Are we partly to blame for Islamic terrorism?

Jonny

Your self promotion never ends.

In answer to the original question, Yes. Clearly, we are partly responsible for Islamic Terrorism, on several levels. The US originally funded and supported Bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the continued US-British attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and others have clearly led to increases in terrorism worldwide, rather than removed these threats.

The use of Guantanmo Bay and other illegal actions of the 'War on Terrorism' have handed those trying to convert 'ordinary Good Muslims', into Terrorist, lots of material to work with.

Jonny perhaps you should see 'My Life with the Taliban' published earlier this year, that reveals there are far more complexities than you wish to acknowledge.

Mr Hoffman, congratulations. I watched you this morning on the BBC and thought you spoke with enormous clarity. Your calmness with the facts was to be commended, and even Terry Christian (a bit of an anti-Israel guy) agreed with you.
I have never seen you before on television, but am now inspired to support the Zionist Federation.
These blogs host a lot of bullying comments towards you, which I can now see are totally unfounded.
Thank you for standing out from the crowd of appeasers, and being the voice of the silent majority of British Jews.

when I saw the headline I thought the trolls will have a field day. ibrows never disappoints does he?
Islamism didn't start with the taliban in Afghanistan - they were even at it during WWII when the Mufti of Jerusalem set up the Muslim arm of the SS. Small facts which seeem to escape ibrows attention. ibrows seems to think the wish for a world wide Caliphate is as a consequence of American policy when in fact it is centuries years old.

Advis3r

slightly deluded, I don't support a caliphate, don't be crazy, but your comment reveals alot about the sort of hysteria your buying into, i merely pointed out the way the West has conducted the 'war on Terror' has actually given strength to the terrorists and automatically you make ridiculous assumptions about me.

The question was are we PARTLY to blame for Islamic Terrorism. Clearly, the abuse at Guantanmo has been as useful tool for recruiting more Muslims to terrorist extremism, that is all i am saying, this is one of many factors, that cannot be denied.

When you stand with this lot

is it any wonder?

Elisha

Heres...Jonny

Yes, I think you are right, Ibrows. It's a glove puppet and no mistake.

the bbc should be encouraging debate, and that should not include inviting a principal speaker who successfully closes a line of debate by lying about what has just been said, and being allowed to get away with it

(and btw, the bbc should also not be promoting the phrase "islamic terrorism" instead of "islamist terrorism")

mansoor's interruption is very telling … jonathan (on the phone) made points about "prevent", about extremist speakers at ucl, and about failure to exclude foreign extremists

mansoor (in the studio as a principal speaker) successfully wiped these points off the map by falsely accusing jonathan of "painting a very bleak picture of the muslim community in this country" when jonathan (who had no right of reply) had not even mentioned the muslim community, and had only talked about ucl and the labour and coalition governments

jonathan might as well not have spoken

here's a transcript …

jonathan hoffman: As Ann Leslie said, only Islamists are to blame for the existence of terrorism. I haven't yet heard anyone say that Hitler was a freedom fighter opposing the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles. As Ann said, Islamic terror can be traced back to the Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1928, so it predates Iraq.
We are to blame for the spread of terror, and that's because we appease Islamists instead of opposing them; for example as Theresa May said the Labour Government had a program called "Prevent" ("Preventing radical extremism" to give it its full name) … but instead of combating extremists it actually paid them to do talks.
And take Abdul Mutullab the underpants bomber … he was head of the Islamic Society at University College London. 3 out of the last 4 heads of the Islamic Society have been indicted for terrorism offences. Now the college commissioned a report on him which was published last week. It was a joke, it was pathetic, it didn't even mention any of the speakers invited by the Islamic Society while Abdul Mutullab was a student at UCL, and they included many extremists …
Only last week the government failed to exclude a Nigerian extremist who came to speak in London. We are too soft on terrorism.
amjal masroor: Jonathan is painting a very bleak picture of the Muslim community in this country (interrupted by Terry Christian " … you're twisting his words …")
… He's painting a very bad picture of all Muslims or most.

you decide … did jonathan say anything against (or even about) the muslim community?

why does the bbc invite such people as principal speakers for the muslim community?

ajmal masroor (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmal_Masroor ) is an imam, a member of mcb, a spokesman for the isb, a tv presenter, and the recent liberal democrat candidate for bethnal green and bow

he has condemned Palestinian suicide bombers (see http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/2096/ )

telegramsam: When you stand with … is it any wonder?

telegramsam, are you claiming that jonathan is in that photograph? or that he's been in any photograph with nazi salutes? if not, why are you posting it?

Well said, Elisha, if I may be so bold.
If Jonathan did not exist, we really would have to invent him.
He puts the lily-livered to shame.

Yes HG, Masroor twists my words completely but it is obvious for all to see, he is the one who looks an absolute plonker.

(Just ignore Spammo, he forgot to take his medication again).

Thank you for the transcript Happy Goldfish.

Telegramsam what is this photo about? Is it related to the BBC debate?

Jonathan,you were excellent - thanks. Mansoor tries to close down debate. Completely disingenuous of him.

ibrows, you mean fighting back against terrorism is wrong because it encourages more terrorism?

Perhaps we shouldn't fight back, and perhpas we should live in fear of offending extremist antisemites and nutcases, so we don't provoke them.

Then again, perhaps we can grow a spine.

ibrows, by the same logic, one can argue that Britain's declaration of war against Germany in 1939 merely consolidated Hitler's power, and unified the country behind him as never before.

When you fight back, it gets worse before it gets better. But if you think terrorism is caused by the West and that we bring it on ourselves then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Elisha, telegramsam trying to defame Jonathan by pretending he supports the EDL - which he does not, and has repeatedly made clear that he does not.

He is a broken record and has been going on about it for weeks.

amber

What i am saying is, if you detain people off shore in Guantanmo and break international law, deny them legal representation and torture them, you are bringing yourself down to the level of terrorist suicide bombers. This is no better than suicide bombing.

I am not saying its wrong to fight terrorism, but the way the war on terror has been conducted, it has attacked all Muslims and used torture, racial profiling in areas of Birmingham to target Muslim areas, amounting to the notion that all Muslims are terrorists, which is clearly racist nonsense.

Terrorism is born of a radical decontextualised reading of the Qur'an, but the torture of Muslims, and attack of Muslims as a whole community, is undoubtedly fueling further radicalisation of Muslims

I wondered why jonathan was so kwik out of the starting blocks this morning. C'est clair

Its reminiscent of the Italian flag being waived after the Heysal disaster . " Mama sono qui "

prevent, was a complete misguided joke, Jonny we can at least both agree on that

Tony Blair, of whom I'm no especial fan, got it exactly right when he pointed out that it's high time we in the West stop going along appeasement-style with the Muslim victim narrative which only encourages the extremists in their ranks; read Robin Shepherd's blog for details.

Amber, it does seem very slanderous. It must be time consuming for telegramsam to be posting all the time and searching for photos to upload. He appears from the outside to have a personal vengeance against Mr Hoffman, which any fool can see is a reflection on himself.
Keep going Mr Hoffman!

Yvetta

I am not appeasing the 'Muslim victim narrative', merely pointing out things like racial profiling, and attacks on the whole Muslim community, are not helpful. You cannot hold all the Muslim community responsible for the actions of a few lunatics, anymore than the actions of the mad Christian pastor that wanted to burn the Qur'an can be blamed on the whole Christian community.

By attacking, vilifying, blaming and suspecting the whole Muslim community, you are turning everyday normal Muslims away from working with government and other agencies to help tackle Muslim extremism, if the whole community is suspected to be terrorists until proven innocent, this is a collective punishment that has created more problems in English society, rather than gain the trust of normal Muslims to help tackle terrorism

Elisha

hilarious, this is so Mr Jonny

Spammo, it is nice of Mummy to let you play on her computer but now it's time for bed, you have school in the morning.

Jonathan must be rattled; he's being abusive again.

All he has to do is dissociate himself from the EDL/BNP and stand away from them at his ahava demos. No guff about freedom of protest can help him here: just stand away fro
them in a separate pen and any questions about your agenda will disappear. Can't you see that?

although Jonny was happy to attack others who protested at a demo which Galloway also attended, which he claimed made the individual automatically a 'Hamas supporter'

ibrows, Robin Shepherd said it so much better than I can.
telegramsam, you are hitting Jonathan below the belt by putting those photos on - let's play by Queensberry's rules, there's a good chap. Jonathan was not responsible for a contingent from the EDL turning up at the counter-protest where he was; he certainly did not request them, as he has made clear time and time again.

Yvetta

Yet Jonathan attacked Deborah on this blog previously and labelled her a 'Hamas supporter', simply for being at a demo, which Galloway also separately attended. Jonny cannot make these kinds of statements and then believe he will not be held accountable, when similar situations arise and the situation is reversed. You cannot criticise others, unless your willing to be subjected to the same standards and criticism

Elisha, exactly so. It reallly is very childish. It's like saying your neighbour is a member of the EDL, so you'd better move house immediately, otherwise it is clear proof that you are yourself a supporter.

Just plain silly.

ibrows says that the war on terror is a war against all Muslims.

If you say so ibrows.

ibrows you are a fool

there is the world of difference between planning to do a demo with Hamas-supporting people on the one hand, and simply turning up and finding EDL people there on the other.

if you can't see that then you're an even bigger prat than we thought.

go to Tehran where the government controls who is on the street, i will pay towards your fare as long as it is a one-way ticket

And you and Spammo are off-topic.

You are Trolls.

Trolls must not be fed.

I've never heard or seen Jonathan dissociate from the EDL/BNP. or ask the police to have a separate pen, or have his demos on alternate weekends. That's all he needs to do, but he chooses not to. He prefers instead to attack and abuse Zionists who see how embarrassing he is to our cause.

http://hurryupharry.org/2010/10/11/%e2%80%9care-we-partly-to-blame-for-i...

More on Harrys Place

Don't feed the trolls

Now, now Jonathan, you always become abusive when you are rattled. You just prove my point. You are an embarrassment to the Zionist movement. Stand down.

And you know full well that the term "trolls" is not allowed here. You naughty boy, you.

It takes one to know one.

A naughty boy, that is.

This is just sad to watch.

telegramsam, if you are a Zionist, you have yet to show it, usually siding with the haters, and never opposing them.

If I interpret him correctly, he is a leftwing Zionist who believes that the present government is going to bring doom on the State of Israel owing to its (in his view) unwise and unconscionable policies.
Just like my late lamented friend Moshe, really.

Jonathan, I cannot express how immensely proud I was to see you speaking on the show. You did yourself and the Zionist Federation a great deal of credit.

Ibrows: I assume you are a Muslim. If that is the case, I would suggest you support moderate people that are brave enough to stand up against Islamism which is as much of a threat to the Muslim community as to the world at large.

Only the other week in Kingston the police received a number of complaints from some very scared Sufi Muslims who have received death threats from a local Islamist group. In Pakistan mosques are being attacked by Islamists on a regular basis. Wake up and see what is happening.

The British public are very concerned about this political ideology, we are largely unaware and uninterested in the divisions that exist within the Muslim community, and Muslims who do not support Islamism do themselves no favours by attacking those that speak out against it.

This is more important than your obsession with Israel.

Belated, but well done Jonathan Hoffman, very clear, lucid and substantive points on "Sunday Mornng Live".
Terry Christian had it right when referring to the Moslem extremists as a "fascist cult".
The reason that Al-Beeb invites people like Mansoor on to represent the Moslems, is, like it or not, he DOES represent the majority of Moslems.
Whilst 99.9% of Moslems are law abiding citizens, there is a tacit acceptance by them and a tacit support of their extremist bretheren.
That is why it is important that people like Jonathan Hoffman are supported and encouraged to give the other view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub5YPGYFpxc&feature=player_embedded

It's now on YouTube, I speak at 6:55

He speaks, he speaks…

It's a pity he wasn't in the studio, so that he could have got his point at length. He was very good - unflappable.