Senior Jewish leaders have attacked the decision to restore relations between the government and the Muslim Council of Britain.

In a strongly-worded letter to John Denham, the Communities Secretary, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council expressed their “deep regret” at his announcement last Friday bringing the MCB in from the cold after asking and receiving assurances of its opposition to all forms of racism, including antisemitism.

The letter, signed by Board president Vivian Wineman and JLC chair Mick Davis, provides a list of ongoing concerns, including the MCB’s reversion in 2009 to its “deeply offensive” policy of boycotting National Holocaust Memorial Day, its participation and joint-hosting of events “that incite the extreme hatred of Zionists” and its relationship with the Islamist East London Mosque.

It read: “[The] MCB’s current leadership have consistently shown themselves to have a deep-seated ideological Islamist bias that, in our opinion, should not be seen to be promoted in any way by government. It is our deep regret that government dialogue now with MCB’s current leadership is likely to weaken those many genuine moderates within the Muslim community.”

Jewish Chronicle, 22 January 2010

You can just imagine the outcry that would result if the MCB wrote to John Denham calling on him to break all links with the Board of Deputies, on the grounds that the BoD had publicly supportedIsraeli state terrorism against the people of Gaza.

See also “Why do we kowtow to the MCB?” by Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard, Spectator, 23 January 2010