The Sorry Truth Is That the Virus of Anti-Semitism Has Infected the British Muslim Community per Mehdi Hasan in The Huffington Post

'It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn't just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it's routine and commonplace. Any Muslims reading this article - if they are honest with themselves - will know instantly what I am referring to. It's our dirty little secret. You could call it the banality of Muslim anti-Semitism.

I can't keep count of the number of Muslims I have come across - from close friends and relatives to perfect strangers - for whom weird and wacky anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are the default explanation for a range of national and international events. Who killed Diana and Dodi? The Mossad, say many Muslims. They didn't want the British heir to the throne having an Arab stepfather. What about 9/11? Definitely those damn Yehudis. I mean, why else were 4,000 Jews in New York told to stay home from work on the morning of 11 September 2001? How about the financial crisis? Er, Jewish bankers. Obviously. Oh, and the Holocaust? Don't be silly. Never happened.

Growing up, I always assumed that this obsession with 'the Jews' was a hallmark of the 'first-generation' immigrants from the subcontinent. In recent years, I've been depressed to discover that there are plenty of 'second-generation' Muslim youths, born and bred in multiracial Britain, who have drunk the anti-Semitic Kool-Aid. I'm often attacked by them for working in the "Jewish owned media".

The truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has infected members of the British Muslim community, both young and old. No, the on-going Israel-Palestine conflict hasn't helped matters. But this goes beyond the Middle East. How else to explain why British Pakistanis are so often the most ardent advocates of anti-Semitic conspiracies, even though there are so few Jews living in Pakistan?

It is sheer hypocrisy for Muslims to complain of Islamophobia in every nook and cranny of British public life, to denounce the newspapers for running Muslim-baiting headlines, and yet ignore the rampant anti-Semitism in our own backyard. We cannot credibly fight Islamophobia while making excuses for Judaeophobia.

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The time has come for us to own up to a rather shameful fact: Muslims are not only the victims of racial and religious prejudice but purveyors of it, too.'

This post from the Huffington Post's UK political director Mehdi Hasan is from a few years ago and deserves repeat reading.

I presume that he thinks it was terribly brave to write such an article, you can read the whole piece here http://www.huffpost.com/uk/entry/2922013 , however nowhere in his musings does he ponder what causes the rampant anti Semitisn that infects so much of British, and other, Islam.

Would pointing a finger at the Koran have been a step too far? Or does Mehdi Hasan not think the blame lies there? If he doesn't blame the Koran, what does he blame?