Jahangir Mohammed of the Ayaan Institute expresses disgust at the hypocrisy of Israel’s hard-core supporters who are suddenly troubled by the taking of innocent life after two years of genocide.
Killing innocent people is unequivocally wrong, whether in Gaza, Australia, the UK or anywhere else. It is strictly forbidden in Islamic teachings, and Muslims and scholars have reiterated this point repeatedly over the past 25 years.
Yet politicians, the media, and some of Israel’s most ardent supporters have suddenly discovered the evil of killing innocents. For over two years, they remained silent — or worse — about the mass slaughter, starvation, and genocide of Palestinians, an Arab Semitic people.
Some even justified it openly or subtly, while others offered no criticism of those responsible.
This reveals the worst form of antisemitism: the notion that Arab lives matter less. Now, they deploy every strong condemnation in the dictionary. This is hypocrisy and double standards in action — where some lives are deemed more innocent than others.
Just as some in Israel and beyond believe there are no innocent Palestinians or Muslims (men, women, and children) and invoke religious texts like Amalek to justify their total destruction, a tiny minority of Muslims misuse texts to justify killing innocents in revenge (“fight them as they fight you”). The vast majority of Muslims and scholars reject and publicly condemn this, time and again.
We still await an apology from Keir Starmer and the Labour Party for his past comments appearing to support cutting off water and electricity to Gaza. We await condemnation from leading pro-Israel organisations (Jewish and non-Jewish) of Israel’s actions against innocent Palestinians and crimes against humanity.
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And we await laws combating antisemitism directed at Palestinians and Arabs, which is rampant among some politicians, activists and media.
Instead, these same voices collectively blame innocent pro-Palestinian protesters and activists opposing genocide — and extend that blame to all Muslims and Islam itself.
No motive has yet been fully established for the recent attacks in Manchester and Australia, but responsibility lies solely with the perpetrators, their accomplices, and the ideology driving them.
Reports link at least one incident to ISIS. If confirmed, their ideology is clear: “do unto others as they do unto you,” and the belief that “there are no innocents — all are guilty.”
When international lawlessness prevails, it eventually consumes everyone. True peace requires equal standards, values, punishment and justice for all. That is what Islam advocates: no life is superior to another — a principle often absent in Western politics and international institutions.
