Le ridicule ne tue pas. Perhaps in the End It Will

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Thu, 2006-10-05 10:19

A quote from The London Evening Standard, 5 October 2006

[A] Muslim police officer was excused from guarding London’s Israeli Embassy after he objected to the duty on ‘moral grounds’. [...] PC Alexander Omar Basha – a member of the Metropolitan Police’s Diplomatic Protection Group – refused to be posted there because he objected to Israeli bombings in Lebanon and the resulting civilian casualties of fellow Muslims. In a move which has caused widespread astonishment at Scotland Yard, senior officers in the DPG agreed that PC Basha should be given an alternative posting. [...]

The Israeli Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens is a top terror target. The building was attacked in 1994 by Palestinian fanatics when a 50lb car bomb exploded, injuring nine and causing millions of pounds’ damage. [...] It is understood the head of the Diplomatic Protection Group, Chief Supt Jamie Stephen, approved PC Basha’s request. His boss, Commander Peter Loughborough, was “consulted” about the case and agreed with his decision.

Selective Trust

Submitted by ras on Thu, 2006-10-05 21:01.

Why would the public now trust Muslim officers in general, knowing that such officers will only enforce those selected laws and selected persons who support Islam?

For that matter, why would they trust their police force in general, knowing that the force supports such selective policing?

And if there is no police force to protect you, what should you do next? This can only end badly.

This Just In: Fox Guards Henhouse

Submitted by dchamil on Thu, 2006-10-05 15:51.

They must have been out of their minds to assign a Muslim to guard the Israeli embassy, quite aside from the insubordination shown by his refusal to follow orders. This incident recalls the case of a few years ago where an American Muslim FBI agent refused to secretly tape-record the remarks of a fellow Muslim. As the comedians say, "You couldn't make this stuff up!"

Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian

Submitted by J F Beck on Thu, 2006-10-05 16:26.

Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian:

The Association of Muslim Police Officers says that PC Basha pulled out not for moral reasons but on "welfare" grounds, since he had family in both Lebanon and Syria. According to this version, the constable felt "uncomfortable and unsafe" outside the Israeli embassy.

That would put the case in a rather different light, but still we would need to know more. Did he feel "uncomfortable" simply because he disapproved of Israel's actions? If he did, then that's just another way of saying he didn't want to serve on moral grounds.

Or perhaps the crucial word here is "unsafe". It's unlikely that the constable feared Israeli diplomatic staff were going to beat up a uniformed officer of the Metropolitan police, so he must have had some other threat in mind. Perhaps he feared, as James Naughtie suggested on the Today programme (audio file), that he would be "subject to intimidation and violence" from his fellow Muslims, if they discovered where he was working.

If that turns out to have been the reason, then there can be few who would object to his reassignment.

Britain is in deep trouble.