ISIS - a Statement

The Holy Koran states that in the last days the ‘mufsidin fi al-ard,’ (those who corrupt the earth), will appear.

Some of the learned ‘Ulama equate ISIS with the ‘mufsidin fi al-ard’ -- “those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption” as recorded in Chapter 5, verse 33 of the Holy Quran.

We are appalled at the savage atrocity committed in the act of execution of the Jordanian pilot Ra’id Moath al-Kassasbeh and, indeed, by the brutal beheadings of so many innocent aid workers and journalists, as well as by the martyrdom of the Coptic Christians (young men from the same village who died with the name of the Messiah on their lips as any who have watched the horrific video will be aware).

Some claim the kind of violence being exercised by ISIS is part of the past, of the ‘jahiliyah,’ the pre-Islamic era.

Some Muslim scholars go further and argue that, members of ISIS and their supporters are behaving in a way that is thoroughly un-Islamic. Some of these scholars suggest that they resemble the “false Muslims” referred to in Surah al-Munafiqun, the 33^rd chapter of the Holy Koran and should be treated as such. Their approach of dividing the world into ‘Dar al-Islam’ (the House of Islam) and ‘Dar al-Harb’ (the House of War) is not valid. The same can be said about the fanatics and terrorists, who recently killed people in France and Denmark. They have to be unequivocally condemned, even if we believe that the freedom of expression is not the freedom to insult (see the message on this link published by the ICF on May 2, 2006). They are not Islam. They are a disgrace to Islam.

To quote Aristotle, “Anyone can be angry, but to be angry at the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way is to be commended.”

Having said which, we caution against the use of indiscriminate force to destroy ISIS. There has been too much civilian collateral damage in the liberation of Kobani and in the bombing of Durna, and we must move with careful deliberation in acting against ISIS lest we increase sympathy for this renegade terrorist group.

Bernard Margueritte, ICF President; and William Morris, ICF Chairman, 

The International Communications Forum

In Search of Moderate Muslims

Felix sends this with the comment "This is an excellent AEI article by Joshua Muravchik."

Ever since his first post-9/11 speech summoning the nation to a war against terrorism, President Bush has stressed that "our war is against evil, not against Islam." Indeed, his administration has branded the terrorists as "traitors to their own faith"--outlaws who are "trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself."
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of such pronouncements. But they also reflect a strategic imperative--namely, to prevent the jihadists from attracting wide support in the Muslim world. The goal of Bush's policy is, rather, to call forth the Muslim majority against the acts and ideology of the terrorists. As the Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has put it: "radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution."

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Understanding Radical Islam

This comes in from Jonathan Paris - it is old but it is interesting:

Demography is one of Europe’s most significant challenges.A relatively high Muslim birthrate in Europe and an alarmingly low birthrate among indigenous Europeans, combined with the tendency of Muslims to live in urban areas, suggest that many European cities will have Muslim majorities by 2020 or 2025, even with government imposition of tighter immigration restrictions.

To take one city, Bradford, UK, one of the early destinations of Pakistani immigrants after the Second World War, the 1991 census recorded 64,000 Muslims representing 13 per cent of the population. By 2001, there were 94,000 Muslims, a 50 per cent increase from 1991. In 2001, Muslims represented nearly 20 per cent of overall population but over 30 per cent of students and 50 per cent of toddlers. By 2011, Muslims will represent close to 30 per cent of the population in Bradford and over 50 per cent of its students.[1] The high growth rates and youth bubble create a burgeoning pool of young Muslim males. The Muslim population surge is most apparent in the British Midlands and in the adjacent corridor across the channel from northern France through Belgium and Holland.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Xenophobia and Pilgrim Hall

The Pilgrim Hall conference of the Next Century Foundation was just held to address post Annapolis peace process issues. It was very succesful. Amongst related issues addressed was that of xenophobia and the conference was addressed by Dr David Hirsh, Goldsmith's College, Univ of London; Editor, Engageonline.com; Academic Committee, Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Global Antisemitism, Yale University, will address the issue of xenophobia and its negative impact on peace.

David spoke of increasing levels of antisemitism in Britain. However, there are increasing levels of antisemitism worldwide - and most certainly in the Middle East. Our good friend Felix recently sent us this item in which the speaker of the Palestinian parliament describes the Jewish people as the "brothers of the pigs". So sick and sad to see this happening again. HAVING SAID WHICH - the speaker of the Palestinian Parliament was a VERY MODERATE Hamas man. Israel arrested him without charge and he was replaced with this extremist. Tell me someone - Why arrest the moderates? God only knows. What is salutory is that the Israeli- Palestinian Anti Incitement Committee, which had been shut down (rather foolishly let it be said) by Israel - is now to be reopened under the terms of the Annapolis agreement.

TO VIEW THE ITEM THAT CONCERNED FELIX CLICK HERE

Saudi Arabia Must Be Culturally Open

An intersting piece sent in by Memri. One reason the Arab World is so actively pursuing peace with Israel at the moment is the problem of the radicalisation of the populations of the region as the status quo festers on:

In an article in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, Saudi columnist Sa'ud Al-Balawi criticized attempts by Saudi religious streams to sabotage the country's annual cultural events, thereby transforming Saudi Arabia into a Taliban society, isolated from the rest of the world. The following are excerpts:

Last Tuesday, Al-Watan reported that eight extremists had threatened to disrupt vocal concerts organized as part of the annual Jeddah festival, after trying to persuade the public not to enter the concert hall. Having failed, [the extremists] began to shout, threatening to stop the festivities by any possible means... "Extremist tendencies are becoming increasingly widespread in our midst. This kind of attitude reminds us of past incidents such as [the disturbances] at the international book fair and at Al-Yamama College...

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Al-Jazeera criticised for acting as 'spokesman for fundamentalism'

MEMRI Special Dispatch-Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project
June 12, 2007
No. 1617

Al-Jazeera Criticized for Once Again Acting as "Official Spokesman for Fundamentalist Groups... As It Did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine"

In a recent column titled "Al-Jazeera to The Rescue of Fath Al-Islam," in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Egyptian columnist Diana Muqallid harshly criticized the Al-Jazeera network's coverage of the clashes between the Lebanese army and Fath Al-Islam for its lack of objectivity, and for its disregard of the latter's aggressive actions. She wrote that Al-Jazeera was playing the same role it had played in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine - that of spokesman for fundamentalist groups.

An example of Al-Jazeera's bias towards Fath Al-Islam is an article by senior Al-Jazeera presenter Dr. Faisal Al-Qassem, that was published in the London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi - a paper known to support Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. In it, he attacked the way the Lebanese army was waging the clashes, and the harm it was doing to the residents of the refugee camps where the clashes were taking place, while disregarding the part that Fath
Al-Islam was playing in the violence.

To view this Special Dispatch in the original click here.

An Honor Worth Defending

This has just come in from Felix with the comment, "Brilliant article you may want to put on your blog":

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 ARTICLES
International Herald Tribune Publication Date: June 25, 2007

Imagine if a crowd of Englishmen marched in London carrying effigies of Muhammad, peace be upon him, stacks of the Koran, miniatures of the Kaaba in Mecca and Saudi flags. Imagine if they then built a bonfire and hurled the items one at a time into that fire screaming "Long Live the Queen!" each time the flames shot up.
This would be the equivalent of what hardline Muslim students did in the eastern Pakistani city of Multan, to take just one example, when they burned effigies this week of Queen Elizabeth II and Salman Rushdie, chanting "Kill him! Kill him!" in response to his recently bestowed knighthood.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Free Speech In Israel

This comes in from the controversial MPAC group:

A news conference was to take place yesterday in Jerusalem. It was planned to discuss the ongoing excavation in the vicinity of the Al Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site. The Israeli Police did not allow the conference to take place. There have been ongoing demonstations in the Old City of Jerusalem protesting the work, resulting in mass arrests, closures and lots of bad publicity for the Municipality of Jerusalem.Using the 'excuse' that yesterday's conference was sponsored by Hamas, police delivered an order canceling it. Hamas is forbidden to hold any activities within Israel.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Moroccan journalists face 5 years' jail for joke

Ian Black, Middle East editor - Tuesday January 9, 2007 The Guardian

Retelling other people's jokes can have serious consequences, as two Moroccan journalists have found to their cost as they face charges of insulting Islam and offending public morality - and a possible prison sentence of up to five years.

The case against the Arabic weekly Nichane has serious implications for press freedom and highlights tensions between hopes for liberalisation and Islamist opinion outraged by what the magazine says was a harmless survey of the nation's sense of humour.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Censorship in the Name of Islam

Felix sends us this item. He comments: "This is really very interesting and in fact important. Most people probably do not know of all these regulations and restrictions which of course is part of the problem of the Islamic world's problem to get into the age of modernity".

In an article titled "Ban... Ban...," published in the Tunisian French-language weekly Rialitis, Tunisian columnist Zyed Krichen denounced the policy of censorship and denial of free speech that he said had been implemented by most Arab states and Islamist groups "since the advent of printing." In the second part of his article, he lists instances of censorship and persecution in the name of Islam from various Muslim countries, from 1925 to date, including banned works and writers and artists who have been imprisoned, flogged, and/or killed.

TO VIEW THIS ARTICLE IN ENGLISH CLICK HERE

For the full ORIGINAL article in French, see THIS WEBSITE

Editor walks free after Prophet cartoons conviction

Agence France-Presse - 26 November, 2006

A Yemeni court sentenced a newspaper editor to one year in jail and shut his publication for reprinting offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, but the attorney general freed the journalist. The court in Sanaa handed down the one-year jail sentence to Kamal al-Olfi, editor of Al-Rai Al-Aam, and banned him from writing for six months, in addition to closing his private weekly, an AFP correspondent reported.

To view full article click here

American Muslims Oppose Al-Qaeda

Felix submits this item. He states, "Pretty powerful stuff - Hope some British Muslims might follow suit":

The online version of the Las Vegas Review Journal (www.reviewjournal.com) recently posted an article by Muslim American journalist Aslam Abdullah, whois the director of the Islamic Society of Nevada and of the Muslim Electorates Council of America, and is also editor of two Muslim American papers: the Muslim Observer weekly and the Minaret monthly. In his article, titled "Kill Us Too, We Are Also Americans," he harshly denounces the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, saying that Al-Mujahir and his supporters rejoice in killing innocent people and that they bring nothing but disaster upon Islam. Abdullah adds that, if Al-Muhajir wishes to harm Americans, he might as well target Muslim-Americans, since they, no less than their fellow citizens, regard the U.S. as their home and uphold its values.

Click here for excerpts from the article

Islam and democracy

Adel Darwish expresses concern regarding the fact that some of the NCF Media Working Group may have misunderstood his comment on Islam and democracy, and took it as a criticism of Muslims.

"I meant Islamists political leaders who are now influencing both governmental policy and media in the region that is forced to spread the message. I didn't mean the populace - although the latter of course never think for themselves.

"The fact is that fundamentalist faith ( any faith) is incompatible with democracy. You only look at what the Vatican said in 2004 ( that Democracy was blasphemous and man's law should never replace god's law); or the fundamentalists in Israel ( near 200,000 of them) who don't serve in the army, or pay tax or vote as they believe it is sinful for the Jews to have a state, hence they don't recognise Israel !

"Same applies to Muslim clergy ( and all of them and that what I meant by all, but unfortunately you misunderstood it) who believe that all Muslims should follow god's laws not man's laws, hence they reject democracy.

"There isn't one single government in the Middle East today which has not compromised itself and gave in to Islamists blackmail, and trying either to appease them or appear to be more Islamic. If you name one single exception of a government from the Atlas Mountains to the Persian Gulf, I will be happy to learn something new.

"One case in point was the Egyptian ministry of information ( although the minister is among the most westernised and enlightened), banning an issue of the Guardian Weekly and a German magazine from sale and display on the stand because they published an essay that included quotes from the pope's lecture; while, for example the very subject of the pope's lecture( Hellenistic philosophy's analysis of the faith) was covered in two volume excellent book by the late existentialist Egyptian philosopher Dr Abdel Rahamn Badawi, some 60 years ago ' the Fundamentals of Hellenic philosophy' published in French and Arabic by Dar al-Maaref in Cairo. He had the same quotes and even worse quotes about Islam and how it was spread by the sword and the illogical interpretaton of the work of god etc. Yet. it was not banned and Cairo university students were reading it openly.

"Hence was my comment when I said all of them ( i.e. those making public opinion, government and media ) are under influence of clergy who believe in the fundamentals of Islam which is and will never be compatible with democracy, except, when there is a separation between state and church, and the national constitution doesn't mention that one faith was the source of legislation. This for example was like how Egypt used to be before the 1952 military coup with multi-party parliamentarian democracy , hence books like Taha Hussein's ' al fitna al-Kubra' ( stronger than Salman's Rushdie's) or Dr Badawi's books were never banned.

"But because it is precisely now that ALL governments in the region are appeasing Islamists, then democracy will have no chance ( there are other factor of course).

Muhammad's sword

Ann Morris of the public affairs company, Morris International, forwarded this piece which she felt was important:

Pope Benedict XVI in the service of George W. Bush

By Uri Avnery

09/24/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Since the days when Roman emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine . Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the
West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the emperors and the popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some emperors dismissed or expelled a pope, some popes dismissed or excommunicated an emperor. One of the emperors, Henry IV, "walked to
Canossa ", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when emperors and popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a worldwide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism",
in the context of the "clash of civilizations".

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in
the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate.
It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the Prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword.
According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in
doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained.
These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube . They had conquered Bulgariaand the north of Greece , and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire . On 29 May 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul), fell to the Turks, putting an end to the empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II.
He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe , this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkeyinto the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, Verse 256 (strangely fallible, for
a pope, he meant Verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the Prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an.
True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia , when he was building his state.
But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits."
The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other
European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith.
Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favourites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalemand massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestineby the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long
period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

There no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews.
As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In
Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age.
How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics reconquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith,
escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Moroccoin the west to Iraqin the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudanin the south.
Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost.
They had to pay a special poll tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna . I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means
that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "global war on terror" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical
attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom".

The Way Forward

Following the recent St Brides' conference, Hugh Nowell of the International Communications Forum made this observation:

The news following the 9/11 memorials in the US suggested that the majority consider we are losing the war against terror. What to do? What must we change? It is easier to change our own attitudes than those of others! In what way?

1. To be true to our own faith. Many Muslims feel Christians do not take their faith seriously.
2. Tarek Ramadan has suggested that nationwide local initiatives to build understanding is the way forward.

Finally a quote from Pasternack: -

"It is not revolutions and upheavals - That clear the road to new and better days; But revelations, lavishness and torments of someone's soul, inspired and ablaze."

Radical Islam a worrisome, deep problem in Britain

By Jonathan S. Paris

Originally published August 13, 2006

The arrest of at least 24 people in London, Birmingham and other British cities last week for allegedly plotting to blow up planes en route from London to the United States is a chilling reminder of how deep the problem of radical Islam in the United Kingdom has become.

Nearly all of the suspects are British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent. While there appears to be connections with Pakistani extremist groups, possibly even al-Qaida, the inescapable conclusion of this plot is that many British-born Muslims hate their country and America enough to blow themselves up in airlines carrying innocent passengers.

British-born children and grandchildren of South Asian immigrants are increasingly being politicized as Muslims with identities separate from their host British societies by local and global charismatic persuaders called "preceptors," from imams in London to radical Islamic icons such as Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Based on what we now know about the July 7, 2005, bombers from Leeds and others who have been radicalized in Britain, the pull of preceptors appears greater than the oft-noted push factors of joblessness, discrimination and alienation. The imam in the local mosque who says to a young Muslim man searching for an identity, "You are not Stephen, you are Abu Bakr," nurtures the disciple's feeling of loyalty, not to his British nation or to his ethnic background but to the cause of Islam.

The young Muslim male from Leeds is now able to identify with Muslim victims all over the world from Chechnya, Bosnia and the Palestinian territories to Iraq. He also has an explanation for his grievances against his host country: Islamophobia. He now thinks that they discriminate against him not, as in the case of other non-Muslim minorities, because of his dark skin color, but because he is Muslim.

The role of the Muslim leaders is part of the problem. They too often promote the grievance politics of Islamophobia and mobilize otherwise apolitical Muslims to alter government policies on the Middle East and domestically.

Military and criminal law-enforcement approaches are inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat because they focus on the operational but not on the motivational side. They focus on Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th 9/11 hijacker, but not on Abu Hamza al Masri, the imam who preached to Mr. Reid and Mr. Moussaoui at the Finsbury Park mosque in North London.

But persuasion is more than attending sermons of charismatic imams. It is also abetted by radical Islamists from afar, including Mr. bin Laden, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, who foster a strong sense of Muslims under siege by the West.

The local context and the international context reinforce each other, creating a compelling world view for a young British Muslim that includes these perceptions: Americans and Zionists are keeping Muslims down. They are trying to reshape the Middle East by bringing down those who resist occupation. They are trying to keep Muslim Iran from having the ability to balance their terror with a Muslim nuclear bomb.

Ignited by cultural and political issues, such as the cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad this year and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordan-based Hezb ut-Tahrir have increased global solidarity - and radicalization - among British Muslims.

By understanding the ideological indoctrination of British Muslims as the source of radicalization and separation from mainstream British values, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government can begin to craft policies to counter radicalization. The essential point is to counter the political agendas of Islamists.

British authorities are not going to have an easy time rooting out homegrown Islamic terrorists as long as large numbers of British Muslims look the other way. According to a poll commissioned for a British television program aired last week, 23 percent of British Muslims felt the 7/7 London bombers were justified because of British support for the U.S. war on terror. Fence sitters tend to go with the winning side. Both the government and the Muslim community need to demonstrate that siding with radical Islam is a loser.

The growth of Muslim true believers in the United Kingdom is a cause of great concern to British society. Countering increasing radicalization will not be easy. As called for recently by Mr. Blair, it may require a forthright assertion of British and European values and a recalibration of British laws to isolate preceptors and prevent them from spewing hatred in a way that attracts young Muslim followers.

Jonathan S. Paris is a Middle East and Islamic movement analyst based in London. A former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he just finished a study on radical Islam in Europe for the U.S. government. His e-mail is jonathansparis@yahoo.com.