The British jihad (1)

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has been all over the airwaves in the past 24 hours. He says he does not support suicide bombers; but then he provides a detailed justification of this terrorism on the grounds that they are 'oppressed' by the people they murder. He blames the west for 'double standards' around the world which drive young Muslim men to turn themselves into human bombs.

Three guesses which particular country is in his sights. At a press conference yesterday, he said:

'Given that the Palestinians don't have jet fighters, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that's what people use. When talking about the imbalance of forces, I will gladly welcome leading members of the Israeli government if they come here even though they have done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity in a way they have indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children in the West Bank and Gaza for decades'.

He repeatedly draws a moral equivalence between genocidal Arab terrorism against Israel with its attempts to defend itself against it. He wept over the London bombings but implies that the Jews in Israel are fair game for slaughter. He also compared Likud to Hamas, saying,

'I think the Israeli hardliners around Likud and Hamas are two sides of the same coin, they need each other to drum up support.'

Hamas terrorists are regularly killing and attempting to kill Israelis. This is what the Hamas Covenant says:

'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will

obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' (Preamble)

'The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian

movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is

Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of

Palestine.' (Article 6)

'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and

kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the

rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind

me, come and kill him.' (Article 7)

'The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession]

consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one

can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.'

(Article 11)

'Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the

Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem

wherever he may be.' (Article 13)

'The enemies have been scheming for a long time ... and have

accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money,

they took control of the world media... With their money they stirred

revolutions in various parts of the globe... They stood behind the

French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the

revolutions we hear about... With their money they formed secret

organizations - such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions -

which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies

and carry out Zionist interests... They stood behind World War I ...

and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the

world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge

financial gains... There is no war going on anywhere without them

having their finger in it.' (Article 22)

'Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.' (Article 13)

Given that these are the genocidal aims of Hamas, to say that the Israeli Likud party needs Hamas is a sick and bigoted travesty which is almost beyond belief.

Even more disgustingly, Livingstone claimed it was wrong to question the bona fides of young Muslim men when 'Jewish boys' who enlisted in the Israeli army were welcomed back into Britain. Apart from the disgusting equation of the systematic mass murder of Israelis with their attempt to defend themselves against annihilation, he implied that 'Jewish boys' from Britain were helping to oppress the Palestinians. Leave aside the small fact that 'Jewish boys' from anywhere only serve in the Israel Defence Force if they are Israeli, and the resulting slur about divided loyalty that this remark implied, this association makes 'Jewish boys' in Britain fair game for Muslim boys who will doubtless be further enraged by these lies and libels.

There was yet more. On Radio Four's Today programme this morning (0749), Livingstone said by way of explaining why Palestinian Arabs turned themselves into human bombs against Israelis that they did not have the vote. The implication was that Israel has prevented them from having the vote, and is therefore an apartheid state. But of course, the Arabs of the territories do not have a vote in Israel because the territories are not part of Israel; Livingstone would be the first to scream if Israel claimed them as such. If it's the lack of a Palestinian state that he's referring to, well, they have been offered that repeatedly and responded instead by murdering Jews. And in any event, they do have a vote - they used it to elect Mahmoud Abbas as their Prime Minister.

Livingstone, whose whole presentation was off the wall, was given the softest of treatments by the Today presenter who lobbed a couple of feeble counter arguments at him but never challenged the gross distortions.

This man is no longer some far-left maverick. He is the Labour Mayor of London, brought back into the Labour fold by Tony Blair himself. His words, like so many countless articles and broadcasts by people who have treacherously sided with or made excuses for the enemies of this country and the west have without doubt, through the lies and libels they have perpetrated, helped foment the demented hysteria which sends Muslim boys into the arms of the cynical terror-puppeteers who turn them into human bombs. If the Prime Minister seriously wants to root out the causes of terror, he should expel Livingstone once more from the Labour party - and the Attorney-General should consider whether there is a case against him for incitement.

Meanwhile, alas, the torrent of poison about Israel has done its lethal work among the British mainstream. As Michael Gove reports in the Times:

'Listening to Any Questions the other day, I was intrigued to hear one of the panelists refer to a fascinating website run by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an organisation that translates news reports and speeches from the Arab world. MEMRI has provided a valuable insight into developments in Arab politics and religion, including illuminating translations of sermons, whose reliability no one has seriously contested. But on Friday night's show George Galloway kept interrupting his fellow-panelist to point out that people working for MEMRI were Israelis. A section of the audience laughed and applauded, as though this exposed MEMRI's work as unworthy of further attention.'

Israel, a nation that by and large tells the truth, has become a synonym for lies - as a result of the Big Lies about Israel that now circulate in the British bloodstream. To repeat: the demonisation of Israel and the Jews lie at the rotten core of the war against the west. It will not - cannot - be won until this is acknowledged, discussed and dealt with.