Brandt responds

Some readers may remember that back in September I wrote a post about an interview Roisin Duffy did on RTE Radio with Salih Brandt, former European spokesman for the Chechen government. It appears that Salih himself has responded to what I wrote. Ah the wonders of blogging and search engine ranking. Salih notes:

I can fully understand this gentleman’s view and the outrage he feels.

That was entirely the point of my making the statement! In order to draw attention to the fact that when people in situations like this are labelled as Muslims nobody raises an eyebrow, but if the word ‘Jew’ appears in it then the response is exactly as above.

What the writer has also failed to do is bring in the context in which this statement was made. I was specifically addressing the fact that this may have been conducted by Muslims, but it is not Islamic, just as the people who have ripped welath out of Russia are in large part Jewish it does not mean that the behavious is Jewish. So he has in fact very kindly supported my view.

I also stressed that while this kind of terrorism is called ‘Islamic Terrorism’ that conducted by the IRA, ETA, the Oklahoma bombing is not called ‘Christian Terrorism’ nor is the killing of 100,000 civilians in Iraq by teh UK and US forces called ‘Christian genocide”.

So once again I thank the writer for, by the extistential action of his response, for proving my point.

However, I did not say that all Jews are tax dodgers, just as I am sure he would not say ‘all muslims are terrorists”‘..or would he?! Rather weakens his point I feel by dropping to a rather feeble and intellectually purile line.

By the way, you forgot Mr Abramovich in your list!

Thank you and good luck with you work.