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Blears digs herself into a bigger hole

Thursday, 26 March 2009 12:48

Hazel Blears, in her attempt to defend her unconscionable interference in the affairs of the MCB, has, in a letter printed in today’s Guardian, said that her actions were prompted because, she claims, the Gaza Declaration that the MCB's Deputy Secretary-General, Dr Daud Abdullah, signed ‘calls for violence against troops and Jewish communities all around the world'.

The declaration ‘supports violence against foreign forces – which could include British naval personnel – as the prime minister has offered British naval support to stop the smuggling of weapons to Gaza; and advocating attacks on Jewish communities all around the world’, she writes.

It might have escaped Blears’ attention that the Gaza Declaration contains no such undertaking.

It certainly does not, and this is made clear by the MCB’s statement on the matter, advocate attacks on Jewish communities anywhere in the world.

What the declaration does undertake is to recognise the right of the Palestinians, upheld under international law, to resist occupation and foreign aggression. It questions, and this is something which Blears herself would do well to clarify her government’s position on, the blockade imposed on Gaza prior to Israel’s assault and the attempt to depose the democratically elected Hamas government through means of slow strangulation.

It also questions the international community’s silence on the blockade which went on for 18 months before military attacks were launched, and its continued reticence in acknowledging the hypocrisy of policies which allow Israel the freedom to interfere in the sovereign affairs of the Palestinian Territories, through blockades and military offensives, whilst simultaneously denying the victims of this aggression their right to defend themselves.

This controversy is precisely about the ‘shared values’ Blears is so keen to uphold but which she fails herself to observe. As Seumas Milne marvellously iterates in his column today:

'The government's counter-terrorism plan talks about Muslims needing to accept Britain's shared values. Fortunately, they do already. Both Muslims and non-Muslims oppose wars of aggression and want British troops brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan; they both accept people's right to defend themselves against invasion and occupation; and both mostly sympathise with the Palestinian cause.’

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Ashraful - Re-establishing relations

|2009-03-26 20:24:51

Hazel Blears may be wrong but engaging in dialogue and building bridges is the way forward. The MCB should be looking towards re-establishing relations with the Government.

SYB	\|2009-03-27 07:49:30

Ashraful:

I agree with you that dialogue is the way forward. But it must be a dialogue and Blears' recent outbursts would suggest she's not interested in a dialogue at all. Dialogues require respect for the two parties involved - it doesn't work, and doesn't merit the description - if one party dictates and the other forced to comply or face the consequences.

The MCB should look to engage with the government but the government must equally show itself to be interested in what the MCB has to say. It cannot compel the MCB to simply repeat whatever it wants to hear. That's the stuff of monologues.

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