UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee: terrorist sympathizers

This Abukar Arman mess just won’t go away. It seems the Ohio right-wing blogosphere is obsessed with this man, and unwilling to take his writings at face value. Just yesterday, BizzyBlog had this to say:

Abukar Arman has expressed support in his writings for known terrorists, terrorist organizations, and groups that wish to impose Sharia law on their populations.

As I’ve said before, this is a tremendous over-simplification. His characterization of this is “extra-constitutional”. I’m not quite sure what Tom means by this – is it “extra-constitutional” to write that ?internally, ICU, with its various shortcomings, is the best thing that happened to Somalia in the past 16 years?? Because it is, and anyone not interested in a witch hunt should be able to see that.

Arman’s “crime”, apparently, is believing that working to de-radicalize radical Islamic groups that are in charge is a good thing. Arman is hardly alone. Former top official in Barak’s Israeli Government Daniel Levy wrote a few days ago…

My apparent ?crime? is to support engagement with Hamas as part of a strategy for enhancing a ceasefire, security in the region, and ultimately, to advance a peace process that can actually deliver the goods. In being ?dangerous? ? presumably to Israel and perhaps also Anglo-Jewry ? I find myself in not bad company. Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, ex-Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, previous West Bank Divisions Commander and Civil Administration head General Ilan Paz, Gaza Brigades Commander Colonel Shaul Arieli and ex-deputy National Security adviser Yisraela Oron are just a few of the ?dangerous? types who support this approach.

In fact, the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs had this to say (emphasis added):

We conclude that the decision not to speak to Hamas in 2007 following the Mecca agreement has been counterproductive…We conclude that the decision to boycott Hamas despite the Mecca agreement and the continued suspension of aid to the national unity Government meant that this Government was highly likely to collapse. We further conclude that whilst the international community was not the root cause of the intra-Palestinian violence, it failed to take the necessary steps to reduce the risk of such violence occurring.

Given the failure of the boycott to deliver results, we recommend that the Government should urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas as a way of encouraging it to meet the three Quartet principles. We conclude that any attempts to pursue a ‘West Bank first’ policy would risk further jeopardising the peace process. We recommend that the Government urge President Abbas to come to a negotiated settlement with Hamas with a view to re-establishing a national unity Government across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

So there you have it. The UK House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has “expressed support in [their] writings for known terrorists, terrorist organizations, and groups that wish to impose Sharia law on their populations.” Presumably “extra-constitutionally”, whatever that means.

I have to agree with Jerid – there seems to be little explanation for this right-wing hysteria other than racism and anti-Muslim fervor. Just as the majority of devout Christians are not Christofascists, the majority of devout Muslims are not Islamofascists. Just because a devout Muslim has opinions different than yours, that doesn’t put him the the “fascist” camp. Just because someone is willing to admit that a flawed group like the ICU is better than the alternatives that doesn’t mean they think the ICU is the end-all-be-all.

You guys need to let it go. You sound like the crowd in the Monty Python “She’s a witch” skit. It’d be funny, if it didn’t involve real people.