Bartholomew's Notes

Unity at Ministry of Truth has an absolutely masterful post on the British SPCK bookshops saga (I blogged this here), covering a number of questions about the American owners’ business practices, their legal threats against various bloggers (most recently a vicar in Essex), and – very usefully – providing a lot of information about libel law in the USA.

J Mark Brewer, who runs the organisation that owns the bookshops (and who is now seeking bankruptcy proceedings in Houston), believes he and his company should be immune from criticism because both are private: in fact, as Unity points out, Brewer is a subject of public controversy and so in US eyes is a “limited purpose public figure”. This is just one feature of US libel law that we could do with in the UK, where people who choose to involve themselves in public affairs can all too often suppress critical discussion and discourage investigation by waving lawyers around (and if you have a lawyer as a friend or ideological comrade, you don’t need to be rich to do it).

Meanwhile, the Chester Chronicle reports on some upcoming industrial tribunals:

SHOPWORKERS’ union Usdaw is taking four cases to an employment tribunal after staff were fired by e-mail from a Christian bookshop in Chester.

…Chester is just one of several branches affected after the trading arm of Christian charity St Stephen the Great (SSG) was “placed into reorganisation” in the United States Bankruptcy Court.

A new company, ENC Management Company, has been set up to run the bookshops run by Mark and Phil Brewer, the same two Texan brothers who head SSG.

…John Hannett, Usdaw general secretary, said: “It is clear that staff, many of whom have been long standing loyal workers, have been mistreated and many are understandably very upset and concerned.

“We are very concerned at a new company (ENC Management Company) being set up in these circumstances, while our members are losing their jobs.”

One website that Brewer objects to is a page on the UK Christian Bookshops Directory asking the public to make donations and offer assistance to affected booksellers.

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A bad week for Hamas, the Islamist movement which has proven disastrous both for Palestinian civil society and for those advocating Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation. A couple of days ago the Palestinian human rights organisation al-Haq issued a report accusing Hamas and Fatah of the artibrary detention and torture of Palestinian prisoners (and if this is how they treat their own people, the conditions endured by Hamas’ Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit are difficult to imagine); now the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who is Hamas’ leader in the West Bank, has announced his conversion to Christianity and given an interview to Haaretz. Masab Yousef, who is now based in California, has quite an indictment of Hamas:

“These people have no morals, they have no integrity. But they aren’t as stupid as Fatah, which steals in broad daylight in front of everyone and is immediately suspected of corruption. [Hamas people] receive money in dishonest ways, invest it in secret places, and outwardly maintain a simple lifestyle. Sooner or later they will use this money and screw the people.

“Nobody knows them and how they operate as well as I do…”

Yousef, or “Joseph” as he now prefers to be known as, also takes credit for his father’s relative moderation:

“He’s a nice, friendly man. But I discovered how evil his colleagues are…When I was with my father, I in effect pushed a moderate Hamas leader into making logical decisions, such as stopping the attacks and establishing two states alongside one another. I felt responsible. It was better for me to be there rather than a gang of fools who would poison his mind…”

Joseph explains that he became a Christian a while ago while still living in Ramallah, but that he kept quiet about it. He doesn’t explain to what kind of Christianity he has converted, and he gives few clues; although he has harsh words about Islam (“In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran”) and Palestinian society (“An entire society sanctifies death”), and says that he “respects” Israel, he doesn’t appear to have followed the path of Palestinian convert Walid Shoebat, whose entire religious identity is now grounded in a fundamentalist anti-Muslim and apocalyptic Christian Zionism.

The report has been received with predicable glee by pro-Israel websites; Joseph’s relatives meanwhile are denying that the story is true.

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