried out by both blacks and whites. I don't know what the EDL is, but are blacks also members of it? Also, provide the number of people who are stabbed by Muslims for comparison. I believe Muslims in prison are disproportionately higher than their overall population. So, it stands to reason that they also go around stabbing people too.

What is the Muslim equivilent in this last week?

What is the European non-Muslim equivalent of suicide bombings in the last 10 years? The British non-Muslim equivalent?

[zameel]

Dec 31, 2009 22:14:02 GMT penguinfan said:

It's also interesting that your citing of attacks - including a group of 'Asians' who were attacked by both whites and blacks (perhaps that has something other to do with race or religion???), attempts to present these attacks as if they are the 'norm', or a weekly event in Europe

The English Defence League have as their stated aim the intimidation and discrimination against Muslims. I referred you to the following article: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1238213/This-England-On-trail-English-Defence-League.html

[penguinfan]

Ok, I'll see your four articles this week and raise you five deaths:



The body of a gunman who killed five people in Espoo, Finland's second largest city, has been found.

The man, identified by officers as Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, shot dead three men and a woman at the Sello shopping centre on Thursday morning.

Police investigators also confirmed that a body recovered from an apartment in the city was Shkupolli's ex-girlfriend and that they believed her killing had a domestic motive.

The ex-girlfriend, a Finnish woman, worked at the shopping centre and had taken out a restraining order against Shkupolli.

And no, for anyone else reading, I don't think this has anything to do with Islam, immigrants or anything else.

[zameel]

Dec 31, 2009 23:15:32 GMT penguinfan said:

Ok, I'll see your four articles this week and raise you five deaths:



The body of a gunman who killed five people in Espoo, Finland's second largest city, has been found.

The man, identified by officers as Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, shot dead three men and a woman at the Sello shopping centre on Thursday morning.

Police investigators also confirmed that a body recovered from an apartment in the city was Shkupolli's ex-girlfriend and that they believed her killing had a domestic motive.

The ex-girlfriend, a Finnish woman, worked at the shopping centre and had taken out a restraining order against Shkupolli.

And no, for anyone else reading, I don't think this has anything to do with Islam, immigrants or anything else.

The reports don't seem to mention that he is a Muslim or his religion had anything to do with it (it appears he had domestic issues with his girlfriend). In each of the cases I mentioned, religion was very relevant; hate crime is different from other categories of crimes for good reason. Gun crimes have become more frequent in Finland, according to the BBC report, because of poor control of possession of handguns:

two deadly shootings in recent years focused attention on gun laws in a country where young people were permitted to own and use a firearm at 15 years of age if they had parental consent.

In November 2007, an 18-year-old went on a gun rampage at his school in Tuusula, killing seven pupils and a teacher, before turning the gun on himself. He had posted a video warning of the attack on the internet.

Then, in September 2008, a 22-year-old trainee chef killed 10 people at a college before killing himself.

He, too, had put a video on the internet showing himself shooting a gun. After doing that he was interviewed by police, but they decided it was not sufficient reason to revoke his gun licence.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8435857.stm

[krkey1]

I would love to hear about the non Muslim honor killings.

I am still awaiting news of other religions being allowed to co exist as equals in the Islam World.

[penguinfan]

Ok, let's start with Britain for the year 2006. I figure if we look at an entire year, that would be more accurate than simply grabbing headlines and arriving at conclusions, such as believing that women are more likely to give birth to twins in a certain county in Maryland, www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/baby-boom-twins-frederick-hospital-123109 :

Jews far more likely to be victims of faith hatred than Muslims

Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police.

One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.

.....

However, the first findings, for July to September, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under freedom of information legislation, show that it is Jews who are much more likely to be targeted because of their religion.

A report by MPs in September said British Jews were more vulnerable to attack and abuse now than for a generation. [I wonder why? -penguinfan]Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, who sat on the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism, said it was "perverse" that not all police forces recorded anti-Semitic incidents and said that some forces "verge on the complacent". The Acpo directive was ignored by most forces, whose systems are not designed to record religion, though they routinely record ethnicity. Acpo said large organisations take time to adjust to new systems.

Rabbi Alex Chapper, 33, was the victim of a "faith-hate" crime in July last year. He was returning from a synagogue in Ilford, Essex, with three Jewish friends after conducting a service. All were wearing skull caps. Seven Asian teenagers followed them down the road shouting "Yehudi", which means Jew in Arabic. One of them shouted, "We are Pakistani, you are Jewish. We are going to kill you", before punching Rabbi Chapper in the face and hitting one of his friends over the head with a bottle.

"It was very frightening, we were all very shaken," said the rabbi. "I thought we were going to get seriously hurt but someone threatened to call the police and they ran off.

"We identified the youths and told the police but they were never prosecuted. They just did not seem interested. I feel very let down."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1537128/Jews-far-more-likely-to-be-victims-of-faith-hatred-than-Muslims.html

1 in 400 vs 1 in 1700. Doesn't look good for those Muslims playing the victim card.

I'll look for more recent reports and also faith attacks in other countries, such as France. I already saw an article about France from 2006 or 2005, that there were over 900 anti Jewish attacks, with the majority being carried out by Arabs-Muslims and 500 anti Muslim/Arab attacks.

So, not only are Jews, despite the fact that the French Jewish population is ten times less than the French Muslim population, are being attacked in higher over-all numbers, but French Jews are attacked more often by Muslims-Arabs than French Muslims are attacked by the far right in France.

[zameel]

Jan 1, 2010 16:49:30 GMT penguinfan said:

Ok, let's start with Britain for the year 2006. I figure if we look at an entire year, that would be more accurate than simply grabbing headlines and arriving at conclusions, such as believing that women are more likely to give birth to twins in a certain county in Maryland, www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/baby-boom-twins-frederick-hospital-123109 :

Jews far more likely to be victims of faith hatred than Muslims

Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police.

One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.

.....

However, the first findings, for July to September, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under freedom of information legislation, show that it is Jews who are much more likely to be targeted because of their religion.

A report by MPs in September said British Jews were more vulnerable to attack and abuse now than for a generation. [I wonder why? -penguinfan]Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, who sat on the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism, said it was "perverse" that not all police forces recorded anti-Semitic incidents and said that some forces "verge on the complacent". The Acpo directive was ignored by most forces, whose systems are not designed to record religion, though they routinely record ethnicity. Acpo said large organisations take time to adjust to new systems.

Rabbi Alex Chapper, 33, was the victim of a "faith-hate" crime in July last year. He was returning from a synagogue in Ilford, Essex, with three Jewish friends after conducting a service. All were wearing skull caps. Seven Asian teenagers followed them down the road shouting "Yehudi", which means Jew in Arabic. One of them shouted, "We are Pakistani, you are Jewish. We are going to kill you", before punching Rabbi Chapper in the face and hitting one of his friends over the head with a bottle.

"It was very frightening, we were all very shaken," said the rabbi. "I thought we were going to get seriously hurt but someone threatened to call the police and they ran off.

"We identified the youths and told the police but they were never prosecuted. They just did not seem interested. I feel very let down."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1537128/Jews-far-more-likely-to-be-victims-of-faith-hatred-than-Muslims.html

1 in 400 vs 1 in 1700. Doesn't look good for those Muslims playing the victim card.

I'll look for more recent reports and also faith attacks in other countries, such as France. I already saw an article about France from 2006 or 2005, that there were over 900 anti Jewish attacks, with the majority being carried out by Arabs-Muslims and 500 anti Muslim/Arab attacks.

So, not only are Jews, despite the fact that the French Jewish population is ten times less than the French Muslim population, are being attacked in higher over-all numbers, but French Jews are attacked more often by Muslims-Arabs than French Muslims are attacked by the far right in France.

That just means the Jewish community report more of what they perceive as hate crimes. Show us specific incidents of Jews being attacked in hate incidents in 2006 (if possible, by Muslims). Here are some specific incidents of anti-Muslim violence in 2006 in Europe:

April 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/apr/18/spain.gilestremlett

El País newspaper yesterday listed a number of mosques and other Muslim targets that have been ransacked, burned or had copies of the Qur'an set alight by intruders.Police said that extreme rightwingers and skinhead groups were responsible for almost all the attacks.

July 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/5165676.stm

A mosque has had to close after an 29-year-old assistant imam was attacked after being racially abused on his way to morning prayers.

He left hospital after the attack in Rhyl, Denbighshire (UK), but was re-admitted when his condition worsened.

August 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/aug/02/crime.penal1

An assault by a white neighbour on a Muslim woman in London has shown just how difficult it can be for victims of alleged racist attacks to prise open the doors of justice. Laura Smith reports

August 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4783099.stm

Thepolice have increased their presence in areas with Muslim populations in the UK to deter attacks after the latest terror arrests.

Officers are investigating a small fire at a mosque in Chester but say it is too early to say whether it was in response to the alleged terror plot.

August 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/5259992.stm www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article59413.ece

A 22-year-old Swindon man has been charged after a mosque in the town was attacked overnight.

Graffiti was sprayed on the walls of the Broad Street mosque and a petrol bomb was thrown through a window but failed to ignite.

The man has been charged with attempted arson, four counts of religiously-aggravated criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon.

August 2006 icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/regionalnews/tm_objectid=17601792&method=full&siteid=50142&headline=muslim-fury-on-jail-escape--name_page.html

FURIOUS Muslim leaders last night criticised magistrates after a man escaped custody following a disgusting racist attack on two women.

A court heard how jobless Daniel Thackray, 19, of Hen Felin, Aber, near Bangor, spat on two Muslim woman and then pushed one who was heavily pregnant.

He received a six months' custodial term suspended for 18 months which angered the Muslim Council of Britain.

Speaking after the case a Muslim Council spokesman said: "Society shows its revulsion at certain crimes by the way in which it sentences people.

"This almost gives a green light to hate crimes. Spitting at and pushing a pregnant woman is revolting. Spitting at anyone is a disgusting crime."

August 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/5300378.stm

MerseysidePolice are hunting two men who attacked a pensioner with his own walking stick, in what they believe was a racist attack.

The 71-year-old Asian man, who is registered blind, had just left the Shahjalal Mosque on Borough Road, Birkenhead, when his attackers struck.

September 2006 www.redhotcurry.com/archive/news/2006/northlondon_mosque.htm

The North London Mosque witnessed an attack at 1am on Tuesday 19 September 2006 as two unknown men entered the premises breaking two windows in the process and tried to set a fire. Police were contacted immediately after the two men were spotted, but they failed to act on time. The mosque, formerly known as Finsbury Park Mosque, previously hosted Abu Hamza as its Imam.

It may be that such attacks, coming so soon after the Pope’s address at the University of Regensburg, could have been incited by his remarks condemning the Prophet Muhammad’s actions as ‘evil and inhuman’ and Islam as a faith that he claimed was ‘spread by the sword’. It could be that the mosque, once home to Abu Hamza and his followers, has become a target for those determined to act on the Pope’s words by, what they believe, is ridding England of intolerance and extremism.

The attack on the Mosque itself, however, ‘smacks of extremism and is reminiscent of the infamous “wars of religion” that plagued Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, now seen as the historical pinnacle of religious intolerance’ said Harris Bokhari, MAB spokesperson.

September 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/5376254.stm

A Hampshire mosque set alight by arsonists last month has been vandalised again in what police described as a racist graffiti attack.

September 2006 www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-09/25/02.shtml

Vandals scrawled swastikas and racist slogans on the walls of two mosques in France and threw Molotov cocktails at a mosque in central Russia on Sunday, September 24, the day French and Russian Muslims started celebrating Ramadan.

The mosque which was torched, in the northwest town of Quimper, suffered damage from the flames. Six swastikas were painted on the outside of its walls, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Monday, September 25. In the southwestern town of Carcassonne, the other mosque was daubed with swastikas and slogans reading "France for the French", "Arabs get out" and "Death to Islam", officials said.

In central Russia, unidentified attackers threw Molotov cocktails at a mosque in Yaroslavl in the early hours of Sunday, but the building did not catch fire, the head of a local Muslim organization said. A religious service was taking place at the time and there were worshippers in the room, but the bottles hit the window frame and fell back without exploding, he explained. The attackers also threw stones, breaking a number of mosque windows as well as the windows of cars parked in the courtyard.

October 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/5401490.stm

About200 people were involved in trouble on Sunday night after what police said were racially motivated attacks on cars parked at a mosque.

October 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/5409444.stm

A Muslim-owned dairy has been targeted by youths over three nights in a campaign of harassment culminating in a petrol bombing, a worker said. The Medina in Windsor, Berkshire, has suffered at the hands of local youths who have been targeting staff for the past three nights, the unnamed worker claimed. He said the youths would gather in gangs of up to 30 and throw stones and hurl abuse at staff working at the dairy late at night.

Police have been patrolling the area since Monday when the attacks started, he said. But on Wednesday night an attacker riding a motorbike threw a home-made petrol bomb at the dairy's perimeter wall. The worker told the Press Association that police later found a stash of the bombs hidden around the corner from the firm, which is located on an industrial estate outside the town.

October 2006 www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/Islamic-Centre-gutted-by-fire.1806381.jp

A FIRE that caused £10,000 worth of damage to Falkirk's Islamic Centre is thought to have been started deliberately.
Officers are investigating the cause of the blaze in the doorway of the Burnhead Lane premises, but don't believe it to have been an accident.

October 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/5414704.stm

A Muslim woman's veil was snatched from her by a man who shouted racist abuse at a bus stop in Liverpool.

October 2006 www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article667188.ece

A WHITE Muslim convert was spat on and racially abused in front of her young children as they travelled home after attending a commemoration of the victims of the July 7 terror bombings.

Michelle Idrees, dressed in a traditional burkha, was targeted by a father and his two sons as she travelled on a Thameslink train travelling out of London. She was returning to her home in Luton, Bedfordshire, when Charles Adams called her a “Muslim bitch” before spitting on her face.

October 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6051180.stm

A 53-year-old imam has been punched and kicked by a man who entered a mosque in the west end of Glasgow.

Strathclyde Police confirmed that the incident, at the Dawat ul Islam centre, happened at about 1800 BST on Friday.

Mohammed Shamsuddin was taken to the nearby Western Infirmary, but later discharged following treatment.

October 2006 www.muslimnews.co.uk/index/press.php?pr=236

A Muslim family of four was shot at when their car was hit by a bullet while out shopping in west London, The Muslim News reports exclusively in this week’s issue of the paper.

The incident, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the latest wave of Islamophobia attacks in the UK, took place, when the family from Bosnia were loading items in their car at Denham Car Boot Sale, near Uxbridge.

The local police described the shooting, which happened on October 14, as a racial and religious hate crime, but were unable to comment further.

October 2006 www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/226/226178_thugs_in_mosque_attack.html

THUGS burst into a mosque and savagely attacked the imam and several others as they prayed.

One man was taken to hospital and at least three others were also hurt at the Eccles and Salford Islamic Centre.

The attack happened as members of the mosque were taking part in prayers for Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic year.

The thugs shouted racist abuse as they lashed out at the congregation - punching and kicking anyone they came across.

October 2006 www.theasiannews.co.uk/news/s/519/519321_thugs_asked_are_you_a_muslim.html

AN EIGHT-year old-boy was left terrified by racist thugs who punched him in the face and pulled off his mosque cap.
Mohammed Tamazul was attacked whilst on his way to his uncle's home on Stockport Road Levenshulme, Manchester where friends and family gathered for special evening Ramadan prayers.
As he made his way Mohammed noticed three teenage boys following him on mountain bikes.
One of them got off and asked if he was Muslim.
When he didn't reply the lout pulled his cap and started throwing kicks and punches at him before riding off again.
Mohammed's dad Tamazul Miah said he believed the attack was a result of the negative media coverage of the Muslim community.

November 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6147922.stm

Policehave arrested a 36-year-old man after a fire broke out at a mosque in Cardiff on Tuesday morning.

Officers and fire crews were called to the Madina mosque in Cathays, just before 0830 GMT when a fire on the second floor spread to the roof.

South Wales Fire Service said about a quarter of the building was lost to the fire, but they were able to save a number of meeting rooms.

November 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6158853.stm

Gravestones in the Muslim section of a Bradford cemetery have been attacked and damaged by vandals.

Police have appealed for information and witnesses after vandals knocked over headstones at the Bowling Cemetery in Rooley Lane, Brierley.

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said officers and council park rangers were now patrolling the area in an effort to deter further attacks.

House to house inquiries have also been carried out in the area.

Insp Suzanne Akeroyd said: "This type of damage causes great distress to surviving family members, and so we are working closely with Bradford Council to catch the culprits and prevent any further damage."

------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a report from 2006 about Islamophobic attacks on the rise in Europe: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/islamophobia-takes-a-grip-across-europe-429021.html

Muslims are suffering physical attacks, verbal taunts and widespread discrimination as a climate of Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe.

A new report lists a host of examples of crime and intimidation from arson and suspected racist murder in Germany and Spain to pork fat being smeared on a mosque in Italy.

Thugs in Ireland beat up one man after calling him "bin Laden" while a bogus email in Denmark outlined fake primary school reforms to help migrant children. A maths question read: "Jamal has an AK47 with a 30-shot magazine. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and he wants to hit each cup 13 times, how many cups can he shoot before he needs to reload?"

The report from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia called on leaders to strengthen policies on integration, and on Muslims to "engage more actively in public life."

It also highlights the lack of reliable data, pointing out that only one country - the United Kingdom - publishes criminal justice data which specifically identify Muslims as victims of hate crime incidents.

The Muslim population of the EU is estimated to run to around 13m, around 3.5 per cent of the total. Since September 11 many feel "they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism," according to Beate Winkler, director of the centre.

The report says that Muslims "experience various levels of discrimination and marginalisation in employment, education and housing" and are "vulnerable to manifestations of prejudice and hatred in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property."

In the Netherlands there was a significant jump in incidents following the murder in 2004 of Theo Van Gogh who made a film criticising Islam.

In Greece in February 2005 Europe's oldest mosque in Europe, at Poliskio village in Xanthi, was damaged by gunshots. In the same month in Spain Azzouz Housni, a Moroccan farm labourer, was killed at El Ejido in Almería in what migrant groups described as a racist attack.

In Denmark a gang carrying baseball bats emblazoned with swastikas and racist slogans targeted a Somali family.

The report says: "Muslims feel that acceptance by society is increasingly premised on 'assimilation' and the assumption that they should lose their Muslim identity. This sense of exclusion is of particular relevance in the face of the challenges posed by terrorism. Muslims feel that since 9/11 they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism."

In the UK one non-governmental organisation recorded more than 50 cases of violence against Muslim property, including places of worship in 2004-5.

There were also more than 100 cases of verbal threats and abusive behaviour aimed at members of the Muslim community.

------------------------------------------------------------

So, even with the data restricted mostly to the UK, I counted 7 arson attacks on mosques and Islamic centres, desecration of Muslim graves, several violent hate attacks - some of them in mosques, and many against women and children - and even Muslims being shot at. Are there equivilent examples in the Jewish community in Europe in 2006 of similar attacks at the same frequency? And which were perpetrated by Muslims as hate crimes?

[penguinfan]

1 in 400 vs 1 in 1700.

I think things will get even more interesting when I move onto France.

[zameel]

Here is one argument presenting Islamophobia in Europe as the New Antisemitism, and the Bosnia Genocide as having parallels to the Jewish Holocaust:

Muslims and the European Right
© Abdal-Hakim Murad (aka. Timothy Winter)

(This essay is based on a text first given as the Annual World Humanities Lecture, University of Leicester, 3 April 2000)

Antisemitism is an ancient European disfigurement whose easing is now underway. The discourse of Jewish ‘threat’ or ‘contamination’ is no longer acceptable in cultivated circles. [Europe] has not yet, however, come to terms with its other historic chauvinism, which is only now being named: ‘Islamophobia’. Islamophobia I take to mean the emotive dislike of the Islamic religion as a whole, rather than of its extreme manifestations; or rather, we might more usefully define it as the assumption that the extremes of the religion have normative status. If that is the definition then clearly [Europe] has hardly begun to purge its subconscious. Despite welcome transformations in Christian attitudes towards ‘unbelievers’, even the churches can harbour intransigent voices. In Italy, the Archbishop of Bologna has called for the closure of the country’s mosques and an end to immigration by Muslims, who are, he believes, ‘outside our humanity.’ [1] In [Kamchatka], at the furthest end of European settlement, the Orthodox bishop has backed opposition to the construction of a mosque for the region’s large Muslim community. The mosque would be ‘a direct insult to the religious and civil feelings of the Slavic population,’ according its local opponents, and would encourage further Muslim immigration, with the result that ‘given their mind-set, they won’t let us live normally here.’ [2]

The new substitute for Antisemitism is resurgent in formerly Nazi regions as well. In Austria, the currently-triumphant Freedom Party seems no less mistrustful of the Muslim presence. ‘The increasing fundamentalism of radical Islam which is penetrating [Europe],’ it warns us, ‘is threatening the consensus of values which is in danger of getting lost.’ Far from stiffening [Europe’s] moral fibre, the new Turkish invaders form part of a relativising process which allegedly threatens Christian Austria with the confiscation of its identity and with social disaster. As the Freedom Party explains, it is not race, but culture, and hence religion, which defines legitimate belonging, which is why ‘the Freedom Party sees itself as an ideal partner of the Christian churches’. [3] Even though most local clergy have sharply denounced it, the party attracts a third of the vote of this stable, prosperous Catholic democracy, and may grow further. Minorities can only hope that Jorg Haider is wrong in his conception of his nation when he opines, ‘The Freedom Party is not the descendent of the National Socialist Party. If it were, we would have an absolute majority.’ [4]

A Conradian voice of sanity amidst this intensifying atmosphere of anti-Muslim feeling is supplied by the Catholic novelist Jacques Neirynck. His novel Le Siege de Bruxelles depicts events in the Belgian capital in the year 2007. In this nightmare of Europe’s near future, official Christianity has become a ghost, with its cathedrals reduced to the status of museums where Mass is celebrated only to satisfy the curiosity of Far Eastern tourists. The Cardinal-Archbishop bears the mock-eucharistic soubriquet of the ‘Real Absence’, as his hyperliberal theology, anxious to placate all sides, proves unable to mobilise Christian resistance to the new Flemish chauvinism.

In Neirynck’s future, the triumph of the New Right has presided over the opening of concentration camps and the expulsion of the country’s Jewish and Muslim communities, who are given twenty-four hours in which to shoulder their possessions and walk in single file towards the south. This is a religious as well as cultural backlash, under the Crusading cry ‘Dieu le veut!’, blessed by a ‘cultural and religious restoration’ which favours the Jansenist crucifix, whose Jesus is suspended so low that his arms appear to embrace only a small elect. Nationalist priests call for ‘surgical strikes which will cut out the tumour’; and go on to bless the siege and bombardment of the Muslim ghetto, as Brussels is slowly transformed into a second Sarajevo. The drama ends with a Muslim counterattack to liberate a concentration camp, which provokes the panic-stricken flight of the Flemish militias, and thereby reveals the underlying fragility of the far right’s agenda. [5]

Neirynck’s fable seems alarmist and alien; but it is undeniable that the far right continues to gain ground in Belgium, where Turkish and Maghrebian immigrants, joined by a substantial convert community, provide a convenient lightning-rod for the insecurities of Belgians of all social classes, unnerved by unemployment, globalisation, political corruption, and the visibility of the non-Christian Other. The far-right Vlaams-Blok, the leading Flemish nationalist party, described by Stephen Fisher of Oxford’s Nuffield College, as ‘the most blatantly racist and xenophobic of the extreme-right parties in Western Europe’, has grown in strength from 1.3% of the electorate in 1984 to 14.8% in 1999, and has become the largest Flemish party in Brussels, and also in Antwerp, where it has gained control of the municipality. Vlaams-Blok politicians have not been reluctant to identify Muslims as the new threat. Filip De Winter, the party’s former leader, has called for the ‘hermetic closure’ of Belgium’s borders, and anticipates ‘the return of all immigrants, without exception, to their countries of origin.’ This is to be accomplished by the progressive deprivation of state benefits and citizenship rights, and the creation of specific immigrant areas with the cities to improve levels of surveillance. Islam itself is to be prohibited, ‘because this religion is anti-Belgian and anti-European.’ [6]

Until his assassination in May 2002 by an animal-rights fanatic, the growing popularity of the far-right Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn sent shudders down the spine of Holland’s half-million strong Muslim population. In March polls, thirty-five percent of voters in Rotterdam deserted traditional Dutch liberalism and voted for Mr Fortuyn, bringing Holland into line with other European countries where anti-Muslim feeling has revived the fortunes of neo-Fascist tendencies which had been largely dormant since the Second World War.

Fortuyn’s religious views are detailed in his book Against the Islamisation of our Culture, published in 1997 to celebrate Israel’s fiftieth birthday. He believed that Islam, unlike his own strongly-affirmed Christianity, is a ‘backward culture’, with an inadequate view of God and an inbuilt hostility to European culture. He called for massive curbs on Muslim immigration, and for greater stress on Holland’s Christian heritage. A prominent homosexual activist, Fortuyn also condemned Islam’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

Fortuyn’s popularity was thought to be greatest among Dutch voters who feel strong sympathy for Israel, oppose greater European integration, and demand the refining of immigration and asylum laws to exclude people of Muslim cultural background. It is a package that is being studied very carefully by apparatchiks in more traditional parties, alarmed by the fact that one recent poll of Dutch 18-30 year olds showed that almost half want to see ‘zero Muslim immigration.’

Edgar van Loken, of Amsterdam’s Migrant Centre, fears that Fortuyn’s breakthrough may herald an even stronger showing for the far-right in May’s general election. Even the mainstream parties, he believes, are now considering the adoption of aspects of Fortuyn’s formula. ‘The real problem is that other political parties are starting to see Mr Fortuyn’s strategy as a vote winner and may start to follow suit.’ [7]

The crisis came at a particularly sensitive time for Holland. On April 16, the entire cabinet resigned following the publication of a UN report into the behaviour of Dutch peacekeepers in the besieged Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Investigators had consistently suggested that Dutch troops, many of whom were recruited from inner-city areas with a strong neo-Fascist presence, were ideologically anti-Muslim.

In Norway, the 1997 election saw the sudden appearance of the anti-immigrant Progress Party of Carl Hagen, which now holds twenty-five out of a hundred and sixty-five parliamentary seats. Similar to Hagen’s group is the Swiss People’s Party, which commands 22.5% of the popular vote in Switzerland, and has been widely compared to the Freedom Party of Jorg Haider, which in 1999 joined the Austrian coalition government.

In Denmark, the rapidly-growing ultranationalist DPP has become the third most popular party, benefiting from widespread popular dislike of Muslims. Its folksy housewife-leader Pia Kiaersgaard opposes entry into the Eurozone, rails against ‘welfare cheats’, and is famous for her outbursts against Islam. ‘I think the Muslims are a problem,’ she stated in a recent interview. ‘It’s a problem in a Christian country to have too many Muslims.’ [8]

Here in Britain, the same tendency has to some extent been paralleled in the recent growth of the British National Party. A cassette recording issued by the party, entitled ‘Islam: A Threat to Us All: A Joint Statement by the British National Party, Sikhs and Hindus’, describes itself as ‘a common effort to expose and resist the innate aggression of the imperialistic ideology of Islam’. As with its Continental allies, the BNP is gaining popularity by abandoning racist language, and by attempting to forge alliances with non-Muslim Asians and Blacks. The result has been documents such as the October 2001 ‘Anti-Islam Supplement’ of the BNP newsletter Identity, which ended with an appeal to ‘Join Our Crusade’. The chairman of the BNP, Nick Griffin, wades in with discussions of ‘The Islamic Monster’ and the ‘New Crusade for the Survival of the West’. [9]

In July 2001, Griffin and his skinheads polled 16% of the votes in Oldham West: the highest postwar vote for any extremist party in the UK. Nonetheless, British fascism remains less popular than most of its European counterparts. An issue to consider, no doubt, as Muslim communities ponder their response to growing British participation in schemes for European integration, and the long-term possibility of a federal European state.

Let me offer a final, more drastic example of how such attitudes are no longer marginal, but have penetrated the mainstream and contribute to the shaping of policy, often with disastrous results. On the outbreak of the Bosnian war, the German magazine Der Spiegel told its readers that ‘Soon Europe could have a fanatical theocratic state on its doorstep.’ [10] (The logic no doubt appealed to the thirty-eight percent of Germans polled in [Brandenburg]who recently expressed support for a far-right party’s policy on ‘foreigners’. [11]) The influential American commentator R.D. Kaplan, much admired by Bill Clinton, thought that ‘ cultural curtain is descending in Bosnia to replace the [Berlin] wall, a curtain separating the Christian and Islamic worlds.’ [12] Again, those who travelled through that ‘curtain’ can do no more than record that the opposite appeared to be the case. Far from reducing to essences, in this case, a pacific, pluralistic Christianity confronting a totalitarian and belligerent Islam, the Bosnian war, despite its complexities, usually presented a pacific, defensive Muslim community struggling for a multiethnic vision of society against a Christian aggressor committed to preserving the supposed ethnic hygiene of local Christendom. In Bosnia the stereotypes were so precisely reversed that it is remarkable that they could have survived at all. Here the Christians were the ‘Oriental barbarians’, while the Muslims represented the ‘European ideal’ of parliamentary democracy and conviviality. Neither can we explain away the challenge to stereotypes by asserting that religion was a minor ingredient in the very secularised landscape of post-Titoist Yugoslavia. The Bosnian President was a mosque-going Muslim who had been imprisoned for his beliefs under the Communists. The Muslim religious hierarchy had been consistent in its support for a multiethnic, integrated Bosnian state. Ranged against them were all the forces of the local Christian Right, as the Greek Orthodox synod conferred its highest honour, the Order of St Denis of Xante, on Serb radical leader Radovan Karadzic. Ignoring the unanimous verdict of human rights agencies, the Greek Synod apparently had no qualms about hailing him as ‘one of the most prominent sons of our Lord Jesus Christ, working for peace.’ [13] As the Quaker historian Michael Sells concludes,

The violence in Bosnia was a religious genocide in several senses: the people destroyed were chosen on the basis of their religious identity; those carrying out the killings acted with the blessing and support of Christian church leaders; the violence was grounded in a religious mythology that characterized the targeted people as race traitors and the extermination of them as a sacred act; and the perpetrators of the violence were protected by a policy designed by the policy makers of a Western world that is culturally dominated by Christianity. [14]

The Bosnian conflict imposed such an intolerable inversion of stereotypes that Latin Christendom, for all its brave talk of a Common European Home, seemed paralysed. A Byzantine Holy War figured nowhere on its cultural map; certainly Christians were not meant to be Oriental barbarians. Here the rhetoric of Islamophobia and the threatening spectre of an essentialised, totalitarian Islam, stupefied whole chancelleries. As with [Europe]in the 1930s, prejudice and cultural impotence paved the road to genocide.

The Scottish poet Aonghas Macneacail trapped this silent rhetoric in bloody, unhesitant metaphors:

though there’s a brute on your back,

sapping you with blows

(while we observe)

though he’d rip your women apart -

he’s our brute.

help? If only we could -

it’s not your blood, or your deeds

but that we can see

a foreign weed in your heart -

the excuse we won’t declare. [15]

Macneacail describes the Serb chetnik as ‘our brute’; while Islam, [Europe[’s enemy, is the ‘foreign weed in your heart’. The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, was no less scathing. ‘Can we stand’, he asked, ‘a bare half century after the Holocaust in a Europe that has replaced the word Judenrein with the equally repellant phrase “ethnic cleansing”, and not ask the question, “Were we wrong to say, Never again?”’ There are too many parallels between the mood of [Europe]now and the mood 100 years ago, and we have too much knowledge to ignore the line that leads from hatred to holocaust.’ [16] The noted Holocaust commentator and political scientist Richard Rubenstein was angry enough to write an article entitled ‘Silent Partners in Ethnic Cleansing: the UN, the EC, and NATO’. [17] Given his expertise in Holocaust studies, and that discipline’s frequent reluctance to allow any other act of collective mayhem into the same category, we should take with deadly seriousness his statement that Islam now occupies the unenviable position once belonging to Judaism within Europe. [18]

Even culprits could acknowledge the parallel. The former commandant of the concentration camp at Omarska where several thousand Muslim civilians were killed, reminisced as follows:

We knew very well what happened at [Auschwitz]or Dachau, and we knew very well how it started and how it was done. What we did was the same as [Auschwitz]or Dachau, but it was a mistake. It was planned to have been a camp, but not a concentration camp. I cannot explain this loss of control. [19]

A Bosnian Muslim reinforced the comparison:

Now we’re the Jews, the Muslims of Banja Luka. I see my friends lining up in front of the bus station here when there is a rumor that it’s possible to leave, and I think sometimes, ‘That is the way it was in the forties.’ But it’s in color now, and it’s not the Jews, it’s us. [20]

More could be said, but I wish to conclude here. It is difficult to deny that familiar European views of Muslims are a good deal more threatening than the communities they describe. One is forced to respect the pessimism of many European Muslims, threatened as they are by this new anti-Semitism which the white Christian majorities have, to be frank, failed to notice sufficiently. However my own conclusions are cautiously optimistic. Neirynck’s novel suggests that his Flemish zealots are overwhelmed not by superior force, but by the reality of a multicultural world whose logic ultimately forbids its own undoing. If English and Arabic are to be the languages of Brussels in the new millennium, then so be it. History is rarely merciful to nostalgia. Neirynck’s Fascists appear as relics of an obsolete age of European essentialism, and their political gamble a last roll of the dice, as they tacitly acknowledge, even during their brief moment of triumph, that there can be no decisive return to a monochrome demography in an inexorably globalising world , or to a political Jansenism whose theological exclusivism is no longer tenable. The churches damned by John Cornwell in his terrifying Hitler’s Pope [21] have now for the most part adopted inclusivist approaches to non-Christian religions. Muslims, not least because of our own optimism over the eventual triumph of Muslim orthodoxy over extremism, need to take seriously Neirynck’s insistence that while one Christianity is part of the problem, there is another which is likely to be part of the solution, advocating conviviality in a world which has never been in more need of a transcendently-ordained tolerance.



NOTES

[1] The Guardian, October 2, 2000.

[2] Japan Times, 7 August 2000

[3] www.fpoe.at

[4] www.adl.org/frames/front_haider.html

[5] Jacques Neirynck, Le siege de Bruxelles, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1996, p.250.

[6] Frédéric Larsen, ‘En belgique, l’extrême droite s’installe dans les coulisses du pouvoir.’ Le Monde Diplomatique, February 1992.

[7] news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1857000/1857918.stm

[8] news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2000/far_right/

[9] www.bnp.org.uk/articles.html

[10] Cited in Andrea Lueg, ‘The Perception of Islam in Western Debate’, in Jochen Hippler and Andrea Lueg (eds), The Next Threat: Western Perceptions of Islam, London: Pluto Press, 1995, p.9.

[11] The Independent, 5 October 1999.

[12] Cited by Lueg, , op. cit., p.11

[13] Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Berkeley: [University of California Press], 1996, p.85.

[14] Sells, 144.

[15] In Ken Smith and Judi Benson (eds), Klaonica: Poems for Bosnia, Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1993, 44.

[16] The Guardian, April 30, 1993.

[17] Published in In Depth: A Journal for Values and Public Policy 3/2 (Spring 1993), 35-58.

[18] Op cit.

[19] The Nation (Washington), 10 June 1996.

[20] David Rieff, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the failure of the West, London: Verso, 1995, 94.

[21] John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. London: Penguin, 1999.

-----------------------------------------------------------

For more on the Bosnia genocide see srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/ [see in particular: srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2007/06/bosnian-book-of-dead.html and srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2007/06/un-dutch-complicity-in-srebrenica.html ]

And Michael Sell's book "The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia" books.google.com/books?id=FAdxZ6F2uEAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bridge+betrayed&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Also see this lecture by Michael Sells: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8kvtuW4Ov4 - he discusses the importance of religion in the genocide from 30 min on - the Jewish analogy was very literal - not only were the victims of genocide and the monuments/shrines targetted discrimated on the basis of religious identification, the Muslims became "Christ-killers", charged with the crime of deicide with "blood on their hands" according to a Serb academic (just like a famous passage in Matthew about Jews); the "Christ" was Prince Lazar of Serbia who died in battle in 1389 against the Ottomans, and the place of his death in Međugorje was "Golgotha"; Međugorje became the major Catholic pilgrimmage site in the world after some children claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary there and had their claim validated by Franciscan preists and later John Paul II; as Sells says "The violence in Bosnia was a religious genocide in several senses: the people destroyed were chosen on the basis of their religious identity; those carrying out the killings acted with the blessing and support of Christian church leaders; the violence was grounded in a religious mythology that characterized the targeted people as race traitors and the extermination of them as a sacred act; and the perpetrators of the violence were protected by a policy designed by the policy makers of a Western world that is culturally dominated by Christianity"

[penguinfan]

France, 2007

(IsraelNN.com) A young Jewish woman was brutalized by two Muslim Arabs in France Thursday.

Audrey Brachelle, 22, was attacked in the French city of Marseilles Thursday evening. The attack began as she walked back from her job as an accountant at a textile factory toward the metro station in the La Rose neighborhood of the city, which is home to many Jews.

Two Arab men followed her and attempted to steal her cell phone. After they grabbed it, the attackers noticed the Jewish ornament on the woman’s necklace, at which point she says they realized she was Jewish and began focusing on brutalizing her rather than stealing her phone.

The men then punched her in the face, sliced her dress with a knife and carved at least one Nazi swastika into her chest. They also cut off a clump of her hair.

Despite the swastikas and epithets expressed by the attackers, the French government is hesitating to admit that the attack was an anti-Jewish one. French Jews say the government is hesitant to admit the attack was anti-Semitic as that would have political ramifications and sway the upcoming presidential elections set to take place May 6.

France is home to a huge community of Muslim Arabs, who have enjoyed the nation’s liberal immigration policies but brought with them the anti-Semitism of their nations of origin.

Violence and anti-Semitism of French Arabs has been a cause espoused by candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, who has accused his left-wing opponent Segolene Royal of being lenient in dealing with the phenomena.

Local Marseilles Arabs have been quoted in the left-wing press in France and elsewhere positing that the attack was staged in order to score votes for Sarkozy. They point to a case in 2004 where a woman with similar claims, including that swastikas were carved into her body, later admitted to have made the story up. As it turned out, she was not even Jewish.

The Jews of France are still reeling from the events of last year. In February, 2006, the murder of Ilan Halimi shocked the French Jewish community. Halimi was kidnapped by French Muslims and brutally tortured to death.

www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122270

MARSEILLE (EJP)---The French National Bureau for Vigilance Against anti-Semitism has said it believes that a violent attack against a young Jewish woman in Marseille was "undoubtedly anti-Semitic."

www.ejpress.org/article/16392

[zameel]

I thought we were looking at 2006? In May of 2006 a man with right-wing connections killed a Malian Muslim woman, a baby she was holding and shot a Turkish woman in Belgium - news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4765855.stm . And in July the previous year a Muslim man was been beaten to death outside a corner shop by a gang of youths who shouted anti-Islamic abuse at him - www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/13/race.july7 . Nazi slogans and swastikas were daubed on about 50 graves in the Muslim section of a French WWI cemetery - where North Africans who faught with the French against the French Vichy and Nazi regimes are buried - www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/13/race.july7 . See my post on 2006 hate crimes against Muslims, which included arson attacks on mosques and Islamic centres, personal assaults including severe beatings, snatching headscarves and shootings and desecration of graves, all in the year 2006. You seem to have found one crime committed against a Jew in France in 2006 [where it is known antisemitic attacks have been faked (according to the report you posted)]. It seems pretty clear to me Islamophobic attacks are far more frequent and acceptable than are antisemitic attacks.

[penguinfan]

where it is known antisemitic attacks have been faked (according to the report you posted

You mean like this 'kidnapping'?

Muslim community leader arrested for 'making up BNP kidnap story'

A Muslim community leader who claimed he was kidnapped from his home at knifepoint and dumped in woodland after a BNP hate campaign has been arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Noor Ramjanally, 36, alleged that he was abducted by two men, bundled into a car boot, driven to Epping Forest in Essex and ordered to stop his religious work.

......

Mr Ramjanally had also alleged that his Loughton home was firebombed in July and that he had received hate mail threatening his family.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211011/Muslim-community-leader-arrested-making-BNP-story.html

A Muslim community leader fakes his kidnapping, blames the BNP and has a prior history of reporting 'alleged' attacks.

As I said, the stats from Britain don't support your belief that Muslims are more likely to be victims of attacks based on their religion than Jews are. In fact, during my searches, Muslims are probably just as likely to attack Jews in Britain than to be the victim of an attack.

And we haven't even gotten to France yet. Should be interesting.

You seem to have found one crime committed against a Jew in France in 2006

I don't trawl through the internet as much as you do. There have been numerous attacks against Jews in France and Britain that I could have posted on, including a taxi driver who ran over a Jewish man and then put the car in reverse, incidents of two Jewish schoolgirls being attacked by their classmates, Synagogues and cemetaries in both France and Britain being vandalized and a school bus carrying Jewish children that was shot at.

I would rather look at the numbers first then go by incidents. It also speaks volumes that you questioned attacks against Jews by claiming these incidents, including the woman who was mutilated by two Arabs, as an attack that was faked.