Every day in almost every way we are spun a new set of lies. This morning, a UK public body tried to convince me they didn’t take any money from the European Union. When I pointed out that they had admitted it in their Annual Report, they were quick to write back: “I misunderstood the question and therefore provided you with an incorrect answer”.
No, you just thought I was stupid (more on that later this month).
These people rely on our stupidity. They rely on us watching repeat episodes of the British Cake Off or whatever it’s called, using as our sole source of news, the BBC, and engaging in politics once a week during the sham that continues to be BBC Question Time.
It’s why the Independent thinks it can publish things like this article, entitled: “David Cameron, this is what that ‘bunch of migrants’ is running from” a full seven days on from “bunch of migrants gate”. More on that here.
In said article, debut Indy Voices writer Nishaat Ismail links to a video of Homs, Syria’s third city, making a link between the drone footage and the Calais migrant crisis.
But Ms. Ismail is being willfully deceptive (and I know why). She writes:
Drone footage of Homs in Syria published today shows apocalyptic scenes of a city in ruins after five years of ravaging and relentless war that has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people. The video confirms the sheer and irrefutable destruction that has engulfed the third largest city of the country, now almost razed to the ground. It also accentuates the cold and insensitive words spoken by our Prime Minister David Cameron in last week’s reprehensible installment of PMQs when he referred to people escaping the horrors of war similar to those displayed in this footage as merely a “bunch of migrants”.
If she is alleging that most migrants in Calais are from Homs, or even from Syria, she will find herself in disagreement with her own employer of last year, the Guardian, which reported: “There are about 1,300 migrants in the northern French port. Most are from Eritrea or Somalia and are hoping to reach England rather than seeking asylum in France.”
Ironic too, given that on September 2015 Ms. Ismail wrote on her Facebook page: “As a journalist still in the very infant stages of my career, I hope I never lose sight of the fact that the lives of people are not stories for me to embellish and tell but rather journalists provide that platform for people to speak to the world about what’s going on in their lives, communities and country.”
And clearly she hasn’t done her research. Nor would I expect her to have. Ms. Ismail is one of a growing number of victimhood propagandists, her social media pages littered with ARREST BENJAMIN NETANYAHU posts, links to Islamist-friendly blogs, questionable UK-based Muslim-run charities, and a recent obsession, it seems, with anti-extremism campaigner Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation.
Ms. Ismail lists on her LinkedIn profile, a track record in “journalism” as an intern at the Guardian, Russia Today, and ITV News. But she also reveals a period of employment at Tower Hamlets Council between 2010 and 2015 – the same period of time that Lutfur Rahman, the sectarian mayor whose recent election victory was nullified in April last year when an Election Court reported Rahman to be “personally guilty” of “corrupt or illegal practices, or both”.
Ms. Ismail, according to her own CV, seems to have departed at the same time.
So no wonder she found it pertinent to write for the Islamist-friendly blog known as ‘5Pillars’, specifically, on the issue of Tower Hamlets. She used quote marks to refer to the guilty verdict passed down by a court, and wrote of the affair:
“The dismissal of Lutfur Rahman is a forewarning for aspiring Muslim politicians who want to have a voice independent of mainstream political parties. If they venture to challenge the status quo, they risk facing the same vilification and slander faced by Rahman and his colleagues.”
Once again, excusing illegal acts by claiming to be a victim. It is a noted way that Islamist extremists recruit young people – making them feel targeted and oppressed by a country that has welcomed three million Muslims.
The 5Pillarz website, ranked 82,000th in the United Kingdom (compared to say, 805th for Breitbart London) was integral in hosting the Islamist-packed “Quiz A Muslim” event on the very same evening Islamist gunmen killed 130 people in France.
She has shared articles about the now debunked “terrorist house” case, when a Muslim boy was falsely reported to have been targeted for a spelling error. She has excitedly shared articles claiming that Hillary Clinton is not pro-Israel. She has declared her support for clock bomb hoaxer Ahmed Mohamed, and even promoted an event – via Buzzfeed – by an Islamist organisation, the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA).
One of the founding members of iERA is Hamza Tzortzis, a former member of the Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir group who was roundly mocked for allegedly joining extramartial affairs website Ashley Madison last year. Despite this link, she also has the tenacity to call counter-extremism campaigner Maajid Nawaz a “pervert” for once going to a strip club.
And Ms. Ismail boasts about her links to the Al Khair Foundation – a group that was set to host Salafist ideologue Dr. Zakir Naik, who claimed, according to the Independent itself, that “every Muslim should be a terrorist” and expressed support for Osama Bin Laden. Dr. Naik was excluded from the United Kingdom by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2010.
And it doesn’t stop there. Ms. Ismail – in addition to having written a Guantanamo Bay detainee-sympathising article for the Guardian – also brags about her “fundraising” for charities called “Muslim Hands”, and “Islamic Relief”. Both organisations have alleged links to extremism, with the Telegraph reporting last year that Muslim Hands “also funds Hamas front bodies”, while Islamic Relief has had its banking links with HSBC severed due to “concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad”.
No doubt to Nishaat Ismail, this is only further evidence that Muslims in the United Kingdom are being oppressed. For those of us with brains, it is even more proof, as if any was needed, that there is a fifth column within Muslim communities in the United Kingdom. And now they’re trying to use dead Syrians, and media outlets like the Independent, Guardian, and Buzzfeed, to get us to support their Islamist-sympathising goals.