The culture of intolerance that has grown over time in the UK has undermined the ethos of British schools. As Islamist zealots grow stronger in influence in our society, a number of schools known for their secular, inclusiveness and apolitical approach, such as St Stephen’s Primary School, Parkfield Community School, Batley Grammar School, Kettlethorpe High School, and Barclay Primary School, have been caving into their demands one after the other.

There has been an attempt by Muslim fundamentalists in the UK to politicise educational institutions, in order to gain clout in social and political sphere.  And now these nefarious elements have come out in force to assert their intolerant beliefs under the pretext of religious freedom. They use religious identity and political grievances to subvert the secular democratic system. Unfortunately, innocent school children seem to have become pawns in their hands.

What happened outside the gates of Barclay Primary School in East London late last year illustrates this state of affairs. As reported in the Telegraph, children and parents had been in conflict with the school over its policy of being ‘apolitical’ and monitoring comments in parents’ WhatsApp groups, as well as not allowing the children to wear pro-Palestinian clothing. In December, the school was forced to close early for Christmas by a pro-Palestine protest in support of a boy who arrived at the school wearing a Palestine badge on his coat and refused to take it off. The boy’s mother was from Gaza; his father accused the school of ‘Islamophobia’. Yet neither parents nor protesters seem to have acknowledged the school’s interest in avoiding extremism and safeguarding for all students – or its claims that staff and the school itself had been threatened by ‘malicious fabrications’ and ‘misinformation’. Since then, the school has received threats of violence, arson and a bomb threat.

Given this toxic situation, it was only a matter of time before the Michaela Community School in north London was added to the list of schools singled out for their secular principles and inclusiveness.

Michaela was founded by headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh in 2014. The school, known for its outstanding academic results, is facing a lawsuit for maintaining its longstanding secular character by banning prayers. It is a sad state of affairs that a school known for its excellence has become the target of unfounded charges of prejudice. Among certain religious zealots, particularly Islamists at present, the attitude seems to be that those who defy their dictates must be punished pour encourager les autres.

The manner in which the Michaela case has been framed, with the accusations of victimisation and discrimination against Muslim pupils, demonstrates that Islamists will stop at nothing to bully people into compliance. They use the language of human rights to assert their supremacist beliefs. They attempt to use English legislation pertaining to religious freedom as leverage to force the schools to comply with their requests.

The issue of discipline within the school premises has now turned into a question of whether Muslims have the freedom to practise their religion on their terms. The Muslim author of an article recently published in the Guardian, Nadeine Asbali, castigated Birbalsingh’s supposedly ‘dystopian, sinister vision of multiculturalism’.

But this was not merely a case of students offering prayer in the school. As reported in The Standard, Birbalsingh said that her decision came against a ‘backdrop of events including violence, intimidation and appalling racial harassment of our teachers’. At one point a brick was even hurled through a teacher’s window. There was also allegedly intimidation of some Muslim pupils by others. The Muslim pupil who sued the school was reportedly suspended for five days in 2023 for threatening to stab another pupil. This suggests that children were being influenced by an extreme Islamist ideology, which cannot but harm the wellbeing of the whole school. Birbalsingh’s intervention was arguably a matter of safeguarding, as well as of fostering inclusion and cohesion among the student body.

Concerningly, the threat posed by religious extremists remains present and has often gone unnoticed. The Commission for Countering Extremism has reportedly revealed that research on radical groups is ‘skewed’ towards the far right. Consequently, Britain has ‘substantial gaps’ in its understanding of Islamist extremism, which has been ‘systemically under-researched’. The CCE also warned that Islamist radicals are attempting to dissuade researchers from writing about them by threatening legal action. This is just like the lawsuit being pursued by the unnamed Michaela student against her school: she may claim that the ban on prayer is discriminatory, but in fact, she, or whoever it might be speculated is behind her, is arguably attempting to exploit human rights law to enforce the sowing of division in the school, against the better judgement of its headmistress.

A highly polarised society where differences are valued more than similarities is a breeding ground for extremists. Parallel legal and educational systems based on extremist religious beliefs are operating in plain sight, contributing to further division in society. Disproportionate emphasis on religious freedoms has given minority ethnic or religious groups too much leeway to live according to their own cultural and religious norms, in disregard of the law, human rights principles and British values. Unfortunately, the main culprits at present are the Islamists.

The Michaela lawsuit and the threats and violence out of which it comes ought to be a wake-up call for progressives. They should acknowledge the perils of being in denial about the threats which Islamist extremism poses to the sort of peace, fair treatment and mutual harmony which are encouraged by a code of school rules that is universally applied, with no exceptions. In a modern secular society, it is surely in everyone’s interests if religion, like politics, is kept out of the classroom.

Asbali argues that the Michaela School prayer ban implies ‘the bleak and frankly insulting assumption that, in order for all of us to live harmoniously, we must become robots with no beliefs or ideas of our own’. But this arguably misrepresents the case. It is not a question of what pupils believe – that is, of course, their own business, as Birbalsingh would surely allow. It is a question of their public actions while in school, where a multitude of different considerations may apply, and headteachers must not be unduly shackled by religious demands.

Freedom of belief is one thing – but freedom of manifesting a belief is another. Article 9, paragraph 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights itself makes this plain, stipulating that ‘Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society’ for various reasons, including to protect ‘public safety’ and ‘the rights and freedoms of others.’

It may also be that, as Asbali says, some Muslims believe that the five-times daily prayer ritual ‘will be one of the first things we will be questioned about by God after we die.’ However, is at least questionable whether children are obliged to fulfil this ritual. More fundamentally, it is open to debate whether points of religious doctrine like this one, which are based on nothing but ancient traditional authority and faith with no evidence, should be allowed to take precedence over concerns for the wellbeing of a mixed group of children in the here and now.

The Michaela case is but the latest in a string of incidents at schools in the UK to pose the question of how far religious exceptionalism should be allowed to interfere with the good running of a school and the wellbeing of its whole community. The High Court will have to decide whether Birbalsingh’s policies have struck the balance fairly. In the meantime, the question remains how many other schools and headteachers will have the bravery and tenacity to stand up against the threats of litigation, or worse, from religious extremists. As things stand now, the storm of threats looks to be a long way from abating.

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2023 has been an eventful year for free thought, humanism and secularism. Below, Emma Park and Daniel James Sharp look back on some of the major issues that have been debated in the Freethinker this year.

I. Free speech, religion and the culture wars

Free thought and intellectual progress are not possible without a shared culture of free speech, open debate and a willingness to engage with different points of view. One of the Freethinker’s concerns this year has been with attempts to repress free speech, especially in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, and in the context of the ‘culture wars’.

In Ireland, a new bill on hate offences threatens to undermine free speech, not just about religion but on a variety of the most sensitive topics – in other words, topics on which open debate is crucial. In Wakefield, England, in February, a non-Muslim woman, presumably under pressure, donned a veil and made a humiliating public apology in the local mosque, because her autistic son had brought a copy of the Quran into school and it was accidentally scuffed. And Puffin has made attempts to censor Roald Dahl in the name of ‘sensitivity’.

Free speech at universities also remains under pressure, as illustrated by the case of Professor Steven Greer, who was hounded by Bristol University Islamic Society in a smear campaign that was supported by academic colleagues who should have known better. Daniel reviewed Greer’s book about his experiences.

Across the pond, Professor Alex Byrne’s contract for a book critical of gender identity ideology was cancelled by Oxford University Press, but has since been published by Polity. From a different perspective, former vice chancellor Julius Weinberg argued that ‘freedom of speech is not as simple as my right to express my ideas’.

To supporters of democracy in Hong Kong, the culture wars are all but an irrelevance. The suffocating control of the Chinese Communist Party, said Kevin Yam, forced campaigners across the political spectrum to work together.

II. Science, philosophy, and humanism

As well as exploring the issues of the day, the Freethinker has also explored some of their deeper philosophical and historical contexts.

We interviewed the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett about the relationship between philosophy and science, meaning and consciousness in a godless, Darwinian universe, and New Atheism. With historian Charles Freeman, we discussed the richness and variety of the ancient Greek mind and how the coming of Christian orthodoxy put an end to that tradition. And we caught up with the humanist and author Sarah Bakewell to explore different traditions of humanism.

Meanwhile, Matt Johnson and Daniel Sharp both contributed articles about one of the most famous freethinkers of recent years, the late Christopher Hitchens.

III. Islam and free thought

With the rise of Islam in Britain and across the West, it has become urgent to consider how far the religion can be compatible with Western values and approaches. To explore this question, we interviewed Taj Hargey, possibly Britain’s only liberal imam. Other contributors have explored the need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought around the world, why the hijab is not a good symbol for women, and whether it is possible to distinguish between religious and political Islam.

IV. Secularism

Secularism is the principle that religion and state should be separated, and that religion should have no undue influence on public life. In the UK, thanks to a combination of political apathy and entrenched privilege, we still have an established church and unelected clergy in Parliament. Paul Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer, spoke to the Freethinker about why he introduced a bill to disestablish the Church of England.

With a general election on the cards for 2024, Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society discussed where the political parties stand on faith schools. Two recent events in which the NSS participated revealed some of the challenges involved in secularisation. Daniel also argued in an article for Only Sky that the Church of England’s record on gay marriage is another reason to hasten disestablishment.

Other contributors to the Freethinker have looked at secularism, its history and future, in Québec, Turkey and Wales, and the strengths and weaknesses of French-style laïcité.

Did you know that, while the advancement of any religion, as well as of humanism, is considered a charitable aim under English law, the advancement of free thought, atheism or secularism is not? See Emma’s piece for New Humanist.

V. Israel and Palestine

One of the year’s biggest events—the Hamas attack against Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war—has produced a wide range of often emotional and heated responses. In contrast to all this sound and fury, the Freethinker has published a series of articles dealing with the conflict from different and often disagreeing, but rationally and charitably argued perspectives.

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid wrote about the ‘leftist postcolonial apologia’ for Hamas and argued that the Israel-Palestine conflict is, at root, a religious one, while in Emma’s interview with Taj Hargey, the imam was staunch in his support of the ‘occupied and oppressed’ Palestinians. Hina Husain wrote about her Pakistani upbringing and being inculcated with Islam-based anti-Semitism. Finally, Ralph Leonard responded to all these articles, arguing that the conflict is, in fact, inspired more by competing nationalisms than religious impulses.

VI. Republicanism

Free thought and secularism have been closely intertwined with republicanism in British history. The Freethinker has reinforced this link since its beginnings in 1881.

This year, we have continued in the same spirit of religious and political anti-authoritarianism, publishing a review by Daniel of the republican activist Graham Smith’s anti-monarchy book. Later in the year, Daniel interviewed Graham Smith in person at Conway Hall. Meanwhile, Emma delved into the archives to discover the connection between the Freethinker and Republic, of which Smith is the CEO.

See also Daniel’s article on the republican Thomas Paine’s influence on Christopher Hitchens and Tony Howe’s discussion of an even earlier famous British republican, John Milton.

VII. Free thought history

In June, we were saddened to hear of the death of Jim Herrick (1944-2023), former editor of the Freethinker. Bob Forder, NSS historian, wrote an obituary commemorating Jim’s lifelong dedication to free thought, humanism and secularism.

The composer Frances Lynch wrote a guest post about her rediscovery of Eliza Flower, a radical nineteenth-century composer associated with Conway Hall, who was neglected by the historical record because she was female.

We have also been reflecting on the history of the Freethinker and of the various non-religious movements in the UK. Former editor Nigel Sinnott kindly agreed to let us republish an article he wrote for the magazine in 1970 in which he discussed the complicated historical relationship between humanists and secularists. Historian Charlie Lynch introduced the recent book he co-wrote with two other academics charting the history of organised humanism in Britain, which Emma has also reviewed for New Humanist. And Bob Forder argued that free thought and secularism are inseparable.

VIII. The future of free thought

Artificial intelligence has made great strides in 2023. (We even used Dall-E, a generative AI model, to illustrate this post.) Given the exponential pace of development, it is clear that the implications need to be monitored very carefully. For instance, there are concerns that ChatGPT may be biased in favour of certain interpretations of Islam. And artificial general intelligence (AGI) may be just around the corner, making ethical oversight all the more urgent.

Emma and Daniel spoke about the nature of free thought and the challenges facing it today and in the future on the Humanism Now podcast, on Freethought Hour and to the Reading Humanists. Emma also spoke to the Central London Humanists about Pastafarianism, arguably the world’s fastest growing religion, and a topic about which there is much to say.

This year also saw the publication of two intriguing books about the impact of digital technology on free thought, one by Simon McCarthy-Jones, and another by Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan. Emma interviewed Laura Dodsworth for the Freethinker and reviewed both books for the Literary Review. We will be looking further at the implications of digital technology for free thought in 2024.

Finally, a request for your support…

The Freethinker is an independent, non-profit journal and completely open-access. We are funded by donations and legacies given by generations of readers back to the 19th century – and not by big corporations or billionaires. To keep us going in the future, we depend on the generosity of readers today. If you believe in the importance of fostering a culture of free thought, open enquiry and irreverence, please consider making a donation via this link.

And don’t forget to sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter, to keep abreast of the latest developments in free thought in the UK and around the world.

Postscript: a merry Christmas of sorts from Christopher Hitchens…

The post Year in review: 2023 appeared first on The Freethinker.

~ Emma Park, Editor

In the month since Hamas attacked Israel, there have been dozens of pro-Palestine protests across the world. Where I live in Canada, a high profile rally in the city of Mississauga went viral when one of the attendees gave this interview where she claims, among other things, that Hamas would never behead babies because ‘they are a Muslim group’ and doing so would be ‘against Islam’. She says Hamas is a resistance, not a terrorist group, and everything they have done in Israel is justified. Many people who watched this clip were horrified to hear the atrocities against Israelis being so casually dismissed, and it did not help that the woman in the interview was sporting large, golden earrings made to look like machine guns while donning the hijab. So much for a ‘religion of peace’.

When I watched this interview, I was neither shocked nor surprised, but instead was reminded of my upbringing in Pakistan and what we were taught about Jews and Israel. Now, I am not an Islamic scholar, nor will I claim to know what the Quran really says about Jewish people and their history. All I know is that hatred of Jews is a very normal, accepted and even encouraged aspect of modern Islamic life and teachings. What we are seeing at these pro-Palestine rallies, I suspect, is more sinister than just fighting for the human rights of Palestinians, as so much of the mainstream media would like us to believe.

Here is a fact: on the top of every page of a Pakistani passport is the phrase, ‘This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel.’ Until 2021, Bangladesh’s passport also bore this text, prohibiting citizens from traveling to Israel. The Malaysian passport still has it. In total, over a dozen Muslim-majority countries do not admit those with an Israeli passport, six of which also do not admit people who have evidence of travel to Israel.

In contrast, according to Wikipedia, there are (or at least were before the present conflict) very few states, and none of the major Muslim ones, whose citizens are automatically refused entry to Israel – although citizens from most Muslim countries require confirmation from the Israeli Foreign Ministry before a visa can be issued, and it may be refused.

It is easy to assume that countries like Pakistan and Malaysia do not recognise the state of Israel because, like the hive-mind Borg from Star Trek, the Muslim ummah stands in solidarity with Palestinians and their liberation. But there is another reason why Muslim states are so opposed to the idea of Israel for Jews. Since as long as I can remember, I was taught, by my parents, teachers and faith leaders, that Jewish people were damned by God and, as punishment, they would never have their own homeland. This is what I suspect, though I cannot prove it, is driving at least some of the anti-Semitism we are seeing in Islamic communities: the idea that if Israel is made a permanent, Jewish state, then the word of God is being disobeyed, and Muslims have taken it upon themselves to make sure Jewish people are punished just as Allah intended by denying them a right to have their own country. As one Twitter user, Kaz Nejatian, put it: ‘I grew up in Iran. Every day, I was forced to chant “death to Israel”. Generations of children have been brainwashed to believe Jews are evil.’

I think back on my childhood and adolescence in Lahore, Pakistan and can clearly see how anti-Jewish sentiment was propagated through society. In history class, we never learned about the Holocaust. World War II was abstracted into a far-away conflict involving the Axis and Allies, the signing of treaties, and that was about it. Who Hitler was and what he did to millions of European Jews was never mentioned, nor was the fact that anti-Semitism was one of the driving forces behind the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. Teaching this part of history might have had the unintended consequence of casting Jewish people in a more sympathetic light, and that could not be allowed. How else could they teach children in their Islamic Studies class that during the time of Muhammad, Jews were conniving villains who cast black magic spells on our Holy Prophet? Between world history and Islamic Studies, the word of the Quran always won out.

A few weeks ago, I was doing some research for a piece I am writing on Pakistani movies and came across a paper on black magic in Pakistani television shows. It was published in 2021 in a scientific journal for archaeology and paleontology and was written by professors working at universities in Pakistan. Its thesis was that portraying black magic on TV might lead people to think it was okay to engage in the practice. The authors were against this because they claimed that Islam prohibits the practice of black magic, so filmmakers and artists should refrain from showing it in their work. The paper then goes on to say (sic), ‘It is surprising for some folks [to] recognize about the black magic has such intense power that it had also affected our beloved Prophet Hazrat Muhammad(PBUH). The bewitching incident of Hazrat Muhammad(PBUH) is narrated as a Jew requested the famous sorcerer named Labaid bin Asim to cast spell on Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) and offered three gold coins as a reward.’

In other words, in 2023, research papers coming out of Pakistani institutions are still casually dropping anti-Semitic tales taken from religious texts as ‘proof’ of the dangers of black magic. Even science is not sacred.

I do not have the expertise to judge whether or not the Palestinian people have legitimate grievances against the Israeli state. I do find it curious, though, that in other places around the world where Muslims are suffering, our global ummah has little to say. The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Uyghurs in China, and most recently the Afghans seeking asylum in Pakistan who are forcefully being deported back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, have not generated even a fraction of the outrage that the Palestinian cause inspires in the hearts and souls of Muslims. Thousands of people protested in the streets of Pakistan against airstrikes in Gaza after 7 October. But few are willing to fight for Afghan Muslims, including children, and their human right to seek safety in Pakistan.

It is strange that Muslim children in Gaza apparently generate more support than thousands of Afghan children born in Pakistan, who now have to go to a country they know nothing about, facing an uncertain future, including potential death due to widespread famine in Afghanistan. Not to mention the Yemeni civil war, currently in its ninth year, where more than 100,000 children have died from starvation alone. Maybe because this is a conflict between ‘brother’ Muslim nations, and therefore does not require the same amount of care and attention. The more important thing, it seems, is to make sure Jews never have a country to call their own.

An inferiority complex may also play a role in anti-Jewish sentiment. As the American economist Thomas Sowell once put it: ‘[Jews] are people who have succeeded an awful lot in the midst of other people who have not…as long as you succeed, you’re going to be hated.’

To explain away this conundrum—how can Jews be so successful if they’re damned by God?—many Muslim children are taught that only ‘true’ Muslims will be guaranteed a place in heaven on the day of judgement, and anyone who does not believe in Allah and his Prophet is going to go to hell if the good-versus-bad scale does not tip in their favour. Not Muslims though: they have a one-way ticket straight to the land of milk and honey, if they are the ‘right’ kind of Muslim. What sect that is, no one knows, and the only way to make sure you do not end up in hell with the Jews and Hindus is to devote your life to Islam and make sure you are among the lucky ones to have cracked the code. People of the book—Jews and Christians—can at least hope to make it to heaven if they are good, but bona fide heathens like Hindus and Sikhs have no chance of joining us chosen ones in the Great Beyond.

All this is to say that anti-Semitism, and discrimination against non-Muslims in general, thrives in large segments of the Muslim world across the globe. Its roots can only be understood if we are honest about how religion is being used to brainwash entire nations to get on the anti-Semitic bandwagon. The conflict in Israel and Palestine has no hope of finding a solution if Muslims around the world do not start doing some soul-searching about what exactly it is about the state of Israel that whips them into such a frenzy. Yet seeing the growing number of pro-Palestine protests, I do not see such self-reflection happening any time soon.

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Other perspectives on Islam and the Israel-Palestine conflict:

Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The post An Islamic (mis)education about Israel appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

Dr Taj Hargey is one of the most dynamic, outspoken and controversial figures in Islam today. He is a citizen both of the UK and South Africa, and divides his time between the two. In South Africa, he is president of the Cape Town Open Mosque, which he founded despite virulent opposition from local clergy. In the UK, he is imam of the liberal Oxford Islamic Congregation and provost of the Oxford Institute for British Islam. OIBI was founded in 2021; according to its website, its aim is the ‘full integration of the British Muslim community into the UK mainstream’. Its board includes liberal Muslims and non-Muslims, among them Steven Greer, the law academic accused of Islamophobia, and Hargey’s wife, Professor Jacqueline Woodman, an NHS consultant and Unitarian Christian.

Hargey was born in Cape Town during South African apartheid. His family are Muslims of slave descent (as he himself puts it) from Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. He read History and Comparative Religion at the University of Durban. He then studied in Cairo and Leiden, before coming to Oxford, where he completed a DPhil on slavery in Islam at St Antony’s College. He then taught at universities in South Africa and the US before settling permanently in the UK in 2001.

I met Hargey at the White Horse pub in Headington, east Oxford, over lunch and a glass of water. In this interview, we discuss his interpretation of Islam, why he looks only to the Quran and not to later Islamic texts, and how he believes his interpretation is relevant to life in modern Britain. We also consider the tradition of free thought within Islam, the unholy alliance between the political left and Muslim fundamentalists in Britain, and Hargey’s plans for OIBI.

This interview was conducted before the outbreak of the present conflict in Israel and Palestine. Since then, Hargey asked to speak to me again, this time via Zoom, to outline his view of the conflict, and argue that the British mainstream media are unfairly biased in favour of Israel. This second interview is appended as the last section of the edited transcript below.

As always, writers and interviewees featured in the Freethinker are responsible for their own views. Our aim in publishing them is to open up the discussion, and thereby to foster, among people with different opinions, a culture of free, rational thought and shared humanity.

~ Emma Park, Editor

Interview

What is your view about the status of the Quran?

The Quran says that it is a revelation from the divine. The Quran that we have today, 1445 years after the Prophet’s death, is exactly the same as it was then. The evidence of early manuscripts dating from the early seventh century supports the claim that the Quran existed during the lifetime of Muhammad. Muslims are taught that he was a conduit, the channel for divine revelation. He was not the author or the architect of Islam’s sacred scripture. One proof that Muhammad was only a conduit is that he is only mentioned by name four times, and is often castigated. Now if you are the author of a document, and not just a vehicle for someone else, do you go about rebuking yourself?

I suppose the Christian fathers did.

Yes, but the Christian fathers did not claim to be Jesus, so that is different. In fact, in one set of Qur’anic verses, God confirms that the Quran is a revelation from the Lord of the world – and if you, Muhammad, tamper and distort these messages, I, God, will seize you by the right hand and sever your throat.

Does viewing the Quran as the word of God ultimately rely on an act of faith – on believing in God in the first place?

Yes. But for myself as a historian, the fact that there are no fundamental discrepancies between the manuscripts of the Quran over 1500 years is an indication that it has a celestial origin, because the basic message has remained untampered with. This message is that there is one God, one humanity, one destiny. We will all be held accountable for the mad, the bad and the sad things that all humans do. The Quran says explicitly that it is a guide for humanity and that it is both timely and timeless.

I firmly believe there is an afterlife because I do not think that my existence here could have enough purpose otherwise. If you have met, say, a deeply devout monk or nun, they have attained certain harmony in their lives that the rest of us do not have. Rather than capitalism and consumerism, this enslavement to which we are addicted, this enlightened nun or monk has achieved something better. They are no longer prisoners of the material world. That for me is indicative of genuine spirituality.

I suppose the humanist response to that would be that spirituality, or a sort of philosophical equivalent, can be found in contemplating the universe as it is.

I do not have any issue with humanists and secularists. What I am against is belligerent atheists and belligerent Muslims, intolerant Jews and intolerant humanists who believe that theirs is the only way. The Quran says that there is no compulsion in matters of religion. People should not be forced to believe something against their will. The Quran says that God alone is sovereign on the Day of Judgement.

You have spoken about the importance of the afterlife. How do you think non-believers will be treated there?

It is presumptuous of me to think that they will be burnt in fire. The atheist may not believe in God, but, like the believer, he also does not think he can go through life without accountability. God will be, I think, just and equitable with the atheist. Because if he is not, I do not want to believe in a Creator like that.

The Quran says that Muslims have a double duty: first, to promote unqualified monotheism; second, to relentlessly pursue universal justice and virtue. If people do unjust, wicked things, then in terms of Qur’anic Islam, I have to resist and oppose them.

That strikes me as a very individualistic approach.

Yes, but Islam is both individualistic and collective. For example, we pray daily alone. Once a week we go to the collective of the mosque. The individual soul matters. The Quran states repeatedly that no soul will bear the burden of another. In contrast, the Christian view of vicarious atonement – of inherited sin, because of Adam and Eve’s indiscretions – is illogical. But we individuals are also part of a collective. John Donne said it beautifully, that no man is an island.

What is the function of the collective?

It should help the have-nots. The Quran tells me and every observant Muslim, that every day you are tested to see if you will do good. Take, for example, the Ukrainian refugees, the starving Yemenis, the displaced Rohingya and what has happened in the civil war in Sudan – we cannot sit on the fence. We need to take a position and to help.

If there were in fact no God, would that matter to you?

Yes, it matters to me in the sense that I do not believe creation could have happened without the Creator.

Does that not raise the question, who created the Creator?

No, there is no need for that because the Creator is the ultimate source.

At the Freethinker, we have previously considered traditions of dissent and free thought in the Islamic world. From your perspective as a scholar of Islam, to what extent has there been room in the history of this religion for adopting different perspectives?

The Quran says repeatedly, Do you not understand? Can’t you see? Why don’t you use your reason? The Quran declares that people who do not want to think are worse than cattle. In early Islamic history, free thinking was not a Christian invention – it was a Muslim invention. A group called Mu’tazilah were the original free thinkers in Islam. They ruled for about 200 years until they were crushed by the orthodox. They believed that the Quran was for free thinking and the right to dissent and to be nonconformist. What I am doing is a new Mu’tazilism – it is not something that I have invented.

Scientific inquiry is a requirement. That is why, for example, I am so proud to be part of the assisted dying movement. I am the only imam involved – the only Muslim scholar and theologian. But I believe that, if I have incurable stage five cancer and I am suffering horrendous pain and causing distress to my loved ones, I should not subject them to six months, a year of more of the same.

You advocate an interpretation of the Quran which considers it both within its historical context and as timeless. Would you say that its ban on eating pork still needs be followed by Muslims today?

It has been proved that in hot climates, if you do not husband pork properly, there is a great deal of illness and disease associated with it. You could argue that, with modern animal husbandry, there is probably less. But the Quran says very clearly that the flesh of the pig is prohibited, nothing about its skin for example. I think that today this prohibition just has a historical legacy – and I am happy to admit that. But because of that heritage, it would be difficult to overturn it. Jews do not eat pork, Muslims do not eat it.

What about alcohol?

God is not against red wine. God is against drunkenness. For example, if the Muslim out there wants a glass of red wine or spirits and he is not inebriated, I do not think it is really wrong. But I do not drink alcohol myself.

And polygamy?

Polygamy is also misunderstood. In seventh-century Arabia, when Muhammad was alive, a woman was the possession, the chattel of the men in her life. First her father, then her brother, then her husband and son. After a major battle in which many men were killed, a temporary permission was given to Muslim men to marry up to four widows (not virgins). And the Quran also says you can only marry up to four provided you treat them equally. That was and remains a key caveat. Now, I do not know about you, but I do not think I can love two people equally and on the same level.

As for Muhammad, he married his first wife, who was 15 years older than him, at the age of 25, and remained monogamous with her until her death. After that, his later wives were result of tribal allegiances and political links – the Quran gave him a special dispensation. Altogether, the Islamic permission for men to marry more than one wife was a limited licence for specific circumstances. It was later hijacked and misinterpreted by the orthodox clergy to apply to all men, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. But the thrust of Islam is monogamy.

What about women’s hair and face coverings?

My intention is to bring Muslims back to the Quran, because the Quran repeatedly asserts that it is enough by itself. Regrettably, most Muslims have been conditioned to believe in supplementary sources: the Hadith, the Sharia and the fatwas. This toxic trio has undermined the purity and originality of the Quran. Take the word ‘hijab’. It is mentioned eight times in the Quran, but not once does it refer to a hair covering. The terms burka and niqab are nowhere to be found in Islam’s transcendent text. If a woman wants to cover her hair, I have no issue. However, if she says this is an Islamic requirement, then I will tackle that, because it is a blatant lie, a preposterous untruth.

Does food need to be halal?

Halal is the biggest racket in this country and other parts of the Islamic world. Muslim entrepreneurs claim that Muslims can only eat meat which is slaughtered in a certain manner in the name of God. But this orthodox interpretation is from the old country – it makes little sense in Britain today. I say, with all due respect, that God made this food and I thank the Lord for giving it to us. That is how I make it halal. All of these dietary ideas have to be revisited and restored to their pristine Quranic ethos.

Your interpretation of the Quran is much more liberal than many people’s, including that of many Muslims in Britain.

Yes, but my liberalism is derived purely from the Quran itself. I come from a fairly orthodox, Sunni traditionalist background and I was a committed young Muslim teenager. But as a student, I spent eleven years as a free thinker and spiritual wayfarer. I tried transcendental meditation, I attended Jewish Kabbalah, Sufi, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i – all types of religious manifestations.

When I embarked on my research at Oxford, I discovered that the programmed version of Islam that I had been spoonfed as a child was codswallop: they had brought me up on populist Islam and not Quranic Islam. When I discovered that, it was like a light bulb going on in my head: I realised that I had been misled. In the Quran there is an emphasis on reflection, rationality and logic.

If Muslims in Britain would just go back to the Quran, jettison the Hadith, discard the Sharia and ignore the fatwas, we would have no extremism or fanaticism. We would just have mutual coexistence and peaceful harmony.

In Britain, how widespread is your interpretation of Islam?

It is a minority view at the moment. If we have to use rough percentages, I would say about 75 per cent are traditionalists, orthodox, fundamentalists, and intolerant of others. Then we have about 5 per cent who have left Islam, the ex-Muslims. Then we have about 15 to 20 per cent of people like me who are searching for the truth and want to see an Islam that is rooted in and relevant to this society: an allegiance to the Islamic faith stripped of cultural accretions and dogmatic traditions that themselves have no foundations in the Quran. An Islam that is not linked by an umbilical cord to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt or Morocco, etc.

How do your British and Muslim identities relate to each other?

I have multiple identities. I am Muslim, British, South African, and there is no incompatibility or confusion. I choose to live in Britain because it allows me freedom. The type of forward-looking rational Islam that I am promoting – I cannot do it in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan. I can do it here freely. For that reason, I am very attached to Britain, and also for historical reasons. Britain was the colonial power in South Africa, the mother country. We looked up to the UK, to Shakespeare, the British Parliament, cricket, football, all these cultural, political and historical connections. I lived for 15 years in the United States, but I never felt at home there. Here in Britain, I feel at home.

You left America to settle in the UK not long before the 9/11 attacks. What impact did the attacks have on your life and your way of thinking?

Of course, I was shocked and stunned like everyone else. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. We did not know for sure at the time, but it was most likely that Muslims were responsible. And so, I went to the main mosque in Oxford. Two of my colleagues went to the other two smaller mosques. Guess what the imam said that Friday? Nothing. It was as though this catastrophe had never happened.

That was the trigger for me: I decided this had to change. That is when my colleagues and I started the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a small religious organisation that would provide Friday prayers, offer an alternative narrative to other clergy, empower women, engage in interfaith dialogue and so forth. I had all those ideas before, but 9/11 was the trigger to do something concrete.

How big is the Muslim Educational Centre now?

We fluctuate. When there are communal events, there are around 50 or 70 people. They are free-thinkers like myself as well as a good number of non-Muslims. People of other and no faiths come because they want to hear a palatable, logical interpretation of Islam.

You are also the imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation. How does one become an imam?

This is both the strength and the weakness of Islam. To become a Christian minister, you have to go through formal schooling. That can be a weakness, because the appointments are top-down. In Islam, any man – only a man, sadly – who is knowledgeable, virtuous and pious can become an imam. The weakness is that any Tom, Dick or Harry can also become one. The strength of Islam is that it allows a grassroots leadership to emerge. The weakness is that this grassroots leadership, if it is not properly self-regulated by the congregation, can lead to fanaticism and intolerance.

At the Open Mosque that I established in Cape Town, there are five foundational principles. First, we follow the Quran alone. Second, we believe in gender equality. In the mosque, there is only one door, through which both men and women enter; inside, men and women pray together, just separated by an invisible metre, so that worshippers can focus. Third, the Open Mosque is non-sectarian – we admit all denominations. Number four, we are intercultural, not multicultural – all different cultures can come together. The last feature that the Muslim clergy do not like in South Africa, is that we are independent. All are welcome, Muslim and non-Muslim.

We have been going for nine years now, and during that time, the clergy have sent their Muslim thugs four times to fire-bomb us. Once they sent a bunch of killers with AK-47 machine guns to shoot me – luckily, I was not there that evening. The community is quite small, about fifty people, mainly because the clergy has scared all the local Muslims and told them that if they attend the Open Mosque, they will not be given a formal Islamic burial ceremony.

In conservative Muslim families, how much pressure is there on individual members not to become more liberal?

The pressure is very great. For example, the women are told, if you do not cover your hair, you are no longer a Muslim, you are defying the prophet. Most Muslim men wear beards, because Muhammad did. But that was the fashion of his day, not mine. I will never wear a beard. Superficial symbols, external emblems like that do not make me a Muslim. I am a Muslim from within.

As you mentioned earlier, in Britain, about 75 per cent of the Muslim population are conservative. Do you think they are less integrated into British society than they were, say, twenty years ago, and if so, how can they become better integrated again?

Yes, I do think they are less integrated now. This situation has come about because most of the imams in British mosques are, on the whole, imported from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and the Middle East. Because they do not know about British society, the culture, the history of this country, they cannot provide adequate guidance and effective supervision to people living here. They give the solutions of the old country, but those will not work here. That is the biggest problem. The solution is to have a new generation of British-educated imams who have been taught to think liberally and to look to the Quran alone.

Is that something you are trying to do with the Oxford Institute of British Islam?

The aim of the Oxford Institute of British Islam is to promote and champion an Islam that is integrated, inclusive and indigenous to this society. Through publications, conferences, seminars, workshops, we are providing a valid alternative to fundamentalist Islam. We show that from the Quran, that their views regarding, for example, female genital mutilation, are nowhere mentioned in the Quran (they are mentioned in the Hadith), and should not be tolerated.

This idea of ‘us’ versus everyone else, perceived as ‘Kaffirs’ or non-believers: the Quran does not talk like that. The Quran says we should come to a common understanding and fight for common causes. Common causes for us now include climate change, homelessness, economic disparity, food banks – how we can provide and help those who are really at the bottom of the barrel.

Who is funding OIBI?

At the moment it is funded by our members, but none of them are wealthy. We are looking for rich Muslim donors. We do not want to take any money from abroad. We only want British money, preferably Muslim money, without strings attached.

How many members have you got at OIBI at the moment?

Right now, about 60. I think the first five years will be a hard slog. But we have a valid message for modern Muslims. The indoctrinated message that they have from fundamentalism is the message of yesterday. Our message is for today and tomorrow.

Would you agree that in recent years, fundamentalist Muslims often seem to have fallen in with hard left-wing progressives? If so, how has this come about?

The reason why we have this unholy alliance between the British Left and the Muslim fundamentalists is that the British Left have a guilt complex of colonialism, imperialism and white racism. They think they can make amends by kowtowing to identity politics. But they are actually shooting themselves in the foot, because when they support these fanatical Muslims, that does not advance the cause of the Left in this country, it only exposes them as useful idiots who are being exploited by the fundamentalists to advance their own reactionary agenda.

An argument sometimes made by the same left-wing progressives is that criticising cultural practices like wearing the veil should be avoided because it plays into the hands of Islamophobic right-wing bigots. What is your response to that argument?

First, people who say we should not be criticising the burka (facial masking) or the hijab (hair covering) might as well say that we should not criticise female genital mutilation. If they are happy to reject FGM, why are they so keen to avoid criticising another cultural practice – wearing the burka or hijab – when it can also cause harm? The British Left has been seduced and brainwashed by the fundamentalists into thinking that the hijab, the niqab, the burka are all intrinsic to Islam. No, they are essentially cultural practices and have nothing to do with Qur’anic Islam.

On the topic of Islamophobia, the Muslim Council of Britain and the All Party Parliamentary group on British Muslims have defined this concept as follows: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’ What is your view of this definition?

I do not think that Islamophobia is based in racism. Muslims come from all races. There are white Muslims too. Hostility against Muslims is not based on race. It is based on a feeling of bigotry, hostility and antagonism that is related to religion rather than race. These bigots are against the Islamic faith. But Muslim stupidity can increase anti-Islamic sentiment – for instance, if organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain fail to acknowledge that some Muslims have been complicit in terrorism, promoting sharia law and other egregious things. Even if, individually, we have not been complicit in these crimes, we as a collective need to acknowledge that they have originated among Muslims.

The issue of free speech regularly crops up in instances of alleged Islamophobia – for example, in Steven Greer’s case. Would you say that there is a valid distinction to be drawn between criticising ideas like Islam or any religion, and criticising the people who practise it?

Everyone should have the right to criticise everyone and everything. That includes religion. I, as a Muslim, criticise Islam all the time. I am a Voltairist: I will defend to the death your right to say something, even when I do not agree with you. There is no contradiction in my being a Voltairist and being a Muslim. Islam talks about the fact of free speech: if there is no free speech, free will and free choice, how can there be a God that you can believe in? Because then you are being forced into believing – and Islam does not talk about coercion. In fact, the word ‘Islam’ has a double meaning. First it means ‘peace’ and second, ‘submission and surrender’ to the Creator. The word ‘Muslim’ simply means ‘he or she who has submitted to the divine’. Free expression is integral to Quranic Islam, but not to Hadith-Sharia Islam.

Is there such a thing as the sin of blasphemy?

The Quran says, People will blaspheme, but leave them alone, I (the Almighty) will deal with them. As to apostasy, the Quran says people of course will leave their faith. In the morning they will believe one thing and next day they will believe something else. The Quran declares time and again, leave the apostates, I, the Creator, will deal with them.

Do you think that the way that Muslims are presented in the media and in advertising is doing Islam a disservice?

Absolutely. For example, if you see any BBC publication involving a Muslim woman, she is wearing the hijab. Why is that the defining norm, when it is not a requirement of the Quran? It is a sort of unspoken propaganda. They are telling the audience that Muslims have a uniform – I have a beard, you have a hijab – and that makes us Muslim. How absurd!

Presumably you want everyone in Britain to understand these types of issues better.

Yes, that is why this is part of the remit of the Oxford Institute of British Islam. I believe that, if we start from the grassroots, no one will take any notice of us. For this reason, OIBI is more of a scholarly think tank, driving a rational and intellectual analysis of Qur’anic Islam.

And you are not yet affiliated to Oxford University?

No, we want to take our time but remain autonomous. We are currently negotiating with one or two colleges. We then hope to make institutional connections with the university. We want to be an alternative to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), which cost around £100 million to build, and we want to provide something of real everyday practical use for Muslims in Britain.

[The 13 trustees listed on the OCIS website include HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, HRH Sultan Nazrin Shah and other leading figures from Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Indonesia and Qatar, as well as four non-Muslims. Saudi Arabia is among its major funders. It is an independent institution, although its governance structure includes several Oxford academics, and it has close associations with various colleges and faculties – Ed.]

Are there any other projects you are working on at the moment?

I am now sort of retired, although I still supervise some graduate students. I want the Open Mosque in Cape Town and OIBI to provide a legacy of a pluralistic, pertinent and progressive Islam. If we succeed in getting this message across to some Muslims, it will be a great achievement. We want to appeal not only to the taxi drivers and supermarket workers, but also to the movers and shakers: the academics, scholars, lawyers, dentists, doctors, engineers, architects, teachers and technocrats.

• • • • • • • • • 

Addendum: Taj Hargey’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and response to a few additional questions from the Freethinker

I want to make it crystal clear that this is not a fight between Islam and Judaism. It is not a fight between Muslims and Jews. It is a fight between European settler colonialism and legitimate Palestinian resistance. People in the UK, Muslims and others, need to understand this. This has nothing to do with Jews and Muslims or Islam and Judaism. It is to do with a colonial settler project that was funded and supported and initiated by Europeans, mainly out of collective guilt, especially after the Holocaust. Half a million people were recently out on the streets of London protesting this barbaric onslaught against Palestine, and the total disproportionate vengeance by a right wing, fascist Israeli government – that is what it is: Netanyahu and others are right wing, ultra-fascist zealots. They are in control of Israel and they are inflicting disproportionate vengeance.

I condemn unequivocally what Hamas did on 7th October. There are no ifs and buts about that. But the question is, how many people will be the right exchange rate? At the moment, twelve or thirteen thousand Palestinians from Gaza are dead. 1300 Jews are dead. So, the current ratio is one to ten. What will be the exchange rate in another week’s time, another month’s time? One to 20? When is this madness going to stop? And why is it all Western European countries in particular, who have got a real stain on their collective history of being anti-Semitic for 2000 years, culminating in the Holocaust, supporting the Zionists in Israel. In 1917, Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary at the time, declared that Britain would favour the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. If you look at Belfour’s legacy in history and his background, he was a rabid anti-Semite. He felt that the way to deal with anti-Semitism in Britain was to get rid of the Jews altogether and send them to Palestine. That is an uncomfortable part of British colonial history. We do not want to know – we want to whitewash it.

These are the points that people really should understand. When you have the world’s largest open-air prison, which Gaza is and still remains, what are the occupied and oppressed supposed to do? I am not for one minute applauding or justifying or condoning what Hamas did. They did something totally brutal, inhuman, unconscionable. But the veneer has now been stripped from what Israel is doing. It presented itself all this time as a democratic, civilised society, but now we have these right wing, ultra-fascist Zionists ruling the roost. People in Britain, especially the right-wing press, fall over themselves to accommodate Zionism. We must never tolerate a colonial project that ignores the indigenous inhabitants. We should accommodate Jews, yes. Accommodate Judaism, yes. But to say that Zionism and Judaism are inextricably linked and they are the same, or they are synonymous, is totally nonsensical.

Any scholar worthy of his or her salt should read two books on this issue, one by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and the other by the Palestinian American historian, Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance.

Of course, Israel should exist. But it must not exist on the basis of confiscated, stolen, expropriated and annexed lands.

In your view, what is the best way of resolving the present conflict?

I think initially there should be a two-state solution. But the ultimate goal should be a one-state solution, a democratic state where everyone has equal rights.

Should that be a state of Palestine or Israel?

No, it should be a bi-national state – both of them. I think we will have to go through a preliminary phase first, which is to have this two-state solution as an interim for 20-30 years, to build confidence and see what can be done in bringing these two peoples together.

What are the barriers to an ultimate one-state solution? Do you think it is realistic that Muslims and Jews in such a fraught area will ever be able to live together in harmony?

Historically, Muslims and Jews lived together very amicably for the most part, until the introduction of this political ideology called ‘Zionism’ in the late nineteenth century. Zionism is an invention of secular atheist Jews that started in Europe. Its forefather was Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish journalist.

On the other side, to what extent would you say that some Islamic regimes are responsible for stirring up anti-Semitic feeling in the Israel-Palestine area?

Arab nationalism will take any excuse to foment friction and tension. But the root cause of this conflict is not between Islam and Judaism, between Muslims and Jews, but between Zionist colonial settlers and the legitimate Palestinian resistance. That is the fight. And so, yes, there are going to be some regimes in the Arab world and elsewhere that will want to stoke it, but you cannot get away from the fact that this is a colonial enterprise. Israel would never have been able to exist without the unwavering support from European and Western powers.

Isn’t religious hatred also part of this conflict?

Islam is not anti-Jewish. It is against injustice and oppression regardless of background and belief.

Presumably you would want to distinguish between Hamas, the regime, and the Palestinians, just as you would want to distinguish between Netanyahu’s regime and the Israelis?

Yes. We have to be consistent here. My beef with the British establishment is that they are not consistent. If they were consistent, they would not be blindly supporting the Zionist Israelis. Consistency will lead to fairness and impartiality. But there is no fairness or impartiality from the British establishment or from the rulers and movers and shakers in this country. It is a reflex action to support the Zionists, because they cannot make the distinction between a Zionist and a Jew. And Israel had deliberately obfuscated this distinction.

The BBC has been criticised for not calling Hamas a terrorist organisation. In your view, is it a terrorist organisation?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Margaret Thatcher called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Why can’t we use neutral terms – why are we using one-sided terminology? In this context, Israel benefits from using that terminology, because you demonise the other. Hamas are all Sunni fascists, as far as I am concerned. But they think that all’s fair in love and war, because they are fighting what they perceive as oppression. Who are you or who am I to tell them how to fight?

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Further reading

A different view of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

On the hijab

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

On Islam and the West

British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities – interview with Steven Greer

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie

The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem? by Khadija Khan

The post Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey appeared first on The Freethinker.

As the Israeli bombardment of Hamas hideouts in Gaza continues, killing thousands of Palestinians, protests against Israel have erupted worldwide. The demonstrations in the Muslim world have been typically volatile, with Israeli flags and effigies burnt, and genocidal chants against Israel and Jews redoubled. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands protesting in support of Palestine in major Western cities have not focused their energies on ensuring respite for Palestinians, and addressing the plight of the Gazans, who are currently facing a gruesome existential crisis.

Any sort of resolution to the conflict, in my view, would only be achievable via reconciliatory movements, such as rallying for a two-state solution and demanding the release of Israeli hostages, in the same breath as calling for a ceasefire or condemning the Judaeophobia on display across the rallies. Instead, the pro-Palestine protesters appear more invested in demanding the erasure of Israel by freeing Palestine ‘from the river to the sea’.

Many gullible Western liberals have demanded that solely a Palestinian state exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Strangely, they do not appear to see anything anti-Israeli, nay anti-Semitic, in this demand. Of course, these protesters vociferously accuse Israel of erasing Palestine, without blinking an eye at their own position on the elimination of the Jewish state.

More critically, as thousands are being killed in Gaza, it takes a special ideological fixation, and indifference to human suffering, to peddle self-serving inflammatory narratives, fuelled by the blood of the Palestinians whom one claims to be defending. It should not require lengthy reflection to realise that championing Israel’s destruction, especially without any practical means to carry it out, is not exactly the best way to convince that state not to inflict harm on others. But it is precisely this symbiosis between Palestinian suffering and calls for Israel’s destruction that has helped sustain both the Islamist and leftist dogma on the conflict. Instead of adducing the death of Palestinians as an argument for destroying Israel, the cause of peace and safety for both sides would be better served by building bridges.

Nowhere was this clearer than in the reactions to the 7 October massacre orchestrated by Hamas, in which over 1,000 Israelis were murdered, the highest number of Jews killed in an attack since the Holocaust. Islamists have loudly glorified Hamas’s Judaeophobic jihad – fuelled by animosity against the Jews on the basis of religion – and claimed it is consistent with Islamic scriptures. At the same time, the ideological left’s exuberant celebration of the mass murder of civilians is almost exclusively reserved for Israeli citizens and not any other country’s citizens.

Those hostile to Israel often refuse to differentiate between Israelis and Jews in general. Yet even the most raucous anti-Western voices on the left would take a courteous pause before linking attacks on Jews in the US, the UK or France to ‘colonialism’. In contrast, when gruesome massacres of Israelis were being carried out, the left’s instinctive reaction was to celebrate, as they have continued to do while hostages remain in captivity with Hamas. Even Western parliaments, such as the one in Scotland, refused to fly the Israeli flag, while the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) did not even mention Israel in its moment of silence for the ‘loss of innocent lives’.

Of course, the left’s celebratory or at least exculpatory attitude towards the killings in Israel would hardly be adopted towards the numerous states empirically more guilty of crimes similar to those attributed to Israel, from Turkey to China. Even from a Muslim-centric lens, many times more people have been killed in wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen since the turn of the century than during the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Similarly, the suffering of Afghans, Iraqis or Syrians at the hands of external forces is not generally used as an apologia for the Taliban or ISIS – at least not to the same degree as with Hamas.

Those deeming Israel an ‘artificial state’ might want to look at the arbitrary nature in which the vast majority of the postcolonial states came into being, without consideration for locals’ consensual aspirations. For instance, 80 percent of the borders in Africa were simply based on longitudes and latitudes. The Muslims of many Indian states had little in common with what is now Pakistan, the doppelganger of Israel whose creation they rallied for in the 1940s, with significantly more displacement and human suffering. Indeed, the creation of Pakistan involved the largest mass migration in human history. While Jews have always lived in the Israel-Palestine area, Muslims from Uttar Pradesh or Bengal in India had as much connection to the Balochistan or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in Pakistan as someone in Poland would have with Portugal.

Today, too, it is Mizrahi Jews of Middle Eastern origin who constitute the largest percentage of Israeli Jews, owing to the mass expulsion of Jews from Muslim-majority states. This fact is consistently ignored by Israel’s opponents in those countries. The attribution of war crimes singularly to Israel is determined by the rulebook put forth by the same global establishment that created Israeli and Palestinian states in the region. Paradoxically, the Jewish-majority country has been required by its critics to treat territories captured in war in a manner unlike that in which any other victorious power ever has done in history. 

Despite all this, one can still attempt to make sense of the ideological left’s fixation with Israel, given the historical military and economic support provided to the state by the Western powers, under the leadership of the US. This fixation has been further augmented in the present crisis by the majority of Western governments’ backing for Israel and the predominant media support for their narrative on the conflict.

The rise of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government in Israel, which has exploited its own religionist rationale to bulldoze Palestinian rights, has also encouraged those on the left to condemn the stance of Western powers and criticise their role in the conflict. This condemnation is undoubtedly crucial to keeping a check on Israeli far-right manoeuvres, and to the possibility of an eventual compromise. Not only have growing Jewish settlements on the West Bank shrunk Palestinian control over the territories, but the current Israeli regime’s open support for the settlers is encouraging violence against Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas or anti-Israel jihad.

It is also essential, for anyone who recognises the clear role of religion in the conflict, to delegitimise any canonical justifications of exclusively Judaic claims to the land in the Old Testament, just as it is to highlight the Judaeophobia in the Quran and Hadith. Yet to condemn the settlements on the West Bank, and the Israeli government’s policies, requires by the same token the acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy as a state. A sweeping assertion of Israeli illegality is not only counterproductive, but also inconsistent with the international law usually cited to delegitimise Israeli action in the West Bank.     

However, the most ominous hypocrisy, and one that is especially damaging to any quest for Palestinian freedom, stems from the Muslim left. For one thing, they deceitfully refuse to acknowledge the Arab and Muslim imperialism at the heart of the conflict; for another, they refuse to acknowledge the Judaeophobia rooted in Islamic scripture as the driving force behind the Muslim world’s murderous obsession with Israel. The genocidal rhetoric against the Jews with which Islamic scriptures are brim-full, and which is often echoed at Palestine protest rallies even in the West, is the predominant motivation behind Muslim animosity towards Israel. In Hamas, this animosity finds its most bloodthirsty expression. The leftist postcolonial apologia of their actions provides the cover of victimhood that sustains Islamist violence.

Even so, what makes support for Hamas by self-identified ‘pro-Palestine’ sections truly bizarre is that the jihadist group is not just indirectly responsible for Gaza’s plight, nor is it merely using civilian inhabitants of Gaza as human shields. Rather, Hamas has actively killed Palestinians to maintain its stranglehold over the population. From gunning down supporters and members of political rivals Fatah to brutally massacring dissenters in Gaza, the group has thrived on Palestinian dead bodies.

Furthermore, like many other jihadist groups in the Muslim world, the rise of Hamas was facilitated by Western powers and indeed Israel itself at the tail end of the Cold War, in order to counter groups with Soviet sympathies. Thereafter, through funding from the oil-rich Arab world, Hamas leaders have enriched their bank balances, and many, like the current chairman Ismail Haniyeh, are orchestrating Israeli and Palestinian bloodshed from the comfort of Qatar. Hamas, together with its fellow jihadist outfit, Islamic Jihad, has been duly supported by Iran, where the leaders of both groups met this June to plot the ‘most efficient way to end the more than 75 years of occupation’ along with the Shia jihadist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. The plan that ensued, punctuated by the gory events of 7 October, was designed to derail the ongoing normalisation of ties between Israel and the Arab world. As recently as September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had underlined that official diplomatic ties were ‘closer’ than ever. Tragically, the present conflict has dealt a blow to these diplomatic efforts.

In addition to the glorification of jihad against Israelis, what also binds Hamas and its leftist apologists is their condemnation of the diplomatic recognition of Israel on the part of Arab and Muslim states, a move initiated by the Abraham Accords in 2020. For over eight decades, since the 1937 Peel Commission report suggested the creation of a Jewish homeland, the violent Arab rejection of it has superseded any endeavour to form a Palestinian one. Even until the Six-Day War in 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were under Jordanian and Egyptian control; the idea that a Palestinian homeland might be created in those territories, even one that was temporary and conditional to future expansionary ambitions, was never promoted.

At the heart of the ongoing conflict in the region is the fact that different religious groups are claiming exclusive control over much of the same territory. These opposing claims are irreconcilable. However, one way to resolve the dilemma might be to allow Muslims and Jews to share collective control over certain parts of the land, most notably in Jerusalem, while holding other parts exclusively. I suspect that this will indeed be the means of resolution in the long term – though not until more blood has needlessly been spilt.

The collective Arab-Muslim acceptance of Israel has long been the sure move that would ultimately ensure Palestinian freedom. Unfortunately, it is the puritanical proponents of ‘free Palestine’, whether the jihadists or their apologists, who have rallied, politically or militarily, to practically deny any bid for that freedom by denying Israel’s right to exist. Even among the more reconciliation-minded of these ideologues, it is the rise of the Israeli right and its repudiation of the two-state solution that they view as the deal-breaker, and not the fact the Jewish state has been surrounded in the region by those propagating their own genocidal version of a single, Arab state.

In this way, the Islamist and leftist dream of Israel’s extermination, which symbolises the salvation of their respective ideologies, has long treated Palestinian lives as fodder – no matter if treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan with Israel underlined the potential of peace deals in the region. Today, both Jordan and Egypt are likelier to welcome Israelis than Palestinians, with King Abdullah II refusing to take refugees and Egypt having sealed its border with Gaza since 2007. The lack of even a whisper of condemnation of Egypt or Jordan in rallies for Palestine makes it easy to understand how such rallies can be interpreted as being targeted specifically at Israel, and at Israel alone.

Even so, despite the hysterical ideologies at the heart of the long-running Israeli-Arab conflict, and the existence of countless volumes underlining the complexities of the conflict, the solution is still set to be as arbitrarily imposed as the problem was. While the Hamas-initiated war might postpone the Saudi-led acceptance of Israel, the deal will happen soon. As has long been maintained by Mohamed bin Salman, this deal is likely to lead to the creation of an autonomous Palestine as well, especially since Riyadh wants to maintain its leadership over the Muslim world.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, what they will eventually get is likely to be a fraction of what they could have attained decades ago through reconciliation, while a wish for such reconciliation is scarcely detectable in the rallying cries of those claiming to be the well-wishers of Palestine. Reconciliation and a two-state solution are also likely to come in the aftermath of a torpedoed Gaza and an enormous loss of Palestinian lives. Meanwhile, those on the ideological left, along with the Islamists, persist in their hate-mongering rhetoric, unwilling to acknowledge how their disdain of compromise is contributing to the bloodshed of Palestinians and Israelis alike.  

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