The use of Mary imagery, however, was just a technique to compare the suicidal terrorist Idris to Jesus of Nazareth. The Hadith al-Medina text states, "Perhaps you were born in the same city; perhaps even in the same neighborhood and in the same house. Perhaps you ate from the same date palm and drank from the same pure water flowing through the veins of the holy city. It is not surprising that the enemy in both cases was the same."

That was not the only instance of the use of Christian theological imagery in an attempt to sanctify the terrorist act of Wafa Idris. An Al-Arabi editorial saw Idris's act as redeeming the entire people. About the day she rose to Heaven, the Egyptian editorial asks rhetorically, "What is more beautiful than someone who turns the event of his death into the day of his return to life? What is more beautiful than this death that instills life? What is more beautiful than the transformation of a person from a chunk of flesh and blood to illuminating purity and a spirit that cuts across generations?" The Egyptian weekly editorial answers, "How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, the day you returned to life, with your noble and voluntary death in the bosom of Jerusalem. How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, on the day of your martyrdom." In a more direct theological reference, the article reaches a crescendo, "How beautiful you were when you freed us from our sins. How beautiful you were when you elevated the humiliated nation to Paradise."

From the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Anti-Semitism is
Back in British Politics

Michael Gove

There is one form of hate which increasingly dares to parcel out blame. Far from this prejudice being met with resolute condemnation, action against its most virulent proponents is nugatory and the intellectual trends which favour it go broadly unchallenged. Why? Because this form of racism can be worn as a chic accessory to radical views, a badge of identification with "the oppressed." Anti-Semitism is the new black.

The anti-Semitism now abroad is qualitatively different from the prejudice against the Jewish people which the Roman Catholic Church harboured in the 19th century and fascist parties promulgated in the 20th. The new anti-Semitism of the 21st century is advanced not through Rome and the far Right, but fundamentalist Islam and the radical Left. Which is why contemporary condemnation has been so muted. Extremist Islamist activists are the most vocal vessels of this new hate.

Two weeks ago, The Times disclosed that the Islamist cleric Shaikh Abdullah el-Faisal was urging British Muslims to acquire arms training and kill the "filthy Jews." On Sunday, it was revealed that hardline Islamists had indeed been training with AK47 rifles in the Finsbury Park mosque which is home to another radical cleric, Abu Hamza. Over the years the same mosque has sheltered Zacarias Mossaoui, one of the terrorists responsible for the twin towers attack and the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. All these men cleave to a form of Islam which sees jihad, the holy war, as the highest form of devotion and the Jewish people as the most urgent target for assault. Sheikh Faisal's arrest on February 18, under laws which have lain unused for a century, comes after years when he has been free to peddle hate.

As for Abu Hamza, he and his mosque remain untroubled by the authorities. The failure to deal effectively with Islamist extremism is a consequence of more than just ignorance or incompetence.

Honest discussion of the radical Islamist message, the hold extremist clerics have over many British mosques and the anti-Semitic nature of much of their discourse, has been impeded by a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, New Left model of multiculturalism. Tony Blair's assertion that Islam is a "religion of peace" was admirable in its intention to promote inclusivity, but it failed to take account of strident, radical Islamists who daily subvert civil peace.

The Government's reticence in this matter cannot be separated from broader trends on the Left which now challenge the security of the Jewish people. A hypersensitivity to Islamic interests and insensitivity to Jewish concerns is an under-remarked feature of the European New Left. Because Britain's Jewish citizens have become well-integrated, often professionally successful, and in many cases Tory-voting, their community is no

Outpost               - 6 -               March 2002