Londonistan

by Melanie Phillips

  The paper recommended avoiding the term “Islamic fundamentalism” because “some perfectly moderate Muslims are likely to perceive it as a negative comment on their own approach to their faith.”34 But such reasoning exposed a logical flaw: If Muslims were so likely to be pushed towards extremism, then they could hardly be called moderate—at least, not according to any definition that would command widespread understanding in Britain.

  A graphic illustration of the extent of official confusion over what constituted a Muslim moderate was provided by the government’s attitude to Sheikh Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood zealot. The issue was whether or not Qaradawi, who by now had attained some notoriety in Britain as a result of the Livingstone episode, should be allowed back into the country. The Observer newspaper obtained a leaked memo by a Foreign Office adviser, Mockbul Ali, in which he recommended that Qaradawi not be excluded from Britain, presenting him as someone who—while saying some things with which the government would not agree—was nevertheless “the leading mainstream and influential Islamic authority in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe, with an extremely large popular following and regular shows on al Jazeera.”35

  Some might have thought this was all the more reason for the government to exclude him from the country. Ali’s argument, however, was that excluding him would drive more Muslims into the arms of extremists, and would pass up a golden opportunity for such Muslims to hear the words of wisdom of an Islamic authority who disapproved of al-Qaeda. The fact that he also supported human-bomb terrorism in Israel and said it was a duty to fight the coalition in Iraq apparently made the opportunity no less golden. The Foreign Office duly agreed to support Qaradawi’s visa application (although the cleric later canceled his visit).

  If there was any residual doubt about Mockbul Ali’s less than moderate personal agenda, it was surely dispelled by his next comments:A significant number of the accusations against al Qaradawi seemed to have been the result of a dossier compiled by the Board of Deputies, based on information from Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The founding president of MEMRI is retired Colonel Yigal Carmon, who served for 22 years in Israel’s military intelligence service. MEMRI is regularly criticised for selective translation of Arabic reports.36

  In fact, MEMRI’s translations have never been found to be anything other than scrupulously accurate and fair. And to imply that information is suspect simply because it emanates from the Jewish community in Britain or an Israeli who was once in the service of the military intelligence of Israel—a British ally, moreover—betrays a telling prejudice against the Jews, which is startling in a Whitehall official.

  After the London bombings, it appeared for a brief while that this policy of appeasement had been overturned by events. Tony Blair met Muslim representatives and announced that a “task force or network” would be created to tackle extremism “head on.” It would go into communities to actively confront what he called an “evil ideology” based on a perversion of Islam, and “defeat it by the force of reason.”37 And he urged people to speak out in Muslim communities against what he called the “Crusader Zionist Alliance rubbish” on Islamist websites and the claims—also “rubbish”—that the United States sought to suppress Islam.38

  Such a committee network was duly set up. But it turned out to include a number of radical Islamists and anti-Jewish bigots whom the government had seen fit to appoint to this task. One of these was Ahmad Thomson, a barrister and member of the Association of Muslim Lawyers. After his appointment, Thomson claimed that a secret alliance of Jews and Freemasons had shaped world events for hundreds of years and now controlled governments in both Europe and America. He said the prime minister was the latest in a long line of British politicians to come under the control of this “sinister” group, and that the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein were part of a master plan by Jews and Freemasons to control the Middle East. “Pressure was put on Tony Blair before the invasion,” he said. “The way it works is that pressure is put on people to arrive at certain decisions. It is part of the Zionist plan and it is shaping events.”39

  Next, government officials had invited onto the task force Inayat Bunglawala, media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain and the persecutor of Mike Gapes MP. In 2001, before the 9/11 atrocities, Bunglawala distributed an e-mail to hundreds of British Muslims praising Osama bin Laden as a “freedom fighter.” He subsequently said his words were “ill—chosen.”40 In January 1993, Bunglawala had called the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman “courageous” one month before he bombed the World Trade Center in New York.41 In a youth magazine he once edited, Bunglawala wrote that Hamas is “an authentically Islamic movement” and “a source of comfort for Muslims all over the world.” In the same article, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, he supported radical Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia who were later linked to Osama bin Laden, and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria; in other issues, he supported other Islamist terror groups.42

  Bunglawala’s past comments also included the allegation that the British media were “Zionist-controlled.” In 1992, for example, he wrote: “The chairman of Carlton Communications is Michael Green of the Tribe of Judah. He has joined an elite club whose members include fellow Jews Michael Grade [then the chief executive of Channel 4 and now BBC chairman] and Alan Yentob [BBC2 controller and friend of Salman Rushdie]. The three are reported to be ‘close friends’ . . . so that’s what they mean by a ‘free media.’ ” 43 And on another occasion: “The Jews consider themselves to be God’s chosen people—although the blessed prophet Jesus called them the children of the Devil (John 8:44)—and so can do just whatever the hell they like.”44 Citing claims that the Zionist movement was “at the core of international banking and commerce,” he asked: “Nonsense? You be the judge.”45

  Despite this startling record of gross anti-Jewish prejudice and support for terrorism, Bunglawala was a convener of Tony Blair’s task force against extremism.

  The most eye-catching recruit to this task force, however, was Professor Tariq Ramadan. His previous claim to fame was being banned from entering the United States and France because of his alleged links with terrorism—allegations he strenuously denies. A Swiss philosophy teacher, he happens to be the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. While his ancestry should not be held against him, he is widely thought to be close to the Brothers—some even think they appointed him to be their principal representative in Europe—and he has a record of extremist statements and telling evasions.

  Asked by one Italian magazine if the killing of civilians was morally right, he replied: “In Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, there is a situation of oppression, repression and dictatorship. It is legitimate for Muslims to resist fascism that kills the innocent.” Asked if car-bombings were justified against U.S. forces in Iraq, he answered: “Iraq was colonised by the Americans. Resistance against the army is just,” and has described the terrorist attacks on New York, Bali and Madrid as merely “interventions.”46

  Ramadan has blamed Jewish intellectuals for their support of the war in Iraq, and has accused them of placing their allegiance to Israel above their conscience. In his book, The Islam in Question, he wrote that he strongly favored the death of the “Zionist entity”—the term used by Islamists who refuse even to pronounce Israel’s name.47 His message that Islam is the solution to the problems of the West—coincidentally the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood—has proved as slippery as it is intoxicating to young Muslims. Some commentators think that the immensely charismatic Ramadan was highly influential in radicalizing French Muslim youths who rampaged through the banlieues of France during the autumn of 2005.

  The researcher Caroline Fourest, who has made an exhaustive study of Tariq Ramadan’s works, says that he speaks with two voices. To the non-Muslim world, she says, he presents himself as a man of dialogue with no links to the Muslim Brotherhood. But in his cassettes and books, distribut
ed in radical Islamist libraries and shops, he explains and praises the teachings and methods of Hassan al-Banna without any critical analysis. He has extolled Sheikh Qaradawi, openly supported Hamas as a “resistance” movement, and when asked whether he approved of the killing of an eight-year-old Israeli child who would grow up to be a soldier, he replied: “That act in itself is morally condemnable but contextually explicable,” since “the international community has put the Palestinians in the arms of the oppressors.”48 In response to Fourest’s observations, Ramadan claimed on oumma.com, the website of the UOIF (the main French Muslim organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood), that she was “a long-time militant for whom every criticism of Israel is antisemitism” and was an agent of Israel.49 The laughable Israel smear is, of course, an Islamist giveaway.

  Given the composition of the task force committees, it was perhaps not surprising that their first public utterance was to call for Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day to be scrapped because it offended Muslims. Instead they wanted a “Genocide Day” that would recognize, as they put it, the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths.50 The Home Office was quick to knock down the suggestion—the same Home Office that had appointed these extremists to this task force in the first place.

  This was merely a foretaste, however, of what was to come. The task force’s final report reflected the view that the fault for Islamist terrorism lay as much with the government as with the bombers, and that the causes were deprivation, discrimination and Islamophobia. Confronting extremism and radicalization in all its forms was the “responsibility of society as a whole” and the solutions were to be found in “tackling inequality, discrimination, deprivation and inconsistent Government policy, and in particular foreign policy.”51

  The task force wanted more services and opportunities for Muslim youths. It effectively proposed more, not less, Islamic separatism with more Islam in the school curriculum and Islamic education and Arabic lessons for women (which were supposed to empower them). It opposed just about every government antiterrorist proposal. It wanted changes in British foreign policy, which it said was a “key contributory factor” for “criminal radical extremists,” with the implied threat that if foreign policy didn’t change there would be more attacks. It wanted government-funded Muslim propaganda, with an Islamic media unit to “encourage a more balanced representation of Islam and Muslims in the British media, (popular) culture and sports industries,” a steering group to “draw up a strategy on combating Islamophobia through education,” and a touring exhibition promoting the “Islamic way of life.” And it wanted a rapid rebuttal unit for “Islamophobic” sentiments and a prohibition of the term “Islamic extremism” because “the language suggests that the terrorism we are facing today is ‘a Muslim problem’—created by Muslims and to be resolved by Muslims.”52

  What had started as an exercise to get the Muslim community to grapple with the sources of extremism in its midst had been transformed into a demand for Britain to treat that community as a principal victim of British society and to make amends by dancing to its tunes—including dictating how people talked and thought about Islam, and censoring and suppressing anyone who dissented.

  No other minority in Britain had ever presented the state with a shopping list of demands for special treatment, let alone in the context of a continuing terrorist threat to the country emanating from within that same community. Dismayingly, however, the government did not seem to see it that way. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, said he had “no problem” with most of the task force’s recommendations, with the exception of the requirements that British foreign policy be changed and that a public inquiry be held into the July 2005 bombings. He maintained, however, that the committees were being wound up, their recommendations would largely be shelved and their members—of whom he granted that “one or two” had been appointed without enough being known about them—would have no further standing in Whitehall.53 Yet the government had prepared a grid detailing a schedule for implementing the task force’s recommendations. The conveners were meeting the foreign secretary, Jack Straw—despite the assurance that foreign policy would not be changed. And there was no indication that the Islamic road shows or educational materials would not be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. No assurance was given that Sheikh Qaradawi, for example, would not be used on any such speakers’ panels; indeed, all the indications were that he would.

  The government had quite simply handed over policy on extremism to the extremists. This was no accident but a deliberate policy of riding the Islamist tiger. Asked why the government was using radicals in this way, Clarke replied that it was to demonstrate to the Muslim community that democracy entailed engaging with a range of views rather than blowing up one’s opponents.54 Clarke appeared to think that he could use dialogue with the Islamists as a kind of role-play, which would have no effect on government policy but would show that talking was “the British way.”

  This was hopelessly naïve. It took no account of the fact that it raised the profile of such radicals and gave them credibility and thus even more clout within their community. Above all it showed that, like so many others, Clarke did not grasp that religious ideology rather than bombs was the principal weapon in this war. While he accepted that religion could not be divorced from this particular terrorism, he thought that what was driving it was more like “nihilism.” “I don’t believe this is a jihad,” he said, “because that implies an organizing force that is greater than exists.”55

  In fact, the strategy of riding the Islamist tiger appeared to have been even more recklessly developed within the British intelligence world. In another leaked internal government paper, William Ehrman, the top intelligence official at the Foreign Office, revealed that this ministry planned to spread “black” anti-Western propaganda as a way of first gaining the trust of Islamist extremists and then using that trust to argue that violence was not the way forward. Ehrman proposed that spies should infiltrate extremist websites and develop “messages aimed at more radicalized constituencies who are potential recruits to terrorism.” These extremists would not listen to the traditional calls for the Middle East to become a zone of peace and prosperity, said Ehrman. “They might, however, listen to religious arguments about the nature of jihad, that, while anti-Western, eschew terrorism.”56

  A more dangerous and deluded approach could scarcely be imagined than using a lesser form of Islamist extremism to counter the greater. The thinking behind this strategy was alluded to in an unremarked lecture delivered in 2004 by a former head of MI6, Sir Colin McColl. He delicately referred to the British habit of adding a “political ingredient” to the recipe for combating terror, as had been done in Cyprus and Northern Ireland—which appeared to mean giving the terrorists what they wanted. He went on to say that hearts and minds needed to be won back within the Muslim world to staunch the flow of new recruits to terror. To do this, he suggested repeating what he claimed had been done in the fight against communism. This had consisted of providing more attractive ideas than communism for young people, through moves that would “outflank communism on the left” and thus demonstrate “the total phoniness of, for example, the Soviet version of democracy.”57

  The same approach, he said, could be used against al-Qaeda to show young Muslims that continued violence was counterproductive. What was needed, he mused, was the emergence of “a new Islamist leader, both charismatic and positive, an Islamic Pied Piper who will take the young Muslims down a creative and non-violent path to a better world and make Osama bin Laden look like yesterday’s man.”58 He could have been writing the job description for Tariq Ramadan.

  And here was the sting: “Central to such an effort, of course, is a willingness to see published attacks on some of the sacred cows of western policy—the universality of western values, Israeli-tilted policies on nuclear proliferation and Palestine, western farming subsidies and the joys of globalization.” This, he suggeste
d, would show that the fight was against the killers and not Islam, and would demonstrate the futility and destructiveness of violence.59 On the contrary: it would show that violence pays. The “political ingredient” would be the very change in British foreign policy demanded as the price for an end to terror.

  Despite the government’s strenuous protestations that foreign policy would not be thus offered up as a propitiatory sacrifice, others were tripping unconcernedly down precisely this primrose path to appeasement. The Labour MP John Denham, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee—a parliamentary committee concerned with terrorism—said in an interview that the alienation of young British Muslims was the government’s fault for failing to give the “issues and concerns raised within the Muslim community any priority till after the London bombings.”60

  These issues and concerns were Israel/Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya. Startlingly, Denham suggested that foreign policy should now take into account the possible risk to British security:We need to recognise that some foreign policy has now a very direct impact on domestic policy. And we may well need to give [these things] higher priority and more energy, and indeed be prepared to change the emphasis of our foreign policy in order to safeguard our own security. . . . It is no exaggeration to say that Israeli policy in the occupied territories is not simply a matter of foreign policy—it is a matter for British domestic security policy too.61

  So what Israel did, or was perceived to do, to the Palestinian Arabs was the cause of Islamist terrorism against the British. The reasoning behind this remarkable sentiment was that the subjective perception of British Muslims was all that mattered. If they said that Israel was committing ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians or murdering their children, then this was the grievance that had to be addressed in order to avert terrorism against Britain. The fact that such perceptions might be untrue, misguided or malevolent did not seem to enter Denham’s head. “Terrorism,” he said, “is rarely defeated until serious efforts are made to engage with the political and social problems that give rise to it in the first place” and “if a substantial section of the population believes that it is in any case subject to arbitrary injustice —at home or abroad—then it is much more difficult to win consent.”62 But what if this “substantial section of the population” believes—as it does—that the very existence of Israel is an injustice? Or—as it does —that Israel’s attempts to protect its citizens from mass murder are an injustice? Or—as it does—that the Jews control America and thus the West? Or—as it does—that the West wants to take over and destroy the Islamic world? The real problem that surely has to be engaged with if terrorism is to be defeated is that all these perceptions are simply wrong. The alternative, as defined by Denham, is not just surrender to violence but the endorsement of injustice, oppression and lies.