Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England with his family. He spent eleven years on various kibbutzim, ending up at Mishmar HaSharon, the same kibbutz that served as home to Ehud Barak. After leaving the kibbutz for Netanya, Barry Shaw set up a busy real estate office in Netanya. A former believer in the Oslo process.
Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:36 pm London's Mayor must resign
The View from Here
London's Mayor must resign.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone looks on as he addresses a news conference at the Queen Elizabeth conference centre in central London July 8, 2005. Police have stated that over 50 people have been killed in the four blasts that tore through three underground trains and the bus and that the scene is too dangerous to remove bodies from the carriages. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
The recent tragic events in London were less an intelligence failure than a political disaster.
Until recently, Britain has been granted sanctuary to thousands of Muslims who clearly cherish an agenda of global jihad that includes converting Britain to Shari'a Law.
The British, with its generous social benefits and welcoming policies has attracted people who willingly exploit the system while avowing to overturn the 'infidel regime'.
Implanted radical imams and activists rapidly began their programs to reform the existing norms, create new cells and centres, recruit activists, and to change public opinion and institutional policy to reflect their political and religious ambitions.
Exploiting Britain's pride in its multicultural population, radical Muslims have actively and surreptitiously abused this hospitality to promote their domineering agenda.
Omri Bakri Muhammad, a notorious British-based advocate of international jihad, despite being the recipient of thousands of pounds worth of tax-payers money, has recently used online chat websites to declare war of Britain.
In his eyes, Britain is 'Dar ul Harb', a land of war, a place of jihad until it comes under Islamic control when it will become 'Dar ul Islam', the land of Islam.
Much is known to British security and intelligence about Omar Bakri. he is currently facing trial on incitement and terrorism charges.
In one unguarded moment, Bakri admitted that "the life of an unbeliever has no value.".
It is thus that radical Muslims have no qualms about taking the lives of innocent civilians.
Many British Muslims have condemned the four terror attacks in London.
This, however, may have more to do with the Islamic 'Covenant of Security'. This Koranic notion implies that it is wrong for a Muslim receiving the protection of a host country to kill the inhabitants of that country.
It is, however, perfectly in order for external Muslims to carry out attacks in the name of Allah and Islam, and the local Muslims must always respect acts perpetrated in the name of Allah.
Evidence will show that the perpetrators of the London attacks were British-based Muslims who ignored the Covenant of Security.
Britain has gone from being a safe haven to an enemy camp.
With Britain poised at such a sensitive point in its history, it is timely to examine how this occurred, and who, in the British political life, are responsible for the current status quo.
There are a number of unscrupulous characters in British politics who have exploited the boiling cultural divide of certain areas of Britain for their personal and political gain.
George Galloway formed the Respect Party and rabble-roused the mainly Muslim population of Bethnal Green against the Jewish and black Member of Parliament, Oona King, in the recent British General Election. Previously, Galloway had shown his support for Saadam Hussein and speaks scathingly against US and British policy in the Middle East.
The recent terror attacks in London have left this normally articulate and publicity-seeking politician strangely silent.
Galloway's political upbringing was from the radical left, as was that of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.
Livingstone has been seen on television spluttering to the terrorists, "Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."
Sorry, Ken. You are wrong. They are winning, and you share a major responsibility for their success.
This is not an external enemy. This is an internal threat that you have allowed to penetrate into your city, your streets, your society.
The events of 7th July was but the tip of the iceberg.
For years, the loony Left, epitomized by Red Ken, has encouraged radical Islam to take root in Britain and in London.
While British policy has allowed a wave of Islamists to enter Britain and abuse the system, people like Galloway and Livingstone have encouraged these people to be active in their murderous agenda. They have sanctioned calls to Jihad, and have legitimized the very programs that are now being turned against innocent Londoners, resulting in death, injury, suffering, and grief.
London's Marxist Mayor has been influential in denying Britain's proud history, and for introducing radical Islam into Britain.
This year will see the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1805, Britain's greatest naval hero, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, triumphed over the French and prevented their invasion of Britain.
In Trafalgar Square, designed and built to commemorate Britain's war heroes, three plinths carry memorials to Britain's great, including the famous Nelson's Column.
Red Ken Livingstone recently commissioned a sculpture that will adorn the fourth plinth. It is to be a fifteen feet high statue of a naked, armless, short-legged, pregnant dwarf.
Livingstone's comment on modern Britain is personified in that statue. To him, Britain is weak, vulnerable, victimized, and ugly.
This is an affront to Britain's noble history, to the dedication of the countless men and women who saved Britain from foreign invasion.
Livingstone, however, has invited and welcomed radical Islamic clerics, such as Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi has called for the death of Jews and infidels. He told Al-Jezeera TV that "there is no dialogue between us except by the sword and the rifle."
Qaradawi also said of Israel "they might have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb and these human bombs must continue until liberation."
This is the cleric that the Mayor of London invited as his special guest to preach his brand of Islam.
Qaradawi is the leading religious authority of the Muslim Brotherhood that has led to movements such as Al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.
This is the man that Ken Livingstone refered to as " an Islamic scholar of great respect." This is the figurehead that Livingstone embraced with "You are truly, truly, welcome."
Months before the Qarawadi visit, Abdul Rahman al-Sudayyis was also in London as an honored guest. Al-Sudayyis is the senior imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, Islam's holiest site.
This V.I.P. in London has referred to Jews as "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs."
Is it any wonder that London spawns British Muslims who went to Afghanistan to learn terror tactics and to fight against British and Coalition forces? Or that the shoe-bomber, Richard Reid, set out to blow up a packed aircraft? The suicide bombers of Mike's Place in Tel Aviv drew their evil inspiration from their London indoctrination and training.
This lamentable state of affairs can be blamed, in part, on people like Ken Livingstone.
When Leftist Livingstone embraces Islamic radicalism he is not being progressive. There is no respect to Galloway's Respect Party. The Left is supposed to support women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, human rights. Instead, people like Livingstone promote the enemies of such rights. They have allowed women-hating, gay-hating, minority-hating, democracy-hating, forces into their midst.
Due to people like Ken Livingstone a foreign invasion of Britain has taken place. The enemy of Britain is now deeply entrenched within the British population. Death and destruction has been wrought in the City of London.
It's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, should face personal responsibility, hang his head in shame, and resign.
Spot on
but forgot to mention that idiotic female Baroness Tonge who should be made to resign her position [or commit suicide], antisemite that she is.
As for Galloway the sooner the good Lord removes him the better - he is a nazi-style demagogue and should be treated as such
You also forgot to mention the good wife of our prime minister who expresses empathy for suicide bombers in Israel whilst defending the right of Muslim schoolgirls to fly in the face of British tradition and ditch the old school tie in favour of Arab religious garb. Cherie has been strangely quiet about the recent bombs in London
_________________ Shanks, London
The UN is past its sell by date and must be discarded
Am waiting for the post on Livingstone's latest diatribe
This guy is an open antisemite and considering the position he holds it is obvious that he is deliberately oblivious to world history ; he really is disgusting ; arafat would have made him an honorary suicide bomber
[wishful thinking!]
Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:46 am LONODN,S MAYOR MUST RESIGN
Ken Livingstone knows, as we all do, that he will garner far more votes from the Muslim community than from jewish voters. On the one hand he speaks, tearfully, about the poor victims, at the same time he also supports a well known Muslim activist who supports terror; not on London of course, but certainly on Israel. Livingstone therefore sends messages to all sections of his electorate. He defines what politics is all about and what it takes to make a good politician.
Not only will he not resign, but may even become your PM one day.
Send your complaints to the local government ombudsman. If they get enough complaints and submissions they have to investigate and then maybe we can get him removed from office:
Ken Livingstone is playing with fire when he embraces Islamists who are at odds with our progressive tradition
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday July 27, 2005
The Guardian
When the London bombers struck on July 7, Ken Livingstone knew exactly what to say. Even though he was in faraway Singapore, the mayor of London delivered a short address that captured the mood perfectly. In his most memorable line, he addressed the bombers directly: "Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."
Yet now, nearly three weeks on, Livingstone stands less as a healing figure than a divisive one, making a series of remarks that cast doubt on his own judgment and also invite a much larger question - about the relationship between British progressives and contemporary Islam.
On Channel 4 News last week, the mayor was asked about his public embrace of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has repeatedly praised suicide bombers - not, admittedly, those on London trains and buses but those in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Livingstone responded by making Qaradawi's case for him, explaining that while Israel had fighter jets and tanks, the Palestinians "only have their bodies" and no other way to "fight back".
Livingstone's own position is to condemn all suicide bombings. And he was at pains to stress that Qaradawi is against them too - when they are used in Britain or America or indeed anywhere outside the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That was meant to be comforting, but for some reason I don't feel comforted. For one thing, it is illogical. The arguments that Qaradawi applies to Israel-Palestine could just as easily be used by al-Qaida agents and their sympathisers.
Let's say Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were angered by the occupation of Iraq or even 80 years of western imperialism, as Livingstone himself has suggested. What weapons would they have against the mighty arsenals of Britain and the US? Those men from Leeds had no jet planes or tanks. They too "only have their bodies". Under Qaradawi's logic, so generously explained by the mayor, they too must have a legitimate right "to fight back" by attacking the civilians of the imperialist power: in other words, you and me.
Unless, of course, Israel is a uniquely special case. That is a hard argument to make. No official figure exists because, shamefully, they have never been counted, but more than 100,000 Iraqis are said to have been killed during and since the 2003 invasion. Russia's war on Chechnya has cost up to 200,000 civilian lives, one in five of the entire population. Since the intifada began five years ago, 3,600 Palestinians have been killed. No one is making excuses for that; every one of those lives lost is a catastrophe. But in a world full of brutalities and mass slaughter, by what logic is Israel reviled as the uniquely heinous culprit, the one state whose civilians are fair game?
Qaradawi's argument is that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. Israeli women can be called to national service; Israeli children will grow up to be soldiers. The sheikh has ruled that even the unborn Israeli child in the womb is a legitimate target for death, because one day he will wear a uniform.
This ceases to be a political stance; this becomes the demonisation of a people. Only one nation on the planet has no civilians; only one nation must recognise that its children can legitimately be torn apart by nail bombs on buses. Not the Russians for what they have done in Chechnya, nor the Arab Sudanese in Darfur, nor the Americans and British in Iraq, but the Israelis. They are uniquely guilty and therefore less than human, denied the protections afforded to all other human beings.
So when Livingstone offers this as some kind of defence - that Qaradawi is against 9/11 and 7/7, but in favour of "martyrdom operations" against Israeli civilians - I am not comforted. I am fearful of the dark place he has entered.
And yet that was not the end of it. In that same interview, the mayor noted what he regarded as a double standard. Why, he wondered, was it legitimate for "a young Jewish boy in this country" to join the Israeli army "and end up killing many Palestinians" while a "young Muslim boy in this country" who wants to defend his "Palestinian brothers and sisters ... is branded as a terrorist"?
Imagine these cases for a moment. A British man emigrates to Israel; a few years later he might get called up for military service; he might even end up in an operation that results in the killing of civilians. And then there is another British man who arrives in Israel for the sole purpose of staging a suicide bombing. (This latter case is not hypothetical: Britons Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif did exactly that in 2003.) Is there not a moral difference between these two actions? Why does Livingstone say they are equivalent?
More importantly, what is the mayor doing talking like this? He must realise how incendiary it is to bring the Middle East conflict directly to these shores, pitting the "young Jewish boy" against "the young Muslim boy". How reckless to encourage one community to see the other as would-be recruits for the bitter war of Israeli and Palestinian. "They seek to turn Londoners against each other," Livingstone said of the terrorists on July 7. Yet what was he doing last week?
The mayor is not the only one playing with fire. Unfortunately, he is part of a wider left that has, in the laudable effort to make alliances with Muslims, wound up hugging people who are sharply at odds with Britain's progressive tradition. Livingstone insists Qaradawi is a moderate, and in the Khomeini-ite terms of his region he probably is. He favours female circumcision, but does not regard it as obligatory and suggests cutting off only the prepuce of the clitoris, not the whole thing. So that makes him a moderate. He believes gays should be stoned to death, but only by Islamic states, not vigilantes. So that makes him a moderate.
And yet I see the mayor's difficulty. He cannot easily shut out someone like Qaradawi, a respected Muslim cleric who condemns the London bombings. He needs his advocacy to win the war against the terrorists. Nor can British politicians form ties only with those Muslims whose views are cosily liberal: such people would be seen as patsies, unrepresentative of their communities.
The solution is surely to form alliances where one can, but to keep a healthy distance where progressive principles are at stake. More deeply, Livingstone and friends need to break their equation of radical Islamism with Islam - for that has been their working assumption, reflected in two ways. First, by proceeding as if the chief way to reach British Muslims is through Islamist voices like Qaradawi; second, by denouncing anyone who attacks such extreme Islamism as Islamophobic. In fact one can oppose hardline Islamism without opposing Islam. The two are not the same, and we smear British Muslims if we say they are.
London's mayor needs to tread more carefully through this terrain. His city is anxious enough already - he needs to put out the flames, not fan them
Just seen this post after hols and I have come to the conclusion that EDBOWMAN made - I think he feels he can challenge Blair
Remove him ASAP - he is a Moseley in wolf's clothing and today possibly more dangerous
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