Tommy Robinson is Britain’s best-known “Islamophobe”. I regard this label as a compliment. I follow him on Facebook, because I agree with some of what he says. I think he should be allowed to say whatever he wants about Islam, without being persecuted by the police, as he is at present. (See Robinson’s biography “Enemy of the State”, and my blog entry “Enemies of the State”).

I don’t sympathise with his attitude to patriotism, monarchy and the armed forces. But I don’t bother to argue with his followers on Facebook about these subjects, since there is one far more important subject on which we disagree, one where his view undermines everything else he says.

He is a keen supporter of Israel, not realising that this little state has a lot to answer for in helping perpetuate the most important problem he is concerned about – Islamic terrorism.

I don’t mean the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 by Jews is a reason for Islamic terrorism in London in 2017. Leftists sometimes hint at this, and Islamic terrorists sometimes refer to it, but this is just an excuse. To use Jewish terrorism to excuse Islamic terrorism is no more logical or ethical than the Israeli argument that the ethnic cleansing of Jews by Arabs is a reason for the ethnic cleansing of Arabs by Jews.

The reason Israel is partly responsible for Islamic terrorism is more complicated, and I explain it below.

Having had his freedom of speech suppressed, often violently, by the authorities, leftists and Muslims, on numerous occasions, Robinson is a keen defender of freedom. Except for people he disagrees with – he called on the mayor of London to ban the “al-Quds Day” march on 18 June 2017, smearing all support for Palestinian rights as support for terrorism.

The “anti-fascist” left shout “Nazi” and “white supremacist” at Robinson and his followers, who wave Israeli flags and promote the most mindlessly uncritical Zionist propaganda you can find.

Israel is not a product of white supremacy. It’s a product of Jewish supremacy.

Robinson amalgamates resistance to Israel with Sunni extremist attacks on civilians in the West. But Israel is not an opponent of these Sunni extremists.

Islam is divided into two main branches – Shi’ite and Sunni.(See “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism” on the Jamestown Foundation’s website).

The chief inspiration of terrorism is a sub-branch of the Sunni branch, Salafism. The main source of this ideology, the extremely literal interpretation of the Koran and some of the Hadiths which drive ISIS and its ilk, is the Gulf States, with Saudi Arabia at the head. The British government has suppressed a report which explains the link between the Gulf States and terrorism:  “Report calls for public inquiry into Gulf funding of British extremism”, Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, 5 July 2017.

Most of ISIS’s victims have been Shi’ite civilians in Iraq. The Shi’ite Islamic state, Iran, and the Shi’ite army, Hezbollah, have been determined opponents of ISIS. 

The two Islamic groups which concern Israel are the Shi’ite group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, and the Sunni group Hamas, based in the Gaza Strip. Both are classified by the submissive US government as “terrorist”. Neither of these groups have ever organised attacks in Western Europe or North America. Neither of them are of any concern to Western people, who would be better off taking a neutral stance on their conflict with Israel.

The groups which do attack Western targets are al-Qaeda and its offshoots, including ISIS. Israel supporters have an interest in confusing Westerners about these groups and their relationship to Hamas and Hezbollah. Particularly Hezbollah, which has been fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda for years, and which is therefore fighting in the interests of Western people, alongside the governments of Syria and Iran, with Russian support.

Yet, incredibly, when president Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May 2017, he unconditionally backed the Sunni monarchy, and identified Iran as the main problem. If the US really wanted to beat ISIS, it could have done so already, simply by giving support to Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. Instead, on 18 June 2017, the USA shot down a Syrian jet. It can’t be that Trump doesn’t have the information – he just has to ask the CIA * and the State Department. There’s only one possible explanation for his seemingly lunatic inversion of the true state of affairs – that is the lobby.

Saudi Arabia does have a well-funded lobby in the USA. But surely it pales in comparison with the Israel Lobby. Senators and congressmen don’t regularly give speeches putting Saudi interests before those of their own country – but they do grovel before Israel.

Israel is in an unstated, de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia and several other Sunni states. The reason for this is they have a common interest in countering Iranian influence. One of the battlegrounds is Yemen, where the Saudis have caused a famine which has killed thousands, and created a cholera epidemic. The other is Syria. There, Israel wants to prevent Iran achieving a “Shi’ite corridor” from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, by “population transfers” (moving Shi’ite civilians into Sunni areas, and vice-versa).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… said Israel views “with utmost gravity” Iranian attempts to gain a foothold in Syria or to provide advanced weapons to Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy

– Breitbart, 25 June 2017

Preventing a decisive Syrian victory is in Israeli interests. A byproduct is fertile ground for the training of terrorists who attack Western countries.

It’s therefore moronic to support Israel because you think it has a common cause with the inhabitants of Western countries – fighting Islamic terrorism. Not all “terrorists” are the same – in fact, they’re not all terrorists. At least one so-called terrorist organisation is potentially an ally of the Western countries. If only Western politicians were as canny and cynical as their Israeli counterparts.

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Enemy of the State, Tommy Robinson, December 2015 – http://www.amazon.com/Tommy-Robinson-Enemy-State/dp/0957096496

Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism, Trevor Stanley, 2005 – https://jamestown.org/program/understanding-the-origins-of-wahhabism-and-salafism/

“Report calls for public inquiry into Gulf funding of British extremism”, Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, 5 July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/05/report-calls-for-public-inquiry-into-gulf-funding-of-british-extremism

*  Woops! Just after writing this, I read the following, from the new director of the CIA: “Pompeo said that while Islamic State remains an “enormous” threat to the US, he considered Iran a greater menace”, Mike Pompeo, 24 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/24/trump-cia-edward-snowden-leaks-state-secrets

“Israel Strikes Syrian Army Two Days In Row Following Projectile Fire into Golan Heights”, Breitbart, 25 June 2017, http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/06/25/israel-strikes-syrian-army-two-days-row-following-projectile-fire-golan-heights/