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Muslim Leaders: Big Talkers, Small Thinkers? Print E-mail
Friday, 12 May 2006

We must admit I still can not believe what I saw the other week on Channel 4, when a Muslim 'leader' (Ajmal Masroor) a TV presenter for Islam channel, an Imam, a high profile member of the ISB and of course a major league sell out, publicly condemned the Palestinian freedom fighters.
 
Did this 'leader' even know how much damage he was doing! How Israel couldn’t pay Muslim leaders to do what this man had done in public for free!
 
The more I thought about it, the more scared for the Ummah I became, and specifically for the Palestinians. You see until then I was under the false pretence that younger leaders (Masroor is 34) would know how to deal with the Media and other public bodies, and not sell wilfully or by mistake, Muslims down the river.
 
After that interview I realised I could not be more wrong. These people are worse than the older leaders who at least don't speak when they are unsure about something.
 
Let me expand a little on why I am so worried. For those who don’t already know and do not visit this site regularly for the latest news, Ajmal Masroor got up on Channel 4 and slammed Palestinian martyrdom operations, he claimed it was “easy to die for Allah, but hard to live” in short he was saying they were taking the easy way out.
 
I’m not going to get into how this or any other UK Muslim leaders have the audacity to even think of condemning the Palestinians in desperation after 50 long hard years while Muslim leaders watched them be systematically ethnically cleansed and murdered without lifting a finger.
 
Instead let us use their own logic to undermine them. Let us say for arguments sake that the Palestinians are wrong under Islamic law to react in this way. (Qardawi in fact says it is Jihad) however for arguments sake and so we don’t get bogged down in theological debate let us accept this premise for this article.
 
Surely then we should say it is wrong, because we believe it to be so - right?
 
Now this is where our leaders if they had initiative would disagree. Let us explain. You see the media and political game is far more complex and subtle than that.
 
Allow me to show you what’s really going on when they ask you condemn the Palestinians.  Israel has far more ability to spin the media machine to its way of thinking than pro-Palestinians ever do. They have full time media teams (our leaders don’t even know what a media team is), their supporters call up in their thousands when they see something pro Palestinian and demand it never happen again (our leaders teach us to hate each other because we follow slightly different religious rulings and don’t worry about picking the phone up and complaining it’s not important!).
 
Once you know this, you will then understand the first lesson of the media when it comes to Israel - You don’t frame the debate they do.
 
So recently when a martyrdom operation happend in Israel and civilians were killed, news cameras are everywhere, it was front page news, journalists began asking if Muslims condemn the killing of innocent lives! The pressure was on. Yet how strange that over the last three months, three thousand shells have been fired into Palestinian ghettos killing over 60, many children, even more women blinded and crippled and not a single member of the Zionist community has ever been asked to condemn it by anyone – now can you see the trap.
 
Now here we have what our leaders could not understand. So MPACUK will say it slowly for you “when they ask you if you condemn it, they are NOT asking you to speak the TRUTH and talk of JUSTICE and wanting an ISLAMIC FATWA. They are asking you to CONDEMN the Palestinians desperate act so they can score POLITICAL and PUBLIC OPINION GOALS in the PROPOGANDA WAR.
 
Can’t these people who end up as our un-elected representatives work that out? Is it that hard!
 
Did they really think the news cameras were asking them because they REALLY wanted to know this person's opinion? Did they never think “why haven’t they ever asked the Jewish Board of Deputies or AIPAC or any other Zionist group to condemn Israel? – was it an accident, did you think they just forgot! “
 
It’s called propaganda. Your side ends up condemning itself, the other side doesn’t have to. The public already ignorant of the facts, seem to see a picture where Muslims are saying the Palestinians are wrong, they must be the “bad guys!” – Israel wins the propaganda war without even saying a word. They make us do it!
 
We lost the war on two fronts with this incompetence. The public opinion war we lose since the public are ignorant, of real facts on the ground. All they see is a snap shot of Muslim leaders saying the Palestinians are wrong. They never see Israel being condemned so to the lay person, Israel must be doing something right, it's a simple equation for the masses.
 
Politically too we lose the war. Politicians are as fickle as the wind. If Muslims are condemning the Palestinians, they can rightfully apply more pressure on the already enslaved Palestinians, with demands of ever increasing punishment, whenever these stories hit the headlines, threatening to cut aid and political help unless they stop these acts (which they can't possibly do, since it's not an act of an army, but acts by individual men and women, who have lost all hope, and who don’t even tell their own families, let alone the village authorities!) 
 
It’s not hard to stand up for Palestine; all you need is a backbone. If you haven’t got that, step down and resign.
 
Here are some easy ways to get out of that question posed by a journalist  for those leaders who really care about Palestine:
 
“I find it shocking that pro Israeli groups have not been asked to condemn their systematic oppression of the Palestinians, then when a father who has seen his whole world destroyed, his whole nation occupied his children killed you ask me to condemn him. Can you explain what British Zionist group you have asked the same question to?”
 
“Yes I will make a condemnation; I will condemn the racists who made these oppressed people react like that. You don’t kill a man’s children then blame him for reacting in a way that’s not rational, you expect the man who has killed his children will get an irrational response along with anyone who supported that man. So I’m not going to condemn the victim here, I’m going to condemn the racists who made the victim act in the way he did.” 
 
“If you treat a man like a sub human animal, kill his family, take his home, make him live in rubble, starve him, blind his wife, force him to spend hours in a curfew, make his wife give birth at a checkpoint while Israeli soldiers laugh at her, then don’t ask me to condemn a man for acting in a sub human way. I will condemn those that made him act like that – those people are the Israeli’s sir.”
 
“The Israeli’s have the weapons to never harm an innocent civilian and yet they kill them every single day, the Palestinians have no weapons, they make theirs from spare parts on a kitchen table. If you want them to only fight Israeli soldiers then that’s fine. Like YOU are arming the Israelis with the latest weaponry, you can also arm the Palestinians, so they have the ability to target the soldiers and not civilians. But don’t you dare complain that after arming one side with the best hardware in the world, complain that the other side isn’t fighting fair – that’s your fault and I condemn you before I condemn them.”
 
You see we could go on, and MPACUK could teach these leaders for years how to talk about this situation without selling the Palestinians blood so cheaply for the price of their own “moderate badge”. But it would be useless, because it’s not in their hearts. They don’t care about Palestine, they never did, or else they would have done something for them by now bar cheap words they throw at them in sympathy.
 
We need leaders, who are intelligent, wise and able to understand a complex enemy which is both cunning and powerful. If you are out there reading this perhaps it's time you stop sitting on the sidelines and join us today.
 
With leaders like this, MPACUK must start to groom the new leaders of tomorrow by satarting today. Call us on 0870 7605594 or email us at info@mpacuk.org.

 To Think of Ourselves First is Human Nature, But To Put The Ummah First is The Nature of An MPACUK Activist




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Readers have left 12 comments.
Rashid: Quote

What does the Koran say?

People assume that the Koran (Q'aran - Muslim holy scriptures) has anti-Israel passages. While there is no doubt some level of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Koran, there are many passages that are actually in support of a Jewish state of Israel! The following are eleven passages showing the support for a Jewish state in the Muslim holy scriptures.


Sura 2:190

A case could even be made that Israel's victory over the Arabs in the 1948 war was a judgement by Allah against the Arabs for their apostasy in opposing the Zionists. This would be their just reward for transgressing Sura 2:190, which says, "Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities."




Sura 5:21

Moses is quoted as telling the Jews to "enter into the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you". While Mohammed later condemns the Jews for their sins and their refusal to accept his message, he never says that, as punishment, Allah has revoked our title to the Holy Land. Therefore the title still stands, and Muslim anti-Zionists are apostates.





Sura 9:5

“Then when the Sacred Months have passed, kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and observe the Islamic lifestyle, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.” - Does this sound like a peaceful religion to you?

Sura 10:93-94

“We settled the Children of Israel in a beautiful dwelling-place...If thou wert in doubt as to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before thee" - In case you had any doubts about whether the Koran talks about the Jews' right to live in the land of Israel.



Sura 16:126
"If ye punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith ye were afflicted." Yet Ariel Sharon's nonviolent, if provocative, visit to the Temple Mount was met with rioting,
including the use of firebombs and AK-47's.





Sura 17:4
"And We [Allah] gave (clear) warning to the children of Israel in the Book, that twice would they do mischief on the earth and be elated with mighty arrogance (and twice would they be punished)!" The succeeding verses tell us that the punishment referred to was banishment from the land. But "twice" means twice, not three times; hence the Jews, having been banished from the land once by the Babylonians and a second time by Rome, will never again be banished from the land. According to the Qur'an, Israel is an eternal nation.

Moreover, "twice would they do mischief on the earth" means twice, not three times; hence the Jews will never again do mischief on the earth. In particular, the Jews cannot bear moral responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem.




Sura 17:7

The Palestinians deny that there ever was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. But Sura 17:7 records the destruction of the First Temple by Babylon and the Second Temple by Rome, and Mohammed never contests the Bible's claim that the Temples were in Jerusalem.





Sura 17:104
The Jews' return from 19 centuries of exile is actually the fulfillment of Islamic prophecy. Sura 17:104 says that 'And we said to the Children of Israel afterwards, "Go live into this land. When the final prophecy comes to pass, we will summon you all in one group."'





Sura 60:9
Moreover, Sura 60:9 forbids aiding the enemies of the Muslim people. Contrast this with the Palestinians' continued support of Saddam Hussein, whose hands are red with the blood of Iranian, Kurdish, and Kuwaiti Muslims.





Sura 83:1
"Woe to those that deal in fraud"; yet Yasir Arafat reneged on his promise to guard Joseph's Tomb in Nablus after the Israeli troops withdrew.
(1) 2006-05-16 13:44:08
Azim: Quote

Asalamolkum,

He wasnt condeming Palestine freedom fighters what he was condeming was suicide bombers and i fully agree with him its totally wrong and against Islamic teachings. Yes armed resistance is ok fight for your land fine but killing inncocent civilians both palestinians and Israels is not going to solve the problem.

A brother once told me instead of giving your life up why not buy a toy remote control car and control it to the Israel base then detonate it so easy why is there a need to take your own life. Plus the muslims during the days of the prophet were under oppression and war did they commit suicide acts no no no neither did the prophet the sahabas nor the succeeding generations so suicide bombing is complete Haaraam.
(2) 2006-05-16 16:01:47
S. Benari: Quote

Whilst we can all argue about the legitimacy of the suicide bombers, there remains one factor which is repeatedly overlooked. Too many of the suicide bombers are in some way victims of the society they live in due to various factors. The deserted wife, the hermaphrodite, the gay couple, the teenager bullied for being short, the mutilated girl condemned to life long spinsterhood, and so on. These desperate people, who are denied respect and are devalued, seek solace, escape & status; and in their depression they are manipulated by those who prosecute this war.
Where is our condemnation of those who use these sad people?
I remember the young girls used cruelly by the PLO as the RPG Kids in the '70's. They were duped into being raped by so called "heroes of the struggle" and then in the morning that they had lost their virginity and honour were offered escape through suicidal missions. Most could not carry out their missions and broke down and cried, but most of these poor girls eventually committed suicide to escape their ostracisation by their own society.
Where is our condemnation of this cruelty? And what is it within us that seeks to cloak these actions with glory?
It is interesting that Golda Meir said long ago - The Palestinians will only succeed when they love their children as much as we (the Zionists) love ours. It looks as if she was right all along.
(3) 2006-05-16 18:15:22
Bilal Patel: Quote

The Prophet went into battle knowing that he was outnumbered and a number of Muslims at these battles also died, knowing that they had a high chance of being killed. That could be said to be a suicide mission, because the chances of being killed are very high. Was the Prophet wrong to go to battle to defend Muslims? Under the circumstances and when people have no other choice, what is the objection of them going into battle and killing themselves in the process? Is a person who kills others and kills himself in the process worse than someone who kills others yet does not kill himself?
(4) 2006-05-16 19:30:43
Horatio: Quote

Rashid, you are an idiot. Who made you an instant Quranic scholar? Mujtaheeds have to go through years and years of training before they dare to interpret the Holy Quran.
(5) 2006-05-16 20:31:24
Friendly Fire: Quote

Benari - no one supports the secularists in the evil they commit in the battle they wage, In the 1970's theres was NO ISLAM or religion behind liberation movement, and therefore no true belief in accountability with Allah (Swt) So dont equate them with the increasing number of god fearing mujahideen, who the whole Muslim Ummah Support and WILL NEVER CONDEMN!!! (except a few..see below)

Azim - your not qualified to veto the opinion of many Ulama, situated in Palestine and across the world. 'Civilians'/'innocents' in 'Israel' - hmmm, now thats debatable.

Rashid (if that is your name) - thats pro zionist spin on verses from the Holy Quran - your desparate attempts to justify the evil of your people is sickining
(6) 2006-05-16 20:35:19
Hiron Miah: Quote

Brother Bilal

I think the argument should be low chance of surviving when enemies are stronger in battle and absolute certainty of dieing in suicide attacks.

To me that defines halal and haram in these situations
(7) 2006-05-17 10:03:46
Horatio: Quote

Read Ibn Kathir's tafirs of those ayats, then decide whose the fool.
(8) 2006-05-17 16:54:47
muslim teen: Quote

If Palestinians decide to commit suicide then why kill other innocent people in the process? Are they not targeting the wrong people? I only think this is justifiable when they kill those who kill/oppress them, only in self defence.

"For that cause we decreed for the children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption on the Earth, it shall be as if he had killed all of mankind, and whoso saves the life of an innocent one, it shall be as if he had saved the whole of mankind. (005:032)

"Oh you who believe!...and kill not one another. Lo! Allah is ever merciful unto you" (004:029)

Allah tests those whom He loves and whom He is thinking of. This dunya is a test and He puts us through trials and tribulations for our own benefit - whether we abandom Him or turn to Him during both times of ease and difficulty.

The prophet Muhammad pbuh condemned those who kill themselves and also stated that they will go to hell (and Allah knows best).
(9) 2006-05-17 18:12:39
SS: Quote

The thing is this, yes, Ajmal Masroor could have phrased thing in a little more tactful way, and the suicide bombings by Palestinians must always be mentioned in relation to the aggression against the Palestinians, all in the name of "collateral damage".

The Muslim must learn to lobby and to act and voice their concerns within the boundaries of the law - had we spent our energy doing this, we would have made a lot more progress.

At the same time, as Muslims we have to live by the ethics of Islam, which means to condemn that which is haraam. Therefore, Br Masroor's comments were not wrong per se. Shifting all the blame on him is unfair. I have made several comments on this issue on a previous article on the same topic.

Finally, it seems to me that MPAC have a chip on their shoulder over past dealings with Br. Masroor, and they can do better by getting over it, and dealing with the problem.
(10) 2006-05-17 18:21:34
Jacare: Quote

Rashid should become a teacher at Al Azhar, what a breathtaking Tafseer of the Qu`ran!
(11) 2006-05-18 13:05:31
Young Muslimah: Quote

Ajmal Masroor was right in saying what he did because it is wrong...As has been mentioned before, the Prphet (SAW) himself said that we should not take our lives, and Allah says it in the Qur'aan too. We are also not supposed to kill innocent civilians...women chuildren and the elderly...this proves that what the suicide bombers are doing is in fact wrong. Life is a test, and yes, it is harder to live for Allah than to die for Him.
(12) 2006-09-12 13:23:13
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