Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

Inclusive Genocide

Have you all been following the recent kerfuffle in Britain? With regard to the panel of Muslim advisers, headed by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, appointed by Tony Blair for the purpose of advising him and his ministers about Muslim extremism.

What was their advice? End Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain. Because it singles the Jews out as too "special," leading feelings of impotent rage to develop in some Muslims -- strong enough to morph them on the spot into murderous suicide bombers.

This is too much of a Memorial for some Muslims, who want martyred Palestinians and other Muslim dead to be mourned on the same day, so that it becomes an inclusive Memorial Day.

Here's a short and incisive column from Alan Dershowitz on the hypocrisy of the suggestion. He points out - for those who have forgotten - the irony of this suggestion - that in the Middle East, many Muslims backed the Nazis. As well as the fact -- impossible to understress -- that there has been no Palestinian Genocide.

Indeed, I was most struck yesterday to learn that it was not only arms, but additional brides that the Arabs in Gaza were smuggling home with them, through the breached Gaza-Egyptian border. Apparently, it's much cheaper to pay the dowries of Egyptian women than Gazan women. Moreover, "Egyptian families were eager to send their daughters to a relatively better life in the Gaza Strip." And the Gazan men were happy to oblige, some even taking their second or third wife.

But haven't we been hearing for years how dreadful life in Gaza is? Yet a move there is still regarded as a step up for a certain echelon of Egyptian family. Yes, there's been injustice. But this fact puts the situation in a rather different perspective.

Cathy Young discusses the proposal in the Boston Globe. She writes:

The committees are formally presenting their proposal (backed by the head of the Muslim Council of Britain) to the government later this week; the Home Office has already reportedly indicated that it does not plan to act on the recommendation. What's frightening, however, is that such a proposal could come from a group of people charged with the task of helping the government combat extremism.

Yet this kind of utter derailment of sense seems to be par for the course for Britain these days.

posted by Alcibiades @ 8:15 AM