Meanwhile a Telegraph editorial takes the opportunity to blame “Muslim families” for not preventing terrorism and have a go at the MCB:

“In truth, there is no such thing as a single ‘Muslim community’. The Muslim Council of Britain is held by the Government to be the authentic voice of this frequently disparate group, which hails originally from at least a dozen different countries. But is it? A trenchant analysis – When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries – written by Martin Bright, the political editor of the Left-wing New Statesman, concludes: ‘The Government has chosen as its favoured partner an organisation that is undemocratic, divisive and unrepresentative of the full diversity of Muslim Britain.’ Too frequently, its leaders depict as mainstream what most people would describe as extreme. Its stand against terrorism has been muted.”

Daily Telegraph, 11 August 2006

“Islam has an identity crisis that it must combat. A virulent strain that mixes testosterone and a nihilistic theology has afflicted a small minority of young Muslims.

“There will also be critics and cynics who are not Muslim, who would like to believe that if only foreign policy would change, the threat would immediately recede and the extremism evaporate. Those who would commit mass murder are not to be appeased by this or that policy fluctuation. Jihadists see Western society as innately evil, an existential threat to their puritanical, obscurantist version of Islam. They cannot come to terms with sexual equality, Western values, tolerance or democracy. To them, the Palestinian or Iraqi contexts are only settings for the introduction of an ideology that is utterly intolerant and regards moderate Muslims as apostates. If policy on either changed, they would look for other justifications for their fanaticism.”

Times, 11 August 2006

Richard Littlejohn replies to Tarique Ghaffur:

“Mr Ghaffur’s speech coincided with the publication of a new survey which claims almost a quarter of British Muslims believe that the July 7 bombings were justified because of the Government’s support for the war on terror. The most hardline views came from young Muslims under the age of 24 who have grown up in Britain.

“A third of Muslims think Britain has become so morally reprehensible that they would rather live under Sharia law and dream of this country becoming an Islamic state. Plenty of non-Muslims have reached the same conclusion about the state of morals in this country. But they confine themselves to writing angry letters to the Daily Mail or moving to Spain. They don’t believe the answer is to turn Britain into a 7th-century theocracy, where women are second-class citizens and homosexuals are put to death….

“Young Muslims … have been told constantly by their self-appointed leaders and their imams that they are oppressed by widespread ‘Islamophobia’. They are encouraged to put loyalty to their faith above responsibility to their country of birth. They are brainwashed into treating any misfortune which befalls any Muslim anywhere in the world as a personal insult.

“Makeshift mosques in run-down backstreets and demented jihadist websites pump out hatred of the West, which is blamed for all the problems in the Muslim universe. Fanatics are allowed to march through the streets preaching death to the infidel, death to Jews, death to just about anyone. For a peaceful religion, they’re very big on death. This is all coming from within the Muslim community, not from without. Is it any wonder that some of this constant ideological bombardment rubs off? We don’t need a judicial inquiry to tell us any of this.

“The majority of Muslims in Britain make a valuable contribution and want to live a quiet life, just like the rest of us. But, as this survey illustrates, a sizeable minority don’t. They have no desire to adapt to Britain. They want Britain to adapt to them. For a large number of Muslims, their faith is incompatible with Western freedoms and democracy.

“No one is forced to remain here. As discussed in this column recently, hundreds of thousands of British citizens decide to emigrate every year.

“If there are people who hate this country so much they think mass murder of civilians on our streets is justified and they would rather live in a fundamentalist Islamic state, all the judicial reviews in the world are not going to change their minds. If we promise not to profile them at the airport, they should leave – and take their ‘anger and resentment’ with them.”

Daily Mail, 8 August 2006