(I am updating this entry to alert readers to another very important piece on the subject of Britain’s failure to confront Islamic radicalism by Douglas Murray. See below)

If it sometimes seems perverse that the British Foreign Office should adopt such a positive stance on terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, it is nonetheless important to be reminded that the British government has a long and depressing history of outright support for Islamist terror groups throughout the world. Just such a reminder is provided today in a stunning piece of writing by Mark Curtis, whose book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam was published last week.

Writing in the Guardian — an irony that I will come to in a moment — Curtis explains how an approach characterised by myopic short-termism has engendered a culture among policy makers in Whitehall — a shorthand term for the British government named after the central London street on which many ministries are located — whereby Britain has ended up supporting Islamist groups who subsequently bomb us:
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Readers may have noticed that the UK’s Methodist Church last week launched a boycott of Israel. I have an op-ed on the matter in today’s Jerusalem Post. Click here to read it.

The eminent Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz frequently provides a useful analogy about Israel’s predicament in the tribunals of international law. It is analogous, he argues, to the position that black people faced in the American south of the 1930s. The legal system would work fine in judging a case between a white man and another white man. A black man facing another black man may get a lesser degree of justice due to the insouciance of the system, but a reasonable degree of fairness could still be expected. Put a white man against a black man, however, and the black man never stood a chance due to the weight of the prejudices against him.

Dershowitz’s analogy is powerful and striking. But a decision taken in a British court this week suggests that analogies with America in the 1930s are no longer necessary. Bigotry against the Jewish state is now so entrenched in contemporary British society that juries have begun to acquit criminals merely if they can show that they acted against Israeli interests. No other defence is necessary.

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The irrepressible Melanie Phillips highlights today yet another searing indictment of the Islamist extremists who run Gaza, and their UN apologists who with mindblowing intransigence refuse to recognise the real root cause of what is going on there. It transpires that Hamas has yet again torched a UN run children’s summer camp to prevent the heinous crime against Islam of little boys and girls playing together and having fun.

To all sane and reasoned individuals — ie. not the British foreign office, not the Obama administration and most certainly not the United Nations — this would come as yet another piece of evidence of the vile, extremist nature of the people who run Gaza and remain intent on holding it in a state of backwardness and religious-ideological conformism.

So here is John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, on the BBC:

“”This is another example of the growing levels of extremism in Gaza and further evidence, if that were needed, of the urgency to change the circumstances on the ground.” In other words, it’s Israel’s fault.

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Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of Italy, is an unconventional politician and he is difficult to predict. But even Berlusconi is surely too well versed in the customs of international diplomacy to make predictions about Israel attacking Iran without very good grounds for doing so. On the sidelines of the G8* summit in Canada on Saturday he said the following:

“Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react pre-emptively.” (My italics)

Unless Berlusconi is being completely irresponsible, this sounds like a warning that something may be imminent. It is also worth noting that Berlusconi’s remarks came the day before CIA director Leon Panetta said Iran probably has enough uranium to build two nuclear weapons within the next two years.

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