Sherazade - the muslim cleric is yousuf al qawardi but he is not the only one. He is just the latest example. There are plenty of Muslim clerics who are anti semitic and to deny it is either naive or just plain disingenious (at the most generous).
What about the islamic school in the heart of the west end a few years ago whose principal finally left and spoke out about the hateful ( there is no other way to describe it ) books that the kids were learning from depicting Jews as pigs adn the rest of the " non believers" ( i.e western world) as monkeys?
I am not prepared to give you that the Koran does not preach anti semitism. I am aware ( as you must be ) of the hadith that the final war will be between teh Jews and the Muslims and that the Muslims will kill all the jews apart from one who is hiding behind a stone. The stone then calls out " oh believer , the infidel Jew ( or words to that effect) is here - come kill him" and the Muslim does . What about the Koranic story of the Jewwess who poisoned Muhammad? It is therefore in my view inherent and endemic in Islam this hatred for the Jew.
I will give you that many moderate Muslims do not hold with this hadith and try , in the modern world, to participate in inter faith forums and bridge the gap but it fails when given any real test. For example, the Muslim Council of Britain refused to join the other faiths at a Holocaust Remebrance Day event at which the other faiths were all represented this year in "protest" at Gaza? Why? Are the two interrelated somehow? Do the Jews who died innocently at the hands of the Nazi scourge not merit remembrance and the minute's silence accorded to them due to world events now? What link have these events other than that they both involve Jews? The MCB particupated in 2007 due to pressure but not until after capitulating in their fight to have Holocaust REmembrance Day de judaised and turned into a "victims of racism day">? Why ? Is it so painful for them to attend a day commemorating Jewishloss ( not any other loss ) that in order to be able to stomach it they have to turn it into something totally unrelated to Jews?
For an exampole of the type of Muslim attitudes towards Jews just read www.ummah.com/forum. There was a thread recently by an israeli who posted tryign to explore avenues for peace on there. The anti semitism ( not anti isreal - that much is a given - I am talking real hard core anti semitims quoting from protocols of elders of zion and expressing wishes for hitler to continue work and hamas sends jews to gas type screams) was absolutely shocking. It is also an eye opener. The website carries many , many threads wishing the believers well in their Jihad in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Western World.
There are many examples of muslim anti semitism. Here are just two.
1 The Prime Ministger of Malaysia in 2003 informed the world that "Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to die for them".He received a standing ovation for this statement from all 57 Muslim countries represented.
2 President Bashar al Assad of Syria - this little ditty " Jews try to kill the principles of all world religions like they betrayed Jesus Christ".
It is no accident that the old Czarist Forgery the Protocols of the elders of Zion is reprinted in new eidtions yearly in Iran, Syria , Egypt and others the only place where its sales flourish.
Indeed with the state sponsered insults, charecatures, sporadic voilence and propaganda slurs the situation is beginning to resemble 1930's Germany - a situation preparing the people for the murder that followed.
At heart I try to be an optimist ( I have a background in left wing politics which installs this into you) but I fear my optimism is misplaced and i am not prepared to be and will not be a victim of my own stupidity ultimately as were the Jews in 1939 Germany who fervently believed that their well educated and mannered neighbours would not harm them.
Kate1956 - I am afriad that I simply do not understand your first post or its meaning. Your last post mentining that the NF called teh SWP a " conspiracy of Jews" did make give me a grim smile. Its my point all over - everything bad is blamed on teh jews - the current credit crunch, the recession, immigration, emigration ( the brain drain) , socialism, communism and facism - oh and apartheid too. In fact 9/11 was called a jewish conspiracy too ( by the muslims ) - amazing that one . Apparantly it was engineered by the "zionists" who called to alert the Jews in the twin towers not to go to work that day. It would be funny were it not so sobering.
Sherazade goat - I did not make a "racist slur" on another thread. I said "sherazade and those of her ilk". Where is the racism in that ? I may have been implying that you are hot headed, impetuous, factually incorrect or ignorant. All completely different comments/accusations. But you choose to make it racist.
And as a complete sidesweep I do read fairly widely about Islam and sherazade fwiw have a lot of respect for some of hte basic tenets for e.g. modesty finding them quite similar to my religion. Especially re hijab etc - we also have concepts of modesty and hair covering.
In fact - sigh- if a few of us women could only sit down and thrash things out I think we'd have far more in common than we do apart.