On the eve of Israel’s day of remembrance for the Holocaust and next week’s 60th anniversary of the restoration of the State of Israel, the eminent historian Walter Laqueur has let his imagination bear his considerable learning aloft to construct a sparkling, witty and above all deeply sad jeu d’esprit on what might have been. Wonderful stuff. Do read it all.
From the East London Advertiser comes further news of the progressive Islamisation of London’s East End, and the lengths to which Ken Livingstone is going to court the Muslim vote for tomorrow’s mayoral election. This story reveals that Ken has promised to help raise funds for a major revamp of the Brick Lane Jamme Masjid mosque — with a crucial addition:
...That would include an overhaul of the interior of the Grade II listed structure, originally built as Huguenot church on the corner of Fournier-street, Spitalfields, in 1743, and later converted to the Jewish Maz'ik Adath synagogue. But the scheme controversially includes a huge new minaret that would tower over the Brick Lane conservation area.
The pavements on the corner of Fournier-street and Brick-lane would also need to be realigned to make room for
Much remains mysterious about the Israeli bombing last September of the Syrian nuclear reactor that was built with the help of North Korea, not least the manner and timing of its disclosure by America last week. (The pictures above show the site first in October and then in January with a new construction the Syrians rushed to build on it, presumably to hide the evidence of what had been bombed). Why was the purpose of this Syrian site kept secret for so long? Why did the Americans decide to talk about it last Friday? Why will the Israelis not talk about it even now? President Bush’s explanation that the secrecy was necessary to reduce the likelihood of a Syrian attack, and that...
The Labour MP Kate Hoey is in trouble because she has agreed to work with Tory mayoral candidate Boris Johnson as a ‘non partisan adviser’ on sport if he is elected to office on Thursday. She is supposed to be swearing undying loyalty instead to Labour’s candidate Ken Livingstone, whom she has conspicuously failed to endorse. Yet the East London Advertiser reports that Ken himself is backing…er, George Galloway, the Respect party MP who is standing for election to the London Assembly.
Livingstone, who is himself running for a third term next Thursday, said Galloway would compare well to some of the ‘nonentities’ currently sitting on the London Assembly. ‘I would like to think we could work together and he'd form part of a broad coalition with the Greens and us against the Tories and...
There is clearly no limit to British pusillanimity and sheer unadulterated funk when it comes to calling Islamic radicalism by even the most polite and restrained of proper names. The Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamist sect which is funding the proposed mega-mosque on the site of the 2012 Olympics in east London. In my book Londonistan, I described the project and its backers thus:
...The cultural significance and symbolism of a project on this scale are unmistakeable. It would make the most powerful statement possible, on the back of the high-visibility Games, about the primacy of Islam in Britain. That is why it is being proposed. ‘It will be something never seen before in this country. It is a mosque for the future as part of the British landscape,’ said Abdul Khalique, a senior member of Tablighi Jamaat which
More on the way Hamas manipulates world opinion. While the gullible/Israel-hating west bays that Israel is starving the inhabitants of Gaza by shutting off the supply routes, Hamas are busy blowing up the crossing points in order to ensure that Israel does precisely that. They say it is to break the ‘siege’ but since a) they are not under siege by Israel which is letting through most of Gaza’s supplies most of the time and b) if there is one thing which does force Israel to shut the crossings it’s blowing them up, the opposite would appear to be the truth. (The picture shows a Hamas demonstration on April 25 against the Israeli 'siege' -- at the border wall with Egypt at Rafah. Go figure. And even the EU has now blamed Hamas...
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Whatever has happened to girls?
Brown crumbles; but do the Tories get it?
Happy 60th birthday, Israel — well done for surviving
With such self-destruction, who needs enemies?
When the political music stops
If this isn’t a conscience issue, then what is?
Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
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