Blazingcatfur

The high cost of the modernist inability to take religion seriously.

Last week, Israel’s Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times asking the question, “What were Hamas’s leaders hoping for, and what are Iran’s leaders seeking to achieve?” The answer began with a conversation that revealed the central problem with the West’s understanding of Islamic jihadism, one that still vitiates our foreign policy and plans for dealing with Muslim aggressors: our modernist inability to take religion seriously.

“MI5 has one hell of a job on its hands.” That was the warning yesterday from the agency’s Director-General, Ken McCallum, in a speech which touched on everything from Russian espionage to Iranian assassination plots, and from the present competition with China to the violent echoes of last century’s conflict in Northern Ireland.

On counterterrorism, McCallum gave the “headline split” of “75% Islamist terrorism, 25% extreme Right-wing.” Despite delving into the shifting ideological configurations of the violence, McCallum underlined that the threat of most concern is still that posed by al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

New political parties are pushing a sinister combination of anti-Israel activism and Muslim identity politics.

The Israel-Hamas war undoubtedly loomed large over the UK General Election in July. In constituencies around the country, a sizeable number of candidates ran on a pro-Palestinian platform. In some areas, campaigns were run on strictly religious lines, with groups like The Muslim Vote encouraging British Muslims to only use their votes on pro-Palestine candidates. The group had some big successes, with five ‘pro-Gaza independents’ now sitting in parliament – four of which managed to unseat incumbent Labour MPs.