The head of one of Britain’s rabbinic courts this week rallied to the side of the embattled Archbishop of Canterbury over his controversial call to give greater recognition to Islamic law within Britain’s legal system. Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation Beth Din, writing in today’s JC, said that Rowan Williams had been “widely pilloried for proposing sensible ideas”, which would benefit the Jewish community if adopted.

Jewish Chronicle, 15 February 2008

Read Yisroel Lichtenstein’s article here.

Melanie Phillips begs to differ. In the same issue of the JC, she writes: “Jews are being used misleadingly to help promote a development which would ultimately hurt them very badly. The demand for sharia law is part of the pincer movement to Islamise Britain through both terrorism and cultural takeover.”

On the other hand Geoffrey Alderman, whose views Islamophobia Watch has not always endorsed, adopts a much more reasoned position.