The story so far: the Board of Deputies of British Jews issues a completely stupid joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Many people criticise it. One of the Board, Alex Brummer, fires back with a personal attack on Melanie Phillips in which he makes a bold new claim about what was going on inside the heads of the MCB when they signed the statement.
The Board of Deputies has now answered about where Brummer got his facts. The only source of the “clarification” by Shafi (of the MCB), where he “made it plain that the targeting of civilians referred to Hamas” is this (Jewish Chronicle):
The line reads: “The targeting of civilians is completely unacceptable and against our religious traditions.”
A Board spokesman had suggested that this could be read as a specific MCB criticism of Hamas, something the MCB rejected.
A spokeswoman for the Muslim group said they believed both parties had understood that the line refered to the targeting of civilians by both Israel and Hamas.
She said: “It refers to both sides, Israel and Hamas. It’s civilians that pay the price. On both sides.”
However, the Board categorically denied this. A spokesman said: “We are very clear that the IDF does not target civilians; that’s why we felt able to sign it.”
And he said it was completely untrue to suggest that the Board was “in some way condemning the IDF”.
But Brummer’s article (still not online, so it’s rather good we have a scan of it) says of the reference to targeting civilians, that only the “swivel-eyed” would think it applied to Israel: it is a clear reference to Hamas’ attacks. “To see it as implicit criticism of the IDF’s war effort in Gaza..is simply ignorant and creating division for the sake of it.”
So it would appear that the Muslim Council of Britain, according to Alex Brummer of the Board of Deputies, is most definitely “swivel-eyed” and they are “ignorant and creating division for the sake of it”.
Which begs the question: why did Vivian Wineman, Alex Brummer and the rest of the Board of Dhimmis of UK Jews get into bed with the divisive and ignorant Muslim Council of Britain in the first place?
h/t to Avril Mailer
