UK ‘anti-Sharia’ legislator backed Israel group calling for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

Ali Abunimah Lobby Watch 9 June 2011

Lady Caroline Cox

Caroline Cox Wikipedia

A legislator who has introduced an ‘anti-Sharia’ bill into the UK parliament supposedly in the name of equality agreed to serve as co-president of an Israeli organization that favors expulsion of Palestinians, denies the Nakba, and espouses extreme anti-Muslim views.

In an 8 June article headlined “Bill limiting sharia law is motivated by ‘concern for Muslim women,” The Guardian reports:

Islamic courts would be forced to acknowledge the primacy of English law under a bill being introduced in the House of Lords.

The bill, proposed by Lady Cox and backed by women’s rights groups and the National Secular Society, was drawn up because of “deep concerns” that Muslim women are suffering discrimination within closed sharia law councils.

The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill will introduce an offence carrying a five-year jail sentence for anyone falsely claiming or implying that sharia courts or councils have legal jurisdiction over family or criminal law. The bill, which will apply to all arbitration tribunals if passed, aims to tackle discrimination, which its supporters say is inherent in the courts, by banning the sharia practice of giving woman’s testimony only half the weight of men’s.

Cox said: “Equality under the law is a core value of British justice. My bill seeks to preserve that standard”

In the UK, Muslim and Jewish courts can decide on certain personal status issues for those who bring cases to them voluntarily under the Arbitration Act (1996).

But an examination of the activities and views of Lady Caroline Cox, a member of the unelected House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK parliament reveals she may be motivated by something other than a yearning for equality and a concern for Muslim women.

Lady Cox’s involvement in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian extremism

In 2005, Cox agreed to serve as “Co-President” of The Jerusalem Summit, an Israeli Zionist organization that denies the Nakba and which has advocated the ethnic cleansing, or transfer of Palestinians and espouses extreme Islamophobic views.

The chair of the International Advisory Board of the Jerusalem Summit is Gary Bauer, an American radical Christianist figure known for his extreme anti-Muslim and anti-gay views.

The Jerusalem Summit’s Mission Statement proclaims:

We see Radical Islam as the third onslaught of Totalitarian Evil on the free mankind in the last 100 years. The first two were Fascism and Communism. The free world managed to defeat them by uniting, working out a joint strategy, and mastering resolve to fight and prevail. Now, too, is the time to unite and lay out a coherent moral and political strategy in that crucial fight.

The organization also views Muslims as fundamentally alien and hostile to the “West” – presumably this includes British citizens who are Muslims and whom Cox is supposed to represent as a lawmaker::

Coexistence between the West and the Muslim world, if not peaceful then at least non-belligerent, cannot exist or last unless a system of unilateral measures of self-defense is adopted by the West, but advertised and made clear to all, on the one hand; and another system of reward and non-lethal punishment is put in place, as a menu for every Muslim country or organization to choose from, if it elected to enjoy the goodies of the West, on the other.

Does this “self-defense” include the kinds of laws Cox is pushing under the guise of protecting “equality”?

Increasingly, anti-Muslim organizations like The Jerusalem Summit are defining not just what they term “radical” Islam in this manner but are launching a broad onslaught against Muslims.

Cox, it should also be noted, invited Dutch anti-Muslim demagogue Geert Wilders to the UK last year.

Support for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

On its website, The Jerusalem Summit explains its platform:

  1. The establishment of a Palestinian State must removed from the international agenda.

  2. However, removing the issue of a Palestinian state from the international agenda will not eliminate the humanitarian predicament of Palestinians residing in Israeli-administered areas.

  3. This is clearly an issue that must be addressed and resolved. But it must be addressed not in political terms but in humanitarian ones.

  4. Thus, to successfully resolve the Palestinian problem, the Political Paradigm must be replaced by a Humanitarian Paradigm. This, however can only be done if the current Palestinian narrative, which fuels the Political Paradigm, is de-legitimized.

  5. Thus, the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative becomes a vital prerequisite to any comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue.

So what is the “humanitarian” solution that this extremist organization proposes? It is none other than the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) and Gaza:

Generous relocation grants to Palestinians living in Israeli administered territories on an individual basis and not via any official Palestinian organization.

Paying Palestinians to leave, just because they are not Jews, is, the organization claims, the “only one reasonable and feasible alternative” to other approaches and would make them “affluent emigres” rather than refugees.

Also on its site, the organization speculates:

No one knows precisely how many Palestinians can be induced to emigrate without putting the matter to a practical test.

One can only imagine the reaction if someone were to suggest that the conflict be solved by Jews leaving. It was exactly one year ago that veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas was forced to resign for making such a suggestion.

Nakba denial

Behind the crocodile tears and fake concern for Palestinian refugees that The Jerusalem Summit coats onto its extremist agenda lies not just a desire to make Palestinians disappear, but a denial of their history.

In a section entitled “The Palestinian Refugees - Myth and Reality,” The Jerusalem Summit makes larges numbers of Palestinians just disappear. It claims for example that the number of refugees in 1948 was just 300,000 (it was 750,000) and repeats long-discredited myths that Palestinians left at the urging of their leaders, rather than as a result of expulsion by Zionist militias.

Moreover, the organization claims, in line with long discredited Zionist myths that the Palestinians who have deep and ancient roots in the country were recent arrivals from surrounding countries.

The alliance between Zionism and anti-Muslim scaremongering

Cox’s endorsement of extremist racist The Jerusalem Summit, and her introduction of laws targeting Muslims in the UK in the name of “equality” is a marker of the increasingly close alliance between Zionists and Islamophobes and their attempt to stir up Islamophobia in Europe and the United States in order to bolster support for Israel as a supposed bulwark against a mythical Muslim invasion characterized by “creeping Sharia.”

Just this week in the United States, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain said he would require a special loyalty oath to be administered to Muslims appointed to government positions.

There is not such much a creeping, but rather a galloping alliance between pro-Israel extremists and Islamophobes that is causing dangerous polarization in the United States and Europe, largely for the sake of Israel.

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Comments

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Dr.Chris Burns-Cox replied on

Lady Cox views on Sharia law will be discussed in the usual parliamentary way but her activities in support of the Zionist entity and its ethnic cleansing plans involving the removal of Palestinians from their homeland are grotesque and should be publicised. If you support the policies and activities of Israel regarding ethnic cleansing, does this mean you are a racist?
The ability of a non-elected person to influence the UK government is a very good reason for insisting that all members of the House of lords must be eleected by the people.

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nahida replied on

I find it really outrageous and inconceivable to watch fierce campaigns rallying in “defence” of “our rights”, the rights of Muslim women, such as the staging of the Islamo-fascist Awareness Week in USA sponsored by David Horowitz or that of the hypocrite Lady Caroline Cox.

What disturbs and frustrates me about this impious movement is the fact that those who are holding the banner of our “liberation” are precisely the ones whose hands are dripping with our blood, the blood of Muslim women!

Please read on:

http://uprootedpalestinians.bl...
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nahida replied on

All this blather and fierce campaign against what they claim as "sharia law" is nothing but a smoke screen to conceal the REAL THREAT, yet again, which has already been advancing in USA and Europe alike, namely the Noachide Laws, pushed forward by the supremacist Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch and approved by both House and Congress in the USA and in many other countries world wide

Have a look at the Chabad Lubavitchers projects for America and the world: (please read through with patience, this is NOT the protocols nor is it a forgery, it is called the Noahide Laws)

http://www.noahide.com/finalwa...

and
The coming American Nakba
http://uprootedpalestinians.bl...

Sharing our house with settlers
http://uprootedpalestinians.bl...

p.s
Please follow the links in the articles, and do your research on Chabad Lubavitch and Noachide Lwas.
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nahida replied on

Thank you

So, let me get this straight:

You tear my veil to free me

You jail me to rid me of my terror

You kill my beloved to liberate me

You shoot my baby to erase my misery

You starve me to show me how to vote

You threaten me to bring me to my senses

You wage war on me to help me find peace

You slay my people to teach me compassion

You humiliate me to aid me live with dignity

You insult me to illustrate freedom of speech

You crush my bones to save me from my evil

You demolish my home to elevate my morality

You torture my children to teach me how to love

You uproot my tree to raise my ethical standard

You steal my resources to bring me social justice

You assassinate my leaders to bring me democracy

You destroy my history to educate me about progress

You dehumanise me to coach me into humanity

You bomb my town to train me into security

You wipe me out to push me to civilisation

You scorn my faith to bring me salvation

Thank you sir

How can I -ever- pay you back?
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emwatcher replied on

is a term more august (and American) than needed. But the following statement is proved wrong earlier in the story:

"The organization also views Muslims as fundamentally alien and hostile to the 'West' – presumably this includes British citizens who are Muslims and whom Cox is supposed to represent as a lawmaker:: [sic]"

As the story says, Caroline Cox is "a member of the unelected House of Lords." If she's supposed to represent anyone, it's the British aristocracy or a clique of rich backers of scuzzy politicians -- few of them likely to be Muslims.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.