Why Muslim Leaders Must Not Attend The Holocaust Day & Betray Palestine

Muslim leaders around the country often get pushed into attending the Holocaust Day and get smeared if they refuse - the MCB are the most famous example of this. Thus, Muslims have no guidance on how to act on that day, what to say when accused of being unsympathetic by the press, or when smeared as ‘anti-Semitic’ by Zionists.

Due to our leaders' lack of intellectual depth they have thus far been unable to come up with a sound and reasonable argument against attending. In their hearts they know why, but for some reason they feel unwilling to articulate the truth of the matter, deploying instead all manner of advocacy gymnastics when cornered by a reporter.

Hence, they take two positions: the first is to offer what seems like excuses for not attending, the other is to argue Muslims should go since it pays respect to those who actually died in the terrible event.

The MCB took the first position, claiming ‘we will not attend because it does not represent all the genocides in the world’, an argument the Zionists quickly countered.

The logic was sound but frankly did not sound credible or sincere, yet others like Salma Yaqoob or Shahid Malik, having no coherent argument, buckled and joined a politically-loaded event that has been proven to be used to rob the Palestinian people of their lives and then whitewash their suffering. Salma did not do this because she wanted to hurt them. She was and is sincere to the cause of Palestine, far more so than most of her male counterparts in Mosques and ISOCs around the UK who have been cowardly in their silence and busying themselves in trivial matters.

Salma had no logical reason not to go. A free thinker cannot maintain their position without reason. It is a shame that Muslim thinkers had not given her the argument she needed.

You see, Muslims need not run or make excuses, or hide, or feel they are on the defensive. Instead, they should say loud and proud, without fear:

“The Muslims are the victims of the Holocaust and we have suffered not just in the world wars to free Europe and got no thanks for it, but are suffering right now due to the way the Holocaust has been used as a weapon to rob the Palestinians of their very lives. While the Holocaust is being used as a political weapon to galvanise sympathy and support for Israel, we cannot with good conscience take part and aid an event that has and is being used to rob another people of their land, life and liberty which it has done from its very beginning.

It is not the Muslims who have made this event political, nor would we stop from attending it if we felt it was not being used a propaganda weapon to harm human beings that have committed no crime themselves. Zionist Jews themselves should hold their heads in shame for doing so and this has been documented and written about by numerous authors, none so worthy as the brave and great Jewish professor, Finklestein.

We, the Muslims, will attend any event about the Holocaust as long as the Palestinians are included in that event, as the equal and living victims of that crime, who are today in their millions paying the price for a crime they did not commit, by many of the people who are now holding expensive and swanky events with fine speeches claiming, 'never again'