Interpal’s Ibrahim Hewitt
This is a guest post by habibi
Interpal claims that it is a “non-political” charity. This is an interesting contention.
Here is its chairman, Ibrahim Hewitt, participating in one of the London Gaza demos. Just one day after the fighting began, he claimed that Israel had committed “war crimes”, while a Hezbollah flag fluttered behind him:
And here’s another video of an Interpal representative, Abu Muhammed, addressing a Gaza demo in Preston. According to him, Israel’s Gaza offensive was an attack against “all humanity” and “95%” of the victims were civilians. Will the offensive “bring peace to the Zionists?”, he asks. “Never” is his answer.
But let’s get back to Hewitt. The Gaza demo was no first. When Israel killed Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin in 2004, Hewitt addressed a protest rally organised by the hard-core Islamists of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). Azzam “Kaboom” Tamimi and Ismail Patel, both known as supporters of terrorist groups, also spoke at the rally.
In recent years Hewitt has also appeared at several Islamist conferences. In addition to Tamimi and Patel, fellow speakers at these events have included hate preacher Riyadh Ul Haq; Anas al Tikriti, the former president of the MAB, who said “now all of us are Hamas” at one of the January demos; Reza Abu Luqman of Hizb ut Tahrir, who believes a caliphate should “use the economic and military power of the Ummah to liberate Palestine”; Massoud Shadjareh, the head of the Khomeinist “Islamic Human Rights Commission”, which organises the annual “Al Quds Day” hate marches in London; and George Galloway, the well-known supporter of the butchers of the Iraqi “resistance”.
Note that Hewitt is no rogue within Interpal: the charity itself is hardly wary of associating its name with extremists. On its website, under the heading “Interpal events”, one currently finds meetings featuring speakers Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain, who thinks every day should be Al Quds day; Mohamed Ali Harrath, the CEO of Islam Channel and convicted terrorist; Ismail Patel; Azzam Tamimi; and Anas al Tikriti.
All of this matters, or should matter.
In its new report on Interpal, the Charity Commission demands that the charity cut its links with the Union for Good, a charity grouping headed by Islamist preacher Yusuf al Qaradawi. This is one of the Commission’s reasons for that decision:
“The risks to the Charity’s reputation arising through statements made by the President of the Union for Good at the time of its formation, which promoted violence as a legitimate form of resistance in support of the Palestinian cause.”
I believe the Commission’s concern is misplaced. For Hewitt has not been misled or blundered. No, he has found the right crowd. Here are some of his own views, mostly expressed in publications of Ismail Patel’s “Friends of al Aqsa”:
On Israel: “By their behaviour in vandalising and destroying Mosques and Churches, the Jews have demonstrated that they cannot be entrusted with the sanctity and security of this Holy Land.”
On Zionism: it is nothing less than “a threat to world peace”.
On Jews and the media: “Much has been said about Zionist control of the media and conspiracy theories abound on this subject. Can there be smoke without fire though?”
On the US government: “Zionism’s puppets”. By the way, according to Hewitt (see this video from 7:30 in), the US also killed a hajj-illuminated Malcolm X in order to “divide and rule”, just like the British government.
On French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy: Hewitt cites Garaudy approvingly here.
Perhaps the best picture of Hewitt’s extremism emerges in one of his longer works: “What Does Islam Say?”, a pamphlet explaining what he sees as the Islamic approach to several social and political issues. There is plenty of predictably noxious Islamist fare. Apostates and proven adulterers get the death penalty. Sexually active gays must face “severe punishments” for their “great sin”, possibly including death. Most forms of music are haram, with particular warnings against Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Bizet’s Carmen, which “portray concepts that are alien to Islamic beliefs”, while Vivaldi’s Gloria promotes Christian beliefs which are “in contradiction to Islamic teachings”.
Maybe music is a bugbear because Hewitt used to be a musician. After he converted to Islam in 1981, though, he burnt his instruments. He was certainly in need of a radical transformation in those times:
“I might have been an extremely racist person before my embracing Islam, the religion which taught me tolerance and mutual kindness among people and which took away from me the evils of extremism, hatred and cruelty.” He went on to say :“I think that as a result of my excessive racism and extremism, I did not speak to a non-white person for twenty one years of my life. I was proud of myself and of the colour of my skin more than enough.”
I think many people would beg to differ on Hewitt’s version of Islam rescuing him from extremism, but never mind for now. Of particular interest in the Interpal context is Hewitt’s apologia for terrorism in “What Does Islam Say?”. For him, the terrorist label can be applied widely, and certainly to the US, the UK and Israel. In the case of the UK, this includes its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for Palestinian terrorism, not so fast, Hewitt suggests:
International law accepts that people living under illegal military occupation are entitled to fight against the occupiers with whatever means they have at their disposal. If the world does not like, for example, “terrorist suicide bombing” in Palestine (a weapon neither unique to the Palestinians nor invented by them), then, as one Palestinian exile said at a conference in December 2003, “Give us F-16s, Apache helicopters, missiles tanks and heavy weapons, and we’ll have a fair fight”.
Indeed, after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hewitt opposed a broad international consensus by urging third parties to work with it through the Palestinian Authority (PA):
Interpal, like many other British NGOs, feels that the PA should have international support no matter which party is at the helm. It is important to raise public awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people and to counter the negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims induced by the global war on terror. The democratic process dictates that any party elected fairly and judiciously by the majority of the people has the legitimacy to rule and must be accorded the courtesies and rights befitting an elected government. All the Western governments which used to work with the previous Palestinian administration should engage in dialogue with, and financially support, the current PA.
Hmm, I rather doubt that Hewitt has ever called for the Muslim countries that refuse to recognise democratic Israel to accord it ”the courtesies and rights befitting an elected government”.
It is simply extraordinary that anyone trusts a man with this record to keep Hamas out of his charity’s operations.
Above all, why did the Charity Commission, which has investigated Interpal for over two years, and which paid such close attention to the role of another trustee, Dr Essam Mustafa, have nothing to say about the issue of the suitably of Mr Hewitt as a charity trustee?
Comments
| 3 March 2009, 8:19 am |
“Doesn’t the point rest on whether they could be seen to represent the charity at these events or whether they acted in personal capacities?”
Doesn’t the point rest on whether a well known personality running a well known charity could act in personal capacities at public meetings?
I can understand Absurdus, but why Prunus?
| 3 March 2009, 8:34 am |
Great article habibi.
As I have mentioned before, much of MI5 should ‘let go’ of a fith of its ‘work force’ and a daily reading of Harry’s Place would fill in whatever was missing.
| 3 March 2009, 8:50 am |
o those failed artists… resentful lot. i once heard a story about a man who wanted to be a painter..
| 3 March 2009, 9:01 am |
“It is simply extraordinary that anyone trusts a man with this record to keep Hamas out of his charity’s operations.”
I’m not sure that UK is interested in keeping Hamas out of this charity’s operations. British politicians seem to more interested in keeping conflicts going on in the Middle East. With all that oil and oil money flowing in the region, it’s just fair to try to grab all you can right under those long american and russian noses, not to mention China. I gave up long ago any hope of seeing some logic in british politics.
| 3 March 2009, 9:06 am |
I gave up long ago seeing any sense in Pisa’s hysterical ramblings.
Can there be smoke without fire though?
Well, as we know this proves that the Joos kill Christian babies in the lead-up to Passover.
The CC are a bunch of tossers, embodying the very worst of British ineffectual limp-wristed amaterishness.
| 3 March 2009, 9:14 am |
ahem:
” He was certainly in need of a radical transformation in those times:
“I might have been an extremely racist person before my embracing Islam, the religion which taught me tolerance and mutual kindness among people and which took away from me the evils of extremism, hatred and cruelty.” He went on to say :“I think that as a result of my excessive racism and extremism, I did not speak to a non-white person for twenty one years of my life. I was proud of myself and of the colour of my skin more than enough.”
yeah well, but how about this:
“Hewitt added : “Black Muslims, who are the main source of those who embrace Islam in Western societies, face the same suspicious looks given to their fellow white Muslims in British mosques by fellow Asians, particularly of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladesh origins.”
Hewitt called on Muslims in Britain to overlook colour and race and stick to the Islamic teachings which do not accept these types of discrimination.”
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/New%20Muslims/p26.php
so much for the anti-racist motivation…
| 3 March 2009, 9:14 am |
What’s wrong with my hysterical ramblings, Nearly Oxfordian? Are you the only one allowed to post hysterical ramblings here?
Sorry, I should write “whats wrong” and “rambling’s”.
Are you trying to make a point?
| 3 March 2009, 9:20 am |
pisa:
for example – oil? israel, palestine… where??? there’s as much oil there as there is in surrey…
| 3 March 2009, 9:27 am |
He was already ‘engaged’ to a Muslim girl before he converted? SO, did he get her off the internet? and why choose a Muslim girl? Was he having problems with non-Muslim women ie not defernetial enough? or, too ugly? Anyway, he’s obviously got an extremist character, who the fuck doesn;t talk to a brown or black-skinned person simply because fo their coulour? Either, there aren’t many around in South Shields (possible) or he’s a headcase. I would have thought the music biz was full of black musicians, although possibly not so much in the 80s and in management positions.
| 3 March 2009, 9:37 am |
as i understood it, he wasn’t really “in” the music biz:
“he forsook the life of Rock ’n’ Roll. Hewitt had also been a musician in a military music band ; and resigned from his post in an insurance firm ”
(link as above)
and this is as far as he “remembers” he got:
“He remembered that he played music with Sting in a show at Albert Hall in London in 1975. This show was part of the contest for the best music band at the national level.”
(link as above)
but he also did some admin for Yusuf Islam… doesn’t really count either as that was already in his new life…
| 3 March 2009, 9:38 am |
“pisa:
for example – oil? israel, palestine… where??? there’s as much oil there as there is in surrey…”
Please, matzvar, don’t tell me that the israeli-palestinian conflict is a local struggle of an opressed people blah blah…
Hamas is iranian-backed, the PA has the support of Saudi Arabia. Oil.
Name just one country in the middle east which can be called neutral regarding Israel related issues.
And watch some reruns of Yes, Prime Minister.
| 3 March 2009, 9:47 am |
miss the point: so oil money is wasted on that local conflict and “nobody is neutral” – still not an explanation what makes it worth wasting that oil money? are you seriously suggesting that saudi arabia and iran are actually making any economic gains by pursuing their little proxy wars??
who’s “grabbing” any money except the local recipients – no money flowing *out* of the region?
the blood for oil argument doesn’t even work with a country that actually is rich in oil (iraq) – it’s more than nonsense with one that doesn’t contain any…
| 3 March 2009, 9:48 am |
“And watch some reruns of Yes, Prime Minister”
seen you as undersecretary in the iranian edition – that’d explain your thinking… (and theirs as well)
| 3 March 2009, 10:09 am |
Presumably you are in favour of withdrawing charity status from organisations which participate in peace rallies supporting Israel?
| 3 March 2009, 10:13 am |
Dontcha just love the converts? Always the wackiest fruitloops in a particularly barking and unpleasant belief system…
I truly wish he would just find an empty field and blow himself up safely before his extreme Islamic “tolerance and mutual kindness” gets some of the rest of us hurt. Absolute scum. Really.
Now where is that twat Sunny H. to tell me how nice those Interpal people are and it is actually the evil Zionazis who are controlling our brains…
| 3 March 2009, 10:17 am |
so that was a “peace rally” going on in the background there?
thanks for pointing that out – i misread the flags
| 3 March 2009, 10:18 am |
Johng,
Which charities do you have in mind?
I went to the recent peace rally in Trafalgar Square and it was just that, speakers calling for peace in Israel and Gaza and being cheered by everybody except the pro-Hamas counter-demo to the side. It was not an “anti-Arab” or “anti-Palestinian rally”. Contrast that with the murderous, violent, racist, antisemitic bile spewed forth at anti-Israel rallies and realise that you are not comparing like with like.
| 3 March 2009, 10:23 am |
Matzvar – you missed my point entirely. I was talking about UK gaining something, not Saudi Arabia or Iran.
“In 1958, a secret British document described the principal objectives of Western policy in the Middle East: “The major British and other Western interests in the Persian Gulf [are] (a) to ensure free access for Britain and other Western countries to oil produced in States bordering the Gulf; (b) to ensure the continued availability of that oil on favourable terms and for surplus revenues of Kuwait; (c) to bar the spread of Communism and pseudo-Communism in the area and subsequently to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism.”
http://india_resource.tripod.com/mideastoil.html
Still don’t see the oil and oil-money connection?
| 3 March 2009, 10:29 am |
geography geography
israel isn’t at the Gulf, Gaza isn’t, the West Bank isn’t
i do see the oil money connection (i do have to pay fuel bills, you know) – but you need to be a fantasist of, well, your own callibre to see the link to Israel..
how exactly do we gain from the ongoing israel/palestine conflict??? i’m sure you’ll be able to come up with another secret document i’m sure
| 3 March 2009, 10:33 am |
British politicians seem to more interested in keeping conflicts going on in the Middle East
That’s hysterical ramblings. Look up those words in a dictionary in case of difficulty.
| 3 March 2009, 10:35 am |
Oh dear, the great research student johng thinks that this is a ‘peace’ rally. Our educational institutions are in a worse mess than I suspected.
| 3 March 2009, 11:01 am |
Matzvar and Nearly Oxfordian
You both reject my “ramblings” – so let’s hear your explanations for UK’s policy regarding Israel and the Middle East, and the homegrown islamic charities.
Or is any explanation of UK’s foreign policy hysterical?
“i do see the oil money connection (i do have to pay fuel bills, you know) – but you need to be a fantasist of, well, your own callibre to see the link to Israel..”
Sign up for MEMRITV. Maybe you’ll understand why I see the link to Israel. Arab and muslim world in its (it’s?) own words. And for the third time – I was talking about oil money flowing into british hands, not out of them.
| 3 March 2009, 11:12 am |
“money flowing into british hands”: where is that money (i mean that flowing out of israel and palestine – try to stay on topic, will you)? if it’s not from there – how does it explain why britain wants to have war there? (doubly so: if it were from there: why don’t they want “stabililty” rather than war???) if you’ve got a conspiracy theory (sorry: i should say “an anti-imperialist analysis of faction within state-monopolist capital”), please offer it in full and not in mystical hints.
and your “explanation” (it *is* rambling) doesn’t get valid only there is no other valid explanation (i simply don’t believe that britain has an interest in “keeping the conflict going” – not making an unlikely claim i don’t need to argue for it – it’s called “logic” and is a mean tactics employed by zionist pigs to confuse the simple folks)
| 3 March 2009, 11:15 am |
btw: i have signed up to memri – so your argument is because “the arab and muslim world in its own words” claims we’re in it for the money that’s true?
and also: memri has loads of stuff from arab and muslim progressives who are all in favour of discarding the “oh it’s all organised from outside” nonsense
| 3 March 2009, 11:48 am |
Matzvar
I live in Israel. I believe I know a lot more about Israel than you do. Including that mythical link between Israel and the rest of the Middle East, since we are in the Middle East, at least we were here last time I checked. And no, I never said that arab and muslim countries claim that UK is in it for the money. If you don’t understand simple statements in english, please say so. To me it looks like you believe I’m some kind of anti-zionist anti-british lost in far-left conspiracy theories. Now I’m really becoming hysterical!
I am a zionist, atheist jew, living in Israel. I voted Likud. I am outraged at your country’s attitude and double standards when it comes to Israel. At this point, the only explanation I can see for your country’s anti-Israel and pro-Hamas position is that it serves somehow british interests in the Middle East (again, Israel is in the Middle East, I just looked out the window to check). If you – and NO – would kindly open a history book on the british mandate in Palestine, you’ll see that your country’s position has been pro-arab/muslim then – for example, the arabs in Palestine were allowed by the british administration to bear arms, while for the jews it was forbidden – and it still is.
My point about MEMRITV is that it shows you how the arab/muslim world really looks like – in its own words. They have a very useful search function, you can search for, I don’t know, maybe Israel? See how it’s linked?
| 3 March 2009, 12:58 pm |
Pisa,
I am an atheist Jew who lived in Israel for decades, who knows Israel backwards and whose Hebrew is every bit as good as his English. I don’t need your patronising sneering about my supposed ignorance concerning Mandate history etc.
Yes, British foreign policy has gone through various shades of pro-Arabism over the last 90 years (I yield to nobody in my detestation of the FCO’s underlying antisemitism, of which I assure you I know a thing or three). But 90 years is a long time, governments come and go, and so do agendas and policies.
The idea that war is in the interests of Britain – a country I suspect I know more about than you do – is ludicrous. Britain needs stability in order to ensure trade. A war in the Middle East ‘destabilises’ oil prices (surprisingly, usually upwards), for one thing: that is disastrous for Britain.
| 3 March 2009, 1:01 pm |
Matzvar:
The connection isn’t purely money. Oil money fuels it, but there’s an intense rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran to claim leadership of the Muslim world. Believe me, all the money Saudi has poured into dawa, mosques and majids around the world over the last 30 years or so ain’t done out of piety or generosity of spirit. It’s to maintain the old House of Saud – Wahhabi order at home and keep 4,000+ princes living like princes. And that order is being seriously threatened by the loathed fundamentalist Shia “republic” next door.
| 3 March 2009, 8:47 pm |
lynne t
probably won’t read this – bit late – but i take that confirms my point?
otherwise agree with nearly oxfordian on this matter
could say more – stop now (bit unfair to get the last word by sneaking up late..)
| 3 March 2009, 10:51 pm |
Never say ‘Too late’ – and don’t stop just when you are agreeing with me ;-)
GREAT ARTICLE! Have had to skip read it. Read more later.
Doesn’t the point rest on whether they could be seen to represent the charity at these events or whether they acted in personal capacities?
Maybe it then rests on whether they would have been chosen to speak if they hadn’t been well-known personalities who ran a charity.