Yesterday - Monday July 7, 2008 - was the third anniversary of the suicide bombings on London Transport. Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay blew themselves up on underground trains, while Hasib Hossain boarded a Number 30 bus and detonated his rucksack in Tavistock Square. 52 people were killed and hundreds were injured.

On British television, a documentary was broadcast on Channel 4, entitled "It Shouldn't Happen To a Muslim." This was produced by Peter Oborne, and it asserted that Muslims have become demonized in British society.

In an article in the independent newspaper, Peter Oborne argued that Islamophobia is the new "British disease". He follows the line that Muslims are being oppressed, and states that "Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures."If Muslims are poorly educated and unable to find good jobs - it this the fault of Britain?

Recent mass immigration from Poland has proved that even without language skills, there are jobs available in Britain for those who are willing to work. Muslims' health issues are similarly of their own making - after all in Britain even illegal immigrants have access to full free-on-the-point-of-delivery healthcare. And I wonder what these surveys class as disability - work-related accidents, or even congenital disabilities, caused by inbreeding, a by-product of arranged marriage customs?

Oborne's comments about the victimization of Muslims in Britain tally with how many Muslims view their situation. Featuring on Oborne's documentary was Labour MP for Dewsbury Shahid Malik . The politician trotted out a mantra that has been used by Dr Muhammed Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), and Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB): the presumption that Muslims in modern Britain feel like Jews under Hitler.

Shahid Malik, as reported by the Independent, maintains that it is now "legitimate" for the media and society at large to target Muslims. He states: "I think most people would agree that if you ask Muslims today what do they feel like, they feel like the Jews of Europe. I don't mean to equate that with the Holocaust but in the way that it was legitimate almost - and still is in some parts - to target Jews, many Muslims would say that we feel the exact same way. Somehow there's a message out there that it's OK to target people as long as it's Muslims. And you don't have to worry about the facts, and people will turn a blind eye."

Currently, Jews in Britain are FOUR TIMES more likely to suffer physical attacks than Muslims, and it is a sad fact that some of these attacks upon Jews are carried out by Muslims. It is now a popular myth - originally invented by Bernard Lewis - that Muslim anti-Semitism originated with the foundation of Israel, and that before the advent of Zionism Muslims treated Jews well.Though many liberals in the UK adhere to Lewis' dogma - even, it seems, in the biased reporting of Palestinian issues by the BBC - Islamic anti-Semitism has a long history.

I am currently reading Dr Andrew Bostom's seminal work "The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism" for the purposes of writing a review. The book, containing a plethora of documentation, some of it translated for the first time, thoroughly explodes Bernard Lewis' theory.

Peter Oborne in his emotive cascade of rhetoric maintains that there is no difference between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. He states that "there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended."

In Scotland, Osma Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain has suggested that Muslims in Britain suffer in the same way that Jews suffered under Hitler. In 2006 he said: "Hitler was a product of German society, where anti-Semitic attitudes had existed unchecked for decades. We have got to listen and learn from what happened there and be vigilant. I am not talking about large numbers of people being rounded up, but we could be looking at situations where Muslims are routinely assaulted in the streets."

The Jerusalem Post of February 2, 2008 reported that Franco Frattini, European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security asserts that half of all anti-Semitic incidents across Europe are connected to radical Islamic elements. In a personal communication, Andrew Bostom comments on this:

"Demographic data from 2007 indicate that the total number of Europeans is 494.8 million; estimates of the number of Muslims in Europe range from 15-20 million, or some ~3.0-4.0% of the total European population. Thus, on a population percentage basis, Muslims in Europe account for roughly 24.0 to 32.3 times the number of Antisemitic incidents as their non-Muslim European counterparts.

These 2007/2008 data are in turn consistent with previous findings from 2006 on the excess prevalence of frank Antisemitism reported amongst European Muslims, published in The Journal of Conflict Resolution by Yale University biostatistician Dr. Edward H. Kaplan, and Dr. Charles A. Small of the Yale Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism. ("Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Antisemitism in Europe" Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2006, Vol. 50, pp. 548-561.)

Drs. Kaplan and Small examined the views of 5004 Europeans, roughly 500 individuals sampled from each of 10 European Union countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). The authors' main publicized results confirmed their (rather commonsensical) a priori hypothesis: anti-Israel sentiments strongly and independently predicted the likelihood that an individual was anti-Semitic in a graded manner, i.e., the more anti-Israel (on a scale of zero to 4), the more a person was likely to be anti-Semitic.

But a much more striking and relevant finding in light of the burgeoning Jew hatred now evident in Europe's Muslim communities, received much less attention: in a controlled comparison to European Christians (as the "referent" group), European Muslims were nearly eightfold (i.e., 800%) more likely to be overtly anti-Semitic. [emphasis added] ("Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts anti-Semitism in Europe," p. 557 and Table 3, p. 558.) Furthermore, in light of the Pew Global Attitudes Project data on Muslim attitudes toward Jews in Islamic countries, the Yale study likely underestimated the extent of anti-Semitism amongst Europe's Muslim communities, had more poorly educated, less acclimated European Muslims been sampled. Pew's earlier international survey indicated ("The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other", Pew Global Attitudes Project, June 22, 2006.)."

If people assert that Muslims currently are being treated as Jews were under Hitler, I wish these crass individuals would examine the history of Ayman al-Husseini (1895 - 1974) who organized massacres of Jews in British Palestine. This man met Hitler, and assisted Adolph Eichmann with the setting up of a Muslim branch of the Wahffen SS. He also urged the killing of Jewish children, rather than offering them in a prisoner exchange.

There have been assaults upon Muslims in Britain and these are to be condemned. But the thesis presented by Oborne, Malik  and others is a distortion of reality.

Was It Britain's Fault That 7/7 Happened?

So no wonder half of Britons thought Islam was to blame for 7/7. I am surprised that, as Khan carried out his bombings to support what he perceived to be "true Islam", the figure was not higher. The ICM survey, commissioned to coincide with the documentary, also stated that ONE QUARTER OF MUSLIMS feel that Islamic values are not compatible with British values. Does Peter Oborne expect the British public to feel guilty that some Muslims believe British culture is incompatible with their ideology?

"Until we feel security, you will be our targets - not until you have stopped the bombing, gassing, imprisonment, and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war, and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.........Jihad is an obligation, on every single one of us, men and women, and by staying at home, you are turning your backs on Jihad, which is a major sin, it's a Kabira gona (clears throat). If you have any doubts or reservations about this and the other Jihad ayas, then I strongly suggest you research them, check the Islamic history - the books are very widely available - look to the classical scholars. See what sort of lives they led."

"Our so-called scholars today are content with their Toyotas and semi-detached houses. They seem to think their responsibilities lie with pleasing the khuffar instead of Allah, so they tell us ludicrous things, like "you must obey the law of the land". So how na- how on earth did we conquer lands in the past if we were to obey by this, this law? By Allah, these scholars will be brought to account, and if they fear the British government more than they fear Allah, then they must desist in doing talks, lectures, and passive fatwas and they need to stay at home where they are useless, and leave the job to the real men, the true inheritors of the Prophets."

Shehzad Tanweer, Khan's comrade-in-murder, said in his farewell video that Britain had "openly declared war on Islam and the foreigners in the crusade against the Muslims...We love death the way you love life."

Britain must feel guilty for the situation in Afghanistan, Iraq, and must accept that if Britain had a different foreign policy and had different attitudes towards Islam, then there would be no threat from Islamic radicalism or Islamic terror. That was the message openly trotted out by hijab-wearing Rajnaara Akhtar on the first anniversary of the 7/7 attacks.

Anas Altikriti wrote at the same time: "We will not stand for our country and people being terrorized nor will we stand for our government terrorizing any other peoples." This individual - who argued back in 2004 that the British media was antagonizing Muslims - was between 2004 and 2005 the president of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB).

The MAB (like the Muslim Council of Britain) was co-founded by Kemal el-Helbawy, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group founded in 1927 in Egypt. Altikriti now heads the Cordoba Foundation. This group, founded in 2005 claims that it exists to uphold better relations between cultures. Strange then, that it is called Cordoba - a direct reference to the Muslim colony established in Spain following the violent invasion by Tariq bin Zayid in 711 AD.

Back in August 2006, an open letter was published in several newspapers in Britain. This letter, signed by numerous Muslim groups, including the MAB and MCB, blamed British political policy for attacks: "It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad."

It is known that Mohammed SIdique Khan was rejected by his father when he married a woman of his own choice, rather than the imported arranged bride chosen by his family. If his father had not been so stuck in his "alien" ways, and had accepted his bride, it is possible that Khan would never have been drawn into radicalism.

There are currently vast ghettos in most large cities where Muslim communities exist, where Urdu and Bangla are spoken more frequently than English. These communities are in some cases - despite the protestations of leftists - "no-go areas" for non-Muslims. Multiculturalism has encouraged migrants to feel "separate" and "different" and has done nothing to help individuals from such communities to become assimilated or integrated into British society. And yet if one draws attention to these "no-go areas" the term "Islamophobe" is thrown around as a weapon. When a bishop (Michael Nazir-Ali) mentions that such "no-go areas" exist, he gets death threats from Muslims.

Christian preachers are actively told by a Muslim police support officer that they must not do missionary work in a "Muslim area". So for some individuals in the police, no-go areas do exist. But for Britain's liberals and leftists, even drawing attention to such truths is an act of "Islamophobia".

Going To the Dogs?

Britain is well-known as a nation of dog-lovers. But for Muslims in Britain and beyond, the issue of dogs has been a source of contention. In Iran in February this year, a 70-year old man was sentenced to 30 lashes and a prison term for the "crime" of walking his dog.

Mohammed, founder of Islam, had "issues" with dogs. In the Hadiths of Imam Muslim, "Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered to kill dogs, and he sent (men) to the corners of Medina that they should be killed." Later, this order was modified so that working dogs should be spared.

The police rely upon sniffer dogs in the hunt for explosives and drugs. They also rely upon dogs for the apprehension of some criminals. In Tayside, the police recently used a cute six-week old German Shepherd puppy called Rebel in some of its promotional material.

Rebel was posed inside a policeman's hat, in a promotional flier distributed around Tayside. The flier was to be displayed in store windows. The police force was not prepared for the reaction that ensued.

The story was reported in the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Fox News, Metro the Scotsman and Press Association.

Asif said: "My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities. With the dog on the cards, it was probably a waste of resources going to these communities. People who have shops just won't put up the postcard. But the police have said to me that it was simply an oversight and they did not seek to offend or upset. The police should have understood.
"Since then the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part and that if they had seen it was going to cause upset they would not have done it."

Osama Saeed has suggested that Asif was misinterpreted. He argued: ""It does not appear to me that Mohammed Asif has mentioned anywhere that Muslims as a faith group would find this offensive. This seems to be a complaint based on culture rather than religion. There isn't any Islamic basis for taking issue with a simple picture of a little puppy."

Following Mohammed Asif's comments, Tayside Police has apologized for its "oversight" and a spokesman stated that "did not seek advice from the force's diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused." The comments pages under the Daily Mal and Telegraph reports are almost universally angry.

The issue of Muslims being offended by dogs has been in the British media again. On June 27, the Express newspaper reported that a document by Britain's Transport Department has suggested that police sniffer dogs must not come in contact with passengers, after Muslims complained that contact with dogs was "unacceptable".

Fortunately for public security, the British Transport Police is not going to change its methodology. A spokesperson said: "We are obviously aware of, and sensitive to, cultural sensitivities. BTP officers do have the power to stop and search anyone under section 44 of the Terrorism Act. This also covers the use of dog handlers and dogs, which are used to indicate any substance they have been trained to detect."

The Acpo recommendation states: "We are trying to ensure that police forces are aware of sensitivities that people can have with the dogs to make sure they are not going against any religious or cultural element within people's homes. It is being addressed and forces are working towards doing it."

Terrorism usually attempts to change situations. The IRA bombed London, Manchester and elsewhere as a move towards independence. It seems that - three years on from 7/7, the British establishment is bending over backwards to make Muslims feel comfortable. In this, it seems that the four bombers of July 7, 2005 have been successful.

Betrayals By The Establishment

In February 2008 Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, shocked the nation with his suggestion that sharia law in Britain was "inevitable".

Last week, Britain's most senior judge took a walk in Rowan Williams' shoes, apparently oblivious to the hostility that the Archbishop's comments evoked. The Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Travers, was speaking as a guest at the East London Mosque, whose chairman is Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the current head of the Muslim COuncil of Britain. The Chief Justice claimed that sharia law could play a role in British law, for example in cases of mediation.

The Chief Justice claimed that there was "widespread misunderstanding" about sharia, and stated: "There is no reason why sharia principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution." The full speech can be viewed on video.

Phillips did not support the introduction of amputations or stonings, but he seemed totally oblivious to the fact that in sharia, a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man. As such, it is in total opposition to a basic principle of British law. A witness testimony is judged on its merits, not upon the ender of the person presenting it.

The Chief Justice said: "It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by law other than English law." His comments elicited mixed reactions.

Charles Moore, writing in the Telegraph noted that Ed Husain, author of The Islamist had become radicalized after visiting the East London Mosque. Moore also stated: "Sharia also traditionally insists on a second-class status of citizenship for Jews and Christians. All four main schools of sharia say that the penalty for apostasy - abandoning the faith - is death."

Following on the heels of Lord Phillips of Worth Travers' speech a senior British barrister, Stephen Hockman QC, argued that there was an "inevitability" of sharia law being used in Britain.

At present, a bigamist can receive seven years' jail if convicted. Yet the British government recognizes Muslim polygamous marriages and allows welfare payments to a Muslim's multiple wives. Something here is wrong. Such payments suggest that - far from being victims of Nazi-style oppression - Muslims in some cases receive special, privileged , treatment. This aspect of sharia has already been acknowledged and incorporated into Britain's legislation, by the back door.

The British police used to be accused of racism, and I personally witnessed police racist abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999 a major inquiry found the police to be "institutionally racist". Instead of merely addressing racism, the police have now gone to ridiculous lengths. It appears that the police are more concerned with appearing politically correct than they are concerned with combating crime.

In 2002 a former TV presenter was arrested "on suspicion of inciting racial hatred". Robin Page's "crime" had been to publicly say "If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." Mr Page fought for five years to clear his name. He won $4,000 compensation in January this year from Gloucestershire police.

In Luton, Bedfordshire, a police officer was forced to resign in January 2008 for playing a practical joke on a Muslim friend and colleague. During a Christmas party, he had given the Muslim police officer a bottle of wine and a pack of bacon. The Muslim recipient of the gifts had found the prank amusing and did not complain, but administrators refused to see the humor.

Liberals Who Shill For Islamism

It is neither the duty of the police nor of the judiciary to redefine the law. Only parliament can change the law. Sadly parliament introduced the Human Rights Act in 1998 which has made British law of secondary importance to the terms of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Judges have interpreted this legislation to mean that Afghan terrorists cannot be deported to their home country lest they be tortured upon their return.

Abu Qatada, regarded as Al Qaeda's "ambassador in Europe" arrived illegally in Britain in 1988. He has been convicted in absentia by a Jordanian court on charges of terrorism. But last month Qatada was freed from the jail where he awaited deportation and he was allowed to remain in Britain. He will receive benefits courtesy of the British tax-payer. Similarly, Yasser al-Siri walks around Maida Vale in West London. He was convicted in Egypt of plotting a bomb attack that killed a six year old girl. Yet he remains free in Britain.

British readers are asked not to read this link as it contains the name of a suspected terrorist who has recently been released from Belmarsh jail where he has remained since 2001. One of this suspected terrorist's associates was deported to France in 2006. I have frequently written of this man, as have many British newspapers. But now, if I disclose his name to British readers (this site is registered in the United States) I could be found guilty of contempt of court, even though one British website has named him.

Last week this Algerian individual, who has been awaiting deportation for seven years, was freed. The judge, Mr Justice Mitting, has ordered that this man can only be identified by the British press as "U", even though the government's Home Office has described him as a "leading organizer and facilitator of terrorist activity."

Sadly we already have one High Court judge in Britain (Mr Justice Eady) who has used Britain's 1998 Human Rights Act to completely redefine the parameters of what constitutes libel. As a result of David Eady's zeal, in 2004, George Galloway won a libel case. The case was won not because a report claiming the leftist politician had received money from Saddam Hussein was untrue, but because Galloway had not been offered a chance to comment on the story before it was published.

The government introduced legislation in 2000 which was intended to counter terrorism and serious crime. Originally this legislation (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act or RIPA) was designed to allow only a few public bodies to investigate the lives and electronic communications of individuals. Now, a total of 792 agencies - comprising individuals who are neither qualified in surveillance nor directly elected - have permission to snoop and share information about individual citizens. Unelected council employees are currently enjoying unprecedented powers to place citizens under surveillance for the most trivial of reasons - such as whether or not a person's dog fouls the sidewalk.

By subjugating British law under the principles of the 1950 ECHR, and preparing to sell out British autonomy to the European Union and its Lisbon Treaty, the British government abuses the constitutional rights of all of its citizens, be they Muslims or non-Muslims. Self-appointed righters of wrongs exist in all spheres of life. Education is no exception. I wrote earlier of how Muslim indoctrination has infiltrated schools in both America and Britain.

The latest example of such indoctrination happened at a Cheshire school on Tuesday July 1 last week. Students in one class at Alsager High School were obliged to partake in a role-playing exercise, where they had to pretend that they were Muslims.

The woman teacher showed the students a movie on Islam before engaging in the role-play. Prayer mats were produced. Two children were made to wear Muslim headgear and the children were made to kneel on the floor to pray to Allah. One parent claimed: "The teacher then asked the class if someone had any water to wash their feet. In essence my child was being forced to behave like a Muslim and pray to Allah."

Two boys refused to "worship" the Muslim deity and were consequently punished with a detention. Five sets of parents complained. One parent, Sharon Luinen, told a local newspaper: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions, I can live with that, but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer. Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."

At present, politicians, Christian leaders and members of the judiciary appear to be attempting to change society to make it more accommodating to Muslims. When I hear people like Peter Oborne and others comparing the situation of Muslims in Britain to the plight of Jews under Hitler I am perplexed. At no stage did politicians or religious leaders attempt to change German society to make it more user-friendly to Jews.

Adrian Morgan is Westminster Journal's Current Affairs Editor

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