Press Releases & Statements
|
|
Book Review: Londonistan. How Britain is creating a terror state within |
|
|
|
Tuesday, 14 November 2006 |
 Book Review
Londonistan. How Britain is creating a terror state within
By Melanie Phillips
Ardent Zionist masquerades as a serious commentator to peddle Israeli propaganda
Post 9/11 and 7/7, Islam and Muslims have come under increasing scrutiny by politicians, the media and the wider society. Not a day goes by without some event occurring regarding Muslims, whether its alleged terror plots, Islamic schools or women’s veils. A climate of fear has been created by ministers and the tabloid media, all part of the government’s War on Terror, where Islam and Muslims are viewed with growing unease by the public. In a YouGov survey taken after the alleged plot to bomb transatlantic airliners, 53% of those questioned felt that Islam and Muslims posed a threat to Western liberal democracy.
Within this context, journalists, authors and politicians have been quick to capitalise on this growing anti-Islamic sentiment. Often, many have simply exploited the situation for their own political or financial aims. Melanie Phillips is one such author. In her latest book Londonistan, she paints a terrifying picture of Muslims in Britain acting as a fifth column working to bring down the country at the earliest opportunity. In Phillips’ warped imagination, the government, judiciary, security services, Church of England, universities and even the media are all accused by her of colluding in this great conspiracy of aiding and abetting a Muslims subversive agenda.
So does her book hold any weight?
Any reader picking up this book will quickly find the title wholly misleading since one third of the book is devoted to Israel not Britain. In fact, the author’s main argument in support of her preposterous claim that Muslims pose a threat to Britain is their opposition to Israel. Phillips says,
“In the attempt to establish whether ‘moderate’ Muslim attitudes are truly moderate, there is one infallible litmus test that can be used. It is the attitude to Israel and the Jews.”
It becomes clear that Phillips has used this book simply to settle old scores with those who differ from her fanatical support of the state of Israel; the BBC, the left, universities and the Church of England are all accused of opposing Israel which in turn is helping to create a terror state within Britain. In one extract she says,
“Israel’s struggle to defend itself against this monstrosity is therefore the West’s struggle to defend itself against the same monstrosity.”
Further on, Phillips delves into the realms of fantasy attempting to explain Israeli aggression and expansionism against Palestinians as wars of self- defence. She claims
“That Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was legal because it was an action taken in self-defence against combatants who have never stopped waging war against it; and that these territories far from belonging to the Palestinians, had previously been illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt and should more properly have been described as a no-man’s land since the end of the British Mandate in 1948.”
Phillips unquestioning defence of Israel is well-known to the extent that when asked on BBC Question Time about her ‘ultimate loyalty’ between Britain and Israel she answered, “But if the inconceivable were ever to happen, this would represent such a turning against Jews that some of us British Jews might feel we had no alternative but to live in Israel.”
In disturbing similarities with Tony Blair’s claims that Muslims have a false sense of grievance, Phillips is completely dismissive of Muslim concerns and claims that Islamophobia is a figment of Muslims imagination describing, “the double standards from which Muslims think they suffer are actually a form of doublethink.”
In other sections of the book, Phillips attacks the British media for its role in fuelling Muslim grievances by reporting the atrocities committed by western troops in places such as Iraq.
“Yet this demonisation of its own side by the British media helps fuel the lethal culture of grievance among British Muslims.”
How does the author see this terror threat from British Muslims being resolved?
Phillips solutions to the problems, which largely exist within her own mind, is to blame the Islamic ideology that she describes as a “conveyer belt to terror.” She blames the policy of Multiculturalism for allowing these Islamic values to exist and advocates a different course of action “by reaffirming the primacy of British values.”
In worrying echoes of Nazi brainwashing programmes and totalitarian regimes, the book advocates an “educational exercise” to indoctrinate these values within the Muslim and non-Muslim population. She says,
“Finally, it would undertake a major educational exercise for both Muslims and non-Muslims. It would teach Muslims what being a minority means, and that certain ideas to which they may subscribe are simply unacceptable or demonstrably untrue.”
What are these unacceptable ideas Muslims and non-Muslims hold? The paragraph continues:
“Any administration that was really concerned to fight racism would educate the nation in the historical truths about Israel and the Arabs, and would tell Muslims that they have systematically been fed a diet of lies about Israel and the Jews.”
Far from being an objective analysis on the Muslim Community in Britain, or even adding to the debate about the causes of violence, Londonistan is a poor piece of fiction that forms part of the propaganda of the War on Terror. The author’s openly Zionist agenda consumes her narrative to the point where the book is more concerned with Israeli security than British security and destroys any credibility the book had.
Londonistan is one extreme example in the current agenda to demonise the Muslim community. In the coming months many such books may appear touting similar arguments, which may be used to justify further anti-Muslim measures.
Buying the book Londonistan serves little purpose and will anger any self-respectable reader. It is literary fiction, built upon an ideological desire to defend the indefensible, the terrorist state of Israel. However, the book’s one meaningful contribution is to confirm the extent to which bigotry and paranoia exist within the author’s own viewpoint and what she wishes will exist in general society. Is the author’s propaganda gaining ground? Inevitably with the government and some in the media on her side, the Muslim community needs to develop a counter strategy to contest this campaign of misinformation.
|
|
|
