Muslim letter to Blair

The letter from Muslim MPs, Peers, the MCB and others to the Prime Minister:

Prime Minister,

As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens.

It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the Prime Minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion.

Such a move would make us all safer.

If one has nothing to say it is better to say nothing.

What this letter does not say but should say, and quite unambiguously, is that if Britain visits political violence upon Afghanistan and Iraq and give succour to those who visit political violence on Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians, then you must surely expect that there will be those who will visit political violence on the UK. However this hardly needs non representative Muslim bodies and individuals largely intertwined with the British government to spell it out.

The letter could have been bold and said that the British Muslim community supports Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to Zionist aggression and call upon the Prime Minister to adopt a policy of neutrality towards the Middle East.

It could have also pointed out that the bombers on the 7th July like the Madrid bombers were in fact Wahhabi fanatics associated with Al-Qaeda and that Wahhabism is an off-shoot of Islam that was the brain child of the British Foreign Office, looking to foster an Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire in the 19th Century and that al-Qaeda itself was set up by the United States.

The letter could also have said suggested that the anger in most of Britain's diverse Muslim communities against British foreign policy has not fueled more than one act of violence on our shores.

Moreover, it could have said that the British government's support for Israel was extremist; rather than read as a veiled threat to the British government, should it not change its foreign policy