“…Over the past decades at least, the British have been warned by many quarters about their overly permissive policy towards sheltering terrorists, which was originally devised and carried out by the same Jack Straw who was then Home Secretary and is now the Foreign Secretary, notably after the Islamist “mouths” and “brains” of the Gama’at in Egypt, who massacred tourists, found shelter in Britain. Now the realization is spreading in Britain that, though it was warned by its own security experts about is complacency, and by other intelligence services of impending attacks, it failed to understand the mechanisms and way of thinking of the Muslim terrorists. The failure is mainly due to successive governments who authorized lax policies, resisted their tightening, and put aggressive data-gathering and analysis low on their scale of priorities….However, the main problem has been the legal protection that Britain offered to terrorist suspects, and which is skillfully exploited by the Islamist networks. Even Islamists who have made statements in support of Bin-Laden, or of toppling Western regimes, were treated leniently by the courts, probably under the mistaken belief that the distance between words of incitement and action was much greater than it actually was. The absurdity of these proceeedings reached the point where courts refused to extradite foreign criminals, who were requested by their governments, for “fear of their lives”, and allowed them to endanger the lives of British citizens and British security…”(Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology, page 402) The following is a letter for the author of this book, Raphael Israeli, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair dated July 14.
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
As with most Israelis, my heart went out to you and the British people during the tragedy that has been inflicted upon innocent civilians in London. I hear many British officials stating their “shock” that the perpetrators were British, and the British public in general expressing their incredulousness that such a home-grown plight could be permitted to develop under the noses of the authorities.
More than two years ago my book entitled Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology was published and distributed in London (Frank Cass, 2003), identifying the danger very concretely, with the names of its instigators and their deeds, including the young Britons from Leeds who were recruited and sent to Afghanistan to train for exactly this kind of horror. To my knowledge, no one in a position of responsibility heeded those warnings nor did anything about them. The wishful thinking of “peaceful Islam” and the liberal treatment of Muslim murderers who found refuge in Britain, overshadowed all other considerations, and now the British common people are paying this horrendous price.
I was also struck by the announcement by the Chief of the Scotland Yard to the effect that the perpetrators were just “criminals”, thus skirting their attributes of “Muslim fundamentalists” or “Islamikaze”. Criminals usually take their risks for economic gains which they try to enjoy by surviving and escaping punishment. Islamikaze, by contrast, are ideological murderers, who take risks and even sacrifice themselves for an idea (of Islamic dominion). To call them “suicide bombers” therefore, not only misses the point but may even evoke some sympathy for them and attempts to “understand” why they performed their abominable act.
A new thinking is needed, Mr. Prime Minister, not only by England but also by the rest of Western countries in general if we are all to survive and then overwhelm this relentless wave of Islamic terrorism (no other poor, disadvantaged, “frustrated” etc. group of people has ever launched such a murderous assault on Western culture).
I have put in the mail, and will also channel via your Ambassador in Israel, the relevant pages from my book which have sounded the alarm two years ago, but were unfortunately ignored.
With my deepest respect and sympathy, I remain
Truly Yours,
Raphael Israeli,
Professor of Islamic History
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, ISRAEL