The novelist Martin Amis has fired another shot at Islam by condemning the “abject failure” of Muslims to denounce suicide bombings.
He said it was normal and natural to feel “retaliatory urges” after allegations in August last year of a plot to bomb transatlantic passenger jets which could have killed 3,000 people.
Amis, who has just become professor of creative writing at Manchester University, has been embroiled in a row with one of his new colleagues, the Marxist academic Terry Eagleton, and made his fresh remarks at a packed debate at the university this week which both men had been due to address. However, Prof Eagleton, who teaches cultural theory at Manchester, cancelled his appearance, reportedly because of a clash in his diary.
In reference to suicide bombings, Amis told the audience: “There should be from every corner of the West a permanent factory siren of disgust for these actions.” He also criticised “distorted sympathy” shown to Palestine.
Earlier in the year, Prof Eagleton said that Amis had abandoned sensible Western liberal values and taken up views akin to those of “a British National Party thug”.