Let’s hear what Irfan the Islamist apologist has to say.

Perhaps he has received special insights from Allah regarding the killing of the 2 million Christians by the Muslims in Turkey at the turn of the 20th century or even the genocide going on of the black African Muslims by the Arab Muslims in Sudan.

Please don't keep us waiting.

Irfan,
Was that you in the audience, second row, on "difference of opimion" last night.

What I cannot work out is why most people in that type of debate seem to mix up overseas terrorism with social problems we have here.

To my mind they are two entirely different issues. We have not as yet expweienced extreme muslim terrorism here, but we have some social ptoblems with some groups that need addressing.

Irfan wrote:

"I am in the process of drafting an article addressing Muslim attitudes toward Israel and whether these need to be re-visited and changed."

Unless this is a PR exercise for local consumption you're wasting your time. The Muslim world will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in the heart of Dar-ul-Islam. Nor will they ever accept what they consider to be the illegal displacement of the Palestinians, and their descendants, who fled in 1947-8.

I am not commenting on the rights and wrongs, or even the sincerity, of the Muslim attitude. I am describing what is.

If the Jews want their homeland they are going to have to accept that the best they can hope for from their neighbours is a "cold peace" punctuated by episodic wars. The Muslim world will never stop trying to undermine, deligitimate and ultimately destroy Israel.

The strategic tide is moving against Israel. Within a decade Muslims will form a powerful and growing voting bloc throughout the EU. It is a safe bet that European Muslim voters will demand a robust attitude towards Israel as the minimum price for their support.

Most Jews have yet to come to grips with the realities I've described.

Irfan wrote:

"As is the question of how many Jews harbour antipathy toward Muslims."

This is a bit of disingenuous poppycock.

In terms of people who practice their religion, Islam may now be the most powerful belief system on Earth. For good or ill, almost certainly the latter, Islam is going to be one of the forces shaping the future. Hence my interest in it. It matters what the Ummah thinks and what influences it.

Jews are a tiny minority. Unless, like Hilaly, you believe in Jewish conspiracy theories, their influence in shaping the future will be negligible.

Individual Jews may play an enormous role – consider the likes of Albert Einstein, Andrew Fire, Sidney Brenner, Daniel Kahneman and Steven Weinberg. But as a group they don't have the numbers.

"Nor will they ever accept what they consider to be the illegal displacement of the Palestinians, and their descendants, who fled in 1947-8."

Stephany, tell us what your version of the Palestinian flight from their homes was. Do you think the Stern Gang committed terrorist attacks in Palestinian villages? And are Israeli historians like Benny Morris telling lies?

Irfan wrote,
"I am in the process of drafting an article addressing Muslim attitudes toward Israel and whether these need to be re-visited and changed. Watch this space."

I watched, and am still watching. Where's your article?

Hi folks please give Irfan a chance to write.

Irfan,

So far as I can see, many fled simply because they anticipated that battles were going to be fought around where they lived. If I lived on what I thought was a future battlefield I'd get out of the way too.

Others probably fled because they feared a massacre at the hands of the Jews. After all, Arabs had massacred Jews on a number of occasions. The Arabs would have thought the Jews would respond in kind. Jewish groups would have done nothing to allay their fears.

There probably were some atrocities committed by Jewish factions. These would have stoked Arab fears of a massacre. My understanding is that the Irgun faction that attacked Deir Yassin exaggerated the death toll in order to scare the Arabs in surrounding villages.

However it happened, the present day reality is this.

--On the one hand, Muslims are not going to give up on what they consider to be a Palestinian right of return.

--On the other hand, no Israeli government of whatever stripe can concede a Palestinian right of return because to do so would erase the Jewish nature of Israel.

Therefore the issue is insoluble short of war.

Which brings me back to my original point. The Muslim world will not cease in its efforts to undermine, deligitimate and ultimately destroy Israel.

I think you can figure this out as well as I can Irfan. My guess is that your projected article is a bit of PR intended for local consumption. You will present the "reasonable Muslim" trying to reach a compromise with those pestiferous Jews.

Note that about half of all Jewish Israelis are descendants of Jews are who fled Arab countries, and their descendants. Understandably most have no wish to have a right of return to any Arab country.

Let me make my position clear. My sympathies are with Jewish Israelis. But, given strategic realities, I do not see how Israel can survive as a Jewish homeland.