Let's look at the facts                                August 19, 2006

 By Maurice Ostroff

The widely reported open letter by British Muslim groups to PM Tony Blair and the debates on TV implying that British foreign policy is responsible for the current  threats to blow up ten airliners in mid-flight, calls for rational examination.

The history of Muslim political violence reveals that it is completely unrelated to British policy. Rather it springs from incitement to Jihad by the likes of Sheikh Abu Hamza of the Finsbury Park mosque, who told London Mirror reporters on August 26, 2002, that he advised supporters that murder and bank robbery are legitimate weapons against enemies of Islam and that the infidel should be kept on the run. With this kind of indoctrination, it is not surprising that Muslim protestors in London later carried placards reading,  "Butcher those who mock Islam" and "Massacre those who insult Islam" and more as depicted above.

Far away from the Blair/Bush scene, the recent bombings in Egyptian Sinai are part of the same terror movement, with links to earlier events dating back to long before Tony Blair became prime minister.  In an article in Egyptian daily Al-Ahram (03/05/2005) Ahmad Naji Kamha wrote that in Egypt whenever things moved toward real reforms, the state was taken by surprise by political acts of violence, beginning with the assassination of the late President Sadat. Referring to current events he wrote; "The Lie Behind the Inciting Claims that the U.S. is the Great Satan Must Be Exposed"

 The incitement to violence even connects London to Russia.  On October 3, 2004, The Observer revealed that Kamel Rabat Bouralha attended the Finsbury Park mosque with Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia, both loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev who boasted of training the men who took control of the school in Beslan and wired it with explosives.  Nothing to do with the policies of either Blair or Bush.

Most starkly, the ongoing genocide carried out by Muslims in the Sudan bears absolutely no relevance to Britain’s foreign policy and Israel.  At a symposium on Darfur in 2004, Thomas Haidon, a convert to Islam and former advisor to the UN High Commission for Refugees said  “Clearly, the acts being committed against Black Darfurians are primarily based upon classical "jihad" and anti-African racism. . Protecting the Darfurians from slaughter, to Arab states is far less important than preventing a UN resolution on anti-Semitism from being passed, or condemning Israel for protecting its population. The Arab world's infatuation and obsession with Israel and the United States, along with traditional Islamic beliefs on non-Muslim minorities have prevented real action to stop the atrocities. .. The problems don't stem merely from misinterpretation in the Quran and Sunnah but from the sources themselves. It is my personal belief that the violent and unsavoury elements in Islam must be highlighted by Muslims, admitted and repudiated.” http://letters.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15026 
 

At the same symposium, Mid-East expert Jon Lewis said “Sudan perhaps has the worst human rights record on the planet, yet Sudanese embassies around the world are rarely protested.  Darfur is but one example of Arab racism toward non-Arabs within the broader ‘Arab world’. . .  The Darfur genocide, I believe, must be viewed not solely as a case of an Islamic jihad, but also as a case of Arab racism… this, of course, begs the question of why such an event has merited far less attention by human rights activists, peace activists, and NGOs than has the American effort to liberate Iraq. . . I think it is important to remember that, when the Arab League introduces resolutions against Israel in the United Nations, that they aren't simply concerned with condemning Israel.  They are using Israel as a means to distract world media attention - particularly in Western Europe - from the severe human rights abuses within Arab League member states.” 

It is surprising how short the public's memory can be. The 2003 war on Iraq was a consequence of the 9/11 attack in 2001, not vice-versa, as some would have us believe. More importantly, connecting the dots backwards leads to the terrorist attack on the WTC as far back as 1993. No possible connection to the policies of either Blair or Bush.

With hindsight it is now obvious that this should have been a wakeup call. The culprits were a small group of Middle Eastern men. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, stated that he intended his bomb to cause the Twin Towers to fall, and he further admitted a failed plot to kill 4,000 people in the Philippines by blowing up 12 U.S.-bound airliners.

British Conservative party official, Ali Miraj, has been quoted as disagreeing with the above timeline, claiming that Palestine has been an underlying "fuel" for 50 to 60 years. But Mr. Miraj would have difficulty in explaining why the same pattern of Muslim violence extends to places where British policy and Palestine are of no concern whatsoever. Witness the riots sparked by the fake Danish newspaper cartoons, which struck fear into media world wide, producing a noticeable reluctance to criticize Muslims for reasons of safety that continues to this day.

 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2017195,00.html

In Britain, both the Spectator and The Liberal magazine withdrew offending cartoons from their websites due to fear of reprisals. The Liberal's editor stated: "Despite our wishes and convictions, for reasons of safety the magazine will no longer carry the cartoon itself." In the USA, "The Phoenix", a Boston newspaper admitted its reason for not publishing the cartoons was fear of being terrorized, adding  "..this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history".

It is not the perpetrators who should be condemned as much as the cynical plotters who send them off on their missions with promises of heavenly rewards. Behind each terror attack is an elaborate infrastructure that must be tackled, starting with the incitement propagated under the very noses of host cities in Britain, Europe and the U.S., as well as in madrassas in the East. 

It is incredibly difficult to understand why our instinct for self preservation does not prevent us from being side-tracked about British foreign policy instead of connecting the visible dots warning of continued threats to our way of life, not from Islam, but from Islamic fundamentalism.

Let's be practical for a moment. If the British government were to break off relations with Israel to appease the British Muslim extremist population, the chances are that radical Muslim support of violence will not diminish by one iota. Rather it would be treated as victory and encouragement to more vigorously pursue the objective taught by Abu Hamza of transforming Britain into a Sharia state with all its implications. In Sharia law alcohol is forbidden and crimes are punished by stoning, lashes or the severing of a hand.  Not long ago, the Guardian reported that an Islamic court in Nigeria sentenced a woman, accused of adultery, to death by stoning.

Most importantly the civilized world must seek out and support the many Islamic religious leaders who are uncomfortable with the distortion of their religion and assist them to boldly protect true Islam from the extremists who distort it, so that the unpleasant phenomenon of "profiling" will become unnecessary.