of asalamualaikum, peace be upon you and welcome to ion islam, the show where we look at current affairs through an islamic lens. each week we evaluate a trending new story and we break it down from an islamic perspective. with muslims observing the holy month of ramadan, many will be engaging in social activities with their brothers and sisters, of including iftars, communal prayers and events aimed at propagating islam to non-muslims, but in recent we've seen the zionist lobby

and its collaborators in the muslim community propagating efforts that on the surface appear to be harmless into faith events, but are actually attempts to normalize the zionist regime to muslims around the world. in this week's episode we'll look at how these attempts are made and we'll explore what muslims must do to remain alert to them. first we take a look at some specific examples of the kind of individuals and organizations that are engaging in such normalization actions. inter faith denotes a harmony for all and elevates the idea of coexistence. however, in recent years, they have become vehicles for normalizing zionism in the muslim community. the peaceful multi-faith community building exercise has been hijacked by some in the hopes of weaponizing the goodwill between believers in the abrahamhamic faiths. one such group is called nisat nashim a muslim and jewish female only network that engages in superficial level discussions on religious.

in the hopes of utilizing the friendships formed under the banner of interfaith harmony and worship to silence criticism on israel. in event they held over preparations for the holy month of ramadan and the jewish holiday of yum kipur, they repeated that we must celebrate what our similarities are and respect our differences. they later clarified that this statement was not regarding theological differences, but specifically in relation to the settler colonial israel. however, this is not surprising as the pro israel board of deputies of british jews admits that it incubated nashine for this purpose. not only is this group funded by the board of deputies, but also by david dangor, whose family also funds the islamophobic henry jackson society. such infiltration requires muslim accomplices. the co-founder of nashim, juli saddiqi, is also the co-founder of the big iftar and works as a muslim in faith consultant for the kosher

established a pro israel synagogue. she has a long history of working with the british armed forces, which he has openly stated is something we should be proud of. critics say that personalities like siddiqi are the muslim face of zionism and hugely damage the value of interfaith work in multi-faith, multicultural societies like the uk. now joining us on the show this week to discuss this extremely important topic. to very special guests. we are honored to be joined by reverend dr. stephen seizer, the founder and director of peacemaker trust, uk charity, dedicated to peacemaking, especially where minorities are persecuted, where justice is denied and human rights are suppressed. stephen is also chair of the coviventia alliance and the director of the institute for the study of christian zionism as well as being a member of the executive of the israeli committee against house demolitions. he's a retired anglican priest, but continues to... as chaplin to the former bishop of

jerusalem, bishop riah abul asal. we are also of pleased to welcome favorite of the show, back said am kasmi who helps run the left legal fighting fund, legal defense fund which focuses on assisting anti-racists, anti-fascist and anti-zionist individuals and groups who need legal support. salam alaikum and welcome to you both. reverend ceiser, if i could start here with yourself, how would you define inter faith and what are the benefits of such dialogue and events? inter faith is about people of different faiths coming together to understand one another's background. it's not about uh proslitism, it's about complementing, collaborating uh issues of common concern, whether it's poverty uh or racism, extremism um or in case. at the moment, gaza, um, it's about

listening rather than speaking, it's about empathizing, putting ourselves and the shoes of the other, and finding what we have in common common cause. and then working together to ameliorate whether it's natural disasters, human suffering or or extremism. so then what would you say the zionist movement seeks to achieve by engaging in interfaith, in what some have described, software strategy? why are they spending time, effort and money, perhaps speaking to people who may oppose their ideology? well, we've just been describing what i would call authentic inter faith dialogue where we treat one another as equals. respectful and seeking to understand one another, the kind of interfaith dialogue that the zionist movement uh engages in is very different, it's along the lines of we set the agenda and therefore you cannot criticize israel, so it becomes a

tool to suppress human rights, suppress um challenging israel's action, so for example in the uk we have the council of christians and jews, ccj, but in reality it's the council of christians for jews, it never criticizes the jewish community, never criticizes israel, it's used as a means of suppressing christian critiques of what israel does, and and if i could turn to yourself as well, and maybe first ask you the same question that uh, what does the zionist movement seek to achieve by engaging in such interfaith, and also maybe touching any uh personal experiences or... you know professional experiences you've had when dealing with uh these types of events? well as reveren was quite eloquently explaining, there's nothing wrong in principle with having interveth dialogue. in fact, you know, particularly between the three abrahamic faites, i think there's been lots of

interface dialogue and discussion over many centuries. this is not really something uh new, the issue is really in terms of how the zionist movement and the state of israel in particular seeks. to weaponize this term interfath and this idea of interfaith dialogue in order to serve its own interest, which really is uh has manifested itself in terms of infiltrating, muslim communities, trying to essentially get them on board with the idea of being friends with, with welcoming zionists who are openly zinas into their communities, into their mosks, breaking bread with them, uh and that it has kind of insidious effect because if you're talking with somebody and you're becoming friends with them and you're becoming friendly with them under the guise of interfaith, but really this person is trying to promote zionism, it could help to compromise that

individual, that muslim or that christian is speaking to them in a very sort of soft way, because the next time that person sees atrocities happening in gaza, in palestine uh or... to criticize israel in any way, perhaps they might think twice, they think, well, i met this person, and they seem to be pro israel, maybe i don't want to offend them, i don't want to disturb these interfath community relations we've developed, so this is actually one of the strategies, it's not necessarily just about open prossolitism and saying, you should defend israel because of this, that and the other, it's also about trying to compromise people through their relationships, and this is sort of the most insidious factor that the sign is... movement um and the signs into both industry has and it's almost like trying to disarm uh people if you will by by default really as you as you mentioned there um just staying with yourself what's the danger in the holy month of ramadan in particular of course at the

moment billions of muslims around the world are observing shah ramadan what kind of events do you see the zionist seeking to exploit we did see uh some of them being touched upon in our video just earlier in the show, but if you could expand on perhaps some these types of strategies. well, there were plethera of these interfaith um organizations within britain, and so during this holy month of ramadan, of course, you was just talking about breaking bread, this is the perfect opportunity to try to organize things like interfaith, if you know invite different sections of the muslim community who may be completely unaware, this is a problem. is a complete lack of curiosity, lack of skepticism and indeed naivity when it comes to this, and so you have muslims and mosks being invited to these interfaiths and you know in a spirit of brotherly or community,

generosity, and so it's essentially a time in which the interfaith faithwashing industry uh is able to turbocharge its agenda within the... community, because at this point in time, muslims are quite vulnerable in the sense that, many muslims uh begin becoming much more active in terms of their religious practice, in terms of their attendance at events, their attendance at... masks about the country during the holy month of ramadan and it's an opportune moment to take advantage of that basically. uh thank you uh said ammar uh dr. sizer now obviously you are an esteemed member of the christian community uh and a reverend of course as well. have you ever been maybe invited to or attended or you know been part of event and maybe it's become clear to you later on? hang a minute this may be uh you know engaging with zionists or something has that been something that people have tried to reach out and maybe pressure you to engage in? um, do you mean in terms of

um, from a sinust perspective? yeah, like like just in terms of you, maybe some groups reaching out saying, we want to do some interfath, maybe before um, your your views on sionism were perhaps as as well-known as they were. um, to be honest, no, i think most the times i've engaged with zionis, it's been in in a situation where they've tried to challenge me or debate with me ' so i've made several programs uh with uh zianist tv stations, radio stations where they've tried to trap me, tried to engage with me, but um i think they gave up trying to win me from the very beginning. i think i've been involved in lots of uh interfath events and opportunities, particularly with jewish and muslim friends where we're genuinely trying to find areas of common ground that we can work together. yeah, yeah, and i think that's key, it's uh... sincerity and and genuinely engaging with people who aren't trying to use

interfith, which some actually prominent zionists in the uk for example have openly said we use inter faith as a way to make the case for israel in a church or in a mosque and describe the kind of disarming tactics that amar was alluding to uh as well. now of course i in islam did speak to people in london to ask them their thoughts on the attempts being... made across the world to normalize the existence of the zionist entity in the name of interfath. i think that interfaith is is a good thing, it's good to kind of get to know um other faiths and what they're doing and it builds those connections to start conversations. um, i think that we have to differentiate between kind of um interface events and opportunities to network and connect um and almost creating that network to buffer down and silence lot of our own opinions and lot of our own viewpoints um with this. here that because we're kind of connected and friend friendly um it gives us kind of puts us in a bit more awkward

situation position to kind of speak up about what we believe in um so i think that it's a good thing but within our boundaries and with our kind of understanding of what we can talk about and what we can't. any multi- faith projects in that context uh would have been used as kind of form of submission in the same way you might see it in geopolitics where um certain countries may say we're ' looking for forgiveness, peace, friendliness, etc., but ultimately it might be lending itself more towards submission or to acceptance of oppression. um, it's, i think we shouldn't assume that the normalization projects, for example, we should look at each case critically, and there are a lot of things that we don't want to politicize as muslims, but ultimately, if our enemies, we know them, they are politicizing it, we should look out for those cases and be ready to treat them, treat those cases accordingly. "the the sort of events where a point of view can generally be put across where we're building up allies so that they can defend us

in our times of need, those are pos then those are of course positive events and positive things that we should do, but if there events where it's just tokenism and it's just a whole bunch of chaps patching each other's backs and nothing actually being achieved in long term, then i don't see what the point is. now raven, if i could um come back to yourself, we know that uh initially zionism was an anti-semitic uh kind of evangelical christian project if you will, before it was so-called..." jewish one, can you elaborate more on that? yes, um, at the end of the 18th century, napoleon was uh at war with the british, french and the british were competing to control north africa, the middle east and our trade roots to our colonies and other parts of the world, and napoleon was the first world ruler in 2000 years to promise the jews a homeland in palestine, because he wanted the wealthy jewish bankers to back his... war effort against the british, so he set the price on palestine, he was unable to deliver, but by

the 1820s british politicians were recognizing the need to secure the support of the jewish community to help defeat the french and then eventually the germans to control palestine, because palestine is the the bridge if you like, between the continents, so the race was to control. palestine, so it was, it was driven by some who were phylo-semitic, who genuinely loved the jewish people and felt they should be returned to the land of their their origins um in fulfillment of bible prophecy, but the anti-uh semitic element was either implicit or explicit. implicit in the sense that they were a tool of british colonialism. you the balful declaration promised the jews a home land in the british empire, didn't promise them a state, didn't promise them independence, we weren't giving land away in the beginning of the 20th century. the

explicit anti-semites just wanted to get rid the jews out of europe, out of britain and and and plant them in the middle east, so um, the zionist project, the christian involvement preceded jewish zianis about at least 50 years, more than that, and today nine out of 10 zionists are christians, john hagi for example, one of the leaders of the christian ionist movement in the states, said, imagine 50 million evangelical christians in america joining in common course with 5 million jewish people in america, it's a match made in heaven, he's put. that 10 to one, so you've got that heavy emphasis uh of of what is now american foreign policy rather than british foreign policy, to maintain a presence in the middle east through the israeli state, and what's interesting is, actually perhaps both sides aren't very complementary of each other, because from what i understand those

evangelical elements believe that, uh, jews must be forcefully converted at the end. times and the talmed has less than complementary words about jesus and christians for example, but there seems to be this marriage of convenience at the moment between these two sides, um, and also it's interesting you mentioned the british state, because of course they promised the homeland, but then there was this campaign of terrorism by groups like the hagana and the stand gang and the ergon who uh attacked uh british politicians and statesman and the king david hotel on that road to getting their independence from britain. so just interesting that whilst we see this phaseemitism actually under the surface there's been a lot of uh violence particularly from designist movement say if i could come back to you and we saw earlier of course uh muslims in london they are clearly aware of the disguise if you will being used by these normalization projects but what role do collaborators in the muslim and christian community for that matter play in terms of

how they enable this agenda all the role of collab rators is absolutely vital not just in faith washing, but also more broadly in terms of furthering the interests of nefarious actors, be it, islamophobes within the british state or else where, without the sort of collaborators, the sort of good face if you like of this activity, there wouldn't be the depth of... filtration within our mosks and our churches and that's principally because the people who are allowing them into these spaces are the people very often who are leaders in our community, people who are trustees of different buildings and centers and so it's they is them who are principally responsible for allowing these zianist actors

into our spaces and also um promoting it within the muslim community as something harmless and actually i have to say i think that it's largely a case of naivity than it is of malice because i think when muslims and large are very you know peace-loving people who love their brothers in faith in terms of the abrahamic faiths when they see this issue of inter faith they think well of course we you have lots of common ground we are monotheistic we have we believe in many of the same scriptures and it, so why wouldn't we try to have a dialogue to engage and get to know each other better and work on various issues that are of mutual interest, for example, when it comes to muslims and jews in particular, issues around burial rights are very important, it's important for jews and muslims in local areas to you, have um a dialogue when it comes to their councils in terms of arranging those uh arranging those

issues to funerals for example um they see this and think well why wouldn't we be involved, but there is lack of curiosity and as i say, naivity about some of the broader aims being pushed and of course there are those people who we shouldn't give the benefit of doubt to who have been very active in this interface peacewashing and faith-washing industry for a long time, you know exactly what they're doing, so those actors are completely critical in terms of giving theesionist movement the depth that they have within our muslim and christian communities across the world, but if i could just stay with you as well due to the environment of hate and pressure that we're seeing placed on the muslim community that guilt tripped sometimes into. participating in normalization projects, maybe to prove their innocence and to prove they aren't anti-semitic. how do you advise muslims and indeed again christians to proceed when faced

with these types of infiltration attempts and these pressure attempts in our communities? well, i think i can only really speak on in terms of muslims, because i think we have a, there are some particular issues with our community, which is that by and large the muslim community is made up of immigrants and of immigrants in britain of course there are many people converted to islam but principly you say uh comes from a population that doesn't originate you know from britain as it were at least in sort of the last sort of 60 70 years and so there are multiple issues at play there is for some people there is issue of thinking of being sort of grateful guests if you like i like this term grateful guests syndrome they think that they don't really have any power or agency in britain and so they are at the behest of the british state and all of these various interests and if they don't accommodate them in some way then you know they could end up being deported, they could have issues uh in terms of their

you immigration status, they could be put on lists, they could be targeted in some way uh so that's an issue that i think is particular to the muslim community more than is to the um christian um community, but also i think it's a lack of confidence in one's own convictions, because if you are catching win to the idea that basically... "this is being used to sort of leverage zionist interest within the muslim community and you don't do anything about that because you're scared of potentially the charity commission is going to come after you, maybe you're not going to get funding from the home office or something like that, and so you end up compromising on your religious ideals to promote that, then that's really a question of lack of religious conviction and indeed of in some ways, be considered by some to be a strong language, but i think it's absolutely appropriate, it's kind of a treatury to your own values, never mind to your fellow um, community members, yeah, absolutely, and uh, reverend, if i

could ask you the same type of question, what advice would you have to people who are faced with, i mean you've come under immense pressure and kind of campaigns by zionist organizations, what advice would you have to others in terms of standing strong if you will, find out more, uh, reach out, if you're if you're... uh breaking your ramadan fast, invite neighbors, christians, jews to join you, find out who they are, what you have in common as parents, as grandparents, as com in your communities, um, reach out and find out more about anti-signist jewish organizations, for example, the jewish network for palestine, or the israeli committee against house demolitions, to jewish organizations i'm involved with, um, the converence. alliance brings together three faith communities to work for justice and peace in palestine or from the palestinian christian perspective organizations like sabil or

kyros, because people don't care how much you know until the how much you care, and we have so much in common that is far more than the things on which we differ, um, we are stronger together, and that's why i would encourage those... listening and watching our program to engage in interfathe dialogue, you have nothing to lose, so much to gain. excellent, thank you so much uh for your wonderful insights, reverend, and of course as well to you brother said kazmy. unfortunately, that's all we have time for today, and i'd like to also thank you at home for watching this episode of ion islam, you can join us again next week for another edition. assalamualaikum.

dispute between iran and kuwait over the rs gas field grabs the headlines from time to time. but what's the whole story about? is just another tension underway in west asia? what's the significance of orash gas field? what is kuwait's position? what is tehran's position? why is saudi arabia engage in dispute out of the blue? and has there been an attempt to... reach deal. these and more on this edition of iran today.

whatever the shape of the treaty and with a relative dose of optimism, it seems that the temporary cease fire agreement is now behind us, while the battle is raging in another layer of the war that has become more intertwined and overlapping than before. it's not just about hamas and the resistance factions on one side and the israeli occupation on the other, but also between the two allies, tel aviv and washington. especially regarding the day after phase, either to retreat to a cease fire and work on imposing a political and security arrangement or to continue the war until after the invasion of rafah, ensuring a long delay in personal reckoning, according to netanyahu and his coalition's demands to cover their backs. high hopes for truth this week on the bedia stream.

israel forces kill scores of palestinian civilians and new massacers in gaza as death or regimes genocide tops 32,400, mostly women and children. leader of ironza islamic revolution reaffirms the islamic republic's unwavering support for palestine and the people of gaza. a mid ongoing israely genocide, and yemy army says is conducted multiple operations in the red sea and gulf of aiden in support of the palestinian people.