Melanie Phillips on the U.K.'s good friends, the Saudis

Following up on this post regarding the Saudi government disseminating most of the hate-promoting extreme Islamist literature in the U.K., literature found in at least one quarter of mosques in Britain, here's Melanie Phillips' take on who the Saudis really are and what they really promote. Read this and think about how accommodating them would most reasonably be interpreted as acquiescing in a culture war of their creation.

from The Spectator:


Britain's dhimmocracy (part 2):

On the Centre for Social Cohesion blog, David Conway rightly takes a very dim view indeed of today’s off-colour apologia in the Times for the British Saudi grovel-fest by the normally astute Amir Taheri, who argued that the Saudis were like camels – ‘uncongenial, but trustworthy’. Conway points out what these ‘trustworthy’ Saudis actually promote:

‘On May 7, 2002, wearing her customary body-length robe and fashionable head scarf, Doaa Amer -- a professional TV anchor who hosts Muslim Woman Magazine on IQRAA-TV, a satellite channel broadcasting throughout the Arab world … based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – announced to her viewers that she had a special guest. Broadcasting from Egypt, she beg[a]n: “Our report today will be a little different, because our guest is a girl, a Muslim girl, but a true Muslim.”

‘The camera pans slowly down and to the right as Ms Amer greets her guest who turns out to be a small child. [Their conversation goes thus:]

Amer: Peace be upon you.
Child: Allah’s mercy and blessing upon you.
Amer: How old are you?
Child: Three and a half.
Amer: Are you a Muslim?’
Child: Yes
Amer: Are you familiar with the Jews?’
Child: Yes.
Amer: Do you like them?
Child: No
Amer: Why don’t you like them?
Child: Because…
Amer: (prompting): Because they are what?
Child: They’re apes and pigs.
Amer: Because they’re apes and pigs. Who said they are so?
Child: Our God.
Amer: Where did he say this?
Child: In the Koran.
Amer: Right, he said that about them in the Koran…. Did they love our master Mohammed?
Child: No.
Amer: No, what did the Jews do to him?
….
….
Child: There was a Jewish woman who invited the Prophet and his friends. When he asked her, "Did you put poison [in my food]?” she said to him, “Yes.” He asked her, "Why did you do this?" and she replied: “If you are a liar – you will; die and Allah will not protect you: if you speak the truth –Allah will protect you.”
Amer: And our God protected the Prophet Muhammad, of course.
Child: And he said to his friends: “I will kill this lady.”
Amer: Of course, because she put poison in his food, this Jewess.
Child: Oh.
Amer: (speaking directly into the camera):
Basmallah [the girl’s name], Allah be praised, Basmallah, Allah be praised. May our God bless her. No one could wish Allah could give him a more believing girl than she… May Allah bless her and her father and mother. The next generation of children must be true Muslims. We must educate them now while they are still children so that they will be true Muslims.’

‘Shortly before this programme aired on IQRAA-TV, the station’s owner, Prince al-Waleed bin Talil [a Saudi royal] contributed $27 million to a government-organised telethon in Saudi Arabia that raised $109 million for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Saudi King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdallah [now King] each contributed $1 million, with their wives kicking in separate cheques of close to $1 million. …

‘The telethon was hosted by a prominent Saudi government cleric named Sheikh Saad al-Buraik, who took the opportunity of the live television coverage to …[tell] his audience: “I am against American until this life ends, until the Day of Judgment. I am against America even if stone liquefies…. She is the root of all evils and wickedness on Earth… Oh Muslim Ummah, don’t take the Jews and Christians as allies… Muslim Brothers in Palestine, do not have any mercy. Neither compassion on the Jews, their blood, their money, their flesh. Their women are yours to take. Legitimately. God made them yours. Why don’t you enslave their women? Why don’t you wage jihad? Why don’t you pillage them?”

‘Like the al-Ibrahim brothers, whose Middle East Broadcasting Network aired the telethon, Sheikh al-Buraik is closely tied to Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, the king’s youngest son. The sheikh hosts a regular show on MBC and the government’s Channel One called Religion and Life.’
[Kenneth Timmerman, Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), pp. 117-120 passim]

Just remember this when you look at the pictures of Britain’s Royal Family, Prime Minister and higher establishment bowing and scraping today to the House of Saud.