In his statement to Parliament last Monday on the London bombings, Tony Blair referred to countries (or cities) which have been targeted in the past by what he called 'Islamic extremist terrorists'. He listed Madrid, Bali, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and New York. Yet he omitted Israel.
As Beyond Images points out:

‘Here are some facts about Islamic terrorism targeted against Israel:- • Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs, three of the five main Palestinian terrorist groups, are explicitly driven by Islamic principles (as they apply them) • Their “religious” worldview calls for the elimination of Israel as a nation-state (see Briefing 74, on Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin) • Together these three groups have carried out an intensive wave of suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, stabbings, car bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians since 2000 • In total, Israel has suffered over 21,000 acts of violence of all types since September 2000 • Over 1000 Israeli civilians have died in this onslaught (proportionately, that is the equivalent of over 9000 British citizens) • Between 1994 and 2004, Hamas alone carried out 42 suicide bombings, killing 446 Israeli men, women and children (See Beyond Images Briefing 78), and injuring and traumatising thousands more • Hamas means “Islamic resistance movement”'

Of course, Blair is well aware of the terrorism suffered by Israel. The problem is that he does not see this as intrinsic to the religious jihad against the west. He sees the war against Israel instead as a dispute over land. What he still does not grasp is that the dispute is indeed over land — not over creating a state of Palestine in the disputed territories, but a war of extermination waged since 1948 by an Arab world determined to ethnically cleanse the Jews from their own historic and reclaimed land so that it can be made Judenrein by its Arab and Muslim colonisers. This grievous error by Britain’s Prime Minister undermines his whole approach to the Middle East and has prompted such cardinal errors as suggesting that solving the Israel/Arab conflict would go a long way towards defusing Islamic terrorism, whereas the truth is that it is only be defeating Islamic terrorism that the Israel/Arab conflict will ever be solved.

Posted by melanie at July 15, 2005