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The Islamization of Britain in 2013
by Soeren Kern
December 30, 2013 at 5:00 am
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In May, new census data published by
the British government showed that Islam is set to become the dominant
religion in Britain within the next generation.
On being informed that the girl did
not want to get married, Mohammed Shahid Akhtar, Imam of Birmingham's Central
Jamia Masjid Ghamkol Sharif Mosque, said, "She's 14. By Sharia, grace of
Allah, she's legal to get married."
The Muslim population of Britain topped 3.3 million by the end of 2013 to
become around 5.2% of the overall population of 63 million, according to
figures extrapolated from a recent
study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.At the same time, opinion surveys consistently show that voters in Britain view Islam and the question of Muslim immigration as a top-ranked public concern. The British public, it seems, is increasingly worried about the establishment of a parallel Muslim society there. But government efforts to push back against the Islamization of Britain have been halting and half-hearted. What follows is a chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Britain during 2013. In January, Muslim gangs were filmed loitering on streets in London and demanding that passersby conform to Islamic Sharia law. In a series of videos, the self-proclaimed vigilantes—who call themselves Muslim London Patrol—are seen abusing non-Muslim pedestrians and repeatedly shouting "this is a Muslim area." One video records the men shouting: "Allah is the greatest! Islam is here, whether you like it or not. We are here! We are here! What we need is Islam! What we need is Sharia!" The video continues: "We are the Muslim Patrol. We are in north London, we are in south London, in east London and west London. We command good and forbid evil. Islam is here in London. [Prime Minister] David Cameron, Mr. Police Officer, whether you like it or not, we will command good and forbid evil. You will never get us. You can go to hell! This is not a Christian country. To hell with Christianity. Isa [Jesus] was a messenger of Allah. Muslim Patrol will never die. Allah is great! Allah is great! We are coming!" In a January 23 interview with the online newspaper International Business Times, Anjem Choudary, a radical preacher who has long called for Sharia law to be implemented in Britain and other European countries, defended the gang, saying: "This is a wake-up call for society to ask, 'where are we headed?' There is a clash between Islam and liberal democracy in hotspot areas of London." Choudary has previously led a campaign, known as the Islamic Emirates Project, to turn twelve British cities—including what he calls "Londonistan"—into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves, ruled by Sharia law and governed entirely outside British jurisprudence. In February, Choudary was filmed urging his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plan holy war against non-Muslims. Excerpts of the speech, published by the London-based newspaper The Sun on February 17, drew renewed attention to the growing problem of Muslims in Britain and elsewhere who are exploiting European welfare systems. In the video, Choudary is recorded as saying that Muslims are justified in taking money from non-Muslims, whom he mocks for working in nine-to-five jobs their whole lives. He says: "You find people are busy working the whole of their life. They wake up at 7 o'clock. They go to work at 9 o'clock. They work for eight, nine hours a day. They come home at 7 o'clock, watch EastEnders [a British soap opera], sleep, and they do that for 40 years of their life. That is called slavery. ... What kind of life is that? That is the life of the kuffar [a non-Muslim]." Choudary urges fellow Muslims to learn from revered figures in Islamic history who only worked one or two days a year. "The rest of the year they were busy with jihad [holy war] and things like that," he says. "People will say, 'Ah, but you are not working.' But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar. So we take Jihad Seeker's Allowance." Also in February, a judge in London acquitted two brothers from Pakistan who swapped houses in an effort to defraud British taxpayers out of £315,000 ($520,000). The Pakistani couples, who have 11 children between them, submitted bogus tenancy agreements for 16 years so that the women could pretend to be tenants and claim housing benefits. Judge Neil Sanders ruled: "The two men dishonestly represented through their wives to the London Borough of Redbridge that this was a genuine rental arrangement." Nevertheless, Sanders allowed the men to walk free. "You have both worked hard in terms of making a life for yourselves and in many ways the greatest punishment is the loss of your good name," Sanders said. In March, the London-based newspaper The Independent reported that at least 100 British Muslims are currently active as jihadists fighting in Syria, which has replaced Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia as the main destination for militant Islamists seeking to obtain immediate combat experience with little or no official scrutiny. Also in March, St. John's Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, Scotland, became the first church in the United Kingdom to share its premises with Muslim worshippers. Church officials now welcome hundreds of Muslims praying five times a day in their building because the nearby mosque is filled to overcapacity and Muslim worshippers are forced to pray outside. According to the rector of St. John's, Isaac Poobalan, "Praying is never wrong. My job is to encourage people to pray. The mosque was so full at times, there would be people outside in the wind and rain praying. I knew I couldn't just let this happen, because I would be abandoning what the Bible teaches us about how we should treat our neighbors." The bishop of Aberdeen, Robert Gillies, says that by handing over sections of the church to the mosque, the church has accomplished "something of global significance on a local scale." In April, a documentary secretly filmed inside several of the 85 Islamic Sharia Law courts operating in Britain exposed the systematic discrimination that many women are suffering at the hands of Muslim jurists. The documentary, Secrets of Britain's Sharia Courts, was filmed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was first aired on BBC Panorama, a long-running current affairs program, on April 8. The undercover investigation proves what has long been suspected: namely, that Sharia courts, which operate in mosques and houses across Britain, routinely issue rulings on domestic and marital issues according to Islamic Sharia law that are at odds with British law. Although Sharia rulings are not legally binding, those subject to the rulings often feel obliged to obey them as a matter of religious belief, or because of pressure from family and community members to do so. The documentary contends that the Sharia courts, run by Muslim judges known as qadi, are putting women at risk of violence from abusive husbands by pressuring them to stay in abusive marriages. The documentary was partially filmed at the Leyton Sharia Council, which openly states on its website that it is preparing for the full recognition of Islamic Sharia law in Britain. Also in April, British authorities promised to redouble their fight against the spiraling problem of female genital mutilation (FGM) after a weekly primetime television show broadcast by the BBC forced the previously "taboo" subject into mainstream debate. BBC One's Casualty, a popular emergency medical drama series, became the first mainstream drama on British television to feature a story about FGM. Scriptwriters on the series worked with FGM pressure groups and young girls to produce the two-part drama, which aired on April 6 and 13. Britain has the highest levels of FGM in Europe. According to a government-funded study published in 2007, at least 66,000 women and girls in Britain have had the procedure performed on them, and more than 20,000 girls under the age of 15 are currently at risk. These figures, however, may be only the tip of the iceberg. A 2011 Department of Health policy paper warns that "it is possible that, due to population growth and immigration from practicing countries…FGM is significantly more prevalent than these figures suggest." On April 29, Scotland Yard [London Police] appealed for information to identify the perpetrators of FGM amid growing indications that girls in the capital are being "cut." But the government's commitment to fighting FGM remains to be seen. A major reason for Britain's dismal record at bringing perpetrators to justice is tolerance of FGM due to political correctness and concerns over "cultural sensitivity," according to many analysts. Although the mainstream media in Britain and elsewhere routinely take pains to avoid any insinuation that FGM has anything to do with Islam, doctrinally, historically, geographically and juridically, the practice is intrinsically linked to Islam. Critics of FGM say there is a reluctance to tackle the problem because doing so is perceived as attacking Islam. In May, new census data published by the British government showed that Islam is set to become the dominant religion in Britain within the next generation. The report, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on May 16, shows that although Christianity is still the main religion in Britain—over 50% of the population describe themselves as such—nearly half of all Christians in Britain are over the age of 50, and, for the first time ever, fewer than half under the age of 25 describe themselves as Christian. By contrast, the number of people under 25 who describe themselves as Muslim has doubled over the past ten years: one in ten under the age of 25 are Muslim, up from one in 20 in 2001. If current trends continue—a Muslim population boom, combined with an aging Christian demographic and the increasing secularization of British natives—Islam is set to overtake Christianity in Britain within the next 20 years, according to demographers. Also in May, a BBC documentary called "Married for a Minute" reported that an increasing number of Muslims in Britain are reviving the Islamic practice of temporary marriage. Temporary marriage—a euphemism for religiously sanctioned prostitution—is an Islamic custom that unites a man and an unmarried woman as "husband and wife" for a limited period of time (sometimes for less than half an hour). The proliferation of temporary marriages—combined with the spike in polygamous marriages— shows how Muslims in Britain are using Islamic Sharia law with impunity to establish parallel forms of "marriage" that are otherwise illegal for non-Muslims in the country. Because of the informal nature of temporary marriage, there are no official statistics to show how many of these unions there are in Britain. But Islamic scholars interviewed by the BBC say the practice is widespread, and anecdotal evidence suggests it is especially popular among the younger generation of Muslims in England and Wales. In June, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales (aka the Old Bailey) sentenced seven members of a Muslim child grooming gang based in Oxford to at least 95 years in prison for raping, torturing and trafficking British girls as young as 11. The high-profile trial, which ended on June 27, was the latest in a rapidly growing list of grooming cases that are forcing politically correct Britons to confront the previously taboo subject of endemic sexual abuse of children by predatory Muslim paedophile gangs. The 18-week trial drew unwelcome attention to the sordid reality that police, social workers, teachers, neighbors, politicians and the media have for decades downplayed the severity of the crimes perpetrated against British children because they were afraid of being accused of "Islamophobia" or racism. According to government estimates that are believed to be "just the tip of the iceberg," at least 2,500 British children have so far been confirmed to be victims of grooming gangs, and another 20,000 children are at risk of sexual exploitation. At least 27 police forces are currently investigating 54 alleged child grooming gangs across England and Wales. Also in June, a Muslim cab driver named Mohamed Hacene-Chaouch was jailed for seven years and three months after being found guilty of raping a female passenger in his unlicensed taxi. Hacene-Chaouch—an Algerian married father of five—assaulted the woman after she got lost in Soho, central London. The case drew public attention to a wave of sex crimes involving predatory Muslim taxi drivers who are raping female passengers. The number of so-called taxi rapes is snowballing to such an extent that a British judge has issued a warning that no woman can expect to be safe while traveling in a cab. Reliable statistics on taxi rapes nationwide are difficult to obtain, and Freedom of Information requests seeking accurate data on cab-related sexual assaults are routinely denied (here and here). However, a much acclaimed report produced by the London Metropolitan Police Service estimates that on average there are a total of 1,125 sexual assaults, including rapes, each year involving taxi drivers just in London; this works out to approximately 22 sexual assaults against women by taxi drivers each week in the capital city of England alone. Meanwhile, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller—two well-known counter-jihad activists who are opposed to the spread of Sharia law in the West—were banned from Britain under the so-called Unacceptable Behavior policy, following a personal intervention from Home Secretary Theresa May. In a letter posted on the Internet, May writes: "The Home Secretary will seek to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good. We condemn all those whose behaviors and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form." It later emerged that the main reason why Spencer and Geller were banned from Britain was because of their strong support for Israel. At the same time, the British government had no problems with allowing the Saudi Sheikh Adel al-Kalbani—who says all Jews and Christians should be removed from the Arabian Peninsula—to embark upon a speaking tour of Britain. Britain also allowed into the country another Saudi hate preacher, Mohammed al-Arefe, who has said: "Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight." In July, a House of Commons research report entitled "Prison Population Statistics" showed that the number of Muslim inmates in England and Wales jumped to 11,248 in 2012, up from 3,681 in 1997. It was the first time that the number of Muslim convicts in British prisons has surpassed the 11,000 mark. Stated another way, the number of Muslims in British prisons has jumped by more than 200% over the past 15 years. The rate of increase of Muslim inmates in British prisons is eight times faster than that of the overall prison population, and the numbers show a clear overrepresentation of Muslim convicts: Muslims, who make up roughly 5% of the British population as a whole, now make up 13% of the British prison population (compared to just 6% in 1997). The growth in the number of Muslim inmates has fueled fears that British prisons are becoming hotbeds for Islamic radicalization. Although most of the Muslims in British prisons are immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, an increasing number of Muslim inmates are converts to Islam. Writing in the July 2013 issue of the prisoner's magazine, Inside Time, a "long serving prisoner" at the Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire has this to say: "We are able to cook our own food here but if we attempt to cook pork in the communal kitchen it is deemed dangerous, even a threat to your life. The kitchen is usually occupied by 90% Muslims and we have been told if we cook pork we will be stabbed. There have been incidents here where people have been targeted and pressured and bullied into converting to Islam." He adds: "I am writing to inform people of these radical extremists views in this prison where I see no official steps being taken to combat them. Young Muslim men are being radicalized in here and one day they may commit acts of terrorism in this country. There seems to be nothing being done here to stop it and people are scared to speak out. I hope we get some feedback from this; it needs to be sorted out." In August, an Islamic television channel based in Birmingham was hit with a hefty fine after a Muslim hate preacher told viewers—live on air—that it was the duty of all Muslims to murder anyone who shows disrespect for the Prophet Mohammed. Noor TV, a Satellite Television Channel that broadcasts programs about Islam throughout Europe, was fined £85,000 ($115,000) by the British broadcasting regulator known as Ofcom for inciting people to commit murder. Ofcom said the fine imposed on August 21 was so large due to "the serious nature of the breaches of the Broadcasting Code." It said young Muslims watching Noor TV could become "radicalized" and take "violent and criminal action as a result of watching videos of Muslims with extreme views." In a separate case, Ofcom ordered DM Digital Television to pay a fine of £85,000 ($115,000) after it broadcast a speech by an Islamic scholar who said Muslims had "a duty to kill" anyone who insulted the Prophet Mohammed. The Manchester-based channel—which claims it has a worldwide audience of 30 million—describes itself as bringing "Asian and English cultures closer" by integrating its people, the cultural diversity, communities and the economy. In its ruling, Ofcom cited a program called Rehmatul Lil Alameen [Mercy unto the Worlds] which featured a live lecture it said was "likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or to lead to disorder." Ofcom stated that some of the comments on the program could be seen as "a generic call to all Muslims encouraging or inciting them to criminal action or disorder, by unambiguously stating that they had a duty to kill anyone who criticizes or insults the Prophet Mohammed and apostates." In September, the Birmingham Metropolitan College reversed a ban on Islamic veils after furious Muslim students complained of discrimination, and launched an online petition drive that gathered more than 8,000 signatures in just two days. The college backed away from its ban on September 12, just hours before a mass demonstration by hundreds of Muslim students threatened to disrupt the normal functioning of the college.
The college's ban on face-covering niqabs or the body-covering burqas—as well as caps, hoodies and other types of head covering—was billed as a security measure. Tory MP for Kettering Philip Hollobone told the British newspaper The Independent that the college's reversal was a shameful disgrace and argued for the urgent need for legislation to ban the niqab in all public spaces. "People are frightened of standing up and speaking out in this discussion because of political correctness and the intolerant reaction from Muslim groups who jump up and down with fury whenever anyone says that it makes sense for people to go around with their faces perfectly visible to everyone else, which is the way human beings were created in the first place," Hollobone said. Hollobone presented a bill in the British Parliament on September 6 that would make it illegal to wear clothing obscuring the face in public; the bill will be considered on February 28, 2014. In a live debate entitled "Should Britain Ban the Veil?" and aired on BBC Radio 5 on September 6, Hollobone said, "Society can't function if people go around with facial coverings. If we all covered our faces the world would be a very different place. Imagine Parliament where everyone had their face covered. It makes it very difficult for the police to identify troublemakers. I am sad that legislation may be necessary to address this problem. It's basic common sense to most people. It would ultimately lead to the breakdown of our society." Hollobone denied that his proposal amounted to an attack on Islam: "We have to be quite clear—the burka isn't religious clothing. It's a choice." Also in September, a taxpayer-funded Muslim school in England inflamed public anger after it emerged that the institution was operating according to Islamic Sharia law. Islamic fundamentalists running the Al-Madinah School in Derby, an industrial city in central England, had ordered all female teachers—including those who are not Muslim—to cover their heads and shoulders with a hijab, an Islamic scarf. In addition to the strict dress code, pupils were banned from singing songs, playing musical instruments, or reading fairy tales, activities deemed to be "un-Islamic," according to non-Muslim staff members at the school. Critics say the school—which originally marketed itself as an "inter-faith" school in order to qualify for taxpayer monies—promised that at least 50% of its students would be non-Muslim. But after it obtained £1.4 million (€1.7 million; $2.25 million) in government financing, the administrators of Al-Madinah were accused of switching gears by operating the school according to Islamic law, apparently to ensure that the school will eventually be 100% Muslim. Also in September, the British Department of Education revealed that it is recruiting former agents of the British secret service (MI5) to investigate the alleged infiltration of British schools by Islamic extremists. The agents will form part of a new counter-extremism unit, established to investigate schools in which radical activity has been suspected. Speaking to the Sunday Times on September 29, Education Secretary Michael Gove said some schools are being "taken over" by Muslim hardliners in the hope of radicalizing pupils and staff. He also said he was determined to "weed out" schools whose practices do not conform to British values. A survey published by the BBC on September 25 revealed that more than a quarter of young British people distrust Muslims and feel Britain would be better off if there were fewer of them in the country. Of the 1,000 young people questioned in the survey conducted by ComRes, a leading market research agency, 27% of 18-to-24-year-olds said they did not trust Muslims, while 28% said Britain would be better off with fewer Muslims. It also emerged that 60% thought the British public had a negative image of Muslims, and 44% said Muslims do not have the same values as the rest of the population. A separate survey published by Lord Ashcroft Polls on September 1, showed that six in ten Britons thought immigration had produced more disadvantages than advantages for their country; only 17% thought the pros outweighed the cons. The biggest concerns were about migrants claiming benefits or using public services without having contributed in return. In London, a judge on September 16 ordered a Muslim defendant to take off her full-face veil to give evidence in court. But—in a case that made legal history—he said the woman could retain the veil for all other parts of her trial. Judge Peter Murphy said the court should recognize "freedom of religious expression," but that allowing her to retain the niqab during her evidence, as she wanted, would "drive a coach and horses through justice administered in England and Wales for centuries." Murphy said he hoped that "Parliament or a higher court will provide a definite answer to the issue soon" to avoid "judicial anarchy." Also in September, the British Ministry of Justice confirmed that a total of 186 Muslim inmates at three different prisons are suing the British government, claiming their human rights were violated after tests confirmed that halal food being served to them contained pork meat. The legal cases are being brought by the prisoners under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which affords the right to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In October, more than a dozen Muslim clerics at some of the biggest mosques in Britain were caught on camera agreeing to marry off girls as young as 14. Undercover reporters filming a documentary about the prevalence of forced and underage marriage in Britain for the television program ITV Exposure secretly recorded 18 Muslim imams agreeing to perform an Islamic marriage, known as a nikah, between a 14-year-old girl and an older man. Although the legal age for marriage in Britain is 16, according to Sharia law girls can marry once they reach puberty. The imams who agreed to marry the girl openly mocked the legitimacy of British law, reflecting the rise of a parallel Islamic legal system in Britain. One of the Muslim clerics who agreed to perform the underage marriage is Mohammed Shahid Akhtar, the imam of the Central Jamia Masjid Ghamkol Sharif Mosque in Birmingham, the second-largest mosque in Britain with a capacity of more than 5,000 worshippers. On being informed that the girl did not want to get married, Akhtar replied: "She's 14. By Sharia, grace of Allah, she's legal to get married. Obviously Islam has made it easy for us. There is nothing against that. We're doing it because it's okay through Islam." The documentary also shows Akhtar expressing his contempt for British marriage laws: "You've got the kuffars [non-believers], the law, the English people that ... you know, you can't get married twice but, by the grace of Allah, we can get married four times." Meanwhile, British taxpayers were left to pay a legal bill of £350,000 (€410,000; $566,000) after Muslim parents went to court to win the right to shave the pubic hair of their disabled daughter. The mother and father of the young woman, who is referred to as "ED" in court documents, said their daughter's pubic hair should be removed according to Islamic tradition. But their local council, which has cared for the disabled woman since 2008, questioned whether she had the mental capacity to consent to her hair being removed. After more than two years of legal fights, the Muslim couple abruptly dropped the case on October 22, after a "cultural expert" concluded that "whilst there was a duty to remove pubic hair, both for religious and cultural reasons, there is an exemption for those incapacitated such as ED." The local authority involved had incurred costs of £138,000, the couple of £82,000 and the official attorney, appearing for ED, of £130,000, with taxpayers footing the entire bill. "This is an astonishing sum of money," a judge at London's High Court, Justice Roderic Wood, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "I thus remain utterly baffled by the course this litigation has taken, and perplexed by this lack of clarity in their case. Obtaining a 10-day slot of a High Court Judge's time is not easy, for there are many competing cases of equal if not greater urgency than this one." In lead up a final hearing, which had been scheduled for late October, "a great morass" of evidence was prepared, including 740 pages of witness statements, 300 pages of expert evidence as well as other documents, the judge said. Also in October, the London Stock Exchange said it would be launching a new Islamic bond index in an effort to establish the City of London as one of the world's leading centers of Islamic finance. Britain also plans to become the first non-Muslim country to issue sovereign Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, beginning as early as 2014. British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the plans during a keynote speech at the ninth World Islamic Economic Forum, which was held in London from October 29-31, the first time the event has ever been held outside the Muslim world. "Already London is the biggest center for Islamic finance outside the Islamic world," Cameron told the audience of more than 1,800 international political and business leaders from over 115 countries. "And today our ambition is to go further still. Because I don't just want London to be a great capital of Islamic finance in the Western world, I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world." The plans are all part of the British government's strategy to acquire as big a slice as possible of the fast-growing global market of Islamic finance, which operates according to Islamic Sharia law and is growing 50% faster than the conventional banking sector. In Scotland, meanwhile, the largest-ever immunization program was halted on October 2 after Muslim parents complained that the so-called Fluenz vaccine contained pork gelatin. The roll-out of the flu vaccine in Glasgow was postponed after parents at Glendale Primary in Pollokshields—which has a large number of Muslim pupils who cannot consume pig products for religious reasons—became aware of the ingredients and complained. The National Health Service of Greater Glasgow and Clyde, an area that contains the overwhelming majority of the Muslims in Scotland, said that 100 Islamic scholars had agreed that pork gelatin was permissible within a vaccine, but it had postponed the vaccinations anyway "following concerns raised by a small number of parents." A similar vaccination program in Leicestershire, England, was halted in September after the same flu vaccine was deemed to be "insensitive" to Muslims. In November it emerged that Choukri Ellekhlifi, a British man who was killed fighting alongside al Qaeda-linked extremists in Syria, funded his trip by mugging people in an affluent area of London. Ellekhlifi threatened victims with a Taser-style high-voltage stun gun and forced them to hand over valuables including designer watches and mobile phones. He lived in London until a year ago when he skipped bail and travelled to Syria to join a group of Islamic extremists waging war on the Assad regime. He was one of three British men killed as their group attacked pro-government forces near the city of Aleppo on August 11. The trio were part of a group of ten British jihadists who joined up with 20 other Britons to fight with the Al-Nusra Front, allied to Al-Qaeda. Separately, Ifthekar Jaman, a 23-year-old jihadist from Southsea, Hampshire, told Richard Watson—the host of the BBC's flagship daily news and current affairs program called Newsnight—that he traveled to Syria to fight with the Al-Qaida-linked ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Jaman said he supported the principle of jihad before he left Britain. He told the BBC: I was already a jihadi [while in the UK] I understood I was on the jihadi path. Where it all began? It began from the book [the Koran]. And I read this and in there you see what jihad is about. I used to be scared of the word jihad. I once went to my sister when I was young I said to her, I saw it in the book and it said fighting. And my sister said to me jihad means what you have in your heart, what you did in your heart. This is what I was taught. It wasn't taught to me that Islam is peace and there's no fighting. It is peace but it requires fighting. The duty of a Muslim is to love jihad. One of the sayings of the prophet peace be upon him whoever does not go jihad or doesn't even talk about it dies with the characteristic of hypocrisy. I am actually a Muslim following the way I should be. Also in November, the head of MI5 (British domestic intelligence), Andrew Parker, told the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee that there are thousands of people living in Britain today who support al Qaida; and the head of MI6 (British foreign intelligence), Sir John Sawers, warned that the threat of terrorist attacks against Britain is increasing. Parker said that British intelligence had foiled 34 terrorist plots since the July 7 London bombings in 2005. In December, two Islamists, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, were found guilty of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby outside the Woolwich Barracks in southeast London on May 22, 2013. The crime shocked the country and has drawn nationwide attention to the rise of radical Islam in Britain. Adebolajo, 28, and Adebowale, 22, were each accused of attacking the 25-year-old Rigby by running him over from behind with a car and then attempting to decapitate his motionless body with a meat cleaver and kitchen knives. Both men were born in Britain and raised as Christians before converting to Islam as teenagers. During the trial, Adebolajo said there was an ongoing "war between the Muslims and the British people" and that he was a "soldier of Allah." Assistant London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, the most senior counter-terrorism officer in Britain, told the newspaper The Telegraph that British soldiers are at risk from "thousands" of lone-wolf terrorists who hold to a "perverted ideology" like the home-grown fanatics who murdered Rigby. She said the threat could never be eliminated. Meanwhile, three Muslim men were sentenced at the Old Bailey on December 6 for confronting and abusing non-Muslims in London in January 2013. The three—who called themselves the Muslim Patrol—confronted, physically assaulted, and verbally abused members of the public whose behavior was in violation of Sharia law. They then posted the videos of their actions on YouTube. Also in December, Marks & Spencer, the biggest clothing retailer in Britain, backed down after facing a boycott from thousands of angry customers who were furious at the store's decision to allow Muslim staff to refuse to serve customers buying alcohol or pork products during the Christmas shopping season. The policy was revealed after customers trying to buy pork or alcohol from a Muslim cashier at an M&S store in central London were told that because of her religion, they would have to use another checkout lane. Critics of M&S's policy of accommodation said it was just another example of how British law and practice is giving way to Islamic Sharia law and practice. Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Kingdom | Soeren Kern
Palestinians: Is Abbas Being Asked to Sign His Death Warrant?
by Ali Salim
December 30, 2013 at 4:00 am
Be the first of your
friends to like this.
PLO President Mahmoud Abbas
undoubtedly knows that the minute he signs a peace deal with Israel, the
Palestinian terrorist organizations will assassinate him. The mismanagement
by Europe, the UN and Abbas's own weakness have prepared the ground for a
takeover by radical elements, and it will occur in the foreseeable future. If
elections were held today in the West Bank, Hamas and other Salafist-Jihadi
organizations would win.
Ashton, Kerry et al are trying to
create another artificial state, "Palestine," which will quickly
become another Islamist country, officially refusing, as a matter of policy,
to recognize the State of Israel and seeking to destroy it.
If the West were genuinely interested
in Palestinians and peace in the Middle East, its top priority would be to
campaign for their citizenship in the Arab world, a quest that would quickly
clear their heads of the nonsense of the "return;" stop the tide of
money flowing into UNRWA and end the fiction of the "Palestinian
refugees."
The European and American attempts to impose an academic and economic
boycott on Israel increase in direct proportion to the signs that the
Palestinian-Israel peace process is sinking into the mud. Boycotts, however,
will simply make the Israelis more obstinate and worsen the situation.
President Obama tried to reassure Israel recently by promising that the
future final status agreement would not turn the West Bank into "a replica
of Gaza." He was referring to the rockets the Palestinians began
launching from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory as soon as Israel
withdrew from the Gaza Strip, and stressed that in any peace agreement, the
United States would not allow another Palestinian terrorist state, this one
in the West Bank, to shell Israel.The Israelis, who have already agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state bordering on Israel, justifiably demand that it be demilitarized and that Israel itself be responsible for security along the Jordan Valley. Their demand is based on past experience and meant to prevent rockets, mortar shells, explosives and arms in general from being smuggled into the West Bank from Jordan. The Palestinians' outright rejection of Israel's demands might well raise suspicions in the objective observer. The Palestinians claim that Israel has a peace agreement with Jordan and therefore should have no fear that weapons will be smuggled into the West Bank. Such a claim is made only by those who conveniently forget about the thousands of rockets and other weapons used by Palestinian terrorists to attack Israel, many of which have been smuggled into Gaza from Egypt, which also has a peace agreement with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas not only refuses to recognize the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jews, but, notably, he demands that Israel be forced to absorb millions of Palestinians as part of the so-called "right of return," instead of demanding, more naturally, that they be absorbed into the future Palestinian state -- all the while demanding that there be no Jews in the Palestinian state What the Palestinians do not yet understand is that the West is losing both interest in and patience for the Palestinian cause. Millions of refugees, an unprecedented number since the 1930s, are massed at borders and seeking ports of entry all over the world. Today, millions of starving Syrian refugees -- having become burdens threatening the internal security and economies of countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and even Bulgaria -- are freezing in cardboard cartons and flimsy tents. Millions of Africans crowd into leaky boats and then drown seeking the shores of Europe, where they hope to find a decent living, while others are interned and humiliated by the Italian authorities on the island of Lampedusa. No one seems to care that in the Arab countries, masses of Muslims die in terrorist attacks at the hands of other Muslims. In the meantime, industriously ignoring these humanitarian catastrophes, the West closely focuses on what it likes to call "finding a solution for the Palestinian problem." This focus has nothing to do with concern for the Palestinian people; it is rather a symptom of the West's complete inability to cope with the world's genuine refugee problems. Only few of the real Arab refugees from the 1948 war in Palestine remain, and would be at least 65 years old today if their families had left when the Arab leadership called on the Arabs to flee from Palestine. All those who fled were promised that once the Arab armies won the war and slaughtered or expelled the Jews, they would return to their homes and could loot and despoil Jewish property as they pleased. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs therefore abandoned their homes in 1948 and settled in the neighboring countries, eventually engendering millions of descendants who have built their lives in the host countries and need only to receive citizenship. The United States and the Arab countries perpetuate the issue of the so-called "Palestinian refugees" with the aid they give to relief organizations, primarily UNRWA. They waste time, money and energy on the Palestinians, in both "Palestine" and other countries, and delay interminably the day when the descendants of the original refugees become citizens of the Arab countries in which they now live. It should be recalled that the Arabs who did not flee from Palestine in 1948, now live in Israel where they make up one-fifth of the population, hold equal rights to the Jews there, have their own political parties, members of Knesset, judges on the Supreme Court, senior diplomatic posts, serve in the army only if they so wish, and are welcomed in all leading professions, including professorships in university and as senior physicians in Israeli hospitals. Perpetuating the status of "refugee" to five generations of their descendants means the Palestinians and the West continue to foster the false hope of the "right of return," making it increasingly difficult to offer these poor souls -- whose ancestors chose to chose to displace themselves - the right to a productive life, as all other refugees and their descendants enjoy in the countries to which they went. The Americans and Europeans cynically manipulate the Palestinians, as nothing more than insignificant pawns in the plot to prolong and escalate the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to justify their continued involvement in the Middle East; in reality, their motives are in no way humanitarian.
International law does not allow refugee status to be inherited, but both the West and our Palestinian brothers continue to use the unjustified and incidentally illegal status of refugees as profitable political-economic merchandise. The corrupt agencies of the United Nations, particularly UNRWA, perpetuate and fatten themselves on the obscene amounts of money flowing into the "Palestinian problem," which for years has not been a humanitarian issue. The Palestinian problem is nowhere on the agenda of the Arab countries, which are caught up in the internal chaos created by the Arab "Spring," and instead has become a lucrative economic project for a whole series of racketeers, robbing the millions of genuine refugees around the globe, many of who are also Arabs, of their rights. The situation in Europe is complex and complicated. Thousands of immigrants knock on the gates of the West in search of employment and a better life, even though the West itself is on the brink of bankruptcy. To them, compared to the countries they are fleeing, the West still looks like paradise. The Europeans have also muddied the definition of "refugees seeking political asylum" -- people who genuinely need protection from persecution. Those who go westward in search of work cross many poor countries where they are not in danger yet claim, unjustly, that they are refugees fleeing for their lives. This confusion also makes it difficult for the West to solve the problem of millions of genuine refugees who clearly are in imminent danger. The worst problem of all, however, is the cynical game of manipulating world public opinion played by the rival Palestinian leaders in their undying efforts to perpetuate the Palestinian issue, which has now become big business, to ensure it is never resolved. Not only is Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, not considered the legitimate leader of the West Bank and was never elected in a fair and honest election, but the Palestinians dispersed among the various Arab countries, and especially the West Bank and Gaza, do not consider him as representing them. They oppose any political arrangement with Israel for fear it might interfere with the glittering hypnotic promises of their return to "Palestine." Mahmoud Abbas undoubtedly knows that the instant he signs an agreement with Israel, the Palestinian terrorist organizations will assassinate him. No Palestinian will agree to an arrangement that would limit his return to the future Palestinian state, currently the territory of the State of Israel. No Palestinian leader will recognize Israel and certainly not one of them will agree to the final, definite end of the conflict. Mahmoud Abbas' refusal to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people, his refusal to waive "the refugees' right of return," his refusal to stop adding to his endless list of demands to end the conflict and his refusal to allow Israel to oversee the Jordan Valley are all proof that the Palestinians' plan to destroy the State of Israel has not been altered since its inception, even if perhaps its methodology has been tweaked from time to time. The real tragedy is that nowhere on the Palestinian horizon is there a mechanism in place for a democratic way to end the conflict. Many Palestinians favor the violent, radical Salafist-jihadi agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, while others reject the Islamist agenda and its lifestyle. The conflict between the two has trapped and dead-ended the Palestinians. The Gaza Strip has been under the control of Islamists for years, and they are gradually taking over towns and cities in the West Bank. It is this situation that prevents the fractured Palestinian leadership from reaching an internal reconciliation and constructing a model for united governance that could end the confrontation between the Jews and the Palestinians. It is clear that if elections were held today in the West Bank, Hamas and other Salafist-jihadi organizations would win. It would seem there is only one model around which Palestinians can unite: the desire to end not their conflict but rather the State of Israel. The Jews are fully aware of the Palestinian model and refuse to accept any arrangement that will endanger their security. Thus, tragically, Palestinian politics are at the moment leading the Palestinian people nowhere. It was recently made known that the Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, who lob rockets into Israel and mine the security fence separating Israel from Gaza, are currently having shortages of electricity, concrete, fuel and food -- the result of flooding caused by recent severe rainstorms. Faced with insurmountable problems, the Hamas leaders turned, indirectly, to Israel for help. For years Hamas has been guilty of the criminal neglect of the people who live under its rule, and now its leaders are calling for help, claiming that they are "besieged" -- by the Egyptians as well as the Israelis -- and that they are facing a "humanitarian crisis," and are prepared to accept aid from Israel, but only secretly! Since the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip, Hamas has poured millions of tons of concrete into building tunnels, the sole purpose of which is to provide easy access for terrorist operatives seeking to infiltrate into Israel. Hamas could have used the concrete to build houses, schools and hospitals, but instead diverted it to terrorism. Hamas evidently far prefers to spend its billions on weapons it can use against Israel rather than on the agriculture, economy, health and welfare of the people who are dependent on it. In the meantime, while the Palestinian Authority announced that it did not intend to pay the salaries of its Gazan employees, it was Israel that recently agreed to help Hamas out of its difficulties and provide it with fuel, concrete, medicine and food, despite the fact that throughout the years Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis with its rockets, bombs and suicide bombers and is still overtly planning to wipe Israel off the map. How lucky for the Palestinians that their enemies are the Jews. While the Palestinian and Islamic terrorist organizations plan their attacks on Israeli civilians, the government of the Israeli occupation, despite the apparent indifference of their leaders, regards the Palestinians themselves as human beings. The rampant mismanagement by Europe, the UN's treatment of the Palestinians and Mahmoud Abbas's floundering and weakness as a policy-maker have prepared the ground for a general takeover of the Palestinian issue by radical Islamic elements, and it will occur in the foreseeable future. On the West Bank it is claimed that in the meantime, only Israeli intelligence, which props up Abbas, has prevented the Islamists from taking complete control. It is disturbing, but not surprising, that in such a complex situation people such as the EU's Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are trying to force Israel to give up assets critical to its security. They are exerting their pressure in the wrong direction: they should instead campaign for citizenship for the Palestinians in the Arab countries, a quest that would quickly clear their heads of the nonsense of the "return;" stop the tide of money flowing into UNRWA and end the fiction of the "Palestinian refugees." As the Arab countries -- relatively new artificial creations temporarily pasted together with the lies of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, disintegrate into their original warring tribes and sects -- Ashton, Kerry, et al are nevertheless trying to create yet another artificial state, "Palestine," which will quickly become another Islamist country, officially refusing, as a matter of policy, to recognize the State of Israel and seeking to destroy it. At his last meeting with Kerry, Abbas rejected the Israeli demand for security control along the Jordan Valley. Palestinian terrorist organizations are planning to smuggle weapons into the West Bank from Jordan and to use them to attack Israel from the east -- exactly as Hamas began attacking from the south the instant the IDF withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Obama's recent assurances that the United States will not allow the West Bank to become "a replica of the Gaza Strip" are as valid as his assurances regarding other cardinal issues, such as Syria and Iran -- further promises never kept.
Related Topics: Ali Salim
Peace Talks vs. Palestinian Terrorism
by Yaakov Lappin
December 30, 2013 at 3:00 am
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"[T]he growth of terror attacks
... stems from the severe incitement in the Palestinian Authority, and the
unwillingness of its leaders to educate the young generation about
coexistence, a culture of peace and a recognition of the State of Israel's
right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, in any
borders." — Moshe Ya'alon, Minister of Defense, Israel.
Levels of Palestinian terrorism against Israel have risen considerably
since the start of Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic talks, with a growing
number of attacks coming out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Senior figures in the Israeli defense establishment have linked some of this violence to ongoing diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians, while also stressing that there is no direct connection between most of the terrorism occurring in the West Bank and the attacks from Gaza. The Palestinian Authority's systematic incitement to hatred and violence, combined with the media's now shining its spotlight on diplomatic talks, has led to a wave of incidents by lone terrorists – individuals who are not part of a wider, organized cell. Such attacks against Israelis have been launched in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and in Israeli cities. Simultaneously, there are ongoing efforts by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza to set up terrorism cells in the West Bank. If successful, these terror organizations would be able to undermine their rival, the Palestinian Authority [PA], and attack Israel from the PA's turf. So far, most of these efforts have been thwarted by Israel's domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet. Complicating matters further, inside Gaza, smaller terror groups, such as the Popular Resistance Committees, are seeking to undermine the truce in place between Israel and Hamas by launching rockets at southern Israel, shooting at Israeli army patrol units, and attempting to plant bombs along the border. The following incidents have occurred in recent days:
A look at official terrorism figures, as presented by the Shin Bet, confirms that since Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in July, there has been a rise in violence. In July, the Shin Bet recorded 82 Palestinian attacks. In November this year, that number rose to 136 attacks, the majority of them occurring in greater Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel's security forces have responded to this wave of Palestinian attacks in several ways. In Gaza, the IDF has sought to boost its deterrence and make clear to Hamas that it must reign in the smaller armed factions, or risk paying a painful price. The message to Hamas is that it must prevent attacks on Israel, or it will ultimately jeopardize its sustainability as a ruling regime in Gaza.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said about recent events: "In recent months, we witnessed the growth of terror attacks stemming from the atmosphere in Judea and Samaria. This in turn stems from the severe incitement in the Palestinian Authority, and the unwillingness of its leaders to educate the young generation about coexistence, a culture of peace, and a recognition of the State of Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, in any borders." Ya'alon accused the PA leadership of paying lip service to peace when communicating with the outside world, while continuing to teach Palestinians to idolize suicide bombers and issuing calls for the destruction of Israel in messages to the domestic audience. The result, Ya'alon said, can be seen in the spike of lone-wolf attackers, who "leave their homes in order to kill Jews, only because they are Jews. This is an intolerable situation from our perspective, and despite the difficulties in dealing with a lone attacker... we will act decisively and in various ways to harm those who try to harm us." The defense minister added that Israel would not tolerate any levels of attacks from Gaza, and put Hamas on notice. As a sovereign regime, Hamas will be held responsible for any further attacks on Israelis from the Gaza Strip, he warned, adding: "If it won't be quiet in Israel, it won't be quiet in Gaza."
Related Topics: Israel
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