At last, pieces have started to appear in the mainstream media about the proposed mega mosque that is to be built on the site of London’s Olympic village. I wrote about this in Londonistan, since the fact that it is being allowed to go ahead speaks volumes about the way in which Britain is still, even now, appeasing Islamic extremism in a fashion which is nothing less than nationally suicidal. The concern is twofold. First, as the biggest mosque in Europe the London Markaz, as it is to be known, will make the most powerful statement possible given where it is to be built. In the Telegraph, Philip Johnston gets it:

When television viewers around the world see aerial views of the stadium during the opening ceremony in six years’ time, the most prominent religious building in the camera shot will not be one of the city’s iconic churches that have shaped the nation’s history, such as St Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, but the mega-mosque… It is suggested that the Markaz complex will become the ‘Muslim quarter’ for the Olympics, acting as a hub for Islamic competitors and spectators, something that is surely contrary to the spirit of the Games, which are meant to bring people together, not keep them apart. Futhermore, in an irony not lost on Mr Craig, just a mile or so from where the mosque is due to go up, the Kingsway International Christian Centre, the biggest evangelical church in Europe with 12,000 worshippers on a Sunday, is coming down to make way for the Olympic stadium.

In the war being waged by radical Islamism against the west, such symbolism is of the utmost importance and significance. It is itself a strategic weapon of cultural and religious demoralisation. As Johnston observes, when people look at the Olympic village, itself a showcase for Britain, the dominant image will be not a church but a mosque towering over it. It will be a symbol of Islamic domination of Britain and Britain’s cultural surrender to the jihad, and as such will inspire many more jihadists on the basis that Britain has given up the cultural ghost.

The second concern is even more pressing. The mosque is being funded by the Tablighi Jamaat, which the French secret service and the FBI have both identified as one of the biggest recruiters for the jihad in Europe. It beggars belief that, after everything that has happened, after all the lessons that the British authorities have allegedly now learned from 9/11, 7/7 and the multitudinous conspiracies currently being tracked, after all the laws that have been passed to deal with the spreading of Islamic extremism and recruitment to terror within the UK, such a mosque funded by such an organisation can still be allowed to go ahead.

Local residents, led by the stout-hearted Newham councillor Alan Craig of the Christian Peoples’ Alliance, are trying to get Newham council to snap out of its supine indifference and stop the mosque from going ahead. So far, no progress; instead, the protesters are being told they are ‘anti-Muslim’. Thus the fight against terrorism in Tony Blair’s Britain. But then, who can be surprised when the appeasement mentality of the British police seems to have plumbed hitherto unimaginable depths of professional imbecility. As the Sunday Telegraph reported:

Police are to alert Muslim community leaders about anti-terrorism raids against suspected Islamic terrorists in future… Outlining the reasoning behind the proposed plans, Rob Beckley, the head of faith and counter-terrorism for Acpo [Association of Chief Police Officers], said: ‘Muslims do not trust our operations at the moment. They do not wholly believe we are trying to root out Islamic extremists. To combat this, we will tell community leaders, who have been vetted by the security services, details of our operations before they take place. This will be adopted nationwide in an effort to build bridges and to help us do our job better.’ Mr Beckley said that community leaders could be briefed about police action weeks in advance of the raids taking place.

The police are prone to make a (dangerously false) comparison between the Islamic jihad and the IRA. But can anyone imagine the British Army or the Royal Ulster Constabulary, when the IRA terror campaign was at its height, making known to the Catholic or Protestant communities plans to conduct raids within those communities, and the intelligence on which it was based, before they took place? Can one imagine any police force doing such a thing anywhere in the world? What this policy implies is that Britain now has a two million-strong no-go area for the police labelled The Muslim Community, subject to quite different rules of engagement from everyone else because it is calling the shots. Step by shameful step, the police are being led by the nose into repudiating their role as our front line of defence against terrorism. Britain has simply taken leave of its senses.