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18 comments from readers

BlairSupporter
31 October 2009 at 15:26

Ref:

"...he has, belatedly, dumped Phillips. But does he have the wisdom - and the guts - to dump the rest of the liberal-left, Israel-first, pro-war hawks who have gathered around him in recent years? I suspect he will never have real credibility amongst Britain's Muslim communities until he does so."

After dumping the "liberal-left, Israel-first, pro-war hawks" is he left standing on his own? Or only with other Muslims, of all politicial varieties. Clearer thinking needed here.

Sameer
31 October 2009 at 15:26

You might wish to ask Ed to first talk to his own British taxpayer funded "co-director" since his views were not too far different from that of Melanie Philips during the height of the Gaza bombardment:

"Israel does not have an active policy of deliberately capturing children to murder them, or even deliberately murdering civilians for that matter"

--Majid Nawaz

this is blatantly contradicted by the Goldstone report as well as Israeli soldiers themselves who refused orders to bomb and kill civilians, as they knew they were committing war crimes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em2JB6eysQo&eurl=http://muslimmatters.org/2009/01/17/israeli-soldier-speaks-against-war/

Q: So who to believe? a British taxpayer funded leach who just got ripped into by his own former neo-con colleague (Douglas Murray) or an Israeli soldier?

alan stoddart
31 October 2009 at 20:47

Unfortunately Husain's conversion to moderacy is no more credible than Bunglawal's rebirth as a child of the Enlightenment. A read through of his book gives clear hints that he may not walk through the East London Mosque's doors anymore but the beliefs indoctrinated into him still resonate and come out more and more as time goes on.

A confused man.

Not like you eh Mehdi, you know exactly where you are going.

The Caliphate is history, forget it, live your life in a Western democracy and accept with gratitude the low hanging fruits that drop into your path. Submission is the only way to find the True Path.

Adam hasan
01 November 2009 at 00:21

Alan, I'll accept the end of the Caliphate if you'll come to terms with the fact that the Empire is over. You and Mad Mel are eager to find compliant bootlickers, content with discrimination, and ready to have there dignity sold cheaply.

Daniele
01 November 2009 at 00:50

I am not a Muslim so Melanie Phillips would not be able to call me an Islamist, but you can be sure she would not hesitate to call me an anti-Semite if I expressed to her my opposition to the actions and ideology of the State of Israel.

It is all too easy for people like her to censor any criticism of Israel with the threat of being called an anti-Semite. The Jewish people and their State and government are two distinct entities. It is like being called anti-French because you criticise Sarkozy's government. Or being accused of hating the American people when you expressed outrage at the actions of the Bush administration. Nobody would think of doing that for the French and the Americans. Why do Jewish people feel attacked as a race when some-one condemns what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza and other Palestinians. The fact that the Jewish people were relentlessly persecuted throughout history and that they were murdered in the Holocaust cannot possibly means that they can now get away, in their Jewish State, with denying the most basic Human Rights to the Palestinians such as the right to clean water!

No other nation would get away with so much abuse of Human Rights without international condemnation and outrage. But here we are, not even the BBC had the guts to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for the people of Gaza. The world is like paralysed and intimidated by the fear of the accusation of anti-Semitism to do anything about Israel's appalling conduct. This has to stop and people like Melanie Phillips have to shut up and listen and the Americans have to stop supporting a Israeli State which is guilty of war crimes and supreme arrogance.

Andrew
01 November 2009 at 01:49

If Ed wants to shake-off the Neocon label, a good place to start would be to dump Michael Gove as a Quilliam advisor.

James Dickins
01 November 2009 at 11:32

Melanie Phillips a very extreme and aggressive person.

A read through Ed Hussain's book shows that he is a kindly and moral man, who became involved with a radical political group for a short period in his youth (as have millions of other people over the years, including a number of former Marxists in the current British government).

alan stoddart
01 November 2009 at 12:42

I have no problem with the setting of the sun over the Raj but it seems many Muslims do. We gave them Independence in India, that wasn't enough, so we gave them a Muslim Zion, a homeland of their own and called it Pakistan. That wasn't enough. What did they want?...they packed their bags and travelled to the land of the Kufaar, the Godless West. They gave up their land where they were free to practise their religion, they gave up their friends, their family and heritage. Why? For money.

So Muslims here in Britain who shout 'Muslim First' are no more than 'Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, and are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.'

The problem now is the immature, young and old, who cleave to a religion not out of spirituality but out of a fear of life, a fear of having to think for themselves. To live by the words of a man who lived in the 7th century, to dress their women as Bedouin, to forgo the right of self-determination, demanding a war-cry and banner from outside to combine them, and a stranger to lead them, one whose supremacy should be based on an idea: illogical, undeniable, discriminant: which instinct might accept and reason find no rational basis to reject or approve...the binding assumption of the Fundamental Muslim, an effective, if imbecile, thoughtless unanimity.

Islam did not herald a Golden Age of science and thought, it brought that juddering to a halt. Mehdi himself admits that in his famous speech condemning Muslims.

Think for yourself.

Islam is the End Of History.

alan stoddart
01 November 2009 at 12:44

Muslims here in Britain who shout 'Muslim First' are no more than 'Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, and are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.'

The problem now is the immature, young and old, who cleave to a religion not out of spirituality but out of a fear of life, a fear of having to think for themselves. To live by the words of a man who lived in the 7th century, to dress their women as Bedouin, to forgo the right of self-determination, demanding a war-cry and banner from outside to combine them, and a stranger to lead them, one whose supremacy should be based on an idea: illogical, undeniable, discriminant: which instinct might accept and reason find no rational basis to reject or approve...the binding assumption of the Fundamental Muslim, an effective, if imbecile, thoughtless unanimity.

Islam did not herald a Golden Age of science and thought, it brought that juddering to a halt. Mehdi himself admits that in his famous speech condemning Muslims.

Think for yourself.

Islam is the End Of History.

Yusuf
01 November 2009 at 15:08

Mad Mel seems to have a consistent "hate" position, however mohammED Hussain seems to have followed a confused position of regular u-turns and contradictions. It is this very reason why the Communities will never take Ed serious.

canonstmassive
01 November 2009 at 19:19

"I suspect he will never have real credibility amongst Britain's Muslim communities until he does so"

He will never have credibility amongst Muslims, period. Its not just that we find his views repulsive, someone who thinks "perfectly coherent, normative political stance" is a clever thing to write is clearly not living in the real world.

Drakken
01 November 2009 at 22:22

Who are you going to believe, the muslims? or your lying eyes? The more you muslims push, the more there is going to be a backlash you haven't seen since the Crusades. Good luck muslims, your going to need it

mount
02 November 2009 at 09:25

Drakken "Good luck muslims, YOU'RE going to need it"

IsThatcherDeadYet
02 November 2009 at 10:37

Crusades? Wishful thinking?

No2PC
02 November 2009 at 12:03

Melanie Phillips stands up for Britain and its heritage something the NS will never do. Why should I celebrate the fact some radical muslims have converted to moderates? Muslims should support the west and democracy if they choose to live here. I would not move to saudi and moan about sharia law.

Mehdi Hasan
02 November 2009 at 14:31

"No2PC" - some of us didn't "move" to Britain; we were born here and we do support "democracy" but not everything Britain or the west does in the wider world. "Drakken" - is that a threat? "BlairSupporter" - do you not accept that there are liberal-left journalists and politicians who aren't "Israel-first, pro-war hawks"?

Duckham
03 November 2009 at 23:47

Alan Stoddart:

You say: "Muslims here in Britain who shout 'Muslim First' are no more than 'Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, and are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.'"

You acept that it is a fundamental view of Islam that is the problem: "...the binding assumption of the Fundamental Muslim, an effective, if imbecile, thoughtless unanimity."

You then claim Islam was always completely destructive to advancement and is the means whereby history is ended.

Either all this negative stuff is the effect of the minority fundamental conservative viewpoint or it is the overall reality; it can't be both. And which do you really think it is because the first is criticism of part of Islam and the second is Islamophobia.

Duckham
04 November 2009 at 00:00

Drakken: the only ones pushing are the minority like Islam4UK who were going to march in London for sharia law to be introduced; a concept that needed ridicule not shrieks of panicked alarm. Their plans were opposed by Muslims and others who formed a rather strange alliance except that they never did officially ally except by the aim of stopping the march. We are a way from the EDL and the BNP and the Islamic Society of Great Britain marching arm in arm. In any case the march was stopped.

Your threats and lumping all Muslims together is ignorance on whizz and ignores the fact that we are talking about British citizens who, if they are not already, have to be integrated and got on with so better get on with that surely?