When Police Associations Enter Political Territory
The fight against anti-Muslim hatred is both necessary and important. Muslims, like all minority communities, deserve protection from discrimination, hostility and violence. Police forces have a duty to ensure that prejudice against Muslims is recognised and challenged, and Muslim staff associations have a responsibility to represent their members to the best of their ability.
Indeed, Jews should have a particular interest in combating anti-Muslim hatred. Jewish history demonstrates the dangers of allowing prejudice against minority communities to become normalised. Societies that tolerate hatred against one minority often become hostile to others. The protection of Muslims from genuine hatred and discrimination is therefore not merely a Muslim concern; it is a concern for everyone committed to a pluralistic and democratic society. That is why the report Confronting Anti-Muslim Hatred and Promoting Human Rights by Khaldoun Kabbani, Chair of the Scottish Police Muslim Association and Vice President of the National Association of Muslim Police, is so concerning.
The problem is not that the report seeks to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. The problem is that it does so through a framework riddled with historical inaccuracies, ideological assertions and political claims presented as objective fact. For Zionists, and therefore for the overwhelming majority of Jews, this should be deeply troubling.
The first warning sign appears in the report’s discussion of antisemitism. The author argues that antisemitism should be understood as prejudice against all “Semitic peoples” because Arabs, Christians and Muslims can speak Semitic languages. This is historically incorrect.
The term “antisemitism” was coined in nineteenth-century Germany specifically to describe hostility towards Jews. It emerged because anti-Jewish activists wished to frame their hatred not as religious disagreement but as a supposedly scientific and racial objection to Jews. Whatever the linguistic origins of the word “Semitic”, antisemitism has never referred to hostility against all speakers of Semitic languages. It has always referred to hostility towards Jews.
By attempting to redefine antisemitism as a broader category, the report erases the historical reality of Jewish persecution and obscures the specific nature of anti-Jewish hatred. That should concern anyone serious about combating racism.
A further difficulty with the report is its tendency to blur the distinction between hatred of Muslims and criticism of ideas, beliefs or practices associated with Islam. Anti-Muslim hatred is real. Muslims can be subjected to abuse, discrimination, violence and prejudice because they are Muslims. Such conduct should be condemned unequivocally. However, it does not follow that disagreement with aspects of Islam, or concerns about the implications of particular religious doctrines, automatically constitute hatred.
The report appears to assume that criticism of Islamic beliefs or discussion of cultural compatibility is inherently suspect. Yet in a free and democratic society, religious ideas, like political ideologies, are open to scrutiny, debate and criticism.
One obvious example concerns animal welfare. Many people oppose both halal and kosher slaughter because they believe stunning should be mandatory before slaughter. They may be entirely consistent in their opposition to both practices and motivated solely by concerns for animal welfare. To describe such individuals as anti-Muslim or antisemitic would be both inaccurate and unfair. This is true even if restrictions on such religious practices would have a detrimental effect on Muslim or Jewish life.
Similarly, discussions about immigration, integration and cultural compatibility are legitimate subjects of public debate. Modern Britain is becoming increasingly multicultural, and it is entirely reasonable to discuss how different communities, traditions and values can coexist within a shared civic framework. Such discussions may sometimes be uncomfortable, but they are not necessarily expressions of hatred.
Indeed, one of the strongest arguments against the report’s approach is found within the Muslim world itself. The long-standing schism between Sunni and Shia Islam demonstrates that hostility and discrimination can exist between different Muslim communities based upon competing religious interpretations and historical narratives.
The division, rooted in disputes over succession following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, has persisted for centuries and has at times produced violence, persecution and sectarian conflict across the Middle East and beyond. The victims and perpetrators in these conflicts are overwhelmingly Muslim. This illustrates that prejudice and hostility cannot always be explained by non-Muslims harbouring animosity towards Muslims; they can also arise from profound disagreements within the Muslim Ummah itself.
Recognising this reality does not diminish the existence of anti-Muslim hatred. Rather, it highlights the need for precision. If every disagreement with Islamic doctrine, every concern about cultural integration, every security discussion relating to Islamist extremism, or every debate about religious practices is categorised as anti-Muslim hatred, then the term becomes so broad that it loses its usefulness. A real concern regarding the loss of free speech as a method of refining public discourse then becomes both real and deeply concerning.
Effective opposition to anti-Muslim hatred requires clear distinctions. Hatred of Muslims because they are Muslims should be confronted. Robust discussion about religion, culture, politics, security and social cohesion should remain permissible.
The report’s treatment of Jewish history in Muslim lands is equally troubling. Readers are presented with a romanticised picture of centuries of coexistence in which Jews supposedly flourished under Muslim rule while suffering only in Christian Europe. The reality is considerably more complicated.
There were certainly periods of coexistence and examples of tolerant Muslim rulers. There were also periods of persecution, massacres, forced conversions and legal discrimination. Jews throughout much of the Islamic world lived as dhimmis – protected but subordinate non-Muslims subject to special taxes and legal restrictions. In many jurisdictions Jews could not give evidence against Muslims in court, significantly limiting their ability to obtain justice in disputes involving Muslim parties.
To acknowledge this is not to deny the horrors Jews experienced in Europe. It is simply to recognise historical reality. Yet the report repeatedly presents an idealised version of Muslim-Jewish relations while omitting inconvenient facts. Such selective history may serve a political narrative, but it does not serve truth.
The report’s discussion of Zionism is perhaps its most alarming sections. The report states that Zionism “represents one of the manifestations of anti-Muslim hatred” and associates it with genocide, apartheid and colonialism. This characterisation is extraordinary.
For most Jews, Zionism simply means the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. It is no more inherently anti-Muslim than Palestinian nationalism is inherently anti-Jewish. Zionists hold a broad spectrum of political views, just as any national population does.
Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide identify with Israel in some way and regard Zionism as a legitimate expression of Jewish national identity. When a police-affiliated document presents Zionism as a form of racism or hatred, many Jews will inevitably conclude that their own identity is being delegitimised.
The report goes further by listing numerous alleged “genocides” committed by Israel and Zionists stretching from 1947 to the present day. This is not a serious use of language.
Genocide has a specific legal meaning under international law. Whatever one’s views of Israeli policy, none of the events listed have been legally recognised as genocide by any competent international court. The repeated use of the term appears designed to generate moral outrage rather than historical understanding.
The report also strips away the wider context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is no acknowledgement of repeated Arab and Palestinian rejections of partition proposals, wars launched against Israel, terrorist campaigns against civilians, or the role of Hamas and other extremist organisations. History becomes a morality tale in which one side acts and the other merely suffers.
The omission of Palestinian and wider Arab agency is particularly striking when discussing 1948. There is no mention of the civil war that preceded Israel’s independence, the invasion by surrounding Arab armies, or the fact that in some locations Arab civilians were encouraged by Arab leaders to leave temporarily. Nor is there mention of examples such as Haifa, where Jewish leaders and the city’s mayor urged Arab residents to remain rather than flee. History is reduced to a simplistic oppressor-oppressed narrative that ignores the complexity of events.
Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the discussion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek. The report presents Netanyahu’s comments as an explicit call for genocide against Muslims. Yet this interpretation ignores both Jewish tradition and the context of the speech.
Netanyahu was speaking in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023 and was referring to Hamas as an enemy that must be defeated. Within mainstream Jewish thought, Amalek is commonly understood as a symbolic representation of evil rather than a contemporary ethnic group. Indeed, no one knows whether any historical Amalekites even exist today.
For many Jews, Amalek functions in much the same way as references to Nazism do in contemporary discourse: as a symbol of destructive evil that must be resisted. The notion that Netanyahu was literally identifying Palestinians as Amalek and calling for their extermination is not established fact. It is one possible interpretation among many, which is denied by the person who actually made the speech. Yet the report presents it as unquestionable truth. From a police association, whose role is not to adjudicate international affairs but to represent and support its members, this tendency is particularly alarming.
The report’s treatment of Islam raises further concerns. It repeatedly asserts that the word ‘Islam’ means “peace” rather than “submission”, and portrays violent Islamist movements as wholly disconnected from Islamic teachings. This oversimplification ignores centuries of theological debate.
While Islam contains powerful teachings about peace, mercy and justice, it also contains passages concerning warfare, conquest and relations with non-believers. Classical Islamic scholars have long debated the relationship between verses revealed in Mecca and later verses revealed in Medina. Islamist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and others do not regard themselves as acting contrary to Islam. On the contrary, they claim to be acting in accordance with their interpretation of it.
One may and should reject those interpretations, but to claim there is no relationship whatsoever between Islamist ideology and Islamic texts is simply not credible. This matters because effective counter-extremism depends upon understanding reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. If police officers are encouraged to believe that Islamist ideology has no meaningful connection to religious doctrine, they risk misunderstanding one of the principal drivers of modern terrorism.
This is particularly relevant in Britain, where Islamist terrorism has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorism-related deaths in the twenty-first century. Any honest discussion of public safety must acknowledge that fact.
The concerns raised by this report do not exist in isolation. They emerge at a time when confidence in policing is already under strain.
Across Britain there have been increasing allegations of two-tier policing – the perception that different communities, ideologies or causes are treated differently by the criminal justice system. Whether one agrees with those allegations or not, the fact that they have become a matter of public debate demonstrates the importance of maintaining both actual impartiality and the appearance of impartiality.
Police staff associations occupy a privileged position within public life. Their purpose is to support officers and staff, improve workplace conditions and represent the interests of their members. When such organisations publish documents making highly contested claims about religion, history, geopolitics and contemporary conflicts, they inevitably invite scrutiny regarding whether such views might influence the behaviour of individual officers, organisational culture or decision-making.
For many Jews, this concern is particularly acute. The report repeatedly portrays Jewish national identity through the lens of oppression, colonialism and anti-Muslim hatred while simultaneously dismissing or minimising concerns regarding Islamist ideology. Even if no operational consequences follow, the perception of imbalance is unavoidable.
That perception becomes even more significant when the report advocates changing terminology surrounding Islamist extremism. If officers are encouraged to view discussions about Islamist ideology, integration, cultural compatibility or religious doctrine as inherently problematic, there is a danger that legitimate public debate will be chilled. Citizens may become reluctant to discuss difficult issues openly for fear of being labelled prejudiced, while officers themselves may become hesitant to engage with the ideological dimensions of extremism.
Recent controversies, including debates that have followed the death of Henry Nowak and wider public discussions surrounding freedom of expression, have highlighted concerns that some issues cannot be discussed honestly without attracting accusations of hatred or intolerance. Regardless of one’s views on individual cases, the underlying concern is clear: democratic societies require the ability to discuss difficult subjects openly, particularly where public safety, social cohesion and community relations are involved.
This is not merely a free speech issue. It is also a policing issue. Effective policing depends upon public confidence that officers are able to assess threats, motivations and risks objectively, without fear or favour. If certain ideologies become insulated from scrutiny because criticism is automatically equated with hatred, then both public safety and public confidence may suffer.
Perhaps most concerningly, documents of this nature risk creating perceptions of sectarianism within policing itself. The report repeatedly frames contested political and theological questions from one particular perspective while presenting alternative viewpoints as manifestations of prejudice. For communities already concerned about bias, this risks creating the impression that religious or ideological affiliation may influence how events are interpreted and how competing community concerns are weighed.
Whether such perceptions are justified is ultimately less important than the fact that they exist. Public confidence in policing depends not only upon fairness, but upon the widespread belief that fairness exists. Any document produced under the banner of a police-affiliated organisation should therefore be especially careful to avoid political advocacy, historical revisionism or ideological certainty on matters that remain deeply contested.
Ultimately, the greatest concern is not the political opinions expressed in this report. Individuals are entitled to hold strong views on Israel, Zionism, religion and history. The concern is that this report is authored by senior figures within police-affiliated Muslim organisations and appears intended to influence policing, counter-terrorism policy and community relations.
All communities, especially vulnerable ones such as Britain’s tiny Jewish community, depend upon trust in policing. That trust requires confidence that officers and staff organisations approach sensitive issues with objectivity, accuracy and intellectual honesty.
When a report repeatedly misdefines antisemitism, presents a distorted account of Jewish history, portrays Zionism as inherently hateful, labels a long list of historical events as genocides without legal basis, and dismisses the theological foundations claimed by Islamist extremists, it inevitably raises questions about whether that objectivity exists.
Anti-Muslim hatred is real and should be confronted wherever it appears. But prejudice cannot be challenged with historical revisionism, and community cohesion cannot be built upon ideological narratives presented as fact.
Indeed, inaccurate definitions and exaggerated claims do not strengthen the fight against anti-Muslim hatred; they weaken it. If legitimate criticism, historical inquiry, counter-terrorism analysis and debates about integration are all categorised as forms of hatred, genuine cases of anti-Muslim prejudice become harder to identify and address.
If police institutions wish to maintain the confidence of Britain’s overwhelmingly Zionist Jewish community, and indeed the confidence of all communities they serve, they must ensure that reports produced under their banner are rigorous, balanced and historically accurate. At a time when public trust is already being tested by allegations of unequal treatment, perceived bias and political partiality, anything less risks undermining the very confidence upon which policing by consent depends.
The report to which this article relates can be found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260115084704/https://muslim.police.uk/documents/Confronting%20anti-Muslim%20hatred%20and%20Promoting%20Human%20Rights.pdf
