Points of Jew

Melanie Phillips in conversation

Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle columnist Melanie Phillips was in conversation last night at the London Jewish Cultural Centre promoting herself and her book Londonistan. Cara Wides was there for SomethingJewish.

Wides reports:

"She talked in length about how she clashed with colleagues at The Guardian over what she described as their anti-Israel attitude - she was unhappy that they gave so few column inches to problems inflicted on Israel."

Phillips believes not enough is being done to tackle extremists:

"However she believes the problem of ignoring extremists in the UK goes back further, to the time of the Salman Rushdie"s Satanic Verses: "The British didn"t understand how serious it was when extremists in London openly called for the murder of a British citizen in the name of religion. "No one said “what is going on here?” – why wasn"t anyone locked up for this threat of murder?"

After taking some questions from the audience, Phillips ended the evening. Wides added:

"However her conclusion to the talk was more chilling that comforting. "This is a fight. This attack from what President Bush calls "Islamic fascism" is on a whole lot of people, including moderate British Muslims. If we don"t win this war we will be dead."

Reds get united

First there was the Red Cross, then the Red Crescent, then the Red Star of David.  These symbols are meant to unite people to bring relief to them, but due to political reasons and various countries hating each other, it means you'll never see a Red Star of David in Iran.

But help is on the way, international relief is working on a red diamond.

The rather brilliant Pickled Politics takes up the story and provides some great background on it. Rohin writes:

It’s a reasonably well-known fact that Muslim countries have not been keen on letting little red crosses drive around their land, committing the heinous act of helping people in need. Still only a whippersnapper, I was outraged by this. I thought some firebrand Muslim despot must’ve made a song and dance in the 80s about the cross in his land and made the Red Cross change their logo. I was a bit hasty in my judgement.