Israeli Diplomatic Offensive a No-Brainer

In late March, according to the AP, “Britain took the extraordinary step Tuesday of expelling an Israeli diplomat for the first time in more than 20 years, after concluding there was compelling evidence that Israel was responsible for the use of forged British passports in the plot to slay a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.” Ironically, the man behind the move, UK Foreign Minister David Milliband, justified the move by saying that the high-quality fakes were “almost certainly made by a state intelligence service.” After taking such strong action, he also “insisted Britain has drawn no conclusions over who is responsible for the killing. Is there any question that Britain’s move was political and nothing else? Read more

UK anti-Semitic attacks rise after Gaza conflict

LONDON (AP) – The number of anti-Semitic attacks on British Jews rose sharply after the start of the conflict in Gaza, a Jewish charity said Friday.
The London-based Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism and works to safeguard the Jewish community in Britain, said 250 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in the four weeks after Dec. 27, when Israel launched attacks on Gaza to stop Hamas rocket attacks.

That compares to 40 incidents from the same period the year before.

Dave Rich, a spokesman for the trust, said Jews in Britain are unfairly seen as local representatives of Israel—a view that fuels some of the anti-Semitic attacks.

“This is racism,” he said. “And like all forms of racism, it is unacceptable.”

The trust said crimes included assaults, damage to Jewish property, threats, hate mail, verbal abuse and anti-Semitic graffiti.

Police figures echo this rise. London police have recorded about three times the number of anti-Semitic incidents from Dec. 27 to Feb. 3 as compared to the same period last year. Though some of that increase came from a change in the way the statistics were kept, the data still reflected a surge in incidents in the capital.

Around Europe, several attacks were reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Belgium in the weeks after the Israeli offensive, Rich said.

The figures were released before an international conference Monday in London on tackling anti-Semitism.

Israel’s three-week offensive left nearly 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza dead, according to Gaza officials. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians.

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British Muslim tells court he fabricated Islamist past

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) – A British-born Pakistani man who said he had links to al Qaeda and had sent young men for terrorism training in Pakistan has told a court that he was lying about his past.

Hassan Butt, 28, told Manchester Crown Court he had fed stories to the media and that his portrayal of himself as a terrorist planner who later renounced violence in order to fight Islamist extremism was a fabrication.

He made the confession in December during the trial of a former friend, Habib Ahmed, who was subsequently convicted of belonging to al Qaeda. Restrictions on the reporting of the case have only now been lifted following the conclusion of another trial involving Butt’s wife.

“At no point have I ever been training, have I ever been a jihadi,” Butt told the court, according to a transcript of the proceedings.

Questioning Butt about his past, prosecutor Andrew Edis asked: “So, you were a professional liar then?”

Butt replied: “I would make money, yes.” He had, he said, told stories that “the media wanted to hear”.

The confession will come as a surprise to many as Butt was for years regarded as a leading Islamist who had subsequently turned himself into a proponent for “de-radicalising” young men in order to combat extremism.

He has been widely profiled in newspapers, magazines and in television documentaries, and even met members of the government to discuss his plans for combating radicalism.

In a Reuters interview in April last year, Butt said he had spent a decade inside Islamist factions, during which time he said he had sent recruits to Pakistan. He said he began questioning his beliefs after the July 2005 attacks by suicide bombers on London in which 52 people were killed.

“I financed terrorism, I recruited people to go to terrorist training camps, I myself have been to terrorist training camps,” he said in the interview. “I was involved in the whole world of radical Islam from the age of 16 onwards.”

Reuters does not pay for interviews.

Butt has been arrested five times by counter-terrorism officers, but was released each time without charge.

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Don’t attack us please, UK ads to say on Pak TV

London The British government will air ads on Pakistani television urging terrorists to not attack Britain.
Prominent British Muslims will star in the British Foreign Office-funded £400,000 (approximately Rs 2.9 crore)-campaign that is set to break on Pakistani television next Monday, ‘The Guardian’ reported on Tuesday.

The three-month public relations offensive, called ‘I Am the West’, will also include high-profile events in regions such as Peshawar and Mirpur, ‘The Guardian’ said. Seven in ten British Pakistanis are Mirpuris.

According to ‘The Guardian’, the first three ads in the project will feature British Communities Minister Sadiq Khan, UK manager of Islamic Relief Jehangir Malik, former England Under-19 captain and promising Worcestershire allrounder Moeen Ali, and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Chaudry Abdul Rashid, a Mirpuri.

The campaign, the paper said, will be targeted at ‘15-25-year-old males who are less than well-educated and worldly wise, but potentially susceptible to extremist doctrines’. Nine 30-second commercials, supported by ads on radio, will be aired on PTV, Geo TV and Khyber among other channels. If the Pakistani campaign is successful, it will be extended in Egypt, Yemen and Indonesia.

The central theme of the campaign, ‘The Guardian’ said, “is to assert that there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and being British.” It has four key aims, the daily reported: ‘to ensure Pakistanis realise the west is not anti-Islamic, that British society is not anti-Islam, to demonstrate the extent to which Muslims are integrated into British society and to stimulate and facilitate constructive debate on the compatibility of liberal and Muslim values’.
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The Evolution of Extremism in Britain

Dr. Tal Pavel 

 
This article will examine the evolution of the extreme Islamic movements in Britain that were established and led by Omar Bakri Muhammad, being their spiritual leader, from the Hizb ut-Tahrir to the Islam for the UK organizations. The article will describe the chronological order of these organizations, and emphasize their relationship and opinions to various issues, i.e., Britain, Muslim and Arabic countries, Israel and the Jews, and the place of the internet and the Information War.

 

The conclusion drawn is that in conjunction with the evolution of these Muslim organizations, there is a parallel evolution of extremist behavior, from the call to unify all Muslim countries into one Islamic state, to the implementation of Islamic Law (Sharia’ah) in Britain, and the negation of its social fabric and the British “way of life”.
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Israeli killing of Palestinians radicalises UK Muslims

Britain’s security and counter-terrorism minister acknowledges link between foreign policy, security threats.

Britain’s security and counter-terrorism minister, Lord Alan West, warned Tuesday that the conflict in Gaza has set back the government’s attempts to tackle radicalism in Muslim communities here.

“There is no doubt that when you see these pictures coming back, that in the mind of people making hate, there is a linkage between the US, Israel and the UK. Without a doubt it will have set us back,” he said.

West also dismissed the refusal by former prime minister Tony Blair to acknowledge the link between foreign policy and security threats.

“We never used to accept that our foreign policy ever had any effect on terrorism. Well, that was clearly bollocks,” he said, according to widespread and concurring reports.

“They [the Blair administration] were very unwilling to have any debate about how our foreign policy impacted on radicalisation.”

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Muslim population ‘rising 10 times faster than rest of society’

The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.

The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million.

Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam during the period of 2004-2008, when the data was gathered. They said that it also suggested a growing willingness among believers to describe themselves as Muslims because the western reaction to war and terrorism had strengthened their sense of identity.

Muslim leaders have welcomed the growing population of their communities as academics highlighted the implications for British society, integration and government resources.

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