Following my diary on Saturday worrying about the depth of the Islamophobic backlash to the Woolwich attack which killed Drummer Rigby, Rupert Murdoch's chief lieutenant in the UK - the veteran political correspondent and former chief political correspondent of the best selling Sun - has stepped in with an article which boosts the morale of Islamophobes, and gives credence to the spate of attacks on Muslims and Mosques since last Friday
(For those who doubt this is a real nasty and dangerous backlash - 193 arrestable offences have now been reported, with attacks on ten mosques in the UK since Wednesday. The racist English Defence league is hold yet another rally in Trafalgar Square and Downing Street as I write.)
Kavanagh is either suffering from acute amnesia or is deliberately fanning the flames of hate and conflict. He wrote today:
It is all very well to say this ancient faith is being hijacked by crackpots.
But the unavoidable truth was voiced by Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, boss of the Saudi-owned news channel, Al Arabiya after 9/11.
“It is a fact that not all Muslims are terrorists,” he said.
“But it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”
He has never been forgiven for his honesty.
This brave man spoke not just about the massacred Twin Towers victims, but almost every recent terror atrocity around the globe. Ministers are now consdering their options.
1. Has he forgotten that the biggest terror attack in Europe, which killed more people than the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, was by Anders Breivik in Oslo and Otoya only two years ago?
2. Has he forgotten that Breivik was inspired by precisely this kind of uniformed, inflammatory hyperbole he's promoting?
3. Has he forgotten that (in the UK as well as the US) in the last seven years more people have been killed because of racist attacks on Muslims (or Sikhs) than in any Al Qaeda inspired attack?
(Convictions for Non Islamic Terrorism in UK - mainly targeting Muslims and other minorities: 99 David Copeland, 07 Robert cottage, 08 Martyn Gilleard, 08 Nathan Worell 09 Neil Lewington)
4. Does he know that Maoist 'terrorists' killed 6 Congress party leaders in Assam on Wednesday? Did he not read that a man was arrested last Wednesday for the IRA bombing of soldiers in Hyde Park which killed 8 service personnel? Does he know Mexican journalists and police officers are regularly beheaded by the narco terrorists around Juarez?
5. Is he not aware that the vast majority of peaceable law abiding Muslims - indeed anyone with a brown face or foreign looking veils or turbans - now live in fear of future indiscriminate attacks?
If he isn't, he shouldn't be the main commentator for Britain's biggest selling daily paper.
If he is, he's tantamount to sponsoring terror himself, by sowing misinformation and dread, and giving succour to extremism, bigotry, and violence
Or perhaps we should blame your boss for legitimising this particular spate of hate preaching - from the biggest possible pulpit
The only logical way to read that tweet (assuming logic plays any part in it) is to deduce Rupert thinks we should say 'Yes' to terror.
Which is kind of what so many of Britain's papers and media have done in the last week, by channelling, endorsing and amplifying the lines of one of the attackers; "We want to create a war in London.
Talk about capitulation
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