“Here we go again. The anti-terror police raids in Birmingham have prompted the usual outpouring of grievance from Muslim community leaders and activists. The airwaves have been full of the predictable accusations of Islamophobia against the police and the Government, with endless bleating about the alienation and stereotyping of Muslim youths.
“Once more we hear the moans about British foreign policy, while some conspiracy theorists have even come up with the absurd idea that the police took action just to distract attention from the cash-for-honours scandal engulfing Downing Street.
“Yes, there is a conspiracy but it is a real one, organised by radical Muslims bent on the destruction of Western civilisation and the ultimate triumph of fundamentalist Islam over our freedom and democracy.”
Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 2 February 2007
Foiling a terror plot is not an attack on Islam
By Leo McKinstry
Daily Express, 2 February 2007
Here we go again.
The anti-terror police raids in Birmingham have prompted the usual outpouring of grievance from Muslim community leaders and activists. The airwaves have been full of the predictable accusations of Islamophobia against the police and the Government, with endless bleating about the alienation and stereotyping of Muslim youths.
Once more we hear the moans about British foreign policy, while some conspiracy theorists have even come up with the absurd idea that the police took action just to distract attention from the cash-for-honours scandal engulfing Downing Street.
Yes, there is a conspiracy but it is a real one, organised by radical Muslims bent on the destruction of Western civilisation and the ultimate triumph of fundamentalist Islam over our freedom and democracy.
To pretend that this threat does not exist, that it has just been invented by the Government to oppress Muslims, is idiotic and dangerous, given the mounting death toll from Islamic terrorism since 9/11.
In the fight against extremists, Muslims in Britain have to decide whose side they are on.
There can be no more excusemaking for the mass killers.
It is outrageous that the police’s work in foiling an Al-Qaeda murder plot on British soil should be regarded within parts of the Muslim community as a cause for grievance rather than celebration.
If they really felt true loyalty to British society, as their leaders often proclaim, they would be glad the security forces appear to have acted so efficiently. What makes the equivocation even more offensive is the gruesome nature of this plot. The Islamic gangsters, it is said, planned to kidnap a British Muslim soldier from the streets, torture him, make him plea for his life on film and then behead him. It would have been a crime echoing the savage executions of hostages by Muslim terrorists in Iraq.
Now it seems that a group of British Muslims wanted to bring the horrors of Baghdad to the heart of our own country, delighting in the revulsion they would cause by broadcasting their sadism on the internet.
The fact that their target was a fellow Muslim only further shows the twisted depths of their vile ideology. In their sick minds, heroic service for Britain is a betrayal of Islam and therefore a justification for murder. That alone should compel Muslim apologists for terrorism and their Left-wing fellow travellers to think again.
For there are no concessions on Palestine, Iraq or the veil that would bring the jihad to an end. To the murdering dogmatists, anyone who does not accept their fundamentalism is regarded as the enemy.
Yet even with all the evidence of Islamic violence, far too many people still refuse to face up to reality. It felt surreal yesterday listening to the wails from Muslim representatives about their communities being “targeted”, when at the same time a major criminal trial is under way in London involving the alleged perpetrators of the failed bombings of July 21, 2005.
Instead of complaining, Muslim activists should recognise that their co-religionists have been responsible for most of the terrorist atrocities around the globe over the past decade.
Yet somehow this grim record is exploited by Muslims in Britain to wallow in a culture of victimhood. Islamist terrorism has laid siege to our Western society and the followers of Islam have the nerve to moan about being under scrutiny. In this inverted moral universe, a determination to protect the British public becomes a form of Islamophobia.
Another aspect of this unreality is the barrage of testimony we always hear about the good character of terror suspects.
They are always portrayed as unassuming, patriotic British youths or decent family men, devoted as much to fish and chips as to the local mosque. In the Birmingham case, this is hardly true. One of the suspects is an unemployed father of four who has even been described by a Muslim friend as a “bit extremist” who “hates what the West has done to Muslims”.
One of the things the West has done for him, of course, is to dole out benefits so he does not have to find a job. Like so many hardliners, this radical is showing utter contempt for the society that sustains him.
And let us remember that the July 7 suicide bombers, who killed 52 people on the London transport network, were led by Mohammed Siddique Khan, who was a married father and a classroom assistant respected by pupils and teachers.
We are frequently told that only a tiny fraction of Muslims are extremists. But even if only one per cent are, that translates to around 20,000 people, given that there are almost two million Muslims in Britain.
But surveys show a far larger proportion has a tacit sympathy with the aims of jihadists. According to a NOP poll last year, less than half of younger Muslims here identify Britain as their country, while another survey showed 37 per cent of Muslims aged 16 to 24 want to see sharia law established here, a disturbing sign of their unwillingness to integrate.
Recently we have further been told by Muslim leaders that the Government should heed the lessons of Northern Ireland, where, they say, the Catholic minority was alienated by the hard line taken against the IRA, particularly through surveillance measures such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act. But this is just another fallacy. The IRA gave up the armed struggle not because of compromises but because they were beaten by British security forces. That is the way to defeat Islamic terrorism.
If Muslims genuinely value British society, they should join in the battle to save it.