Our World: After Londonistan
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 11, 2006
In the wake of last year’s terror attacks on London, the people of Britain seemed muster the will to rally around their flag. After years of denial, the country that gave Israel the British jihad bombers who blew up Mike’s Place in 2003; gave Pakistan and America Daniel Pearl’s British jihadist executioner; and gave America the British jihadist shoe bomber finally acknowledged that British jihadists were a problem for Britain.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair started to admit that the source of the terror was not poverty, Iraq, Afghanistan or Israel but the jihadist ideology propagated within Britain’s Muslim community. Rather than make excuses for the murderers and their army of teachers and enablers, Blair began formulating a program to go after Britain’s jihadist hotbeds that indoctrinate British born and bred Muslims to wage war against their country.
Yet, as Melanie Phillips points out in painstaking and hair- raising detail in her book Londonistan, Blair’s efforts to curb the influence of radical jihadists and undermine their operations were quickly stymied. The multiculturalists who have taken hold of Britain’s cultural, intellectual, judicial, ecclesiastical and political life attacked, blocked or watered down every single one of his anti-terror initiatives. In the end, far from winning over his seemingly endless critics, Blair backed down.
One of Blair’s initiatives had been to establish a Task Force which would tackle jihadist Islam that had declared war on Britain. As Phillip’s explains, “It would go into [Muslim] communities to actively confront what [Blair] called an ‘evil ideology’ based on a perversion of Islam and ‘defeat it by force of reason.’”
Yet, with his anti-terror campaign torn to shreds, Blair allowed the very extremists he was seeking to counter to take over the Task Force. Not surprisingly these men - who included Swiss jihad apologist Tarik Ramadan and prominent British Hamas supporters - decided that the proper British response to the homegrown British jihadists who killed 52 of their fellow citizens was to surrender to their demands.
One of the chief demands of Britain’s radical Muslims is for Britain to change its foreign policy regarding Israel and the US. The view that Britain should take a pro-Islamic stance on issues such as Hamas, the US-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to placate British Muslims has gained currency in British foreign policy circles. CONTINUE
When Mike’s Place was blown up in 2003, an old friend of mine named Jack Baxter was there working on a film and was caught it the blast. Ironically, the theme of the film was to show how this place was like an island in the midst of a turbulent sea unaffected by the raging waves and turmoil. It was to portray a place where Jews, Arabs, and whoever could go and escape the realities around them in a bastion of peace, music and one-worldism in urban Israel.
However, in one moment of time he has a different movie on his hands when a suicide bomber detonates himself in the doorway of the pub. A brave and alert security guard named Avi block the doorway with his own body took the brunt of the blast. If not for Avi who kept the bomber from entering the small room where more than 50 people were gathered, the death toll may have been higher than in any prior suicide bombing in this country. Three people were killed, but miraculously, Avi survived and fared better than many others who were wounded. I contacted Jack in Tel Aviv to afterwards to give him support and I heard recently he still suffers effect from the blast. We’ve gone different directions in our ideology but we’re still friendly.
On a separate note: By chance I turned on the radio a few days ago and Melanie Philips, the author of Londonistan was giving an interview. If the book is of equal quality to the interview it should be good. One thing she said was that people who try to appease Islam make the mistake projecting their own rational upon the terrorist. They believe that by being rational, you can get into their minds of terrorist and find out the cause of their grievances. Once you address their grievances they will be peaceful.
We can argue if this has any merit or not but it is irrelevant if their grievance is that we will not convert to Islam and place ourselves under subjection to Sharia Law.
Comment by RandyTexas
— July 11, 2006 @ 10:39 am
I sincerely believe that the only thing that can realistically save England is the British National Party. I could care less if they are racist or how much. They are the only valid political group in that country with the savvy and the will to deal with the problem.
Comment by Westerner
— July 11, 2006 @ 4:55 pm