“The government is always looking for some Islamic organisation to proscribe or some Muslim cleric – preferably with a steel claw – to ban. All in the name of community cohesion and preventing violent extremism.
“But how many Muslims does the government think have been radicalised by the horrific scenes coming out of Gaza and the complacent hypocrisy of the British foreign office?
“The appeal for a policy that breaks with slavish support for Israel’s actions operates on a number of different levels. I’ve long since stopped addressing the great lacuna which passes for an ethical sense at King Charles Street. An argument based on naked self-interest stands a better chance. And from that point of view the efforts by various branches of government not only to justify the unjustifiable in Palestine, but to delegitimise protests over it are extremely difficult to fathom….
“In Tower Hamlets young people organised a 100-strong car cavalcade in protest at the massacres in Gaza and advertising a national demonstration in central London. The following day the police were handing out fliers at Brick Lane mosque telling people that such activities were illegal. Of all the problems we face in Tower Hamlets – including illegal activities – not one of them is young men cooperating with one another and using their cars to form peaceful convoys with a socially engaged message. I’m sure the same is true elsewhere in the capital.
“If the authorities in London and across Britain thought this through they would welcome this efflorescence of political protests over Gaza. How better to marginalise the violent extremists than by creating the space for radical but democratic political engagement?”
George Galloway at Comment is Free, 23 January 2009
“In Britain, the main consequence of the Gaza War has been to provide a rallying point for the motley alliance of totalitarian sympathisers of the hard left and Islamic radical right. It is not the responsibility of the Israeli government to consider the consequences of their actions on the rise of militant Islam in Britain and Europe. But the dangers are real. The Islamist tendency represented by self-appointed representatives such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain was on the retreat. The Gaza War has given them new life, as shown by their prominence in the recent demonstrations, and across the media.”
A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements. Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. “In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to … draw a clear line,” the court in Amsterdam said.
“In Britain, the war in Gaza has revealed the extent to which the media, intelligentsia and political class have simply crumbled in the face of the global jihad….
Almost £1 million of public money is being given to a think-tank run by two former Islamic extremists, despite reservations being expressed by members of the Government and the Opposition. The funding is for the Quilliam Foundation – a counter-extremism think-tank set up nine months ago by Ed Husain, a bestselling author, and Maajid Nawaz, a former political prisoner in Egypt – as part of the Government’s strategy to combat the radicalisation of British Muslims.