In a joint statement to the Department of Communities and Local Government, the Board of Deputies and the Community Security Trust have demanded that the government must make any future engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain “contingent on them representing a greater range of views than those of the Islamists, and firmly rejecting violence in all circumstances, including in overseas conflicts”.

Jewish Chronicle, 24 September 2009

See the reponse by ENGAGE, who write:

“We wonder what the BoD would think if UK Muslims were to write to the CLG demanding that the government break off relations with them until they represent a wider base of British Jewish opinion than they currently do as a condition to government engagement with it? And what if the MCB were to lambast the BoD leadership as ‘Zionist’, in the same way that the BoD calls the MCB’s views ‘Islamist’? …

“During Israel’s criminal aggression against Gaza – now widely recognised as war crimes – the BoD supported a rally in Trafalgar Square in support of Israel. The question to be asked now is whether, given the extensive documentation (Breaking the Silence, Amnesty International, UN) of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the BoD itself should be critiqued for its allegiance to a state guilty of perpetrating them?”

Update:  See also ENGAGE’s letter to the JC.