Mick Hartley

An Islamic festival at the Excel Centre this weekend – from the JC:

A singer whose songs feature lyrics like “all the Jews will pay” and “we throw stones, small and big, at the Jewish demons” is billed to perform to an audience of thousands at an “outrageous” Muslim festival at London’s Excel Centre this weekend, the JC can reveal.

Abdel Fattah Owainat, a Jordanian vocalist who posted footage of terror attacks and training with a soundtrack of one of his own songs glorifying violence after October 7, is advertised on the festival website as focusing “on themes of faith, devotion, and spirituality”.

In 2020, the musician, whose music features on a compilation album called “Jihadi Hills”, was accused of performing traditional songs “in the name of” Hamas in an academic paper published by Edinburgh University Press.

A video showing rockets being launched by militants was accompanied by his song: “Strike, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you, oh fire, make the enemies drink humiliation… The lands are forbidden to enemies… Allah is the greatest, proclaim it, all the Jews will pay.”

Another of his lyrics runs: “Know me, O Son of Zion: no matter how strong you are, for my country, blood is cheap… We throw stones, small and big, at the Jewish demons.”

The revelations add to growing concerns about the upcoming Global Peace and Unity (GPU) festival – the largest of its kind in Europe, which has previously attracted audiences of 55,000 – and the alleged connections of a number of its speakers to extremism….

Two Labour politicians, Naz Shah and Stephen Timms, have been billed to speak at the festival. Timms, the MP for East Ham, pulled out last week after reports that one of the speakers, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, was an “outspoken supporter of Hamas”. Naz Shah MP did not reply to the JC’s request for comment.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust (CST) said it would be “irresponsible and reckless” for any respectable figure to endorse an event where fanatics may appear, while the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) branded the festival “outrageous”….

The festival’s list of speakers includes many individuals who have courted controversy. These include Professor Ilan Pappé, an academic at Exeter University known for his radical anti-Zionism, and activist Ismail Patel, who has met Hamas leaders in Gaza and “saluted” the group for “standing up to Israel”.

Also listed are those who are less well-known in the mainstream. The social media theologian and self-proclaimed “race realist” Paul Williams, who has a million followers across X/Twitter and YouTube, is due to deliver a speech on Sunday.

He has hailed an interview with former BNP leader Nick Griffin – entitled “Jews, Zionism, the far-Right and Islam in Europe” – as “superb” and shared a video by the American white supremacist Jared Taylor about the “biological reality of race”.

The former far-right Dutch politician Joram van Klaveren, who sensationally converted to Islam in 2018 and has since shared a video denying that mass murder and rape took place on October 7, is also due to speak.

A festival of antisemitic nutters, then…

Website here. The list of "inspiring speakers" still includes Labour MP Naz Shah.