Palestinian 'consistency' ....

So the Palestinian Authority has slammed Israel for daring to close mosques during the coronavirus crisis - while at the very same time condemning Hamas for NOT closing mosques.

 Just in case anybody was surprised by this apparent 'inconsistency' you should not be. It's how they operate....

Tim Burton's book and the question it raises about the Board of Deputies and CST's continued collaboration with Tell Mama

Too few people know that in the UK men and women have been imprisoned simply for posting tweets or messages that are critical of radical Islam or its supporters. One of those imprisoned was Tim Burton. He had dared challenge the Tell Mama organization and its highly litigious and sensitive leader Fiyaz Mughal (Tell Mama is the organization that continues to receive massive government support to report on 'Islamophobic attacks' even though it was previously found to be exagerrating them; and Mughal also sued a pro-Israel Jewish woman for criticizing Tell Mama).  I urge every member of the UK Jewish community to read Tim's book about his case and then ask their 'leaders' at the Board of Deputies and CST how they can possibly continue to collaborate closely with Tell Mama.

Tim Burton correctly describes himself as a 'political prisoner' because he was imprisoned for sending some obviously sarcastic emails to Tell Mama, which Mughal claimed were somehow 'personally threatening'. That such a case was ever brought by the CPS - and ended up in a Crown Court trial and a 3-month prison sentence - is a stain on the British judicial system. What happened to Burton was terrible for him personally, yet he tells his story with great humour.

I was going to do a detailed review of the book as I assumed nobody in the community had read it, but in fact a very good review and links to a lot of other related material is already available on the Fahrenheit211.net website.

So I will just note some things I got from the book that are not mentioned in that review:

• Possibly out of fear of yet further prison time, Burton never actually mentions either Fiyaz Mughal or Tell Mama by name anywhere in the book.  He refers to them respectively as "Fizzy Mendacious" and "Grievance Mongers UK" throughout.
• The 'mendacious' relates to Burton's very well publicised first trial where he was accused of a hate crime for calling Mughal a "mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artist". The key thing is that at his first trial he had a competent laywer and also a very good expert witness to explain the concept of 'taqiyya'. He was found not guilty. However, things were different for the second trial in which he was accused of threatening behaviour for sending some obviously joke/sarcastic emails to Tell Mama. Not only did he have an appallingly incompetent barrister, but he was unable to call on the same expert 'taqiyya' witness because that witness had died since the first trial. Although Burton finally managed to get another expert witness, the barrister insisted that the witness should not be called at all. Hence, there was nobody to challenge the prosecution 'expert' on Islam (an expert who should probably not have been allowed because he failed to declare a conflict of interest - a matter which is the basis for Burton's claim of a mistrial).
• In addition to the story of his trial and imprisonment the book also contains  a compendium of relevant previous articles Burton has written on Islam and how the notion of 'Islamophobia' is used to close down free speech. 

See:

• A most highly recommended read – Pigeon on the Wing, The prison diaries of Tim Burton, a foe of Islam
• 'Tell Mama' did exaggerate anti-Muslim attacks: PCC rejects all Fiyaz Mughal’s complaints against us
• UK Muslim group says it will sue Jewish activist
• Escape from Big Mother: Free Speech of UK in Decay
• CST collaborate with Tell Mama 
• Board of Deputies and Fiyaz Mughal