Change foreign policy – top Muslims

Senior Muslims have warned the Government that it needed to revise British foreign policy if it wants to put an end to the violence.

Dr Azzam Tamimi, from the Muslim Association of Britain, said the country was in real danger and that this would continue so long as British forces remained in Iraq. He described the July 7 bombings and the attempted attacks in London on Thursday as “horrifying” but said it was not enough to simply unite in condemnation of the bombers.

Dr Tamimi, speaking after a Sky News debate in Birmingham, said: “The latest developments very clearly show this is a very big thing. It’s not just a few individuals from Leeds. I think it’s time everybody got serious and engaged in an attempt to prevent it. Part of that would be to understand what’s going on.

”7/7, 21/7, and God knows what will happen afterwards, our lives are in real danger and it would seem, so long as we are in Iraq and so long as we are contributing to injustices around the world, we will continue to be in real danger. Tony Blair has to come out of his state of denial and listen to what the experts have been saying, that our involvement in Iraq is stupid.”

His comments were echoed by the marketing manager for The Muslim Weekly newspaper. Shahid Butt said he believed the threat to Britain would reduce if it pulled its troops out of Iraq. He said:

“At the end of the day, these things [violent incidents] are going to happen if current British foreign policy continues. There’s a lot of rage, there’s a lot of anger in the Muslim community. We have got to get out of Iraq, it is the crux of the matter. I believe if Tony Blair and George Bush left Iraq and stopped propping up dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world, the threat rate to Britain would come down to nearly zero.”

Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, also called on the Government to take responsibility for creating the “political environment” in which these attacks have happened. He said: “Now we know this wasn’t a one-off, we need to look at ways of addressing the underlying factors that created it. I feel it’s urgent to start addressing these before there is further loss of life.”

Evening Standard, 22 July 2005


Over at Jihad Watch, Rebecca Bynum comments: “British Muslims attempt to dictate the UK’s foreign policy”.

Jihad Watch, 24 July 2005

And how does Mad Mel summarise the arguments of MAB, the Muslim Weekly and the IHRC? “According to representatives of the Muslim community in Britain, there is one way to end the suicide bombing threat. Surrender.”

She goes further: “I’d say this was a clear threat to Britain from these people, that unless we come out of Iraq there will be more attacks. Bombs on the tubes and buses, threats from community leaders – Britain is currently under sustained attack by word as well as deed, in a pincer movement designed to break our resolve.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 24 July 2005