Last week I needed to order some expensive domestic goods. A friend steered me in the direction of an Ebay seller in Yorkshire who flogs these items refurbished, significantly cheaper than new. I phoned the mobile number on the website, and after a few minutes conversation found I had ordered two items. "You can pay by bank transfer", said the pleasant young man. "If you drop me an email confirming the order I'll send you my bank details". He gave me his email address, which was an Asian-sounding name followed by google.com. "That's me", he said, "but call me Ali. They all do".
A little later it occurred to me that I was about to wire £500 to someone I hadn't met and who didn't even have his own website. So I googled Ali's name, which took me to a page on social media which was clearly that of the same guy. You could tell, because amongst the other stuff on the page were some images concerning a kitchen supply business in Yorks.
Feeling a bit of a voyeur (although of course this stuff was publicly available) I scrolled down the photos and posts. They showed a nice looking young British Asian man with a delightful looking baby daughter. No pictures of Mrs Ali. Quite a lot of stuff about the Hajj pilgrimage, which he seemed to have made. Then things got a bit darker. An unpleasant caricature of Tony Blair with the word "Murderer" written across his forehead. A heroic reference to George Galloway. Some fiery looking Islamic preachers. And finally, inevitably, some stuff about Jews. To be fair, most of it about Israel, but also about Jews, and a hateful picture of one of the Rothschilds lined up alongside the evil Mr Burns from The Simpsons. Something about funding all world wars.
No reference to ISIL's crimes against humanity. No indication of contact with wider non-Muslim British society.
I sent an email to Ali saying I didn't want to go through with the purchase. "To be clear", I wrote, "I’m not Jewish and I think Israel has often treated the Palestinians shamefully. On the other hand I know from many conversations with Jews over the years that there is a clear distinction between Zionism and Judaism which some people, both inside and outside the Muslim world, don’t make sufficiently clearly, where they’re willing to make it at all. I don’t really want to do business with someone like that. Sorry."
(I wish now I'd also written, "I would have done just the same thing if there'd been Islamophobic comments.")
Back came the laconic reply: "OK, no problem".
Now I need to go and find another, more expensive, kitchen supply company.
