(Jerusalem Post) Amir Taheri - In this month's election for a new European Parliament, voters in France and Britain are being offered common lists of Islamist and leftist candidates. Similar Marxist-Islamist alliances have been formed in Belgium and Germany. In Britain, the new Marxist-Islamist alliance is the offspring of the anti-war coalition set up two years ago to prevent the liberation of Iraq. Of the coalition's 33-member steering committee, 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 Andrew Murray, leader of the British Communist Party. Co-chair is Muhammad Asalm Ijaz of the London Council of Mosques. The New Statesman, the organ of the British moderate left, calls the new Islamist-Marxist alliance "Saddam's Own Party." Many of the groups involved in the alliance had been financed for years by Saddam through his so-called Cultural Relations Office in London.
2004-06-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive