Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism, which has become the bible of ex-leftist supporters of the “War on Terror” like Nick Cohen, has a major article in The New Republic devoted to attacking Tariq Ramadan.
Mad Melanie Phillips hails Berman’s “magisterial piece of writing” which she claims “not only manages to disinter the extremism that Ramadan goes to such lengths to conceal but he also comprehensively shreds the various useful idiots who have sanitised Ramadan’s thinking for public consumption”.
Mel expresses her outrage that “despite the fact that Ramadan was excluded from the US because of his suspected links with extremism, Oxford university has given him an academic berth – and the British government appointed him as one of its advisers on how to deal with … Islamist extremism. Berman’s article shows just how deeply the west’s collective brain has been put to sleep.”
“Imagine if Mayor Bloomberg invited a Muslim cleric from Egypt known for his advocacy of female genital mutilation, wife-beating, ‘martyrdom’ bombings in Israel and Iraq, and the murder of homosexuals and converts from Islam to be an honored guest of the city. New Yorkers would naturally rebel against the mayor, who would certainly survive politically. But what if he did something even more brazen and perverse: invite the cleric back. Surely, it couldn’t happen here. But it did happen in London last year under the aegis of left-wing mayor, Ken Livingstone. Livingstone considers Yusuf al-Qaradawi (the cleric’s name) a huggable, ‘moderate’ liaison between East and West. Anyone arguing otherwise Livingstone accuses of xenophobia or – a ridiculous term now gaining traction in the United Kingdom – ‘Islamophobia’.”
In a 
Campaigns alleging that a nation is being ‘swamped’ by foreigners have always been part of the repertoire of right-wing extremist politics. The influx of immigrants, their culture and language is regarded as a threat to one’s ‘own’ people and – depending upon which version is being promulgated – Western or German culture.