It's always instructive to go by what people say, rather than the perception of them that mainstream opinion holds. So here's a question to those who say that Hamas is moderating in office - that the reality of authority is leading to greater promise for peace: have you actually read what they say? Do you listen to their words?

Sheik Ahmad Bahr is the acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. And here's what he said on Friday:

Ahmad Bahr began: "You will be victorious" on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] "you will be victorious," but only "if you are believers." Allah willing, "you will be victorious," while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere.

Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims "will be victorious, if you are believers." Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.

The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."

The voice of peace: Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.

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Our allies the Saudis.

Sorry for the interruption to normal service; it is now resumed.

Let's begin with a terrific piece by Alasdair Palmer yesterday on the Belmarsh detainees (or, perhaps I should now say, 'releasees'). I won't try to summarise it; suffice to say that Palmer goes through the publicly available evidence against them. Do read it, and you'll see why this is his final paragraph:

The only people who are pleased with the present legal mess are the Islamic terrorists. "Delighted" is how a senior official from the FBI described them to The Sunday Telegraph. "They're laughing at you! They can't believe how easy it is to get the English legal system to tie itself in knots for the benefit of the brothers engaged in violent jihad. They know, because of what your courts have decided, it's going to be easier for them to execute a terrorist outrage that kills hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Britain. I tell you: they're laughing."

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Ken Livingstone's friend, Sheikh al-Qaradawi, explains that he's actually a pretty centrist chap:

Beating does not benefit all wives, but it is suitable for some.

(via Harry's Place.)

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This is a fascinating piece about one woman's experience travelling from Detroit to LA. It's the sort of piece you have to read in full, so I won't extract it. It raises a host of interesting issues, mostly centred on the dilemmas involved in racial profiling - or, as now, not. It's an issue which needs to be thrashed out, rather than simply ignored as being beyond the pale, as is now happening.

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Interesting piece by Will Cummins on the mainstream parties' craven courting of the 'Muslim vote'. As Cummins puts it:

In Leicester South, the tribunal before which the intrepid candidates satisfied the Faithful was the "Friends of Al Aqsa" committee. They were questioned on the three issues that meant most to Muslims in this very deprived ward. Not health, transport or crime but "Palestine", "Iraq" and "faith [read Muslim] schools".

Yvonne Ridley, the candidate for George Galloway's Respect party, was at something of an advantage here, having been converted to Islam and kidnapped by the Taliban. However, Sir Peter Soulsby, a former leader of Leicester council, who lost the seat for Labour, was very nearly her equal in zeal.

"I opposed the war against Iraq last year," he assured the committee, "I marched against the war . . . but now Saddam Hussein has been successfully overthrown, I want to make sure the people of Iraq are not abandoned." This answer, amazingly, wasn't craven enough. (Proust also wrote: "We forgive the crimes of individuals, but never their participation in a collective crime.")

Little profiteth it a man if he gain the whole of Leicester South, and loseth his own soul. Especially if he loseth Leicester South as well.

One might have expected the Tory candidate to display a little more character, but not a bit of it. "I am passionately in favour of diversity," Christopher Heaton-Harris informed the Ulema, the body of Muslim legal scholars, "that is why I have pledged to campaign for more faith-based schools." (He also let it be known that his "spiritual home" was Leicester.)

And on "Palestine" he went even further than Ms Ridley, who was at least prepared to "respect" Israel within its 1967 borders. Were the Muslims of Leicester to elect him, Mr Heaton-Harris said, he would campaign for a Palestinian state "sufficiently large to meet the needs of its people" and "with sufficient resources - if not from within its own borders, then from its neighbours". (It is unlikely that he was referring here to Syria.) This answer was so satisfactory that the Tory's campaign was supported by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK), one of the most extreme of our Islamic groups.

Cummins goes on to analyse how the BNP has benefitted from all this - I urge you to read the piece - and then makes a recommendation which will no doubt bring him opprobrium but which has much to commend it. It is time indeed that mainstream parties were honest about the threat we face from militant Islam:

The Conservative Party should stop playing the Muslim Block Vote's game of divide and conquer. As the by-elections show, the party will only ever gain a small number of Muslim supporters. Breaking with the Umma would be a radical move that millions of voters would respond to. Do the Tories not sense the enormous popular groundswell against Islam?

Charges of "racism" would inevitably be made against the party but they would never stick. It is the black heart of Islam, not its black face, to which millions object. The Conservatives would be charged with cynicism and expediency: look who would be talking!

But unlike the "Nazi-Soviet Pact" that the feminist, pro-gay Left has forged with Britain's Muslims, a Tory platform hostile to Islam would be neither incongruous nor immoral. An anti-Islam Conservative Party would destroy the BNP as quickly as Margaret Thatcher despatched the National Front in 1979 when she warned that, unless immigration was curbed, Britain would be "swamped" by "an alien culture". Infinitely more is at stake now.

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