How Britain appeased Islamic extremism

Its supine policies sowed an evil wind. Now it's reaping the whirlwind

The Ottoman Army surrounds Vienna, 1683; Frans Geffels, 1683-1694

As British and other western countries are convulsed by massive, Muslim-dominated demonstrations exulting at the barbaric murder of 1400 Israelis on October 7, and as these mobs call for the destruction of Israel and the further murder of Jews, Muslim preachers in Britain’s mosques have been additionally stoking the fires of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people.

The Mail has reported that sermons preached at mosques in London, Bradford, Leeds and Manchester, which have been delivered from the moment the Hamas pogrom occurred and which were monitored and translated from Arabic by the paper, have contained eye-watering antisemitic rhetoric. The paper wrote: 

At Lewisham Islamic Centre, chief imam Shakeel Begg, 44, told his followers on the Friday after the attack: “Grant victory to the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza, support them over their enemy, your enemy. Punish the oppressors [Israel] … destroy them and tear them apart”… 

A preacher at the Islam Bradford Centre on the same Friday prayed for the purification of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem — a revered centrepiece of the Islamic world — against the “filth of the Jews”. 

The Mail also has a record of a Friday service at the London borough of Redbridge’s Islamic Centre during which an un-named speaker told the congregation in Arabic: “Curse the Jews and the children of Israel. Curse the infidels [a term that includes Christians and all non-Muslims]… tear them apart and destroy their homes” …Our footage shows Jamal Abdinasir, a speaker at the Alfurqan Islamic centre in Manchester, supporting the “mujahideen” – an Arabic term for warriors engaged in jihad or holy war.

Claiming Muslims had reached “boiling point”, he said: “Grant victory to our brothers, the mujahideen, and the poor in Gaza. Oh god support them against the enemies of Islam”. 

At Leeds Al-Rahma centre on Friday, October 20, Umer Muqadem, a former teacher in Saudi Arabia, criticised reporting of the Hamas-Israel conflict and said those fighting against Israel were not terrorists.

He said: “It is Wajib [obligatory in Islamic jurisprudence] that you help, aid, bring victory to our brothers and sisters in Palestine… prepare against your enemies [using] military power and cavalry”.

None of this shocking and terrifying incitement, being carried out under the noses of the British authorities, should come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention over the years to the systematic appeasement of Islamic extremism in Britain. Back in 2006, I published my book Londonistan about the British establishment’s surrender to Islamic jihadi fundamentalism. In its refusal even today to outlaw jihadi groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Hizb ut Tahrir, the British government is continuing its long-standing supine and disastrous policy.

In an earlier blog post here, I reproduced an extract from my book which dealt with the unholy axis of evil between leftists and Islamists that was demonising and inciting against Israel and the Jewish people (an axis we are witnessing in action on the streets today). What follows below is another extract dealing specifically with how the British authorities were choosing to appease rather than confront jihadi extremism as long as two decades ago. It helps shed some light on the deeply troubling situation in which Britain now finds itself.