on a recent visit to the natural history museum, i was struck by the number of hijabs, kippot and crucifixes on display. unfazed by fossils, geological displays of the age of the earth, australopithecine skulls and the marble statue of darwin that gazes enigmatically over the entrance hall, they gamely queued for the dinosaur exhibit, children in tow, back and forth beneath the massive skeleton of diplodocus, eager to expand their knowledge of the universe. it was an inspiring sight and one that i found immensely encouraging given the current level and tone of debate between religion and science. nobody appeared to be there to tell their children “and these are the fake animals G!D Placed in the earth to Test our faith”. everywhere were children asking clear, in some cases unsettling questions about how things came to be.
now, i haven’t seen the “dispatches” programme yet, it’s on my sky+ box waiting to be viewed. however, i was quite amused to be warned by one naeem darr, who i understand is some sort of spokesman for our old friends the muslim safety forum, to have my complaint ready. helpfully, he then went on to provide me with a set of points to complain about to channel 4 and jim kirkpatrick mp. i reproduce his email in full – and include in bold the bits which he appears to know before broadcast:
Dispatches Islamophobic documentary
Channel 4’s Dispatches is due to broadcast a damaging and misleading programme on Monday 1st March at 8pm. For nearly a year the programme had undercover reporters attending events (including private meetings) of Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) and passing themselves off as Muslims and friends, but acting as agents provocateurs to solicit replies to use against IFE.
as you may know by now, the israeli deputy foreign minister, danny ayalon, was heckled pretty comprehensively at his speech at the oxford union on monday night. the high (or low) point came when, rather like the accusations of murder levelled at the israeli ambassador to the us, michael oren, at the university of california, irvine (which actually resulted in a few arrests) a man rose to his feet and launched into a diatribe which included one key arabic phrase, which has been widely reported as “itbah al-yahud”, or “kill the jews” – this phrase is, of course, familiar to me as the rallying cry for many middle-eastern atrocities, not least the baghdad pogrom of 1941 (that’s pre-state of israel, folks) known as the farhud.
david t from harry’s place forwarded me this cartoon by eli valley, whose satirical strips appear monthly in the leading us jewish magazine “the forward”.
scary kiruv cartoon
on reading it, i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it’s a caricature of the position of the kiruv (“outreach”) organisations, but on the other hand, once you start digging into their theology, their internal politics, their fundraising activities and their influence on the jewish community and israeli politics, it’s hard not to find them scary.
for those of you who aren’t aware of it, this has not been a good couple of years for the orthodox, “strictly-”orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities. corruption around kosher slaughterhouses and conversions, sex scandals, money-laundering, drug smuggling, you name it. all the usual justifications are made, of course, all the usual people accept them and all the usual people sneer at them.
in such an environment, it’s extremely helpful to be able to point to people who can stand up and say in no uncertain terms: this isn’t right. excusing it is even worse. as it says in the Mishnah: where there are no men, at least you should try and act like a man. i am encouraged to see at least some orthodox rabbis swimming against the tide of denial although, of course, not that surprised to see the perennial awkward squad-nik and contrarian (and my own much revered teacher) rabbi jeremy rosen, writing in haaretz:
well, no surprises here – ray hanania, writing in the jerusalem post, finds plenty to criticise about the sort of activist that is perpetuating the sad situation in the gaza strip, in the now-established tradition of leftie imbeciles sucking up to clerical fascists as an act of anti-imperialist egotism.
and, of course there’s none more egotistical that our good friend, saddam-fancying cat-impersonator ”gorgeous george”.
george laps it up
These are strange bedfellows in the Palestinian extremist camps, religious fanatics shoulder-to-shoulder with secular extremists like the Popular Front and the rejectionists led by the activists and fawned on by the Arab media that mistakenly believe “freedom” means embracing the most extremist activists.
you never spoke a truer word, ray. for G!D’s sake, please keep doing this. palestine needs your sanity, rationality and humanity, rather than serving to remind us all of the intransigence and lack of compassion for real human beings – other than as symbols of something-or-other-from-la-la-land-ideology – demonstrated by these smug, self-satisfied self-publicists:
although the mainstream media has already picked up the story, we’re sure that the good folk of wootton bassett would nonetheless appreciate a message of support. it appears that they are the latest stop on the publicity circuit for everyone’s favourite islamist nutjobs, the al-muhajigoon squad. predictably, the edl have vowed to picket the mosques frequented by the leader of the group that currently calls itself “islam4uk” and, no doubt, stephen gash of “sioe” has ordered an extra copy of “soldier of fortune” magazine in his excitement.
in the spirit that got these imbeciles to cancel their most recent demo and, naturally, in tribute to the recent foiling of the detroit pants bomber, i humbly propose the following:
let all who wish to show this truly grotesque man up as the nasty, ridiculous bigot he is – FLY THE UNDERPANTS!
some pants yesterday
it appears that the mainstream orthodox rabbinical council of america has picked a fight with the powerful chabad / lubavitch movement over the perennial problem about whether the last lubavitcher rebbe is dead, or the messiah, or both, or what. obviously, there is a slight problem with jews who start believing that the messiah has already come if the relevant prophecies haven’t been fulfilled. similarly, if the messiah in question hasn’t rebuilt the Temple, hasn’t ingathered the exiles of the jewish people or has, in fact, shuffled off this mortal coil and run down the curtain to join the choir invisibule, but his followers start coming out with terms like “occultation” and claiming he isn’t really dead and has Divine powers, G!D forbid, it does start to look a tiny bit like, well, er, christianity.
king messiah, or ex-parrot?
no, i don't look or sound *anything* like that rowan williams
generally speaking, i am a great admirer of jonathan sacks, or to give him his complete title: chief rabbi of the united hebrew congregations of the commonwealth lord sacks of aldgate (he’s a “sir” too, but i think it gets trumped by the “lord” bit) as a visionary thinker and one of the great voices of modern orthodoxy who is, as many visionary thinkers are, monumentally unappreciated by his own constituency.
This is a cross-post from interfaith.org, where I moderate on the Judaism board. I know we don’t normally talk about israel/palestine here at The Spittoon, but maybe this is one case where we might make an exception?
Ray Hanania, the Palestinian-American journalist, is proposing to run for president of the Palestinian Authority on a very interesting platform indeed, as detailed here at the Huffington Post:
It’s been picked up in the Israeli press by Bradley Burston of Haaretz – you’ll forgive the large c&p, but I think it’s important in this case:
1. I support two-states, one Israel and one Palestine. As far as I am concerned, I can recognize Israel’s “Jewish” character and Israelis should recognize Palestine’s “non-Jewish” character.