The Nazi/Muslim analogy debunked

On the eve of Kristallnacht, the night that is considered the beginning of the Holocaust—the extermination of six million of Europe’s Jews—the Muslims of Britain are evoking the memories of the treatment of Jews by Nazis as a comparison to the British announcement that Al Qaeda is recruiting young British Muslims, and that the nation is at its greatest peacetime risk in history.

Reuters uses the N-word in its headline:

Muslim chief warns of Nazi climate of fear

The BBC is more discreet, waiting a few paragraphs before going there.

UK terror tactics ‘create unease‘
The government’s approach to terrorism is creating an atmosphere of suspicion and unease, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has said.

Muhammad Abdul Bari told the Daily Telegraph the amount of debate relating to Muslims was disproportionate.

He cited Nazi Germany in the 1930s as an example of how people’s minds could be poisoned against a community.

And they quote the ever-present Inayat Bunglawala, who is so quick to blame Israel for the problems of the Middle East, and even quicker to bring the conversation around to Jews whenever Muslims are criticized (because the Bible is just like the Koran with its calling for the stoning of adulterers except, gee, name the last time a Jewish or Christian society stoned an adulterer. Now name the last time a Muslim society did the same.

Inayat Bunglawala, the council’s assistant general secretary, agreed – telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there was a danger of the terror threat being magnified “out of all proportion”.

“What you had in the 1930s was all sorts of popular fictions were spread about the Jewish community that they were responsible for all ills that were occurring to Germany.

“They were made into folk-devils, and I think there is a danger that the word Muslim in the UK is becoming synonymous with bad news.”

There are still more odious comparisons to the 1930s, which is obviously the Muslim organizations’ talking point of the day—wait for it to reach CAIR:

Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.

“Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn’t lead us to a time when people’s minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society.”

There is, in his view, no such thing as Islamic terrorism.

“Terrorists are terrorists, they may use religion but we shouldn’t say Muslim terrorists, it stigmatises the whole community. We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists.” Dr Bari thinks Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made the extremists’ job easier by giving a bleak picture of the threat on the eve of the Queen’s Speech.

Let us put aside the nonsense that announcing there are Muslim terrorists in Britain will make the recruiting of Muslim terrorists easier. It’s yet another way the MCB manages to blame Britain for its own problems instead of owning up to the problem of Muslim terrorists living in Britain.

Here is my big problem with the use of the 1930s Germany imagery when talking about Muslim terrorists living in Britain: The propaganda of the 1930s was a lie. The lies were spread by the Nazi party to delegitimize and dehumanize the Jews of Germany and Europe. The Jews were scapegoated by a party that found a way to unite Germany on a cause that has ever united the world: Hatred of the Jews.

The Jews of Germany did absolutely nothing of what Hitler accused them. They were not out to destroy Germany. There was no secret plot to murder and plunder Germany and the rest of the world. The Jews were not criminals, not plotting against the government, not plotting to destroy Christianity, not plotting to take over the world.

On the other hand, MI5 has concrete evidence that Muslims in Britain are plotting terrorist attacks. Muslims in Britain—British citizens—have perpetrated terrorist attacks. They have murdered British citizens. They have murdered Israeli citizens. The reason that the MI5 warning that 2,000 Muslims are being watched for terrorist links is not comparable to the lies of the 1930s is because what the MI5 says is true.

The comparison is completely invalid. It is being evoked only to play the Muslim-as-victim card, something that the MCB does very well. The narrative of Muslim-as-victim is upheld. And the media play along. The angle of the story is the 1930s analogy. The angle of the story is that Muslims are being unfairly tarnished with accusations. Buried deep within the stories are the defense of the MI5 announcement:

Sir Paul Lever, former chairman of the joint intelligence committee, told Today that Jonathan Evans had a duty to warn the public.

“One can’t deny the facts, and the facts are that al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist terrorism – and I use the term Islamist, not Muslim or Islamic – is the biggest threat that our country faces today,” he said.

He added: “We mustn’t demonise the whole Muslim community. It is a very, very tiny minority who are involved. But though 2,000 people may be a tiny proportion, it is still, in absolute terms, an alarming threat.”

And it is Britain’s biggest threat. Trying to deny the threat by blaming Britain’s foreign policy—which both Bunglawala and Bari are doing—is smoke and mirrors. Perhaps the MCB should stop trying to deny that there is a problem, and instead, start dealing with it. Watch the video at the link I mentioned above. Watch Bunglawala bring in Judaism and Christianity at every opportunity, trying to say that religious Jews are just like Islamist Muslims, preaching hatred of the other. Watch him say the same about Christians.

And then find me a news story of a single Jew or Christian who has strapped a bomb around his chest, walked into a crowd of people, and blown himself up. The comparison is spurious. Jews and Christians are not advocating death and destruction, nor hatred of the other, in weekly sermons.

The 1930s analogy doesn’t fly with me. But I will make a prediction: It will fly with the British press. It will fly with the world media. Soon enough, we’re going to hear that the Muslims of the 21st century are just like the Jews of the 1930s.

Except that is a lie, and it’s easily proven so.