Notorious anti-Zionist Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who was suspended from Labour last December for her criticism of a damning report into antisemitism within the Labour Party by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has claimed that antisemitism is being weaponized to silence socialist voices.
This is rich coming from someone who is herself not above weaponizing accusations of racism to silence her critics.
A founding member of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi serves as the media officer of the fringe group which according to the President of Board of Deputies of British Jews is “a tiny organisation whose odious views are representative of no-one but themselves.” Even, Jon Lansman, the pro-Corbyn founder of Momentum, has noted that JVL has no real connections to the Jewish community, although its far-left membership loudly insist otherwise.
Wimborne-Idrissi responded with howls of indignation to the suggestion that her marriage to a Muslim man and her naming her child after a Quranic surah (chapter) were grounds enough to discredit her as a credible voice for the Jewish community. The question was a perfectly reasonable one. As Wimborne-Idrissi well knows since she married into a Muslim family, if a female member were to marry outside her community and name her son “Deuteronomy” or “Corinthians” she would have zero credibility as a spokesperson for her Muslim community. She would likely be shunned, or even worse in some cases become a victim of an honour killing. Unable, or perhaps unwilling to face the unpalatable truth, Wimborne-Idrissi chose to deflect attention by falsely accusing her detractor of racism even though not one word concerning the race or ethnicity of her Moroccan husband had mentioned. Yet, Wimborne-Idrissi deftly conflated religion with race to claim:
“It is a strange feeling to face racist abuse from another Jew affronted by my marrying a Muslim.”
“My husband’s family, and indeed the wider Moroccan community in Amsterdam where they live, welcomed me as one of the ‘People of the Book’ with a magnanimity that David Collier is sadly unable to muster.”
“For Collier, it seems, loving someone of a different race disqualifies me from the right to have my opinions heard. If the party’s aims and values include respect for a wide range of ethnicities and views, Collier’s behavior is clearly inconsistent with them.”
First of all, Muslims are not a race or an ethnicity. Wimborne-Idrissi is probably well aware that children who follow the religion of their mother will not be considered Muslim even if their father is a Muslim. One born Muslim who converts out is no longer considered Muslim. Here, Wimborne-Idrissi has simply created a straw man with which to indulge in exactly the kind of “weaponization” she is complaining about being a victim of.
Secondly, it is disingenuous to speak of the “magnanimity” of her husband’s family because Muslim men are permitted to marry women from Ahl-Kitaab (People of the Book). So even if one were to apply her own stated definition of “racism,” none existed because the marriage was a valid one. It would be a valid test if applied to a case where a Muslim woman had married a Man of the Book and that marriage had been acceptable to the family of the woman.
Additionally, Wimborne-Idrissi must be aware that when Women of the Book marry Muslim men, the children must be raised in the Islamic faith. In addition, Muslim women are not permitted to marry Men of the Book unless they convert to Islam. In Morocco, for example, a non-Muslim man wanting to marry a Muslim Moroccan woman cannot do so unless he converts to Islam. A Christian or Jewish woman need not convert to Islam in order to marry a Muslim Moroccan man and an Islamic wedding ceremony would not change their religious denomination. Such marriages may take place under civil law in Western nations but they are not recognised in religious law and there is almost universal consensus by the Islamic clergy on this issue, as this response to the marriage of Huma Abedin to Anthony Weiner shows:
A Kuwaiti religious leader has rejected the marriage of a Muslim woman to a Jewish man, saying it amounted to adultery.
“The Islamic text about such marriages is very clear: A Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim even if he is Christian or Jewish,” said Dr Anwar Shuaib, the head of Islamic jurisprudence at the University of Kuwait.
Thus, this pathetic attempt by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi to falsely accuse an opponent of racism and then to attempt to weaponize that accusation falls flat on its face. As an aside, by conflating religion with race, the logical inference from her words is that Muslims are “racist” for following laws such as the one which strips her of the right to raise her children in her own Jewish religion or the law which mandates that her daughters can only marry Muslim men!
