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December 13, 2006

UK: MAB "Spokesperson" Compares Muslims To Jews Under Hitler

As a follow-on from the FSM article on the links between the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) with both the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist group Hamas, we have more news on the Scottish spokesman for MAB. Osama Saeed has, according to JTA, compared the condition of British Muslims to those of the Jews in pre-war Germany.

The irony that the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yussuf al-Qaradawi, supports suicide attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel, and one of the spokespeople for MAB, Mohammed Sawalha, was formerly a fundraiser for Hamas, seems to be lost on Osama Saeed.

He states: "Hitler was a product of German society, where anti-Semitic attitudes had existed unchecked for decades. We have got to listen and learn from what happened there and be vigilant."

"I am not talking about large numbers of people being rounded up, but we could be looking at situations where Muslims are routinely assaulted in the streets."

Perhaps Saeed is also unaware that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, was involved in the slaughter of Jews in the prewar period in Palestine. Al-Husseini then went on to Germany, where he was welcomed by Hitler and Himmler, and founded a Nazi regiment of Muslim soldiers in Bosnia. Copies of Mien Kampf were translated into Arabic and were read avidly by Muslims in Palestine.

With Azzam al-Tamimi, the Muslim Association for Britain's main spokesman, openly stating that he would willingly become a suicide bomber against Israelis, to hear a MAB spokesman comparing the plight of Muslims to those of Jews is not only hypocritical, it is cheap and tasteless.

Any attacks upon citizens, whatever their religion, are to be condemned. No-one should live in fear in a democratic society (despite the best attempts of Muslim extremists to frighten their critics into silence).

So who is Osama Saeed? What does he really believe? He was a former Scottish Nationalist Party candidate, but now appears to have left that group behind him. He has his own blogsite, where he publishes self-important pieces, and argues bitchily with his commenters.

But while Saeed talks of the conditions suffered by Muslims, he does nothing to foster the integration which may dispel some of the antagonism that some Muslims unnecessarily receive. For example, we reported in January that Saeed, as coordinator for the Campaign for Muslim Schools has tried to have Catholic schools forced into becoming Muslim schools, once their Muslim pupil intake reaches a certain percentage.

He was arguing that the Catholic-run St Albert's Primary school in Pollockshields, Glasgow, should become a Muslim school, as 90% of its pupils were Muslims. He said then: "Clearly the parents of that area find a faith school, even if it is of another denomination, preferable to a secular one. But surely it should be possible for them to have one that is relevant to their own faith. To move towards this would be a fantastic example of good faith - in more ways than one - on the part of the Church."

In November 2003, Saeed's organization, the Muslim Association of Britain identified four Glasgow Christian schools for conversion into Muslim schools. These included St Alberts', as well as Pollockshields Primary, AnnetteStreet Primary, and Willowbank Primary.

So much for the notions of "integration". Saeed seems to believe that Muslims have a right to demand Church schools succumb to Islam once Muslim parents have sent enough of their children to be educated in these institutions.

Saeed is certainly not a believer in Muslims being "good citizens". Last month, the Dundee Courier reported that Osama Saeed urged Muslims in Dundee not to cooperate with a Special Branch community contact unit, set up in 2005 by Tayside Police.

Saeed said: "What Special Branch are doing is isolating the Muslim community. There is no extremism in Dundee - they are barking up the wrong tree. My message to the police is 'lay off', but my message to the Muslim community is we have got to be stronger in our defiance of this."

"There can be no excuse for being scared of the police. If we look at the history of our faith, what else is there other than the Prophet's example to stand up to tyranny and stand up to oppression."

"The police are doing their jobs and their job is to push the boat out and push the limits they can push. Our job is to resist that, and resist that we must."

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, to find that Saeed, from a group linked with the Muslim Brotherhood whose "spiritual leader" justifies suicide-bombing, also thinks that George Galloway is a heroic figure. In May, Galloway said that it would be "morally justified" for Tony Blair to be assassinated by a suicide bomber.

Admittedly, Saeed praised Galloway before he made this statement, in a website called iwitness. He called this daft polemic "We need 646 George Galloways", and suggested that parliament should be filled with George and 646 other like-minded politicians.

Saeed frequently writes for the Guardian's "Comment" section. Here, he has praised the notion of a Caliphate. The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was dissolved by the secularist leader of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, in 1924. Saeed's pining for a Caliphate, a goal also sought by extremists such as Jemaah Islamiyah, Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the groups which succeeded Al-Muhajiroun,is impractical.

Not only would a Caliphate (a unified central body of Islam) be unable to coherently address the differing demands of Shia and Sunni Muslims, Islamic experts quoted in Reuters today suggest that a Caliphate would undermine the diversity of the world's Muslims.

There is no denying that Muslims appear to be under increasing pressure in today's Britain, and in some areas, they are victims of reprehensible physical attacks. But these assaults appear to be increasing in direct proportion to the increasingly strident demands being made by Muslim "representatives", including Saeed's own group, the Muslim Association of Britain.

Saeed seems to want to make headlines by espousing "controversial" viewpoints. But as Murdo Fraser, head of the Scottish Conservative party states of Saeed's most recent comments : "I don't think it's a rational response to compare the treatment of Muslims in today's Britain in any way to the horrific treatment that the Jewish people suffered at the hands of the Nazis. An approach of this sort will win no friends."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 13, 2006 5:50 PM

Comments

Posted by: harrison at December 13, 2006 8:30 PM

Posted by: Voyager at December 14, 2006 4:34 AM

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Posted by: DP111 at December 15, 2006 5:50 PM

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