From The Guardian, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
A police chief whose force has increased its special branch to cold war levels in the fight against terror appealed yesterday for a more mature public debate on the threat from extremists.
Colin Cramphorn, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, called for an end to use of the misleading terms “Islamic” or “Muslim” to describe supporters of violence against the west….
The slur on the country’s overwhelmingly law-abiding Muslim population risked alienating a significant community which had no sympathy with violence and as much of a stake in defeating terror as everyone else.
Mr Cramphorn is in charge of policing a sensitive area in the run-up to the general election, with the far-right British National party fielding its leader, Nick Griffin, in the West Yorkshire town of Keighley. Mr Griffin is to answer police bail in Halifax early next month. His arrest followed secret BBC filming of a BNP meeting in Keighley at which he called Islam “an evil, vicious faith”.
Mr Cramphorn, who uses the word “jihadist” to describe groups such as al-Qaida, said Islamophobia threatened precisely the intelligence work needed to contain the real threat of terror attacks. The security forces needed the eyes and ears of everybody to help their work, and to understand what radicalised people such as the British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.
Well, I use the term “jihadist” too. After all, the Muslim warriors we are facing themselves explain that they are fighting a jihad. The Arabic word for them is mujahid, or, in English, jihadist. But it is ridiculous to call them jihadists and then turn around and deny the existence of “Islamic terrorism.” Jihad only has any meaning in the context of Islam. If they are jihadists, they are committing violence, or approving of that violence, in the name of Islam. It is not “mature” to notice this, or point it out? And how exactly does Mr. Cramphorn (Matthew Arnold complained over a century ago about the ugliness of English names — “Higginbotham! Stiggins! Bugg!” I see they haven’t improved) propose to fight against an enemy he refuses to identify properly?
What’s that, Cramphorn? This nomenclature offends the “the country’s overwhelmingly law-abiding Muslim population”? I see. Well, please explain one more thing to me: how is it that in this overwhelmingly law-abiding population, Al-Muhajiroun, a jihadist group of Islamic terrorists, came to be Britain’s largest Muslim group?