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Europe's Islamist Alliance
By Amir TaheriJerusalem Post | July 12, 2004 Not EFL... how do you do that "page 71" voodoo??? When the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, few would have imagined that the move might lead to the formation of an alliance between the radical Left and hard-line Islamists in Western Europe. But this is precisely what happened. In this month's election for a new European Parliament, voters in several European Union countries, notably France and Britain, are offered common lists of Islamist and leftist candidates, often hidden under bland labels. Europe's moribund extreme Left has found a new lease on life thanks to hundreds of young Muslim militants recruited from the poor suburbs of Paris and the Islamic ghettos of northern England. The Islamist groups, for their part, are learning many tricks from the Left about how to exploit the inevitable weaknesses of an open society. In Britain, the new Marxist-Islamist alliance is the offspring of the so-called anti-war coalition set up two years ago to prevent the liberation of Iraq. The coalition has a steering committee of 33 members. Of these, 18 come from various hard Left groups: communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and Castroists. Three others belong to the radical wing of the Labor party. There are also eight radical Islamists. The remaining four are leftist ecologists known as Watermelons (Green outside, red inside). The chairman of the coalition is one Andrew Murray, a former employee of the Soviet Novosty Agency and leader of the British Communist Party. Co-chair is Muhammad Asalm Ijaz of the London Council of Mosques. A prominent member is George Galloway, recently excluded from the Labor party, who is under investigation for the illegal receipt of funds from Saddam Hussein. Galloway heads a list of candidates backed by several radical leftist groups, notably The British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), as well as the Muslim Association of Britain, the British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a dozen Palestinian groups financed by Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian checkered headgear, worn by the leftists as a cache-col, has become the symbol of this left-Islamist alliance.
Posted by: Anonymous5089 2004-07-20 |
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