The Labour Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has issued a remarkable dossier defending himself against savage criticism for (literally) embracing the prominent and important Islamic jurist Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi in London last summer. Because of Qaradawi’s noxious views on gays and women, not to mention his hatred of Israel and the Jews, his support for terrorism against Israel and his Muslim Brotherhood-style approach to other faiths (destroy or subjugate them), Livingstone’s gesture managed to unite against himself an extraordinary coalition of protest -- including some constituencies who would otherwise regard him as the dear leader of political correctness -- including Jews, gays, Hindus, bi-and trans-sexuals, Sikhs, women’s rights organisations, progressively-minded Muslims and the National Union of Students.

Livingstone has reacted to this unprecedented protest like a scalded cat. He has produced a dossier in which he has defended his right to host Qaradawi who he describes as

‘one of the most authoritative Muslim scholars in the world.’

Early in this dossier, he carefully distances himself from Qaradawi’s views -- while managing to equate them with those held by Catholics and Jews -- when he says of the infamous meeting:

‘This no more constituted endorsement of the views of Dr al-Qaradawi on an issue such as lesbian and gay rights, than my meetings with Roman Catholic Cardinals meant I shared their views on contraception or my meeting the Chief Rabbi suggested I shared his view in opposing the repeal of Section 28.’

In the next breath, however, he tells us that Qaradawi is not a ‘profound social reactionary’ at all, but he is actually

‘one of the Muslim scholars who has done most to combat socially regressive interpretations of Islam on issues like women’s rights and relations with other religions.’

While as for his support for terrorism:

‘…he is described as a supporter of terrorism, when, in reality he has been one of the most forthright Islamic scholars in condemning terrorism and groups like Al-Qaida and has tried to assist the French and Italian governments in securing the release of civilian hostages in Iraq’

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Let us briefly remind ourselves again of some of the golden highlights of the ‘progressive’ Qaradawi’s oeuvre as laid out – and comprehensively sourced – in a thick dossier prepared by the protest coalition.

He has said that Europe will be conquered for Islam by preaching and ideology.

He supports democracy, provided it is driven by the laws of Sharia.

His sermons regularly call for Jews to be killed, along with ‘crusaders’ (Christians) and ‘infidels’ (everyone else).

He is profoundly Judeophobic. He has said:

‘The iniquity of the Jews, as a community, is obvious and apparent’.

He has spread the lie that the Torah permits Jews to spill the blood of others and to seize their land. He makes no distinction between diaspora Jews and Israelis, saying:

‘True there are a few Jews who do not approve of what goes on. But Islam says the majority prevails on all and the rare has no rule. We are judging them on the basis of the majority’.

He has insisted that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions, and on Al Jazeera’s website stated:

‘There is no dialogue between us except by the sword and the rifle’.

Although he disapproves of al Qaeda terrorism, he supports human bomb terrorism against Israel. He said:

‘The Israelis might have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb and these human bombs must continue until liberation’.

He approves of female circumcision. He supports the ‘light’ beating of wives by their husbands. And discussing whether both active and passive participants in homosexual practices should be either given the same punishment as for fornication or put to death, he says:

'While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements’.

This is all horrifying stuff. But according to Livingstone, it isn’t true. The allegations against Qaradawi are said to amount to a conspiracy theory. And here his dossier ceases to be merely a repudiation of truth, decency and common sense and veers into the utterly irrational. For because some of Qaradawi’s utterances have been translated by the MEMRI translation service, whose founder was once an Israeli intelligence officer, Livingstone also claims that the attack on Qaradawi is a Mossad plot -- a true conspiracy by Jews, in other words, to produce a false conspiracy theory about Muslims. He claims:

‘The dossier takes this to laughable lengths when it distorts Qaradawi’s words to suggest that his goal is to proceed from the conquest of Constantinople by Islam in 1453 to the conquest of Rome today. This is taken from one of the main sources for the dossier the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) that was set up by a
senior officer in the Israeli secret service and specialises in finding quotes from Arab media for circulation in the West. The translation and selection of quotes tends to portray Islam in a very negative light. To get a flavour of this it is sufficient to read the title of one MEMRI piece quoted in the dossier: "Leading Sunni Sheikh Yusef Al-Qaradawi and Other Sheiks Herald the Coming Conquest of Rome." The article starts: "In articles written by Islamic clerics, the clerics herald the imminent conquest of Rome by Islam, in accordance with the prophecy of Muhammad." It may seem difficult to take such material seriously, but in some respects the approach of MEMRI, echoed in the dossier, is reminiscent of the various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories – this can be seen very easily if one simply substitutes the words "Jewish" and "Judaism" for "Muslim" and "Islam" throughout the dossier’.

This is getting close to green-ink territory. There has never been a shred of doubt that MEMRI’s translations are entirely accurate. They have, indeed, opened the eyes of the west to what is actually being said and written in Arab lands, as opposed to what is served up in English for dupes to believe. (Memri says it will issue a statement on Livingstone’s claims shortly, along with new information about Qaradawi). And having claimed that the truthful renditions of Qaradawi's hair-raising utterances are merely evidence of a false conspiracy theory, to equate this with actual, classic anti-Jewish false conspiracy theories is simply barking. More than that, in its mad logic and its attempt to equate Israelis with antisemites, the wording here has more than an echo of some of the demented paranoia pouring out of the Arab world itself. It would be interesting to know just who wrote this dossier for Livingstone.

The man in whose name this dossier has been published is the elected Mayor of the capital city of Britain. Yet this whole affair has received next to no attention from the media. Nor has his closeness to both Qaradawi and his Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the UK, which surely merits the closest possible investigation.

Livingstone is not fit to hold public office. When will Tony Blair be asked what he thinks about Livingstone’s support for Qaradawi? When will Blair be confronted with Livingstone’s support for Muslim Brotherhood ideas, against which Blair is ostensibly fighting across the world? When will Blair be held to account for this dangerous menace, in the person of the Mayor of London, to life, liberty and decency – a man who the Prime Minister himself cynically brought back from political exile into the Labour party, purely to prevent a haemorrhage of the Labour mayoral vote?

Posted by melanie at January 18, 2005