(Ha'aretz) Jonathan Spyer - Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, successive British governments adopted an astonishingly myopic policy of tolerance toward the ideologues and activists of radical Islam. Britain's liberal asylum laws allowed the entry of radical ideologues of global Islamism, many wanted by the authorities in their own countries. These individuals set about organizing and proselytizing deep in the heart of Britain's urban Muslim communities. A recent British government report estimates between 10,000 and 15,000 supporters of radical Islamist groups resident in Britain by the end of the 1990s. The writer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.
2005-07-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive