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It Is Not "Islamophobic" to Stand Up for Jews and Western Civilization
(Spiked-UK) Brendan O'Neill - I never imagined I'd be condemned for expressing horror at the parading of an emaciated Jew through the streets by a mob of antisemites. I never thought I would get it in the neck for using the word "medieval" to describe a swarm of men who surrounded and jeered at a terrified half-starved Jewish woman. The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) of the Muslim Council of Britain published another "report" about the British media's coverage of Islam and Muslims. A column of mine that really seems to have got their goat was published in January last year in the Spectator. It was about the vile spectacle of Hamas's handover of Arbel Yehoud, a young woman seized from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023. She was held for 482 days, entirely alone, deprived of food. Her gaunt, ashen face was a testament to the maltreatment she suffered under the cruel yoke of her racist captors. I wrote angrily about the barbaric theater of her handover to the Red Cross. Yet the CfMM seems angrier with me than with the gun-toting scum who humiliated a Jew before the eyes of the world. It reprimands me for calling the handover a "medieval spectacle." It rebukes me for saying this Jew-taunting was "sport for radical Islamists." What is going on here? Why is a media think-tank attacking a journalist for feeling revolted by the sight of a terror-stricken Jew being jostled through a howling crowd? It takes ethno-narcissism to dizzying new heights for someone to read an article about the racist subjugation of a Jew and turn it into a discussion about the wounded feelings of Muslims. Turning a story about the largest act of anti-Jewish persecution since the Holocaust into a screed on hurty words about Muslims is repulsive. That my piece on Arbel Yehoud has been included in a report on "anti-Muslim hostility" is all the proof we need that the "Islamophobia" industry is a scam whose mission is not to defend Muslims from discrimination but to police and punish political opinion. Under the guise of "defending Muslims," the CfMM is chilling legitimate discussion, seeking to limit what we can say about Islam, Israel, Gaza, religion and a whole host of other things.