‘Traumatic’: Muslim organisations condemn Hackney Council’s response to Middle East conflict
Protesters hold up a sign on the Town Hall steps in February. Photograph: Noora Mykkanen
Members of Hackney’s Muslim community have slammed the council’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict in a letter to the mayor and deputy mayor.
The letter, whose signatories include several local mosques, is written with “great concern” about “the council’s failure to agree to hold a vote… for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Gaza”.
It states: “To add to our pain and horror, we understand the council’s staff pension funds have investments in a number of companies manufacturing bombs, other weapons and equipment which are used by Israel’s occupying army”.
The final paragraph calls for Hackney Council to “immediately cease its twinning with Haifa and remove the [Israeli] flag from the Speaker’s office”.
It is understood that four flags representing the countries in which Hackney has a twin city are on display in the office inside the Town Hall.
Abdi Hassan, founder of Coffee Afrik, a community organisation serving marginalised people, also signed the letter.
He told the Citizen: “This is a reaction to a culmination of many years of the council’s approach to the Muslim community.
“We’re concerned about the council’s systematic approach to Muslim communities, with which they really struggle to engage”.
Signatories include @CoffeeAfrique , Azziza Mosque, Clapton Forum, Hackney Central Mosque, Mussala an Noor Mosque Tarbiyyah Mosque, Turkish Cypriot Islamic Association & Al Hashim Trust. pic.twitter.com/A22DPFvs4V
— S Hassan (@Motheringmusing) April 19, 2024
The council said in a statement: “We have received the letter… and acknowledge the concerns set out in it.
“We also recognise the deep distress, fear and anger in our communities about the ongoing crisis in Israel and Gaza.
“As the letter indicates, we met Muslim community organisations, where we discussed engagement with our Muslim communities and our increasing and ongoing work together.”
“Following this meeting, council leaders visited Muslim places of worship and community organisations to build understanding of the specific needs of our Muslim residents and we will continue to reach out to build and expand these relationships,” the statement continued.
However, Abdi criticised this meeting as “performative” and “disingenuous”.
“There’s been a lack of follow-up from the council since then. They say they want to build bridges, but there’s no actioning of this.”
He pointed to the council’s organisation of its Eid celebrations.
“It was the perfect opportunity to work together, but there was nothing. As a result, a lot of people boycotted it.”
The Citizen asked Hackney Council who organised the council’s ‘market celebration’ on 13 April, and how the Muslim community was involved in setting up a stall on Ridley Road, but it declined to comment.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, ahead of the celebration, local resident Sulekha Hassan wrote: “Please boycott this attempt at Eid-washing genocide and apartheid by Hackney Council until they hear us.”
She later told the Citizen: “We’re trying our best to have a dialogue [with the council], but every time we’re subjected to this infantilisation of conversation, and a complete lack of engagement.
“They didn’t even let their own councillors vote to hear a motion on calling for a ceasefire.”
This is a reference to Hackney Labour’s suspension of four councillors in February.
As well as criticising the “failure to agree to hold a vote” on calling for a ceasefire, the letter from Muslim organisations notes the council’s quick decision to divest from stocks in Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
It asks: “What number of Palestinian deaths will it take for the council to make the same divest commitment [with Israel] as it did for Russia?”
The Citizen asked Hackney Council if it will be divesting what pensions committee chair Cllr Kam Adams described as “£1.9m in passive investments” in “companies conducting business activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. It declined to respond.
Instead, a spokesperson said: “We take the concerns set out in the letter extremely seriously and we will be responding in full.
“We are committed to continuing to represent the local needs of all our residents and our Muslim communities play a key role in this work.
“As part of the work of our new equality plan, the council will be looking at the specific intersectional experience of Muslim residents in Hackney and how the council can better meet their needs.
“This will include engagement with a broad range of community organisations and resident groups, including the signatories to this letter.”
“I think this is all political,” said Abdi. “The Muslim community doesn’t hold enough leverage to the council, because they don’t see us as politically strong when it comes to voting, so there’s no benefit in engaging.”
This accusation was put to Hackney Council, but it declined to respond.
Abdi continued: “Of course, you’re not going to agree on every piece of policy, but for the most part, the Muslim community has been historically twinned with the values of Labour.”
He added: “Now we’re being discarded, and it’s traumatic.
“The council doesn’t treat [the Muslim community] with respect. What we’re asking is to be seen, to be treated as human beings and to be able to say, ‘I matter’.”
Sulekha concurred: “People feel disenfranchised – the council talks about us as if we’re nuisances, not members of the community.”
The propaganda rantings of Abdi Hassan and others, cannot hide the underlying low-level anti-Semitism of his complaints – and what Keir Starmer himself called ‘the Anti-Semitism that is anti-Zionism’. He appears most confused , mixing religious and social issues in Hackney, with political issues abroad .
At the same time, whilst Hassan and his allies cry out for the disarming of Israel (so that its enemies can then destroy its nation, communities and land ) – and divestment of Pension funds (so that Israel would not be able to afford to obtain weapons to defend itself from the annihilation promised by Islamists worldwide), we hear not one word of condemnation from him, of the genocidal, terrorist, hostage-taking Islamist supremacists of the Middle East – fellow Moslem Hamas and Hezbollah uppermost among them – and the barbaric, rapist, unprovoked and brutal attack of the October 7th Pogrom against 1,600 Israeli women, men and children.
Hackney does not and should not have a foreign policy, which is the job of elected national governments, and infantile gestures blaming or trying to punish one side or the other in the Middle East, from Hackney, will do nothing to bring the ceasefire and peace for everyone who lives there – something we all want , once the Israeli hostages are returned. For a ceasefire, please speak to Hamas, who keep turning it down whilst making fantastic, eye-watering demands and conditions.
As I have clarified before – and as have the Council with great articulacy and clear judgement – the bridge building we engage in with our twin town of Haifa unites people in friendship and medical research (Jews, Moslems, Christians, Bahai, even Vietnamese Bhuddists). For the Green Party – who are sworn enemies of Israel and allow Islamists to stand for election represening the Greens as in Leeds, for example – Israel has one of the most advanced and sharing systems of anti-global warming, re-greening the desert, tree planting, desalination, solar energy economies in the world. What on earth would breaking such a positive link do for anyone? And removing a flag? We are twinned with places in Germany, France and Grenada too – why remove Israel’s flag? What double standard is this? If anyone feels so strongly about the Israel-Hamas war , let them go there and work or fight for whichever side they favour and stop constantly wingeing and bringing the squabbles of other wars to our peaceful society and streets in Hackney. Most mature people do not want the political views of other people about foreign wars, shoved down their throats in our Borough. The flags and fly-posting and illegal occupation of Town Hall property with flags and tents, are intimidating, insulting and often racist – and pointless meetings take up the Council’s valuable time, distracting from other more local, serious, and life-affecting issues.
As for the complaints about alleged marginalising of the Moslem community in Hackney – among whom I have and had, many colleagues, students, neighbours, friends and acquaintances – I suppose I am not really qualified to comment. BUT I have personally not witnessed this – on the contrary, at every one of the many Council and other events I have attended over a lifetime in Hackney, the Moslem community has flourished and always been proudly and well represented and respected at many levels; mosques and Islamic centres, businesses and schools abound.
Martin Sugarman (Chair Hackney-Haifa twinning and local Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women of the UK, AJEX)
Replying to your May 2024 article regarding ‘Traumatic’ Muslim organisations castigating the council over the response to the Middle East conflict in a fierce letter, may I submit this reply?.
This is bringing the politics of the Middle East to Hackney and demanding that local councillors, who have absolutely no control on foreign policy, do your bidding. Regarding the BDS, this same chestnut comes up periodically, and the people bringing this up, know very well it is not in the Pensions Committee remit to grant what they are asking. However, some believe that if you don’t succeed try and try again, ad nauseum.
I wonder if you have considered the cost of doing what is being asked of the Pensions Committee, and how many pensions would be affected ? Does Mr Hassan or Ms Hassan, have a solution on how this loss can be replaced? Have they bothered to ask the Council employees whether they ALL agree to their demands? It will affect their future retirement plans and not the Hassans or the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Muslim community is well represented in the Hackney, and in Stamford Hill they live peacefully side by side with other communities. They are large part of the community who work side by side with the Jewish community.
I wonder if Mr. Abdi Hassan and Ms. Sulekha Hassan, thought for a second of the trauma, members of the Jewish community are facing, due to the breaking for the ceasefire in October 2023 by Hamas?
Regarding Haifa Twinning how dare these ‘Johnny come lately’s demand that this should be ended. It was started in 1968 by my Headmistress Mrs. Lipman a respected Labour Councillor. Mrs. Lipman chose Haifa as it mirrored Hackney then, and still does today, the Borough of Hackney. With Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze living in harmony together.
This is the only Twinning that is working and successful, the others have not been active for years. The exchange has evolved ,bringing together hospital professionals from the Rambam Hospital in Haifa and the Homerton in Hackney. This is such a successful exchange, professionals learning from each other for the benefit of the local constituents. This is what the Hassans want to stop; why? Because it does not suit their narrative.
Hackney Council and Hackney constituents are better than this. Why don’t communities come together to find solutions for what is happening in the area? If we spent our energies doing this, rather than marching and demanding boycotts, perhaps we might achieve something.
Sincerely,
Linda Kelly
Past Speaker of Hackney and Vice President of Haifa Twinning
13th May 2024
Suleka Hassan's comment that the Council treats the muslim community differently is not quite fair, the council responds to anyone who protests at their policies including towards Israel as if they are "a nuisance." They simply mouth a response and do nothing.
"Most mature people don't want the views of other people about foreign wars shoved down their throats in our borough"
If only you really believed that so we would no longer have to listen to your eternal blethering claptrap.
"We take the concerns set out in the letter extremely seriously"
Just how seriously can be seen from the current position, almost a year later, the position is exactly the same, the Council has not moved one inch! Showing how seriously the council takes the concerns of residents!