{"id":699494,"date":"2026-07-19T05:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T05:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/699494\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T05:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T05:18:18","slug":"uk-founder-of-muslims-against-antisemitism-challenges-coreligionists-to-fight-rising-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/699494\/","title":{"rendered":"UK founder of Muslims Against Antisemitism challenges coreligionists to fight rising hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 When thousands gathered in central London<\/a> in late spring to protest against antisemitism, Fiyaz Mughal was among their number.\n<\/p>\n

The founder of Muslims Against Antisemitism, Mughal was one of what he readily accepts as only a \u201chandful\u201d of British Muslims at the protest \u2014 and the only one to join politicians and community leaders in addressing attendees.\n<\/p>\n

Mughal betrays no doubts about his decision to speak at the demonstration, nor his willingness to call out some fellow Muslims for their apparent public silence in the face of rising antisemitism in the UK.<\/p>\n

In April, two Jews were stabbed in a terror attack in the heavily Jewish north London neighborhood of Golders Green \u2014 one of more than a dozen antisemitic attacks on synagogues and community centers in recent months, which follow the murder of two Jews at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester last October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to attend and speak at that rally because I have been quite downcast about the way that some within my community have made no attempt to deeply empathize or stand with Jewish communities publicly when it is needed,\u201d Mughal tells The Times of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome within my community will make calls to members of Jewish communities and give them sympathy over the phone, but they\u2019re not willing to make that publicly available and to set a precedent,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ll quietly play both sides, and for me that is unacceptable. You either live by your values or you get called out for being a hypocrite \u2014 and living by your values means sometimes you need to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIllustrative: Counter-protesters holding Israeli flags pose for the cameras as pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel student protesters wave flags and chant slogans outside King\u2019s College London on October 7, 2025, the second anniversary of the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel. (JUSTIN TALLIS \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Mughal is no late recruit to the cause. A former government adviser and local authority council member who has worked extensively in the community and charitable sectors, he has long been on the front line in the fight against extremism, hate crimes and antisemitism, and is a strong proponent of Muslim-Jewish interfaith work.<\/p>\n

While Muslims Against Antisemitism works to support education within British Muslim communities around antisemitism and the Holocaust, another organization founded by Mughal, Tell MAMA, records and reports anti-Muslim hate crime and provides support to victims.<\/p>\n

Time for a new textual interpretation<\/p>\n

Mughal is sharply critical of what he terms the \u201cweasel-wording\u201d of some Muslim community leaders. Rote condemnations of antisemitism or refusing to accept that it is linked to radical anti-Israel activism are simply not enough, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stand in complete unity and solidarity with the Jewish community [and] I stand firmly with my position that the wholesale denial of the State of Israel is a part of the antisemitic rhetoric and that needs to be challenged, including in some parts of my community,\u201d Mughal says.<\/p>\n

None of that means, he adds, that he doesn\u2019t support the establishment of a Palestinian state or oppose some of the policies and rhetoric of the current Israeli government.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tDemonstrators gather holding flags and placards as they attend a protest against antisemitism and extremism, in London, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Alberto Pezzali)<\/p>\n

He attributes the reticence of other Muslim leaders to publicly stand with British Jews to an unwillingness to \u201cruffle feathers\u201d and a desire to maintain their community support bases and social media following.<\/p>\n

Mughal also points to a more fundamental challenge: the need for a \u201creinterpretation of Islamic scriptures.\u201d Since the bloody Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, too many mosques have had \u201cpreachers who have used some interpretations of the Hadith and some caricatures that have seeped in religiously to Islam as a way to support the actions of Hamas or support attacks on Jews,\u201d Mughal says.<\/p>\n

While 9\/11 and the July 7, 2005, terror attacks in London should have brought about \u201ca fundamental reinterpretation of scriptural text,\u201d he says, the \u201cvast and overwhelming majority\u201d of imams in Britain have \u201cdone nothing about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t do it now, it\u2019s never going to happen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Jarring normalization of antisemitism<\/p>\n

Mughal is not, however, the only prominent British Muslim to offer his support to British Jews. Earlier this month, he was joined by a handful of others, including the former government counterextremism commissioner, Sara Khan, in a public letter<\/a> condemning the \u201cweak and underwhelming\u201d response to the \u201craucous and relentless\u201d rise in antisemitism since the October 7 onslaught.<\/p>\n

The letter highlighted how \u201clegitimate protest\u201d against the conflict in Gaza has been used by some to \u201cnormalize slogans, symbols and rhetoric that glorify violence.\u201d It also contrasted the \u201csilence and lack of condemnation\u201d in the face of attacks against British Jews with the \u201cwidespread protests and solidarity demonstrations\u201d in the UK following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in 2020.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tDemonstrators carry placards with slogans as they march in the road outside the US Embassy in London on May 31, 2020, to protest the death of George Floyd. (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Why does Mughal believe Jews in Britain have not been afforded similar levels of solidarity by their compatriots? He blames \u201cinbuilt perceptions\u201d within antiracist movements that Israel is all-powerful and that Jews are wealthy and politically well-connected.<\/p>\n

These perceptions, which \u201cverge right on the edge of antisemitic rhetoric and tip over in many ways,\u201d have become an excuse for \u201cinaction,\u201d Mughal says. There is something jarring, he continues, in the fact that an antiracist movement which claims to stand up for \u201cminority communities\u201d is ignoring the plight of British Jews, \u201ca tiny minority community,\u201d when it is under a sustained assault.<\/p>\n

Mughal believes that efforts to separate the pro-Palestinian movement in the UK from antisemitism have been \u201cvery little, very late.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tProtesters gather near Downing Street during a \u2018national emergency\u2019 rally organized by the Campaign Against Antisemitism following a terror stabbing attack in Golders Green, London, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo\/Alberto Pezzali)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant problem with the movement being tainted with antisemitism,\u201d he says. He calls instead for a strategy of \u201cdisassociation, exclusion and open challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot talk about a Palestinian state without dissociating from any element of any group that has a history of antisemitism,\u201d Mughal says. \u201cThat\u2019s a reality that nobody really wants to take on right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians stoke anti-Israel fire<\/p>\n

Mughal believes the anti-Israel Green party now represents the most electorally significant and potent iteration of an alliance between the far-left and Islamists that has been growing in strength since the 2003 Iraq war. Under their new leader, Zack Polanski, a hard-left, Jewish anti-Zionist, the Greens made the issue of Gaza \u2014 and the Labour government\u2019s \u201ccomplicity\u201d in Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocide\u201d \u2014 a centerpiece of their campaign in local government elections this past May. (UK local authorities play no role in British foreign policy.)<\/p>\n

But the party\u2019s strong performance in the elections was marred by accusations<\/a> of antisemitic comments made by a number of its candidates. Mughal says the Green Party \u201cmade a strategic decision\u201d to use its highly critical stance on Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza to tap new sources of support.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tGreen Party leader Zack Polanski (C) and former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn (bottom L) join protesters holding placards and waving flags as they take part in a march against the far right, organized by the Together Alliance, in central London on March 28, 2026. (Photo by Henry Nicholls \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey must have known that in doing so they were going to draw in people who have a very bad past,\u201d says Mughal, who believes the party\u2019s \u201chand-wringing\u201d promises to tighten its selection procedures are \u201cnot good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mughal is unimpressed by Labour\u2019s response to the twin challenges of antisemitism and extremism since it took office in July 2024. He does credit some of its ministers with showing a good understanding of the impact on the Jewish community, and recognizes that the government has invested heavily in increased security measures.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMembers of the Jewish community watch as forensic officers search the area after two people were stabbed in north London\u2019s Golders Green neighborhood on April 29, 2026. (AP Photo\/Kin Cheung)<\/p>\n

But, he says, \u201cI believe Jews don\u2019t want to be sitting behind big walls \u2026 [with] cameras and security guards. This is not a life,\u201d adding that fighting antisemitism requires \u201creal societal change\u201d and the government doesn\u2019t have a plan to achieve it.<\/p>\n

He also accuses the government of offering no \u201calternative solution \u2026 to dealing with Islamist extremism or Islamist extremist antisemitism.\u201d There is a \u201cdistinct, stark\u201d contrast between its \u201cvacuous\u201d approach and the efforts of the previous Conservative government to \u201cgrapple\u201d with the issue, Mughal says. Labour fears that \u201cif they start talking about Islamist extremism, it\u2019ll lose them some political support,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters take part in a demonstration on Al Quds Day, in London, April 5, 2024 (AP Photo\/Kin Cheung)<\/p>\n

Those fears, he says, were exacerbated by the election of four \u201cpro-Gaza\u201d independents to parliament in the 2024 general election. \u201cIt created a sense of fear, and then it created a sense of apathy,\u201d on the part of the government, Mughal believes.<\/p>\n

However, Mughal argues that those within the Muslim community advising the government to avoid talking about Islamist extremism are providing ministers with \u201ca really distorted view of British Muslim communities\u201d and a \u201csometimes brittle, conservative view of Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mughal is no stranger to racism. When he was a child, his family was thrown out of Uganda when then-president Idi Amin expelled the country\u2019s Indian minority in 1972. Growing up in Britain in the 1980s, he also suffered racism. He believes that the attitudes underlying such racism are \u201cexactly the same\u201d as those displayed by Islamists.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFiyaz Mughal founder of Muslims Against Antisemitism. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople misuse my religion to enforce their brutality, enforce their superiority, enforce their sense of entitlement,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The struggle against antisemitism is, Mughal believes, \u201cumbilically intertwined\u201d with the defense of liberal democratic values.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that, over the last three decades, antisemitism [in Britain] has gotten significantly worse,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it is also an indicator of the way that intolerance has taken root in our country as a whole. The reality is we are facing a national crisis of intolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 When thousands gathered in central London in late spring to protest against antisemitism, Fiyaz Mughal was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[192915,232331,125017,59,57,58,232332,232333,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-699494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-antisemitism-in-the-uk","tag-arab-antisemitism","tag-british-jews","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-interfaith-relations","tag-jewish-muslim-relations","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}