From the Nazi-Islamist connection to Holocaust-denying Hamas

Harry's Place is a blog whose praises I can't sing highly enough at present. I have my disagreements with its contributors, but it is an exemplary political blog in that, whilst it knows its mind, it deals in research at least as much as opinion.


While I'm doing my own research on my 'favourite' topic, here are a couple of HP titbits to provide some context for my next Big Post. First, a post on Hamas's official embrace of Holocaust denial tellingly draws on Al Jazeera to expand on what the BBC had to say on the subject, and makes plain UNWRA's wretched failure to stand up to the bigots. And secondly, lest anyone should suppose that Hamas's stance is an aberration, here's one that sheds light on the movement's ideological roots by documenting the Nazi sympathies of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna.


So: what kind of Christian charity is it that would cheerfully legitimize this gang of murderous, intolerant, racist bigots by taking Hamas fellow-travellers into partnership?

The BBC and the taboo against asking an obvious question

The Office of National Statistics has recorded a continued fall in the number of unexplained infant deaths - 2007's figure is 7% down on the previous year. Good news indeed.

Still a lot of deaths, though - five every week in England and Wales. What do we know about them? The BBC quotes some answers that took me aback:-

'The majority of deaths were among babies of a normal birthweight - 2,500 grammes or 5.5lbs and above, and occurred between 28 days and one year of age.

'At a rate of 1.42 per 1,000 live births, the rate among unmarried mothers registering the birth alone was eight times that of babies born within marriage.

'For births inside and outside marriage - and where the baby was registered by both parents - the death rate among parents in the routine and manual occupations was twice that among those classified as managerial or professional.

'Age was also a factor: rates were highest in mothers under 20, and fell the older she became.

'There were also regional variations: the North East had the highest rate, at 0.66 per 1,000 births, and the East of England the lowest, at 0.32 per 1,000.'

Let's have one of those stats again: 'the rate among unmarried mothers registering the birth alone was eight times that of babies born within marriage'. Eight times! What on earth can that be about?

The ONS doesn't do explanations. Here's all you'll get from the Beeb-

'There is now suggestion that bacteria may have a role in sudden infant death, although the precise nature of any such relationship is unclear.'

Well, they must be exceptionally unenlightened bacteria. I hope none of them is planning a career with the BBC.

PS The ONS bulletin is here. In it I discover another differential that has been excised by the Beeb from the quote above:-

'During the period 2003–07, the unexplained infant death rate in boys was over 1.3 times
the rate in girls.'

Clearly too scandalous to be mentioned.

The Blood Libel updated

One of the more disturbing recent instances of anti-Semitism of the Left is a Swedish newspaper article accusing Israeli soldiers of 'harvesting' organs from Palestinians. This is not from an obscure neo-Nazi rag: it's Sweden's top-circulation paper, Social Democratic in its politics and 50.1% owned by the country's trade union confederation. Details are at Engage, and if you want to read the article the Google translator doesn't mangle it excessively. Harry's Place also has some worthwhile thoughts.


You'll be convinced if you're disposed to take seriously every piece of paranoid hearsay circulating in the Occupied Territories and to believe the worst about Jews - oops, I mean Zionists, of course. If, that is, you're a not untypical member of the Guardian-reading, Fairtrade coffee-drinking classes for whom Sweden is the closest thing to Nirvana.


Challenged to provide hard evidence, the writer has backed off. But the paper's editor seems to feel no urge to publish a retraction. On the contrary. Following high-level protests from Israel, he's chosen instead to play the freedom of speech card. And since he is not an anti-Semite, there is no need even to discuss the charge that he has published something anti-Semitic. It's not anti-Semitic, you see, to feel that Israel doesn't and shouldn't have a good name to lose. So all those Fairtrade coffee-drinkers are in the clear.


That may sound terribly bitter. But based on my own experience of Fairtrade coffee-drinkers (of whom, by the way, I am one) at prayer, I don't think it's overstating the case. I'm forcibly reminded of what I wrote here about the resurrection of another mediaeval prejudice. The following, directed against an activist of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, could just as well be applied to Donald Boström and the editor of Aftonbladet:

'I've mapped out a No Man's Land bounded on the one side by a world in which real dead chickens are fished out of a real village well, and extremism and hatred provoke real people on both sides of a bitter conflict into committing real evil deeds, but bounded on the other side by the ravings of pure racist paranoia. In this wilderness our Accompanier and many others like him seem to have no fence to stop them from drifting towards the wrong side, and they show all too little awareness of the need to build one.'

Esther Rantzen and the Elders

The Telegraph had an article last week by Esther Rantzen on the harrowing case of Baby Peter. No comment on the article itself other than to say that a strong stomach is required.

Ms Rantzen is one of those people you either love or hate. The latter is perhaps an understandable reaction to memories of 'That's Life'. Less understandable is the view that her work with vulnerable children is informed by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But for some people the name alone tells a story...

'I would argue that Esther does not give a rats noddy about endangered children, as she works for the tribe that blatantly commits the most heinous crimes on the planet'

So wrote a commenter signing himself 'Noble Lord' at 11:24 AM on Wednesday. And more in the same vein. Just over an hour later I reported the comment to the Telegraph, pointing out that it was anti-Semitic and asking that it be removed.

Result as of today's date: zilch.

Now I would hazard a guess that Noble Lord is on terms of some familiarity with his local mental health services. I wonder which noble lord he supposes himself to be. The Duke of Edinburgh, perhaps? The Marquis of Bath? Lord Lawson of Blaby?

Nevertheless, those of us who have studied history know that sometimes the lunatics can take over the asylum. So it behoves a reputable newspaper not to make things easier for them. The Telegraph wouldn't dream of commissioning an article propounding these views, so why does it tolerate them in a comment - for which it is in principle just as responsible as for the output of its star columnists?

Be your own Nazi

Along with one or two other folk I've been much exercised by the topic of assisted suicide of late. Though not a Catholic (yet?) I've found Catholic voices consistently the sanest ones. This from Dominic Lawson is a cracking piece. This blog post from Gerald Warner comes with a comment from me to which the title of the present post relates.

The case of the 23-year-old left paralyzed by a rugby accident seems to me to pose the issues particularly starkly. If I were in his position I'm sure I would be traumatized and depressed. These are treatable conditions. Quadriplegia is not, but neither does it have to be a bar to a richly meaningful life. That was true even in the absence of all the opportunities opened up by modern technology.

There's not much dignity in needing someone else to wipe your bum for the rest of your life, it's true, but when did the human condition ever come with a guarantee of dignity?

I have no window into the souls of the young man's parents, and accordingly pass no judgements. Nevertheless, this must be said: if, in those circumstances, I decided my life wasn't worth living, I hope I'd discover that at least one person loved me enough to tell me I was wrong. And keep telling me until I took notice.

The way we were, the way we are

I’m bound to say that, as a general rule, my idea of a large afternoon would be to keep as far away from a village school-treat as possible. A sticky business. But with such grave issues toward, if you know what I mean, I sank my prejudices on this occasion and rolled up. I found the proceedings about as scaly as I had expected. It was a warm day, and the hall grounds were a dense, practically liquid mass of peasantry. Kids seethed to and fro. One of them, a small girl of sorts, grabbed my hand and hung on to it as I clove my way through the jam to where the Mothers’ Sack Race was to finish. We hadn’t been introduced, but she seemed to think I would do as well as anyone else to talk to about the rag-doll she had just won in the Lucky Dip, and she rather spread herself on the topic.

‘I’m going to call it Gertrude,’ she said. ‘And I shall undress it every night and put it to bed, and wake it up in the morning and dress it, and put it to bed at night, and wake it up next morning and dress it –‘

I cut the pestilential infant off in mid-flow. The situation which had developed was, I realised, one to be viewed with the gravest concern and alarm. Visions of Bertram languishing in durance vile swam before my eyes.

‘Now look here, young lady’, I said, extricating myself from her grip and fixing a basilisk-like gaze upon her, ‘Are you aware that firstly you have no business wandering around unaccompanied by a carer, teacher or other responsible adult, secondly I haven’t got police clearance for contact with children, let alone conversations about naked dolls, and thirdly any form of physical contact between you and self is totally inappropriate? Don’t they teach you anything about Stranger Danger at this beastly school of yours? I suppose the next thing will be that you’ll want me to take your picture, forsooth! Kindly make yourself scarce before you get me arrested.’

[Even the most imperishable classics may need updating to make them appropriate to changed and more enlightened cultural contexts. Here Mr Grumpy (inspired partly by this) gives the Master a helping hand in The Inimitable Jeeves.]

A wedding present from the Home Office: postscript

Regimes which have prevented people with differing backgrounds from living together as man and wife:

1. Apartheid South Africa

2. Nazi Germany

3. Labour Britain

Like all right thinking people I was disturbed by the successes of the BNP in the European elections. I will never be found among those trivializing the threat to our liberties from a party with such a deplorable political pedigree. However, whilst the threat from these still fairly marginal opponents of 'diversity' remains theoretical, the stripping away of said liberties by the left-liberal establishment - as a direct consequence of their pursuit of 'diversity' - has long since become reality.

Keep the BNP out - don't vote Labour!

A wedding present from the Home Office

Hard to imagine many worse ways of starting a marriage: eighteen months of separation enforced by the whim of the state. As so often these days it's a whim compounded from a lethal cocktail of plain incompetence, mendaciousness and political correctness.

It seems no time since the government was in denial over forced marriages. Not a problem. OK, maybe a teeny weeny problem in a handful of cases, but nothing that existing legislation can't deal with.

Then somehow the balance tipped, and now we're in the next phase - the one where they try to find a fix that will let them off having to come clean about what the problem is.

For we do all know, don't we, that forced marriages are not a prominent feature of traditional Canadian or Welsh culture. And the Person from the Ministry knows that we know. But in order that he and his masters and mistresses may avoid pronouncing the 'M' word and/or the name of the country that separates India from Afghanistan, two newly-weds must be punished for a crime that everybody knows neither of them has committed. And just to add insult to injury, they get a lecture from the Person from the Ministry about what an evil crime it is that they haven't committed, and how admirable it is that the government is 'tackling' it (at their expense).

No doubt Rochelle and Adam will spend large parts of the next two eighteen months celebrating diversity. Unless, that is, they're too busy organizing Adam's permanent relocation to Canada.

Here's another take on the story. Note particularly the government's forced marriage poster: does either of those shackled hands look as if it comes from that mysterious anonymous space to the left of India?

Service announcement

For fairly obvious reasons I am switching on comment moderation for the time being. Sorry the technology doesn't allow me to exempt you, Snoopy, and please don't be put off!

To whom it may concern

Visitors to the blog have by now had ample opportunity of gathering that I am a scummy little smearbag. I suspect one or two may be feeling that the novelty is wearing off. I certainly am. So I have deleted the last batch of comments to this effect, and any more in the same vein will meet with the same fate.

Apart from anything else, I have no proof that the writer is who he claims to be. And I would certainly feel defamed if someone were posting comments in my name which made it look as if I was suffering from some digital variant of Tourette's Syndrome.

If the writer is indeed who he says he is, he may rest assured that an apology for legitimate and pertinent comment on material which he has chosen to place in the public domain is as unforthcoming as ever.

One last point. I recently leafed through a copy of the Economist whilst waiting to board a plane. Something rather unusual struck me about it: it's an anonymous magazine. Not a by-line from start to finish. And it is a former senior editor of the same magazine (or someone impersonating him) who repeatedly accuses me of moral cowardice for blogging anonymously. There's nowt so queer as folk.