From the BBC on Wednesday:
Labour peer Lord Ahmed, who expressed his concerns to the Parliamentary authorities about Mr Wilders’ visit, said he welcomed the decision to ban the MP. “It would be unwise to have him in the UK because this man’s presence would cause hatred,” he said. “He has a case against him in the Amsterdam court for inciting hatred.” Lord Ahmed, who said other Muslim peers shared his concerns, stressed that Mr. Wilders’ views would certainly present a threat to public order. “When Muslims are attacked obviously you will see people react to that.”
Lord Ahmed, we can see, did not support the invitation that was extended to Wilders to appear at a screening of his (Wilders’) controversial film Fitna at a gathering to be held in the UK’s House of Lords.
In the past, Ahmed has not been quite so fussy. Here’s a 2005 piece by Stephen Pollard from the London Times on someone who the Labour peer was prepared to welcome to the House of Lords. The following extract gives some of the key details:
On February 23, Lord Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a man going by the name of Israel Shamir. “Israel Shamir” is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also known as Jöran Jermas.
The gist of Shamir/Jermas’s speech at the meeting can be gleaned from its title, “Jews and the Empire”. It included observations such as: “All the [political] parties are Zionist-infiltrated.” “Your newspapers belong to Zionists . . . Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking.” “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive . . . in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.” “The Jews like an Empire . . . This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance . . . Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire per se.” “Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England . . . they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”
Why would Lord Ahmed have hosted such a man in the Lords? It is, of course, possible that Lord Ahmed had no idea that Shamir/Jermas was a rabid anti-Semite. Yet it takes only a quick Google to discover his views and background…Indeed, Shamir/Jermas’s own website proudly reprints his views: “Jews asked God to kill, destroy, humiliate, exterminate, defame, starve, impale Christians, to usher in Divine Vengeance and to cover God’s mantle with blood of goyim . . . ” “The Ashkenazi Jews believed that spilled Jewish blood has a magic effect of calling down Divine Vengeance on the heads of the Gentiles . . . The picture of Jews slaughtering children for cultic reasons exerted huge impact on the Christian peoples of Europe.” On and on it goes.
Other figures at the forefront of campaigns against Israel are wise to Shamir/Jermas’s toxic anti-Semitism; Ali Abunimah, for example, who writes for the Electronic Intifada website and Hussein Ibish, press spokesman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, gave warning in 2001 that Shamir/Jermas was not anti-Israeli but anti-Semitic. It is surely not unreasonable to expect Lord Ahmed to have exercised a cursory check on his guest.
If, however, Lord Ahmed does feel that he made a mistake in inviting him, he has yet to demonstrate it. Shamir/Jermas’s speech was made nearly two months ago. On learning of its contents, I wrote to Lord Ahmed, asking him two questions. Did he consider the invitation to have been a mistake? Did he condemn the remarks? He did not reply.
Yesterday, I phoned him. When I told him that I planned to write a piece drawing attention to his actions in hosting Shamir/Jermas and that I wanted to give him every opportunity to respond, he replied: “I am not even going to speak with you.” He then put the phone down.
Lord Ahmed was appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair.






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