Andrew C. McCarthy asserts that the Blair government cannot fight terrorism by co-operating with Inayat Bunglawala, Tariq Ramadan, Yusuf Islam … or indeed any other influential Muslim figure who is, in fact, opposed to terrorism. Note, too, that this US right-winger uses Nick Cohen as the source for his accusation that the government is “hell-bent on a strategy of ‘engagement’ with militant Islam”.
Category Archives: UK
Bush ‘promoted West-Muslim clash’
George Bush and the “right-wing neo-con establishment” have promoted a “clash of civilisations” between Muslims and the West, Ken Livingstone has said. The London mayor made the remarks at a TUC fringe meeting in which he called for vigilance against a growing threat from the British National Party. He warned that if certain ideas were allowed to grow in a society, such as that a clash of civilisations was inevitable, then groups such as the BNP were able to exploit the situation.
Diary of a British man on hunger strike in Guantánamo
More than 200 detainees are starving themselves to protest against conditions at the camp in Cuba where they are being held without trial. The Independent on Sunday publishes a shocking extract from the journal of Omar Deghayes, a British resident, who has been imprisoned there since September 2002.
How militant Islamists are infiltrating Britain’s top companies
Shiv Malik continues his witch-hunt of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Independent on Sunday, 11 September 2005
Update: For Yusuf Smith’s demolition of Malik, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 12 September 2005
Appease zealots at your peril
A fateful kowtowing to Muslim sensibilities began with the Rushdie affair, writes David Selbourne – author of The Losing Battle with Islam (forthcoming).
Mad Mel discovers ‘The monster in Britain’s midst’
“No fewer than three separate and deeply disturbing stories in today’s newspapers serve to confirm that Britain’s core values are not only now under sustained and entrenched assault from a section of its Muslim minority but that its governing and intellectual class remains unable or unwilling even to grasp the nature and extent of the threat.”
Jihad Watch applauds Peter Tatchell
A UK supporter of Jihad Watch reports on a protest in London against the proposed introduction of Islamic arbitration bodies in Ontario: “there were only about 15-16 people, mostly men, including a reporter from Canadian television”.
Dhimmi Watch, 10 September 2005
Not to worry, though – they took turns to address each other on the iniquities of the Ontario proposal: “representatives from Sharia.com, the International Committee against Stoning, the British Humanist Association, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and Peter Tatchell made speeches. There was also a guy from a gay and lesbian association there. They basically made the same objections to Sharia law that we’ve all seen here at Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch”.
Perhaps Outrage, GALHA and their co-thinkers might consider organising a UK visit for Robert Spencer? After all, they have so much in common.
Not a fanatic after all?
The Sun thinks he’s dangerous and the US won’t let him in, but he is welcome at Oxford and the Home Office wants him as an adviser. Andrew Hussey interviews the Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan.
FCO agrees with Ken, Ken agrees with FCO shock
“On September 4th, I posted on how an Islamic adviser to the Foreign and Colonial Office in a confidential memo had virtually quoted verbatim Ken Livingstone’s specious attempt to defend Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi by attacking the MEMRI translations of his speeches as suspect on the grounds that this organization was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer. Now here’s a thing. Ken Livingstone has a letter in today’s Guardian which recycles this so that he presents the Foreign and Colonial Office as a reliable source which supports his view of MEMRI.”
The cheek of it!
Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak
Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak
By Ken Livingstone
Morning Star, 10 September 2005
Last weekend the Observer reported the leak of a document from a Foreign and Commonwealth Office adviser who had advised ministers not to ban the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi from Britain.
The leaked document contradicted the widespread advice of the majority of the British tabloids, which have waged a campaign against Qaradawi as an extremist.
Qaradawi was most recently wrongly reported to have called for the stoning to death of an Arab prince who was alleged to have been seen in a gay nightclub in London – although it has now emerged that the comments were in fact made by a Saudi named Muhammed Saleh Al-Munajjid.
The leaked document shows that the approach taken by the progressive left – of refusing to accept the “Clash of Civilisations” cold war being waged against Islam – is not only morally the right one, but also the best way to defeat al-Qaeda.
The document sets out that whilst the Foreign Office “certainly do not agree with Qaradawi’s views on Israel and Iraq … we have to recognise that they are not unusual or even exceptional among Muslims.”
It says that Qaradawi “was one of the first international Muslim scholars to issue a clear statement of condemnation” of the July London bombings, and states that “to act against Qaradawi would alienate significant and influential members of the global Muslim community.”
It describes him as “the leading mainstream and influential Islamic authority in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe.”
Most significantly, it argues that “excluding Qaradawi [from Britain] would give grist to al-Qaida propaganda of a western vendetta against Muslims and would undermine Qaradawi’s counter-terrorism messages.”
It adds that “we could not engage with Qaradawi on counter-terrorism or Iraq should there be a decision to exclude him from the UK.”