British National Party Anti-Jihad News Bulletin w/c January 29, 2007
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1. BOMB SUSPECTS HAD FURTHER PLANS

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/UK-bomb-plot-suspects-had-wider-plans/2007/01/24/1169518742418.html

Seven Britons accused of plotting to bomb clubs, trains and synagogues in England planned to take their fight to Pakistan and Afghanistan if they had succeeded, prosecutors told a court. 'The overall desire was to further the (cause) of jihad (Holy War) wherever and however it could be achieved,' prosecution lawyer David Waters said in what police have described as Britain's biggest terrorism trial since September 11 attacks on the United States. British forces are fighting the militant Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan. The seven are accused of conspiring to bomb high profile targets, possibly including London's Ministry of Sound nightclub and the huge Bluewater shopping centre in Kent using bombs made from fertiliser. The defendants - Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam, his brother Shujah Mahmood, Waheed Mahmood, Nabeel Hussain, and Salahuddin Amin - deny conspiring to cause an explosion 'likely to endanger life'. Garcia, Khyam and Hussain deny possessing an article for terrorism - the fertiliser. Khyam and Mahmood deny having aluminium powder, an ingredient in explosives.

Britain suffered its worst peacetime attack on July 7, 2005, when four British Islamists blew themselves up on three London underground trains and a bus, killing 52 people and wounding more than 700. Authorities say another such attack is wholly possible. The prosecution said the trial was not a witch-hunt against the defendants' religious beliefs. 'Of course it would be ludicrous to approach the allegations in a vacuum and pretend the backdrop or religious or political motivations does not exist,' Waters said. 'But having acknowledged that it is only a backdrop, what we are concerned about are allegations of crime.'

2. CHANNEL FOUR EXPOSE OF TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26543

For last week’s ‘Dispatches’ program on Britain’s Channel Four, a reporter with a hidden camera entered Birmingham’s Green Lane mosque (which has won praise from Britain’s Muslim peer, Lord Ahmed) and other leading mosques in Britain. He found they preached Islamic supremacism, hatred of Jews and Christians, and the subjugation of women. The mosques, of course, are in heavy damage-control mode. A press release at the Green Lane mosque website complains that ‘it is extremely disappointing but not at all surprising that ‘Dispatches’ has chosen to portray Muslims in the worst possible light. ‘Dispatches’ has opted for sensationalism over substance with total disregard for peaceful community relations.’ And not only that: ‘This so-called ‘undercover’ investigation merely panders to age-old anti-Muslim prejudices by employing the time-honoured tradition of cherry picking statements and presenting them in the most inflammatory manner.’ The statement doesn’t address the obvious fact that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to cherry-pick statements anywhere near as hateful and inflammatory as those recorded in the Green Lane mosque from proceedings in any Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist house of worship. Among the statements recorded in the Green Lane mosque were these about women: ‘Allah has created the woman – even if she gets a Ph.D. – deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient.

She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of the man.’ ‘By the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab, and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her.’ ‘Men are in charge of women. Wherever he goes she should follow him, and she shouldn’t be allowed leave the house without his permission.’ How inflammatory! How extremist! And how inveterately Qur’anic! The Muslim holy book declares that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: ‘Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her’ (Qur’an 2:282). It also says that men are in charge of women, and that disobedient women should be beaten: ‘Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them’ (4:34). The same is true of other statements made in the mosque, including these about Britain and the Islamic state: ‘You have to live like a state within a state until you take over.’ ‘We want the laws of Islam to be practiced, we want to do away with the man-made laws.’

‘Muslims shouldn’t be satisfied with living in other than the total Islamic state.’ ‘I encourage all of you to be from amongst them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength, and when that happens, people won’t get killed – unjustly.’ ‘Allah has decreed this thing, that I am going to be dominant. The dominance of course is a political dominance.’ Such statements have been vividly expressed in the writings of twentieth century jihad theorists such as the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and the Pakistani Syed Abul Ala Maududi. Said Qutb: It is not the function of Islam to compromise with the concepts of Jahiliyya [the society of unbelievers] which are current in the world or to co-exist in the same land together with a jahili system….Islam cannot accept any mixing with Jahiliyyah. Either Islam will remain, or Jahiliyyah; no half-half situation is possible. Command belongs to Allah, or otherwise to Jahiliyyah; Allah’s Shari’a [law] will prevail, or else people’s desires…The foremost duty of Islam is to depose Jahiliyyah from the leadership of man…. Maududi likewise wrote that non-Muslims have ‘absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth, nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines.’ If they do, ‘the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.’ But Qutb and Maududi did not originate these ideas.

They are an extrapolation of Qur’anic passages such as 9:29, which assumes that Muslims will wield state power over Jews and Christians, exacting from them a poll tax (jizya) and making sure that they pay it ‘with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.’ There is no concept in the Qur’an, Islamic tradition, or Islamic law of non-Muslims living as equals with Muslims in an Islamic state: Muslims must be in a superior position. The Muslim prophet Muhammad emphasized this when he told his followers: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294) Of course, there are many ways to understand all these passages and others like them.

But the fact that the views expressed by the Muslims in the Channel Four documentary can be found in the Islamic scriptures without much effort suggests that the problem is far larger than a few mosques that were thought to be ‘moderate’ but turn out to be ‘extremist.’ It is a problem that is deeply rooted within traditional Islam, and must be treated as such. Muslims in Britain who sincerely reject the idea that Islam must be dominant and that Islamic law must be instituted in Britain, and that women and non-Muslims must be subjugated, and who accept the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together as equals on an indefinite basis, should not condemn the ‘Dispatches’ documentary. Instead, they should welcome it as a opportunity not only to expel ‘extremists’ from their ranks, and to formulate a comprehensive rejection and refutation of their literalist understanding of the Qur’an and Sunnah. But so far they are not doing that. Instead, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, and the UK Islamic Mission have all denounced the program as ‘Islamophobic.’ None have taken even a single step to combat the spread of the understanding of Islam depicted in the show, or to mitigate the elements of Islam that incite to violence and inculcate Islamic supremacism. And that itself is very, very telling.

3. MUSLIM YOUTH REJECTING UK

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007040620,00.html

MORE than 100,000 young UK Muslims hold extremist or anti-British beliefs, a shock report suggests today. Tens of thousands think Muslims who switch religions should be punished by death. More than a third want Taliban-style Sharia law, which regards women rape victims as guilty and says adulterers should be killed by stoning. And more than one in ten of the 16 to 24-year-olds polled ‘admire’ Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and other terror groups. The survey was carried out last month for centre-right think tank Policy Exchange. Census figures show there are about 320,000 British Muslims in the age group polled — suggesting 100,000 are rejecting British values and culture. The poll found three-quarters think women should cover their whole face with a veil. Four out of ten plan to send their kids to Islamic-only schools. The Policy Exchange report says: ‘There is a growing religiosity amongst the younger generation of Muslims. ‘They feel they have less in common with non-Muslims and show a stronger preference for Islamic schools and Sharia law.’ Security chiefs have warned ministers that Britain is almost certainly facing another terror strike by home-grown fanatics. The poll reveals only six per cent of youngsters believe the Muslim Council of Britain represents their views. That is a huge blow to Tony Blair who believes the body can play an important part in improving community relations.

4. THIRD OF YOUNG MUSLIMS IN UK WANT SHARIA LAW

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1153136.0.0.php

A growing minority of young Muslims are inspired by political Islam and feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents do, a survey reveals today. The poll found support for Sharia law, Islamic schools and wearing the veil in public is stronger among young Muslims than their parents. While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16 to 24-year-olds, the survey of more than 1000 Muslims in the UK over the phone and internet for independent think-tank Policy Exchange found. The percentage who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over 55-year-olds to 37% of those aged 16 to 24. The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16 to 24-year-olds. One of Scotland's leading Muslims said he was not surprised by the survey results.

Bashir Maan, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said: 'The selfish and hypocritical policies practised by George W Bush and Tony Blair in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East, and controversies such as Jack Straw's attitude to Muslim women wearing veils and raids on the homes of Muslims, particularly in England, has led to the radicalisation of some members of the Muslim community. The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity. Munira Mirza 'It is worrying that such policies are giving fuel to those who would promote radicalism. We don't want any young people to be radicalised.

We want them to grow up as good Muslims and good citizens of the society they are living in.' Munira Mirza, the lead author of the report, said the results suggested government policy was to blame for sharpening divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

She said: 'The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines.' According to the poll, 74% of 16 to 24-year-olds prefer Muslim women to choose to wear the hijab compared with only 28% of over 55s. While 7% of all those surveyed 'admire organisations like al Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West', the figure increased from 3% of over 55s to 13% among 16 to 24-year-olds. Ms Mirza said: 'There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not.' She continued: 'Religiosity among younger Muslims is not about following their parents' cultural traditions, but rather, their interest in religion is more politicised. 'Islamist groups have gained influence at local and national level by playing the politics of identity and demanding for Muslims the right to be different'.' The report also found that authorities and some Muslim groups had exaggerated the problem of Islamophobia, which had fuelled a sense of victimhood among Muslims. Despite widespread concerns about Islamophobia, 84% of Muslims believed they had been treated fairly in British society. Just over a quarter (28%) believed authorities in Britain had gone 'over the top' in trying not to offend Muslims.

The poll found 75% believed it was wrong for High Wycombe local council to ban an advertisement for a Christmas carol service in 2003, and 64% said Dudley Council in the West Midlands was wrong to have banned all images of pigs from its offices in 2005 for fear of offending Muslims.

5. MELANIE PHILLIPS ON LONDONISTAN

http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/
function/view/categoryid/147/documentid/3662/history/3,2359,2166,147,3662

That the UK had become, by 2000, the European center for the promotion, recruitment and financing of Islamic terror and extremism is not disputed. The debate over how this came to be is ongoing. A bold attempt to answer the question was made this past summer with the release of the groundbreaking book Londonistan by Melanie Phillips, an award-winning journalist at the UK’s Daily Mail. On January 16, Phillips spoke to an audience of more than 250 at a JINSA event in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield. Londonistan author Melanie Phillips at JINSA event in Michigan.Phillips said she wrote Londonistan to rouse Britain out of what she argued was a palpable state of denial over the jihadist ‘war’ being waged against it. The story began in 1979 with the Islamic revolution in Iran. It was then that leading elements within radical Muslim circles began to believe that restoration of the Islamic caliphate was indeed within their grasp and set about achieving this goal. Phillips informed her audience that it took less than two decades for Britain’s transformation into the ‘European center for the promotion, recruitment and financing of Islamic terror and extremism.’ Britain secured this dubious distinction via a perfect storm of two seemingly disparate developments: a severe relaxation of immigration standards in the 1980s and 1990s during which the UK received a large influx of radical Islamists and immigrants susceptible to the message of radical Islam and a widespread repudiation of the supremacy of British cultural and social norms.

This systematic undermining of the values, laws and traditions that defined what it meant to be British began in the 1980s and Islamist elements moved eagerly and rapidly into the resulting social and cultural vacuum. Phillips cited some alarming facts to illustrate the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the UK: * London is home to al-Qaeda’s European headquarters. * Sixty percent of British Muslims would like sharia law to be established in Great Britain. * Numerous individuals residing in the UK would face arrest in their birth countries on charges of being a threat to the state. * The UK’s domestic security services are currently tracking 1,600 individual terrorists who have already expressed a willingness to die for their cause. * The UK’s domestic security services discovered more than 30 plots to attack in Britain using dirty bombs or other radiological devices. * The UK’s domestic security services currently monitor 200 organizations in Britain that have been deemed terrorist threats to British citizens. Despite these facts, many Britons have convinced themselves that terrorist attacks in the UK are a reaction to anti-Muslim bias, Phillips contended. The terrorist elements in Britain are explained as disaffected youths driven to violence by racism and poverty. Such assertions are ludicrous, Phillips declared. The London subway bombers were young, British-born men well integrated into their surrounding communities.

Their economic status ranged from solidly middle class to wealthy. The reason such Islamic extremists engage in acts of terrorism is quite simply that ‘terror works,’ Phillips believes. This was, in fact, the reason offered by Dhiran Barot, a British citizen, upon his 2004 arrest in England for plotting with at least two other British citizens to attack financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, DC. The state of denial evident in Britain extends to Western Europe, the United States and Israel. ‘Defeatism, appeasement and cultural collapse are at the root of the problem,’ Phillips observed. Traditional British values have been hollowed out and in their places fundamentalist Islam took up residence. As a result, multiculturalism is seen as more legitimate than national identity and supranational organizations like the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights are seen as more legitimate than British governing bodies. So, Phillips said, terror victims blame themselves and/or try to explain away terrorist behavior as aberrant, random acts perpetrated by ‘copy cats’ emulating what they see going on in other parts of the world. A ‘1930s-style appeasement’ is the result where logic is turned on its head as the British public desperately latches onto specious explanations for these horrific events. Phillips said that many in the UK contend that once the Israel-Palestinian impasse is settled, Islamist terror will cease to exist. She described how the entirety of Britain’s non-Muslim population is divided and that even among those who acknowledge the threat posed by jihadist Islam, most prefer to stay silent. Even in ‘Middle Britain,’ the equivalent of the American ‘red states,’ isolationism is seen as the most effective response to jihadi terror.

Not all Muslims are involved in terrorism, Phillips took great pains to emphasize. She pointed out that many of the most troublesome Muslim immigrants to the UK were in fact expelled from their countries of origin including Saudi Arabia because of their radicalism. Phillips pointed out that the more moderate countries with Muslim majorities understand the dangers posed by jihadist elements in their population better than Britons. They recognize, for example, women who wear the veil are making a political statement that they are separate from society. While many in Great Britain wring their hands over whether or not to ban veils in certain circumstances, Tunisia and Turkey have already done so, she noted. Phillips did find cause for hope, however.

The West, including Great Britain, is waking up slowly to the threat, she believes. The watershed moment was not the infamous July 7, 2005 bombings but the foiled transatlantic plot to blow up 12 airliners en route to the United States from Britain in August 2006. Britons could no longer ignore the fact that this plan was far too sophisticated to have been hatched by disaffected youths enraged by their lot in life. The plot forced the public to confront the reality that homegrown terror attacks were not random acts of violence, but rather a war against the country. Phillips related that days after the foiled airliner plot, 38 ‘moderate’ Muslim groups in the UK demanded that the government alter its foreign policy immediately as Britain’s Iraq and Israel policies were encouraging terrorist attacks. The British public responded to the veiled threat with deserved outrage. Phillips, who was moved to cautious optimism by this ‘slow change toward sanity’ on the part of her country, closed her address by recounting a December 2006 statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair: ‘No distinctive culture or religion supersedes our duty to be part of an integrated United Kingdom.’

6. REPORT ON CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS CONFERENCE IN LONDON

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=7627

Daniel Pipes, columnist, scholar of Middle Eastern history, counter-terrorism expert, founder of both the Middle East Forum (publishing the Middle East Quarterly) and Campus Watch, an author of 14 books, is well known in the US and the blogosphere, where he maintains his own weblog. Though not against Muslims, Pipes has been critical of radical Islam and its incompatibility with democratic values. On April 4, 2006, Dr Pipes was invited by Ken Livingstone, left-wing mayor of London, to attend a conference on the subject of the 'Clash of Civilizations'. Popularized by Samuel Huntington in 1993 and again in a book of the same name in 1996, the notion of a clash of civilizations has become a popular means of explaining and perceiving the modern world, particularly after 9/11.

The office of the Mayor of London advertised the conference, which was to be held on January 20, 2007. The event was to last from 10 am to 8 pm, with a host of speakers at various seminars. The event went ahead, with all tickets sold, and most of the planned speakers showed up. Livingstone's debate with Dr Pipes was billed as the 'main debate'. Pipes had Douglas Murray of the Social Affairs Unit as is co-speaker, and Livingstone had Salma Yaqoob as his partner. This debate was chaired by Gavin Esler, a host of BBC's Newsnight current affairs show. Despite the advance publicity, the conference was not given one column inch of coverage in any of Britain's mainstream press outlets. The BBC has nothing on its website, and nothing was mentioned on national TV news.

The only sources of information on how the debate progressed comes from weblogs. The Muslim Council of Britain fielded their press spokesman Inayat Bunglawala to Seminar E (Enlightenment values and modern society) and their secretary general Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari to Seminar A (Is Britain becoming more segregated?), yet MCB could only place a brief mention of the event on their website. Martin Bright, political editor of the New Statesman, took part in Seminar G (Is there an Islamic threat?), but nothing is mentioned on the NS website or on his weblog.

The Mayor of London's office made no mention of the conference after it had wound up, not even to blandly conclude that 'a good time was had by all' or to thank those who participated. The only sources available - mostly blogs - conclude that in the main debate between Pipes and Livingstone, entitled 'A World Civilization or a Clash of Civilizations', Dr Pipes was the victor. Even a site with a left-wing bias, such as Harry's Place and Pickled Politics appeared favorable to Daniel Pipes' skills in presentation. The latter blog described Livingstone's argument as 'a rambly sort of speech without structure'. The same account described Pipes's performance thus: '...despite my distaste for his politics, was much more structured, well thought-out and argued.....his central point was this - there isn't a Clash of Civilisations as much as a Clash of Civilisations v Barbarism.' The conference is reported upon by Oliver Kamm of the Times who took part in Seminar E (Enlightenment Values and modern society) and Seminar K (Democratic Solutions in the Middle East).

Though Kamm makes wry observations of the two seminars in which he participated, and also the participants, such as Inayat Bunglawala and Linda Bellos, he does not deal with the Pipes and Murray v Livingstone and Yaqoob debate. Daniel Pipes writes of the event having taken place, but perhaps through personal modesty he does not give away details of the progression of arguments. Instead, he defers to other blogsites where witnesses have submitted their own accounts. Sharon Chadha discussed the main debate of the conference and noted that Livingstone, who opened the debate, bemoaned the Cold War, describing it as a 'sinister plot designed by a small group of Americans who were intent on world domination.' She wrote: 'If Mayor Livingstone seemed intent on promoting London, and Britain in general as a multicultural success story, Dr. Pipes countered that because so many Britons have participated in terror plots around the world, citing some 15 instances, the reality was the opposite: One could even make the case that because of this history, Britain should be added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.' As described by 'Gandalf' at Up Pompeii, Pipes had compared the tensions between Islam and the West to a war. In the case of Vietnam, the war had been abandoned by Americans, not 'lost'. Gandalf states: 'Dr Pipes went on to say how the UK was now the biggest terror threat to the US because of Muslims in the UK he cited Richard Reid and the UK connections in the 9/11 atrocity, this brought a standing ovation from the supporters of Dr Pipes because they recognised the damage that was being done to UK-US relations because of the presence of these people in the UK.' 'Maybe I have taken a rather simplistic view and in interpretation of what Dr Pipes said, I do not think for one minute that Dr Pipes is suggesting that we all sit back and wait for Islam to give up, Islam has to be made to give up and that, in my opinion is the message that Dr Pipes was giving.' David Pryce-Jones in the National Review states: 'Carefully he (Dr Pipes) distinguished the religion of Islam from Islamism, a totalitarian ideology with which there could be no compromise. He was looking for victory over it. He and his seconder, Douglas Murray, a brilliant young British intellectual, made the point that moderate Muslims had to be supported against extremist Islamists.

And suddenly their arguments began to shift the audience away from Livingstone, and to attract a lot of applause. The war on terror has a long way still to go, but victorious battles like this one in a debating hall may mean fewer, or even no, future battles in the field or on the streets.' Livingstone's argument is the most hard to decipher. Jonathan Hoffman on Adloyada writes of the fact that Ken Livingstone admitted to meeting with leaders of the IRA when he was head of the Greater London Council, and spoke of his meeting with the Islamist Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the 'spiritual leader' of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hoffman writes: 'He does not agree with the Caliphate but is prepared to speak to Qaradawi because he represents 'the future of Islam'. Here he quoted Max Hastings who apparently said that there was no point in studying any culture except that of Europe . The Chief Rabbi had spoken about a 'tsunami of anti-Semitism in Europe' but here in London it had declined. Ken's peroration followed. The US had been able to vanquish Communism because of its superior economic power. But now the US was increasingly having to share economic power with China and increasingly India . He linked this back to multiculturalism and the need to appreciate all cultures.' Whether or not Qaradawi represents the 'future of Islam', he certainly represents a mentality present in contemporary Islam.

His support for the murder of civilians in Israel seems to be a view held within many strands of the Muslim international community. Livingstone invited Qaradawi to London in 2004. He has even compared the Islamist leader to Pope John XXIII, who introduced the reforms of Vatican II, describing Qaradawi as 'An absolutely sane Islamist'. Livingstone said in 2005: 'Of all the Muslim leaders in the world today, Sheikh Qaradawi is the most powerfully progressive force for change and for engaging Islam with western values. I think his is very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII.' In the debate, Douglas Murray took Livingstone to task for his support of Qaradawi, stating that the Islamist sheikh was not the sort of Muslim the West should be cultivating. Murray, aged only 27, received several ovations during his speech, which was said to be delivered with force. Livingstone's choice of partner on the rostrum, Salma Yaqoob, was hardly likely to raise the level of intellectual debate. Yaqoob is a member of Birmingham City Council, and belongs to the 'Respect' party, whose most famous (infamous?) representative is George Galloway, the apologist for Saddam Hussain. Her inability to construct an argument, even in writing, can be evidenced here. Most comments on the debate note that Yaqoob, who supports the introduction of Sharia law, excused the attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 by claiming they were provoked by American (and British) actions in the Muslim world.

She said of this: 'Do you expect us not to fight back?' Gandalf stated that she compared the Coalition forces to Crusaders and claimed the US only invaded Iraq in the pursuit of oil. As Gandalf writes: 'Dr Pipes corrected her on this point and she did not reply to his statement. This ladies (sic) attitude was venomous and hateful and I am certain that I was not the only one that picked up on that.' Salma Chadha notes that: 'If Mayor Livingstone did not elect to call his invited guest Dr. Pipes a racist or an Islamophobe himself, his debate partner, Councillor Salma Yaqoob of Birmingham, had no trouble doing so, even if this meant distorting the American scholar's remarks and extensive written record. For example, Councillor Yaqoob identified Dr. Pipes as a presidential advisor and proponent of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, assertions that as Dr. Pipes pointed out, have no basis in fact.' Ms Chadha described Yaqoob's demeanor as 'shrill, demagogic'. Hoffman states: 'Predictably she attacked Pipes for evading 'the history of Western colonialism in the Middle East' and 'the attempt of the US neocons to remold the Middle East in their own image'.' Ami, writing on Harry's Place notes that in the 'question and answer' session, Ken Livingstone 'got the biggest groan of the day, when he answered a question about supporting moderate Muslims by saying he supported the progressive Qaradawi, the strongest force for modernisation in Islam today. He said: I don't agree with him on homosexuality, but he is the future! Up till then, his main address had been very judicious and politic: you could agree with parts, disagree with much, but still entertain his arguments. Now he descended into the loony Ken persisting in defending the indefensible.

This elicited forceful responses from Pipes and others about what Qaradawi stands for.' During questions, Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB, not known for judicious comments, 'challenged Pipes for opposing Islamicism even if it used lawful means of non violent Islamification. What kind of democracy was that, he yelled.' To which Pipes responded that 'A totalitarian movement uses different means to reach power, vide Hitler. Hitler achieved office through the ballot box, not that he got the support of the majority of the electorate.' Beila Rabinowitz and William A. Mayer at Pipeline News state: 'In stark contrast to Pipes and Murray, the London Mayor's speech was standard leftist boilerplate, alleging the Cold War was part and parcel of the United States' hegemonistic designs for dominion over all and in what must have represented a Stalinist flashback moment for many in the audience, actually blaming America for victimizing the Soviet Union. He then expanded his comments into a general attack on Western values, though he was careful to delimit his espoused multiculturalism, cutting short of endorsing the practice of cannibalism.' At the end of the debate, Ms Chadha states: 'Gavin Esler, the BBC newsman who chaired the panel, ended the debate by quipping that he hoped press coverage of the event would go beyond the obvious headline that Mayor Livingstone had finally taken a stand against cannibalism.' The press coverage was non-existent. An event which, during an entire day, had brought together representatives from the British media and well-known Muslims, such as Tariq Ramadan (speaker at Seminar G - Is there an Islamic threat?) should surely have merited some comment, even if only a cursory mention.

An estimated 5,000 people were in attendance, including 150 representatives from the media, but the press, including the Muslim press, ignored the event. According to the blogsite Solomonia: 'Pipes was magnificent at the Conference. Daniel went into the lion's den and not only did he survive, he pulverised the lion.' The timing of the opening debate, the morning of a Saturday, has been noted by commenters, and also some of those attending the event at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center, seemed designed to exclude Jewish people from attending the Livingstone/Pipes clash. Perhaps the last word should be reserved for Daniel Pipes himself: 'Despite the many journalists and video cameras, and despite the GLA having recorded and simultaneously transcribed the event, and despite two and a half days having passed since it took place, there has been 'quite to my surprise' not a single media account of the debate, nor a video made available, nor a transcript..... it would seem that the mayor's supporters took a pass on reporting the event.' The claim by Dr. Pipes that the UK is now the biggest terror threat to the US because of (radical) Muslims in the UK is perhaps the most significant and far-reaching observation from the debate. Britain refuses to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, and has allowed the activists of the now-disbanded group Al-Muhajiroun to continue openly campaigning against democracy and promoting terror.

These individuals are the wet-nurses of terrorism. Pipes cited Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, who was indoctrinated by Al-Muhajiroun. As culpable as the Islamist radicals who thrive in Britain are the government officials and civil servants from MI6 and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. These are actively engaged in a policy of 'Engaging With the Islamic World'. The FCO's 'Engaging with the Islamic World Group (EIWG)' was founded in 2003, while Al-Muhajiroun was still active. With an annual budget of $15.8 million, this group, headed by 26-year old Mockbul Ali, a former student radical, actively promotes dialogue with radicals such as Qaradawi. Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, the godfather of Hizb ut-Tahrir's British chapter, and spiritual ideologue of Al-Muhajiroun, was allowed openly to preach radicalism and hate for 20 years in Britain. Not once was he taken to court. Radical Islamists thrive in Britain, and are threatening the British/American 'special relationship'. But they do this solely because the UK authorities allow them to.