I am no Islamophobe
Martin Bright
July 14, 2006 05:25 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_bright/2006/07/post_230.html

It seems I have been labelled an Islamophobe by the Muslim Council of
Britain. This stock response to any criticism of MCB leadership is
becoming as tiresome as Zionist cries of anti-Semitism when the state
of Israel is put under any kind of scrutiny.

The reason for its ire is a programme I have helped make, showing on
Channel 4 at 7.30pm tonight, about the government's strange love affair
with radical Islam. It didn't help that I also wrote a pamphlet for the
centre-right think tank, Policy Exchange, making the same arguments. A
series of leaked Foreign Office documents, demonstrate that the
mandarins dealing with the Middle East believe we have no choice but to
engage with the radical religious right, such as Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood. Officials seem to think that Islamists are the coming
force in the Middle East and so dialogue is necessary. But what most
people don't know is that the same officials, based in a department
called Engaging with the Islamic World, also deal with British Muslim
issues. My argument is that the government's engagement strategy has
become poisoned by the Foreign Office's inaccurate picture of moderate,
mainstream British Muslim opinion.

I am no Islamophobe
Martin Bright
July 14, 2006 05:25 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_bright/2006/07/post_230.html

It seems I have been labelled an Islamophobe by the Muslim Council of
Britain. This stock response to any criticism of MCB leadership is
becoming as tiresome as Zionist cries of anti-Semitism when the state
of Israel is put under any kind of scrutiny.

The reason for its ire is a programme I have helped make, showing on
Channel 4 at 7.30pm tonight, about the government's strange love affair
with radical Islam. It didn't help that I also wrote a pamphlet for the
centre-right think tank, Policy Exchange, making the same arguments. A
series of leaked Foreign Office documents, demonstrate that the
mandarins dealing with the Middle East believe we have no choice but to
engage with the radical religious right, such as Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood. Officials seem to think that Islamists are the coming
force in the Middle East and so dialogue is necessary. But what most
people don't know is that the same officials, based in a department
called Engaging with the Islamic World, also deal with British Muslim
issues. My argument is that the government's engagement strategy has
become poisoned by the Foreign Office's inaccurate picture of moderate,
mainstream British Muslim opinion.