Backlash Against MPACUK

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, besides demonising Israel and using "Zionism" in an attempt to cover its anti-Semitism, also spends a lot of time attacking the older, less radical, members of the Muslim community. Their main targets are, naturally, the mosque leaders. As part of this they have published an article from the BBC about a fire in Bradford in which a 5-week old baby girl died. The headline that MPACUK gave this article is:

Could The Mosques Have Saved This Five Week Old Baby?

This crass use of a young child's death to try and score political points has been roundly criticised by commenters on the site. And, given MPACUK's reluctance to post critical comments, one can only guess how many such comments there were. Here are some examples:

MPAC,you've stooped to a new low

A complete idiot lacking any knowledge, manners and basic common sense must have posted this article. MPAC lacks serious intellectual clout if they can't even see the error of posting this. What has the Mosque got to do with this situation?

Headline "Could MPAC have saved this five week old baby?"
Sub text: Some Muslim group(s) will use any opportunity to divide the community yet claim it is trying to wake the community up. However many Muslims are now fed up with this self-virtuous type of journalism, realising that these groups, just like the ones they critise delude themselves into thinking that only they know best.

Whoever thought of that ridiculous title should be ashamed of themselves.

I felt sick someone was trying to make political capital out of this tragedy

The headline given by MPACUK is not really surprising; this is one of their tactics. They often try to link a group into a story that has nothing to do with them. For example, they printed an article from The Guardian about Patrick Mercer's sacking with the headline:

Zionist Tory MP Sacked Over 'Black Bastard' Comments

There is no indication that Mercer is a Zionist and it isn't relevant if he is. Nevertheless, MPACUK labelled him one in order to link Zionism to racism. This is the same as they have done here. Hopefully, all those people who are silent when MPACUK uses this tactic against Israel and Jews will now recognise this tactic and not fall for it. If so, MPACUK's days of half-truths, lies and subtle anti-Semitism may be numbered.

UPDATE: MPACUK is trying to cover itself. In a new post with the headline, "If Mosques Can Save Us From Hell Fire - Why Not This Fire?" they apologise and claim, "We were simply trying to encourage a debate on mosques beyond their current role." They have also changed the headline of the other article to, "Is It The Mosque's Job To Teach Fire Safety?".

Their claim seems somewhat unlikely. It takes a very large strecth of the imagination to think that the headline they put (with no other indication whatsoever) was meant to launch a debate about fire prevention.

Furthermore, after the initial complaining on the MPACUK forum they added in a note of condolence but did not change the title or mention anything about fire prevention at that point. As the day progressed, a few ingenious people started coming up with this idea about it being a critique of mosques and fire prevention. Only after seeing this life-line did MPACUK produce the new article.

As a spin job it isn't too bad, but they may need some more help if they are to be convincing. Let's just hope that people are clever enough to see through it.