ANTI-JIHAD BULLETIN
JANUARY 29, 2007

British National Party
www.bnp.org.uk

1. BOMB SUSPECTS HAD FURTHER PLANS

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/UK-bomb-plot-suspects-had-wider-plans/2
007/01/24/1169518742418.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.







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