For some people the truth is just too hard to bear. That Sheikh Raed Salah could be a particularly virulent anti-Semite that the UK government didn’t want spreading hate messages in its country is too simple an explanation.
Writing on the Independent’s website, Richard Sudan sees a much more sinister hand at work:
The illegal detention, and attempted character assassination of Sheikh Raed Salah, is symptomatic of the government’s pro-Zionist stance.
And who is pulling the strings of the government to “persecute” and imprison an “innocent man”?
This episode is a political statement, itself the result of political pressure from the Israeli lobby.
Granted, the fact that Salah managed to get into the country in the first place despite a banning order and managed to evade arrest for a further few days raises some questions – mainly concerning the competence of the relevant authorities who failed to enforce the ban.
The British government has the right to prevent anyone deemed to be “not conducive the the public good” from entering the country. Salah’s record of extremist statements and incitement clearly fell within those parameters giving the Home Secretary good reason to ban him.
But Richard Sudan evidently sees the hidden hand of the “Israel lobby” at work. Perhaps instead, Sudan might want to contemplate:
- The fact that Salah is currently facing charges in Israel arising from an anti-Semitic speech in which he claimed that Jews ate the blood of non-Jewish children, baked in matzohs.
- His conviction for materially supporting Hamas.
- His statements condemning homosexuals.
Sorry Sudan but not everything is a Zionist conspiracy to silence the voices of Palestinian supporters. That the Independent is prepared to publish such a piece says much about the state of some media in the UK who prefer to give platforms to apologists for extremism rather than confronting the real issues.
