Mick Hartley

Following on from the previous post…

From the Times:

Britain faces an “enormous and ongoing threat” from Islamic terrorists, a former Labour home secretary has warned.

Lord Blunkett said the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza had instilled a growing and “disturbing” level of hatred against Jewish people in the UK that is being enabled to fester by Islamic extremists.

He made the comments in a foreword to a major report by the Counter Extremism Group that exposes the rising threat of antisemitism fuelled by Islamic extremists in the UK.

The 94-page report accuses the government’s counterterrorism officials of a “widespread failure to recognise the extensive recent history of antisemitic incidents involving Islamists in the UK”.

It highlights how speakers in certain mosques have promoted the idea that Allah is pleased by the killing of Jews and have led prayers for the mujahideen — those who engage in jihad, without directly naming Hamas.

They have also promoted conspiracy theories about the October 7 attacks.

Have any of these mosque speakers, openly spreading hatred and inciting violence, been prosecuted? They have not.

The study, which began in September 2023 but was shaped by the October 7 attacks and their aftermath, warns that Islamic extremists in the UK are using the war in Gaza as a recruiting sergeant. Islamists are attempting to build coalitions with organisations on the far left across the West, it added.

The war in Gaza is providing Islamists with “greater opportunities for organisation”, the report said, because Islamist radicalisation “depends upon grievance narratives”.

Helped by the willingness of the media – yes you, BBC – to report every grievance and every Hamas news fabrication as front page news.

However, the explicit goal of Islamists is the establishment of a theocratic empire built on the principle of Islamic religious supremacy, the report added.

Allington calls for greater awareness of Islamist antisemitism in the UK, a key recommendation in the independent review of Prevent, the government’s counterextremism strategy, which called for counterterrorism officials to address the anti-Jewish component of both Islamist and extreme right-wing ideology.

He said: “Too often, antisemitism is identified exclusively as a characteristic of right-wing extremism in the white British population, which may create a false impression of the threat landscape faced by the Jewish community in the UK.”…

Blunkett, who served as home secretary at the time of the September 11 terror attacks, said the threat of Islamic extremism globally had returned to a similar scale and nature as 25 years ago and said the report was vital in order to understand the nature of the Islamist threat in the UK.

He wrote: “24 years later, the Taliban, who had been removed by international intervention in Afghanistan, are back in charge of that country. Divisions and conflict in the Middle East are commanding the attention of the world for all the wrong reasons.

“So, whilst it might seem counterintuitive to publish a report concentrating on Islamic terrorism, the truth is that understanding the enormous and ongoing threat to our wellbeing, as Tony Blair did in his Chicago speech of 1999, requires both analysis and ongoing vigilance.”

He added: “Chronicling the genuine danger of allowing antisemitism to emerge wherever and whenever the historic roots of hatred show themselves is a valuable contribution to warnings for the future by reflecting on the past.”

Not to worry. The government is busy preparing sterner new laws against Islamophobia.