13 October 2011

Sheik Raed Saleh and his connection with the truth...or not.

So, Snoopy, off on his vacation (he's allowed time off?), suggested that I, among others, might help to keep the show on the road. Well, that's a mighty tall order, especially when you've just come back from a short break yourself (to visit the offspring in another country).

Still, in my wanderings around the blogosphere, I came across the following from the Community Security Trust blog. It concerns one Sheikh Raed Salah who, you may or may not recall, entered Britain against the express instructions of the UK Home Secretary, Teresa May. Now, neither the Government of which she is a part nor her in particular are exactly favourites of mine, but still...they did good here. This was because of the Sheik's record (and it is on the record - he still has charges against him outstanding in Israel, where he lives) of antisemitic statements and writings.

It took them three days, but, finally and despite a well-advertised itinerary, the police caught up with him and issued a deportation order against him. He's appealed this, for reasons that need not detain us here. In the article below, the CST acknowledges that it provided the UK government with evidence of the Sheik's antisemitism and other undesirable activities.

It appears that Saleh's defence team have alleged that the CST have, in various ways, distorted the (un)good Sheik's writings and other sayings, by having him say or write things he (they claim) didn't write or say. So the CST people show in this article how the charges against them are nonsense, through a description of their meticulous research to substantiate their claims. Sheikh Raed Saleh lives in Northern Israel and is Hamas's representative in Israel. Now that's a dubious occupation if ever I heard of one.

Read the detail below:

http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?p=3072

Posted by: Brian Goldfarb

5 comments:

Dick Stanley said...

If anti-Semitism is illegal in England, they'd better get cracking, cause they've got a lot more arrests to make.

Brian Goldfarb said...

Ac tually, Dick, it would be discriminatory behaviour (including both words and actions - e.g., saying in a an advert that blacks and/or Jews are not welcome here), and the legislation specifically includes religion and cultural aspects as well as concrete actions. So if the University & Colleges Union actually carried out its boycott against Israeli (and only Israei) universities, it would fall foul of the UK Race Relations law. Which the UCU activists see as curbing their freedom! Never mind anyone else's freedom, and never mind the racist attitude of the so-called Progressives against Jews and Israelis. 

Brian Goldfarb said...

I should have added, Dick, that in many countries (and I assume that most of Europe and the Americas are the same), anyone but a citizen can be declared to be unwelcome and deported on the grounds that their presence is "not conducive to the public good". This applies in the UK to members of the European Union, despite the supposed right to free travel throughout the member states. This will have been the means by which Saleh was served with a deportation order. Whether he has to prove he isn't a "danger" to public order or the other way round, I don't know. Plainly the UK government thinks he is not a nice person, and as he is citizen of Israel and not the UK, Israel is welcome to him.

Dick Stanley said...

I'm glad there is no such legislation (yet) in the U.S. and I hope there never is. Speech codes are inherently fascist, etc. I think if any such ad appeared its creators would be smothered in lawsuits, which is fine by me. Not to mention boycotts of the product, group, etc. Also fine. I just don't want Big Brother telling me what I can say, even if it is discriminatory.

Brian Goldfarb said...

<span>"I just don't want Big Brother telling me what I can say, even if it is discriminatory." Which is fine by me too, providing the sayer is prepared to take the consequences, if the words, said or printed, are an encouragement to others to take action against equality laws. It's when the sayer or writer claims that such restrictions are against their freedoms that it gets out of hand. And Saleh is claimed to be such a person.</span>