Islamintern Propaganda: The Players

by Hugh Fitzgerald (June 2006)

 

The Director of Communications at the U.N. and Kofi Annan’s Chief Speechwriter (and also his “Senior Adviser”) is one Edward Mortimer, formerly with the Euro-Arab Dialogue branch of the E.U., and before that, a journalist with a variety of English newspapers. He is most famous, among those who remember what he wishes they would forget, for the absolute delight with which he greeted that primitive pro-fascist mass-murderer, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the man who in his writings carefully explains to whom it is licit to serve the cooked remains of a goat, a camel, or a sheep with which you have had sexual intercourse and then killed and cooked. That allows one to deal with that famous problem immortalized in song — “breaking-up-is-hard-to-do” — and at the same time thriftily observing the ethic of “waste not, want not.” And then, of course, there are the Ayatollah’s remarks on the absolute necessity of making war on the Infidels (see, for bloodthirsty samples, Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim, pp 11-12, and Robert Spencer’s Islam Unveiled, p. 35).

Here is what Edward Mortimer, the man who puts the words in Kofi Annan’s mouth and therefore helps to mold what pass for Kofi Annan’s “thoughts,” wrote when the Ayatollah Khomeini first came to power, as reported by the English writer Anthony Howard:

Way back at the start of 1979, when the Iranian people took to the streets and the late Shah was overthrown, the media – as I recall – did not so much give a shudder of horror as heave a sigh of relief. Indeed, one London periodical (the ultra-respectable, middle-of-the-road Spectator) went almost overboard in its exultation. Writing from Teheran, one of its contributors, Mr. Edward Mortimer of The Times of London, actually went so far as to begin his article with Charles James Fox’s comment on the fall of the Bastille: ‘How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world, and how much the best!’ Those words, added Mr. Mortimer, seemed to him ‘entirely apposite.’

 
 

And not surprisingly, Mortimer is venomous on the subject of Israel. Now the real antisemites, as is known, have a few topics that they cannot leave alone, that haunt them, that they love to discuss endlessly. For some, it may be the supposedly “deliberate” attack by Israeli planes on the U.S.S. Liberty in June 1967 despite the careful analyses and now the released tapes that show conclusively that it was, of course, a mistake, friendly fire of the most understandable kind. (This does not prevent the likes of James Bamford in one of his books from claiming, without the least evidence, that Israel did this in order to “cover up” its crimes of executing Egyptian prisoners — but then Bamford, of course, is the kind of man who pretends to be a tough, no-nonsense clear-eyed defender of America while opposing efforts to wiretap violent jihadists and insisting that there is no problem with Islam or a Jihad, no, of course not — the problem is America’s unreserved and total (!) “support of Israel.” Tell that to the Christians in East Timor or the Southern Sudan.

 

Now there is one other favorite topos of the convinced antisemite. And that is that the “Zionists” collaborated with — the Nazis. This nauseating charge is made, in fact, by among others, one Lenni Brenner. No serious reviewer would bother with such trash. But Edward Mortimer found the thesis of a Zionist-Nazi collaboration so convincing, so meritorious, that he wrote a rave review that was then used as the introduction for a new edition of the book. That tells one all one needs to know about Edward Mortimer’s deepest impulses, and not only when it comes to Israel.

 

So this is the man who, though he had praised Khomeini to the Jacobin skies back in 1979, and heaped praise on Lonni Brenner’s antisemitic viciousness back in 1984, was hired nonetheless — no, make that “was hired for that reason” — by the United Nations. It is Edward Mortimer who puts the “twaddle” in Kofi Annan’s mouth — the mouth of the man who heads an organization that has been taken over by the Islamintern. Edward Mortimer deserves the U.N.; the U.N. deserves Edward Mortimer. What a mix, what a continuous Witches’ Sabbath on the East River.

 

 

Meanwhile, a million black Christians in southern Nigeria died, many of them killed by Egyptian pilots bombing civilians — and the U.N. did nothing. The U.N. did nothing when 200,000 Christians in East Timor died; it was the Australians who had to rescue the rest with their own troops. In 20 years of genocidal attacks, the U.N. has done nothing effective to help the Christians of the southern Sudan, despite the superb and anguished reports of its Special Rapporteur Gaspar Biro. Kofi Annan went out of his way to prevent General Romeo Dalaire from acting to intervene and head off the Rwanda Genocide. The Hutus, incidentally, had earlier received arms from Egypt; at the time, the Secretary-General was the sad-eyed Boutros Boutros Ghali, a man deeply afraid of the Egyptian Government. Kofi Annan was in charge of peacekeeping.

 

 

The ongoing discussions about Darfur are farcical. The U.N. will not and cannot act, because the Arab League, and many other Muslim countries, will simply not permit any intervention to save either non-Muslims or non-Arab Muslims when they are under attack by Muslim Arabs. Only against Iraq, in the past 30 years, has the U.N. authorized military force against a Muslim power. And it was not to rescue the Kurds during the Al-Anfal Operation against them. No, it was only in response to the invasion of Kuwait and the threatened invasion of Saudi Arabia — for then other Muslim powers were directly threatened. And the resolutions left over from the end of that first Gulf War were the only reason the United States obtained some half-hearted backing this time around.

 

 

But unless it is other Muslims who are being threatened, the U.N. will never, ever, take the side of intervention. It has been thoroughly infiltrated by pro-Islamic, and anti-Israel and anti-American forces. And Edward Mortimer beautifully exemplifies all three strands. He deserves special attention and no doubt a special prize from Muslim sources — for efforts that surpass even what they expected.

 

Well done, Edward Mortimer. Well done, illegitimate Edward.

 

Turning to broadcasting, the BBC has many reporters on the Middle East, and sometimes in the Middle East, who slavishly follow the Arab Muslim line. A few of them seem to have inherited their views, the way in which Kim Philby inherited his alienation from the West from his father St. John Philby, the senior Philby becoming a Muslim and Saudi today, the junior Philby becoming a Soviet spy. One of those to-the-manner-born BBC correspondents bears the last name “Seale”; the other one bears the last name “Hawley.” I have long wondered if the first is the daughter of the notorious Patrick Seale, and if the second, Caroline Hawley, now in Jerusalem (taking the place of weepy Barbara Plett) is by any chance the daughter of Donald Hawley, who has his own story with the Arabs. If so, my my.

 

It has long been bruited about that Patrick Seale, the British writer and Middle East “expert,” has had very close ties with the regime of Hafez al-Assad, whose biographer he was. These close ties have been intimated by those who have spent long periods in the Middle East, and who have for quite some time followed Seale’s louche activities. If this is true, then in this respect he is no different from a number of Western diplomats, especially in Saudi Arabia, nor from George Galloway, the supposed recipient of Saddam Hussein’s favors, nor from Robert Fisk, whose assorted ties to various Arab regimes and causes are too long and boring to list. This is all part of the Islamintern International — a phrase that I think ought usefully to be employed, based as it is on the model of the Comintern of memory.

 

 

Of course Patrick Seale would like us to give the Muslims, or rather the Muslim Arabs, whatever they want. Yet there is not the slightest evidence that this will do anything except feed Muslim triumphalism. In the case of throwing Israel to the wolves, it will also remove — if the Israelis make still further concessions — the excuse of darura, necessity, which allows some Arab regimes to explain to their own people why, for now, they cannot directly attack Israel. Further reduced in size, Israel would become a much more inviting and plausible target. Most Arab countries would simply have to attack. And then, of course, those 200 nuclear weapons Israel has would most likely, in the end, have to be used.

 

 

Whether or not he has a child employed there, Seale’s views get ample airtime on the BBC. The BBC, you will recall, has as its World Affairs Editor a certain John Simpson. Simpson is a key figure in the Islamintern — along with Edward Mortimer and Mona Rishmawi, the Palestinian Arab behind Mary Robinson. Simpson has contributed an enthusiastic introduction to one of those books about the U.S.-Israel conspiracy to “hush up” the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty — the kind of thing that has become the reason for living for so many of the wildest antisemites. Ca dit longue, John Simpson’s involvement in this favorite treatment of the American antisemites’ favorite topic makes him just the man to run the BBC World Services.

 

 

So the next time you have to endure the sneers and snarls directed at Israel from chirpy little Judy Swallow (surely she has the most unpleasant female voice on all of radio), Robin Lustig (and he has the winner in the male voice category), et al (including Barbara Plett, the one who wept on air for the dying Arafat, making her obvious sympathies — obvious, has been moved to Afghanistan, still in her beloved and colorful Muslim world, but at least out of Israel) — do make sure to direct some of your ire at John Simpson, No. 3 at the BBC. There has to be a cleaning up of the BBC, and it cannot be done by the Foreign Office. Let us do everything we can to try to make sure that Judy Swallow, nasty Lyse Doucet, Robin Lustig, those Muslims called in to represent Islam, such as would-be suicide-bomber Aziz Tamimi, indeed, so very many at the BBC World Service — and most of all, of course, Simpson himself, are ultimately let go. How about a nice Committee of Quangos, headed by Vladimir Bukovsky, who lives in Cambridge, and who knows something about totalitarian thought-control, and has been enraged by the BBC’s bias for years — yes, Bukovsky is the man. Aided, perhaps, by others who have the same kind of knowledge of how propaganda works — Pavel Kohout in Prague comes to mind, and the Polish historian Geremek, and the current foreign minister of Bulgaria (I forget his name). Yes, they will do very nicely.

 

 

Attention could profitably be focused on the funneling of American taxpayers’ money to NPR, which in turn pays the BBC to broadcast its propaganda (The Guardian in radio-wave form). We do not need to pay for our own Eurabian brainwashing, and should refuse to continue. NPR stations should be discouraged — in the only way that gets their attention, by limiting their ability to raise funds successfully — from continuing to inflict the biased BBC, now a stalking-horse for Eurabian views, into American homes. Surely the Senate will want to cease all indirect support for the BBC, with its incredible coverage not only of the Arab Jihad against Israel, but of American, and British, actions in Iraq. Goodbye, BBC. If after the 6,000 jobs are gone, we find that the worst offenders are looking for work, we will reconsider — that is the attitude the Senate should take. It is not true that the BBC offers all sorts of news that one could not otherwise get, nor that the presentation of what is given is impressively thorough. Ask yourself only this question: in 2001 the Western world, the world of Infidels, was attacked by a group of Muslims acting logically, and boldly, upon attitudes and tenets of Islam. If the BBC is so wonderful, and devoid of the need for commercial interruptions, it should have been wonderful enough to cover the texts and teachings of Islam, and to do so with such thoroughness that everyone and his brother would know what the Qur’an is, and what the doctrine of abrogation is, and what the Hadith are, and why Khomeini, as virtually his first act, lowered the marriageable age of girls to nine. And we should know enough about Islam, and the BBC interviewers should know everything, so that when they are discussing, say, the Danish cartoons, and a Muslim apologist blandly assures them that Muhammad himself never punished critics, so that Muslim reaction is merely a matter of hurt feelings, the interviewer will no longer silently accept such nonsense, but be able, by referring to Asma bint Marwan and Abu Akaf, to offer a sharp rebuttal. Or is the BBC not in the business of rebutting, but rather of collaborating with, apologists for Islam? Does the BBC require those covering anything to do with Islam to learn about it, in detail, and not from apologists? And when do you think, in all the tens of thousands of hours of coverage at the BBC of the Lesser Jihad against Israel, that has no end because no Infidel sovereign state can be permitted on land once possessed by Muslims, presented steadily on the BBC as a matter of “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people opposed to occupation of occupied Arab land by Israeli occupiers.” (There, does the BBC make itself clear?), will you the listeners ever hear the term “dhimmi” discussed? Will the name “Bat Ye’or” ever be mentioned? Will the murders of Hindus in Bangladesh or Christians in the southern Sudan ever be discussed as being related to the doctrines of Islam, or will that never happen? Will Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacist ideology ever come up? When was the last time the BBC covered the Berber riots in the Kabyle, or anything to do with Berber resentment of Arab oppression? When has the BBC ever hinted at the general Arab support for (not even mere indifference to) the Arab Muslim massacre of non-Arab, black African Muslims in Darfur? When will the entire matter of whether or not Muslims within Europe can offer real, as opposed to feigned, and permanent, as opposed to temporary, loyalty to any Infidel nation-state become the subject of inquiry, discussion, debate — or will this issue, on which the destiny of Europe may depend, never be raised at the BBC.

 

 

The BBC has done none of this. It is more superficial, more inaccurate, less informative, in its coverage of Islam than many a supposedly “right-wing” American commercial station so easy to dismiss, because nothing critical of Islam appears on the BBC World Service. Who, after all, works at the BBC? There are the ever-expanding number of Arabs and Muslims, as the Arab-lnaguage services expand and Arabs replace those who are discharged as so many other language-services are closed down. How many of those Arabic-language speakers are Copts, or Maronites, who might be more likely to tell some unpleasant home truths about Islam, rather than continue to protect it in every way, or how many of those Arabic-language speakers might have been chosen from Berbers or Kurds who know Arabic? And on the regular staff, whom do you think the likes of John Simpson would favor? What colleagues would Judy Swallow, Robin Lustig, Barbara Plett, Lyse Doucet, welcome into their Guardian-parroting ranks?

 

 

Occupied Europe, the Europe in which indigenous Infidels are fearful of those bearers of the belief-system of Islam who have come to settle among them, and who do not hesitate to oppose the laws, customs, manners, understandings, of the locals, and whose presence has caused the indigenous Infidels to lead lives far more unsettled and unpleasant and expensive and physically dangerous, than they might otherwise be, from Malmo to Marseilles, from Madrid to Mannheim, is ill-served by the present BBC. For its policies and personnel have created a situation where, in a sense, we know have Lord Haw-Haw safely ensconced in Bush House, rather than having to broadcast to his listeners from Berlin.

 

 

What will it take for the BBC’s coverage of Islam, the Middle East, and Israel, which are of a piece, to be investigated? A number of powerful people at the BBC effectively have an Islamic agenda. John Simpson, who is deeply anti-American and anti-Israeli, runs the BBC World Service and in turn reports to the Foreign Office –- for the World Service is under its control. Does John Simpson’s introduction to Operaton Cyanide, the anti-Israel conspiracy-theory book by Peter Hounam (a one-man anti-Israel investigative unit, who when last heard from had been arrested in Israel as a security risk), the anti-Israel and anti-American head of BBC World Service, continue to get a pass, or to pass unnoticed? Why?

 

 

What about the hectoring and sneering that is so palpable a feature of BBC interviews with Israeli guests, or with those defending Israel, or which for that matter is a feature of interviews with those defending American policy in Iraq? And what about the BBC’s use of the Hamas supporter and promoter Azzam Tamimi as an “expert”? His views are frequently aired on the BBC. Or what about the loaded language — “insurgents” in Iraq, “militants” in Israel, never “terrorists”; “occupied Arab lands” for what are “disputed lands” which are legally unallocated portions of the Mandate for Palestine, set up for the express and sole purpose of establishing the Jewish National Home.

 

 

Trevor Asserson has published a number of reports on the BBC. Vladimir Bukovsky has that Russian smell-sense (chootyo) for the loaded language and lies in which the BBC, like Pravda of yore, specializes — not about all things, but specifically about anything remotely to do with Islam, Israel, or the Middle East. Bukovsky has started a campaign to end the mandatory payment, the license fee, that is, exacted to support the BBC, even from those who cannot stand its coverage. A more sinister thing than this forced tribute, this jizya, which is used to pay for the very coverage one may find deceptive and dangerous, is hard to imagine.

 

 

Huw Weldon and Hugh Greene, and many other powerful figures from the BBC’s intelligent past are missed. And even among the Guardian-reading, left-leaning staff, there are those who — outside of the powerful, tight little group of Arab and Muslim staff and their non-Muslim supporters, hirelings, and hangers-on (some motivated by antisemitic animus, a pathology not to be overlooked or poohpoohed) — are aware of this BBC slant and cannot bear it. Do any of them care to reveal what they know, in some tell-it-all revelations about the Islamic equivalent of the Comintern, and its infiltration of the BBC, as of so many other organizations?

 

It is not up to Blair or Straw to call for a BBC investigation. But others should do it. Donald Watt, Kenneth Minogue, J. B. Kelly, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Bukovsky himself, and others might form a committee, something like the American Committee on the Present Danger, to demand that the BBC’s coverage be investigated — and without the usual “both sides complain, so we must be doing it right” excuse that is so idiotically offered up by both the BBC and by PBS when its only slightly less biased coverage is under attack.

 

 

Lord Haw-haws and Tokyo Roses now broadcast conveniently right from Bush House and PBS, untouched and seemingly untouchable. And what is even more maddening, they are being paid by British and American taxpayers, respectively. Sentimentality about a free press misses the point. These organizations are self-contained, immune to criticism or oversight. Who appointed the smarmy Dick Gordon (now moved on to fresh fields and pastures new, thank god), or the self-assured and comically ignorant Tom Ashbrook, to their PBS news programs? Was there a poll? Was any audience consulted? Or was it a decision by the very well paid czarette of WBUR, Jane Christo?

 

 

Now Christo is gone, forced to resign (see “under a cloud”), but while she ruled the roost at the NPR station in a major American city, who or what gave her the right to decide who will cover the news for the taxpayer-supported, tax-exempt PBS? And what makes John Simpson exempt from investigation? What makes him permanently immune to being called to account for the outrageous coverage he not only permits but encourages at the BBC? Both the BBC and PBS, these “publicly-funded” institutions (the BBC by fiat, the PBS by tax-exempt status, grants, and constant handouts from unwary or innocent listeners), keep pretending that the very fact of this public funding makes them somehow “unbiased.” WBUR keeps telling everyone that it offers a genuine “diversity” of views — sure, it runs all the way from Kerry to Dean and back. And then they keep telling us that all those other, crazy right-wing stations are the ones that are full of lies.

 

 

Spare us.