TONY Blair has called for a ''revolution in thinking'' on international counterterrorism, saying the ''paucity'' of the West's efforts have left it ''outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised'' by Islamist extremism.
Speaking in New York to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank established by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1985, Mr Blair said a failure to challenge the ''narrative'' that Muslims were oppressed by the West was fuelling extremism around the world. Instead, the majority had accepted the idea that military interventions since the September 11 attacks were an explicit attack on Muslims.
''The practitioners of extremism are small in number. The adherents of the narrative stretch far broader into parts of mainstream thinking,'' he said.
Mr Blair explained how he regarded the narrative: ''It is that Islam is basically oppressed by the West; disrespected and treated unfairly; that the military action we took post-9/11 was against countries because they are Muslim; and that in the Middle East we ignore the injustice done to the Palestinians in our desire to support Israel, because the Palestinians are Muslims, and the Israelis Jews. It is a narrative that now has vast numbers of assembled websites, blogs and organisations.''
Since stepping down as British prime minister, Mr Blair has represented the quartet - the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia - working to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
''The irony is that the many Muslims who believe passionately in coexistence and tolerance are not empowered but frequently disempowered by our refusal to confront the narrative,'' Mr Blair said.
''We think if we sympathise with the narrative - that essentially this extremism has arisen as a result, partly, of our actions - we meet it half way, we help the modernisers to be more persuasive. We don't. We indulge it and we weaken them.''
