In the Times today, David Aaronovitch wrings his hands over the Muslim veil and other practices of which he disapproves, but concludes that people like me are not warning people about a problem — we are the problem:

I not only think that Jeremiahs such as [Rod] Liddle, and Melanie Phillips, of the Mail, are wrong, I think their approach could lead us into utter disaster. For a fortnight now we have been discussing veils — so just how many veil-wearing teachers are there? Ten? Five? Just Ms Azmi? What’s the problem for the rest of us once we have (rightly) taken the decision that she cannot teach while looking like a Dalek? Why should a Muslim cab-driver who is (also rightly) being sued for not carrying a guide dog make it to the banner front page of the London Evening Standard? Or a single Muslim chemist who refused to prescribe a ‘morning-after’ pill get half a page in the Telegraph?

In each case where a minister or an opposition spokesthing has given an opinion on matters Muslim in the past two weeks, I have agreed with much of what they have said, while wishing that they had spread the news more evenly over the national agenda. The interventions in the space of a fortnight, from at least four members of the Government and David Davis, have helped to create an atmosphere of assault. Mr Davis has said, for example, that ‘there is a growing feeling that the Muslim community is excessively sensitive to criticism’. Maybe, but if everyone says it every day for a week, the sensitivity becomes justified. Try it at home if you don’t believe me.

Put this together with the headlines and TV stories and, sure enough, we get the early signs of a physical response. There’s the woman on Merseyside who had her veil snatched from her; the Glasgow imam who was assaulted at an Islamic centre; the Falkirk mosque that was firebombed. And the process of polarisation speeds up. The Muslim organisations feel under greater threat and the language turns increasingly intemperate. Those youngsters who might well have been persuadable that they have a big stake in Britain become convinced that this is no country for brown men. The instincts of the sectarian — to emphasise difference, not similarity — begin to win out.

Aaronovitch writes many things nowadays with which I tend to agree, but on this matter he could not be more wrong. Here’s why. First, I have said time and again that truly moderate Muslims, who are excessively brave, need far more support and encouragement than they receive, and that it is extremely important not to demonise Muslims in general. Of course, physical attacks on Muslims are dreadful and should be prevented. But Islamic extremism is promoting violence or aggression towards non-Muslims, and it is the failure to deal with this that is causing anti-Muslim feeling. The claim that the belated ministerial attempt to address this problem is creating an ‘an atmosphere of assault’ is hard to stomach. It is British Jews, after all, who are running a gauntlet of aggression and have to be guarded at every single synagogue service or communal event.

Second, his basic argument that unless we are nice to Muslims we will drive moderate individuals into the arms of extremists is badly flawed. The recent Pew survey showed that, of all the countries of Europe, the British were the nicest to their Muslim minority — and yet British Muslims hated their host country, the west and the Jews more than Muslims anywhere else. Moral: Islamic extremism is not reduced by the emollience of the host nation, and it may even be exacerbated by it. That is because it feeds not on strength, but on weakness: not on hostility, but on a collapse of cultural and religious nerve.

Furthermore, if Muslims can so easily be tipped into violence, as Aaronovitch suggests, they can’t really be moderate in the first place. And the suggestion that their excessive sensitivity to criticism is caused by the excessive bombardment of said criticism ignores the fact that this excessive sensitivity was on display right from the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the mere use of the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ produced instantaneous accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ — a response that has occurred after every single atrocity or outrageous statement by community representatives.

Third, Aaronovitch fails to grasp the most crucial point of all. This is that the veil is a political statement of cultural and religious hostility to British society and western values. As I have said before, it is not a symbol of piety — for which the theology is, in any event, highly dubious — but a political weapon of the jihad. It symbolises the belief that Islamic values must take precedence over the secular state. The wearer thus effectively declares her support for Islamising the society. The more prominent the veil becomes on the streets, the more women wear it, either because they are forced or intimidated into doing so or because the enthusiasm spreads itself. Either way it strengthens the forces of the jihad, intimidates and demoralises the host community and helps spread extremism still more widely. It is the veil, and not the criticism of it, that pushes more Muslims into extremism.

Which is why not just the full-face veil but also the headscarf is banned from public institutions in Turkey and Tunisia as a protection for both individuals and the country against religious extremism. As the BBC reports today of Tunisia, where the headscarf ban is now being enforced with renewed zeal:

The President, Zine El Abidine Ali, described the headscarf as a sectarian form of dress which had come into Tunisia uninvited. Other officials said Islamic dress was being promoted by extremists who exploited religion for their political ambitions.

Last year, the European Court of Human Rights upheld Turkey’s ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities because

The court did not lose sight of the fact that there were extremist political movements in Turkey which sought to impose on society as a whole their religious symbols and conception of a society founded on religious precepts.

In the Daily Telegraph, the former Labour junior foreign minister Denis MacShane was nearer the mark when he wrote:

Islamist politics is now one of the most important issues for the future of democracy. Getting the right answers will define the world’s future. All main parties, other than the odious BNP, rightly shun Islamophobia. British Muslims will be welcome at Eid parties in the Commons to celebrate the end of Ramadan. But we have to find answers to calls for censorship, to celebrations of jihadist terror, or a religiously ordained world view that denies equal rights for women or gays here and in Afghanistan.

Some difficult politics lies ahead. It is bizarre that neither David Cameron nor Sir Menzies Campbell have spoken. At some stage, the metro-populism of Notting Hill will have to engage with the worries of British citizens who understand a problem long before Whitehall gets it. There is a new generation of British Muslims who want to engage in politics and reclaim the issues that concern their communities from religious-based outfits or those who see their task as importing foreign conflicts into domestic British politics. They must be encouraged before it is too late. From Margaret Thatcher, until very recently Tony Blair, political leaders have been in denial. It is time to wake up.

Britain is now stirring from its coma, but still has a long way to go before its collective brain is fully enagged with reality.