Cameron's ventriloquist
Last week, in Part 1 of this series, I commented on the story of David Cameron's irresponsible outburst in Parliament followed by his apology - that excluded Muslims - as well as the attempt to "choreograph" Muslim Stigma.
To
understand the Tory party's current hostility towards Islam, it is
necessary to examine the underlying factors driving this onslaught. It
is no secret that there are a number of hard core Zionists and
neoconservatives within Cameron's inner circle. The recent Dispatches programme showed how the Conservative party was being heavily funded by the pro-Israel Lobby. In addition, Neil Clark's article
in June 2009 brought to light the fact that a number of senior Tories
(Gove, Vaisey et al) are signed up members of the "Henry Jackson
Society", an organisation named after a warmongering US Senator which
boasts among its patrons the "Prince of Darkness", Richard Perle, and
Bill Kristol, whose father wrote the equivalent of Das Kapital for the
US neoconservative movement. The reality of this neoconservative,
pro-Israel and anti-Muslim influence upon Cameron and the rest of his
Tory party deserve more attention from Muslims, not only because of the
rising tide of violent Islamophobia in the UK, but also in the interests
of protecting wider society from the cruel and malicious mind games
that are being perpetrated on them in the name of freedom.
With
regard to the Tory leader himself, David Cameron has an unhealthy
dependence on Michael Gove for intellectual nourishment and this forms
one of the core channels through which the manipulation of the entire
party takes place. Cameron being, through no fault of his own, an
intellectual "lightweight"
(in the words of Barack Obama) places him in a somewhat vulnerable
position when in the company of Gove, who promotes himself as a
competent historian. To understand the dynamics of this relationship,
one has to appreciate the psychology of student politics in the Oxford
Union and the lasting effect it has on those who enter real politics.
Presidents of the Oxford Union, having secured a majority of votes to
enter office, are often idealised by Oxford undergraduates as expert
politicians, even though the vast majority of them fade from the pages
of history as soon as they leave Oxford. Gove's presidency of the Union
is more than likely to have created an inferiority complex in Cameron
that seems to persist into their current relationship. Add to this
notions of being a "published author" and "historian" and soon the
admiration begins to border on "worship". Every utterance of Gove's is
then treated as a precious pearl of wisdom. This was abundantly evident
during Cameron's recent outburst in Parliament against Muslim schools.
Both the conviction in his voice when referencing Gove and the certainty
of his tone reveal a confidence in, and admiration of, his source, akin
to that of a starry-eyed undergraduate marvelling at the prowess of the
president's ability to bribe his way into office (which they do often
do).
So
is Gove really an historian and intellectual colossus? Well, not
according to celebrated historians and genuine intellectuals. This is
what the award-winning historian, William Dalrymple, had to say about
Michael Gove's intellectual abilities:
"A
prominent example of the sort of pundit who has spoon-fed neocon
mythologies to the British public for the past few years is Michael
Gove. Gove has never lived in the Middle East, indeed has barely set
foot in a Muslim country. He has little knowledge of Islamic history,
theology or culture — in Celsius 7/7, he just takes the line of Bernard
Lewis on these matters; nor does he speak any Islamic language. None of
this, however, has prevented his being billed, on his book’s
dust-jacket, “one of Britain’s leading writers and thinkers on
terrorism”.
"Gove’s book is a confused
epic of simplistic incomprehension, riddled with more factual errors and
misconceptions than any other text I have come across in two decades of
reviewing books on this subject. Thus we are solemnly told, for
example, that during the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank from 1948
to 1967, the Palestinian population from Jenin to Hebron was 'herded
into, and kept penned up inside, refugee camps', an idea as novel as it
is comically ridiculous and ahistorical. During this period, towns such
as Ramallah became sleepy backwaters, quite free from the land seizures
and apartheid policies of Arab-free Israeli settlements and Arab-free
road networks that followed the Israeli occupation — realities entirely
at odds with what Gove calls Israel’s 'culture of equality'.
"Gove
also rewrites history when he alleges it was the 'appeasement' of the
Palestinians represented by the Oslo peace process that encouraged
Al-Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. In fact it was the violent
repression that followed Israel’s unilateral ending of peace talks that
formed the backdrop to the attacks. Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, has written that the repressive campaign waged against the
second intifada by Sharon in autumn 2000 provided Al-Qaeda’s
opportunity: as the corpses of dead children piled up, al-Zawahiri
realised that here was the rallying cry that could unify the Muslim
world. All that was needed was a huge strike and the US system in the
Middle East would begin to unravel. And so it has indeed proved, to the
peril of us all.
"Gove is also quite
wrong that few Muslims or Islamists really mind what Israel does to the
Palestinians and the Lebanese, and that 'it is what Israel is, rather
than what Israel does' that really provokes resistance. Instead, Israeli
violence is the principal cause of anti-American anger — Bin Laden has
written that it was the sight of US support for the Israeli bombing of
Beirut in 1982 that initially radicalised him: 'I still remember the
blood-torn limbs, the women and children massacred. Houses were being
destroyed and tower blocks were collapsing... As I looked on those
destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the oppressor
in kind by destroying towers in America.'
"Throughout
Gove’s book, neocon myths are reheated and served up, despite being
long discredited, most recently by the 2005 CIA report just released by
the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Saddam, believes Gove, 'invited
Islamists into Iraq'; was 'determined to pursue his WMD programme' and
'dreamt of emulating' 9/11, strongly suggesting the central lie of
Saddam’s non-existent links with 9/11. Gove also repeats the canard that
the spread of democracy will exclude the Islamists from Middle East
power, despite the evidence from Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt
and Algeria that, given the option, the newly radicalised Muslim peoples
are much more likely to choose fundamentalist candidates over
secularists.
"At the heart of Celsius
7/7 lies the idea that the Islamists are motivated by a deep hatred of
freedom: as Bin Laden noted in his 2004 broadcast, if that was so, 'Why
did we not attack Sweden?' Instead, it is specifically to fight for
freedom from US interference in the Islamic world that Al-Qaeda was
formed: 'We have been fighting you because we are free men,' said Bin
Laden in the same speech. 'Just as you violate our security, so we
violate yours.' This was echoed by Mohammad Siddique Khan before 7/7:
'Your governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people
all over the world... Until we feel security, you will be our targets.
And until you stop the bombing, imprisonment and torture of my people,
we will not stop this fight.'
"All
terrorist violence is contemptible. But just because we condemn does not
mean we should not strive to analyse accurately. It is exactly the sort
of woolly elisions and linkages that Gove indulges in that have got us
into the trouble we are now in. None of this would matter if
Gove were still ring-fenced within his op-ed-page padded cell;
horrifyingly, however, he now sits in the Conservative shadow cabinet
and is credited with having influence on Conservative policy in the
region. Worse still, this book was named as the one most taken by
British MPs on their summer holidays. Blair was bad enough, the blind
leading the blind; now it seems the madmen are taking over the asylum." (William Dalrymple, The Sunday Times, 24.09.06).
Gove's response, with characteristic neocon bluster,
further unmasks his shallow intellect and ignorance of the subject he
pretends to understand so well. Anyone who has any knowledge of the Second Intifada in Palestine knows that it was sparked by Ariel Sharon's arrogant visit to the Masjid Al-Aqsa compound, accompanied by over 1,000 Israeli police officers on 28 September 2000.
Here
is Gove trying to fault Dalrymple (following lavish praise) and, as
usual, getting his principal facts completely wrong, under the
blusterous title "A failure of the critical faculties". He writes:
"William
Dalrymple is a writer of bewitching skill, his travelogues have earned
richly deserved praise and his history books have won a string of
prizes. He follows in the distinguished desert footsteps of UK writers
who have found in the Arab and Islamic world rich materials to draw on,
from Richard Burton to Wilfred Thesiger… In that context, what is
striking about Dalrymple is how ready he appears to be in joining the
wider chorus that places Israel in the dock. As I found this week
reading a review of my book on terrorism, Celsius 7/7, by Dalrymple.
"In
pinning blame on Israel, Dalrymple stated that the 9/11 attacks on the
US were a response to 'the repressive campaign waged against the second
intifada by (Ariel) Sharon in autumn 2000'.
"Most
historians will be surprised to read that Sharon was in a position to
wage any campaign in autumn 2000 given that he became Israel’s leader
only after February 2001. But that’s not the only howler… If I
ever had cause to doubt that so many, often of great talent, are happy
to trample over the truth when it comes to attacking Israel then
Dalrymple's review has, sadly, only reinforced that fact. (Michael Gove, The Times, 27 September 2006).
This is at complete odds with the BBC's time-line
on the Second Intifada which states clearly that "Ariel Sharon's visit
to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount... provides one of the sparks that
ignites a cycle of violence."
Faced with Gove's blusterous lying,
one is left wondering that if Cameron is an intellectual lightweight,
Gove must be struggling to enter the featherweight division (or at least
bluff his way in). This is the same Gove who has the audacity to argue
in his book that Britain must change its liberal laws to fight
'Islamism' (his euphemism for Muslims) and that "changing our laws,
vital as it is, can only, however, be one part of our response" (p135).
The following fact speaks volumes about why Gove wants Britain to become
inhospitable to Muslims: for every one reference to Britain in his
book, there are at least three for Israel.
If
Cameron had had the acuity of mind to read and ponder the implications
of this insightful exchange between Dalrymple and Gove in 2006, he would
not today have had to face the embarrassment of an apology for information provided to him by Gove and his dodgy think-tank, Policy Exchange. Lest we forget, this is the same Policy Exchange that not so long ago was caught fabricating evidence
in an attempt to demonise mosques in the UK. Sadly, Cameron seems to
prefer the continual parroting of neocon anti-Islam rhetoric and appears
to be hell-bent on implementing neocon, anti-Muslim, interventionist
policies. However, Cameron needs to realise that if he insists on
playing the role of the puppet, Muslim voters will not only see through
the ventriloquism when he speaks but will also recognise the
manipulating hands of the puppet master.
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