Anjem Choudary Thinks He Knows Why David Amess Was Murdered 

Anjem Choudary, the fiery Muslim preacher and supporter of ISIS, has for years directed the militant Salafist and jihadist Al-Muhajiroun movement in Great Britain. Al-Muhajiroun’s goal was to establish the Islamic caliphate. After the London terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005, Al Muhajiroun was banned. Despite the official ban, Al-Muhajiroun continued to evolve through a steadily growing number of front groups that operated under various names but were largely run by Choudary and a small circle of associates. The group initially reconstituted itself under the names Al-Ghurabaa (The Strangers), as well as al-Firqat un-Naajiyah (Savior Sect, or Saved Sect). After these two groups were banned in July 2006, the group reemerged almost immediately as Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. In 2008, Choudary founded the group Islam4UK, which gained notoriety, among other things, for its staged protests against returning British soldiers. After Islam4UK was proscribed by the government in January 2010, the group resurfaced under the name Muslims Against Crusades (MAC). Choudary made no secret of this renaming game, as he openly admitted that the names of these various front groups are “all us… we use different platforms depending on what we are dealing with.” The goal remains the same: the establishment of a worldwide caliphate. The two Muslims who butchered Lee Rigby had been “inspired” by the sermons of Anjem Choudary; so was the Muslim who ran down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. Choudary, according to British authorities, has been responsible for “radicalising” at least 100 British Muslims.

Meanwhile, Choudary, both before he was sentenced to prison in 2016 for promoting terrorism and the Islamic State, and after he was released in 2018, has managed to live very well on the many benefits provided by the British state. He lives in a 400,000 pound house owned by his father-in-law; his monthly rent of £1,500 ($2,061) is paid for by the British taxpayers. Choudary receives free medical care for himself and his entire family, without ever having paid a penny into the system. He also receives a monthly allowance of £300 ($412) a month; his wife receives a similar sum, which gives them $824 a month tax-free. Before he was sent to prison in 2016 for supporting the Islamic State, it was revealed he and his wife were raking in £25,000-a-year ($34,500) in benefits for them and their four children as far back as 2013. Given inflation since 2013, that $34,500 was equivalent to $41,000 today, and all tax-free. Not a bad income for Choudary, who didn’t do a day’s work in all this time.

Although sentenced in 2016 to five years in prison, Choudary was released early, in 2018 (why? he remains an unrepentant supporter of the Islamic State), and he he began claiming just under £300 a month in Jobseeker’s Allowance. His wife had all along been receiving similar benefits, as a caregiver for four children.

To receive these benefits, the Jobseekers’ Allowance, Choudary is required to look for work. He hasn’t looked very hard, judging by the fact that neither before his two years in prison, nor in the three years since he’s been released, he hasn’t managed to find employment. No doubt his well-off father-in-law, who owns the house Choudary lives in, will hire him for a job that he can do from home, not too taxing, just enough to satisfy the authorities that Choudary has indeed “found work.”

Anjem Choudary has a habit of telling the truth about what Muslims believe. He’s a true Believer who feels no need to practice taqiyya about his faith. It was he who famously described all the benefits Muslims received from the British state – the free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, and more – as the “Jihad seeker’s allowance,” a kind of proleptic Jizyah paid by non-Muslim taxpayers to Muslims in the U.K., in order to safeguard the former from attacks by the latter. Now he’s commented on the murder of the MP David Amess by the Somali Ali Harbi Ali, offering a reason – and for Muslims a justification – for the attack on Amess. The report on Choudary’s latest justification for a Muslim murderer is here: “UK Islamist Preacher, Supporter of Terrorism, Implies MP Assassinated Because He Was ‘Pro-Israel,’” by Benjamin Kerstein, Algemeiner, October 17, 2021:

A UK Islamist preacher with a long history of hate speech and support for terrorism set off a storm of controversy on Saturday after he seemed to imply that the murder of a member of parliament was justified because he was “pro-Israel.”…

The Daily Mail reported that Anjem Choudary — the former leader of a banned Islamist group called Al-Muhajiroun, who was imprisoned from 2016 to 2018 for supporting ISIS — said, “The rumors are that [Amess] is pro-Israel.”

Asked why this would be a problem, Choudary ranted, “Many people do [believe] that [Israel] is a terrorist state, and who would possibly be a friend of Israel after you see the carnage that they carried out against Muslims in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and continue to do with the appropriation of properties?”

“No one in their right and rational mind would support such a state,” he claimed.

“Obviously that does not give someone justification for someone to kill someone,” he then said. “I believe there is a covenant of security in this country, where the lives and wealth of people with whom we Muslims live are protected in return for our lives and wealth.”

What Choudary means is this: “The Infidels in whose lands we Muslims now live are to be protected [from our attack], but only insofar as our lives and wealth are protected. If we do not feel perfectly secure, we have a right to attack those Infidels whom we believe threaten our wellbeing.” Apparently, in Choudary’s view, Amess’ strong support for Israel endangered the sense of security of Muslims in the U.K., and an attack on him was, therefore, justified.

Amess had served as an honorary secretary of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and was known as having very positive relations with the UK Jewish community. 

Jewish News reported Sunday that Amess had once said he would have “been proud to have been born a Jew,” and that stands “shoulder to shoulder with our local Jewish community.” 

“I simply do not understand and have never understood antisemitism,” he added….

The suspicion many of us have that David Amess was murdered because of his support or Israel and for Jews is shared, apparently, by Anjem Choudary. What horrifies us seems to him perfectly justified. According to Ali Harbi Ali’s friends and acquaintances, he became “radicalized” – that is, became persuaded to carry out Qur’anic commands about conducting violent Jihad against Infidels – by watching the videos of none other than Anjem Choudary, who as part of his preaching no doubt inveighed against all U.K. supporters of the Jewish state.