Introducing the BNP's Broadland candidate

From Harry's Place:


Edith Crowther is the BNP’s candidate in the forthcoming Broadland by-election.

Crowther is a regular contributor to the Premier Christian Community web forum, where she busies herself defending BNP ‘reverend’ Robert West’s ‘theology of nations’ (West believes that ‘the mixing of races challenges the glory of God’).

Crowther has a keen interest in religious and historical matters and a letter she wrote to the Camden New Journal about housing in King’s Cross managed to take in Henry VIII, the Old Testament, Babylonian texts, ancient Rome, and Hadrian.

A 2008 comment left by Crowther at the blog of Murad Qureshi, Labour member of the London Assembly, gives us more insight into the bizarre worldview of this BNP candidate. In this comment, we learn that Crowther has ‘a Diploma in Modern Classical Arabic Translation’ and that she believes:

An Islamic state as laid out in the Koran and Hadith … would be strict but merciful, and true Muslim culture would flourish as it did in the Golden Age of Islam before the rules were relaxed too much and everything became a bit decadent.

According to Crowther’s definition, there are no true Muslims in the West:

As an Arabist I know there aren’t any Muslims in the West, because it is worse than 36 fornications to touch a penny of any money derived from interest, and you will go straight to hell when you die if you are that hypocritical.

Crowther then goes on to explain her attraction to the BNP:

I realised long ago that the BNP is the British equivalent of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whom I admire and respect and who have great courage. That is why I joined.

Crowther, it appears, considers herself some kind of prophet, and concludes:

[P]rophets are often written off as mad, aren’t they? – including one of the greatest, Muhammad peace and praise be upon him.

BNP candidate Edith Crowther, then, admires the notion of a theocratic State and ‘admires and respects’ the Islamist terrorist organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their ‘great courage’.

After I initially wrote about this on my blog, my post was highlighted over at the Premier Christian forums, and Crowther has issued a response in which she has clarified her position (screen shot here).

BNP candidate Crowther writes:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not anti-Semitic – how could they be, when Arabs are Semites too? They are just anti the state of Israel, which was created by breaking the promise of the Balfour Declaration and by rigging the UN General Assembly vote on Partition in late 1947…

There are many Orthodox Jews who do not uphold the state of Israel … I also know a Jewish journalist, Israel Shamir, who lives in Jerusalem and has converted to Christianity in protest at the state of Israel…

It is a Christian duty to not only back Hamas, but perhaps even to stand beneath the invader’s tanks. Though I am not brave enough to do that – but some have been.

‘Hamas can’t be anti-Semitic, as Arabs are Semites too’ is an argument on a par with ’some of my best friends are Jews’ (an argument which Crowther unsurprisingly also uses). Everyone knows that ‘anti-Semitism’ in general usage refers to hatred of Jews, and only haters of Jews attempt to slither their way out of expressing their true beliefs by falling back on the ‘Arabs are Semites too’ line.

Who are these Orthodox Jews cited by Crowther who oppose Israel’s right to exist? No doubt every Jew hater’s favourite useful idiots Neturei Karta, a fringe group of cranks so filled with hatred for Israel that they turned up to give a Kosher stamp of approval to the 2006 Tehran Holocaust denial conference organised by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The claim that Hamas are not anti-Semitic is absurd. Time and again their propaganda spews genocidal bile towards Jews, not simply Israelis. Hamas’s founding Covenant notoriously includes the following quote:

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

And just like some well known figures in the BNP, Crowther’s heroes Hamas are also Holocaust deniers.

As for Crowther’s supposed Jewish friends, here is some background on Israel Shamir:

Shamir is actually a Swede of Russian descent and he is associated with Russian ultra-nationalists. Shamir has been disavowed by many on the left and in the pro-Palestinian movement as the result of his overtly anti-Semitic writings and his connections to the far-right. Research into his real background has revealed that he began his journalism career under his assumed name working for a prominent far-right, Russian nationalist anti-Semite, Aleksandr Prokhanov, chief editor of the newspaper Zavtra. Even as he presents himself to the west as a leftist, anti-Zionist, “Shamir” has continued to publish explicitly right-wing articles in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are both terrorist groups that are proscribed by the Home Office. Both have a long record of attacks on Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings. Both are undeniably founded on Jew hatred.

Edith Crowther is a candidate for the BNP, a party with a long history of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and links to violent extremists.

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By Edmund Standing