Britain is in the Same Boat as Sderot

Every day more more rockets fall on Sderot. And at the same time it seems that every day another British trade groups announces a boycott of Israel. The British press is so biased against Israel that you expect to see a Muslim crescent in their mast heads. But with all of the British hatred toward Israel, all of their support of terrorist groups like Hamas and Fatah, the British Isles are just as much of a target as is Israel.

In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Shakir al-Abssi, whose militant group is locked in a battle with the Lebanese army, said: “I advise the British people to cease their destructive policies in the Islamic world and to take an example of the fate of the United States, which is on its way to destruction.

“We tell the British people to exercise pressure on their government not to continue to be the arm and tail of the United States. They must understand that it is in their interest to ensure that unless we as a people are safe, they cannot be safe as a people themselves.” Times of London

DEBKAfile puts it better--they say that London and Sderot can soon be sister cities in suffering more terror.

Why London and Sderot Alike Are Not be Safe from Jihadist Terror

DEBKAfile Special Report

Sunday, May 27, was a red letter day for Hamas. One of the hundreds of Qassam missiles fired from Gaza in the last 12 days hit a carin Sderot’s center driven by 35-year old Oshri Oz from Hod Hasharon, whose company provides computer services in the battered town. He died on the way to hospital. He is survived by a two-year old daughter and a pregnant wife, who was hospitalized after she received the news of his death.

That day, too, Ghazi Hamad, spokesman of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniya of Hamas, was the honored guest at a prestigious English literary festival at Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Invited to the event by the British Guardian newspaper, the Palestinian terrorist shared a platform with future and past British premiers, Chancellor Gordon Brown, who enters 10 Downing on June 27, John Major, the designer Vivienne Westwood and other glitterati. The Palestinian jihadi starred in Sky television’s Adam Bolton’s Sunday interview program.

Hamad rewarded his British hosts with a pack of lies and omissions, telling them what they wanted to hear about the fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped on March 12 in Gaza City and never heard of since.

"I know that he is well and healthy. No-one has tried to harm him or hurt him," said

Hamad. "I think there are continuous efforts to release him. We hope we can do it very, very soon." He said he had received news about Johnston two days earlier through his own channels.

"According to my analysis, I think it's possible to release him. I hope to make it very, very fast."

The facts are quite different.

Johnston was snatched by gunmen of the local Gazan Durmush clan, which controls the “Army of Islam” or “Al Qaeda-Palestine,” a group which is structured on the same lines as its fraternal Fatah al-Islami, which has commandeered the Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

Hamad knows exactly who is holding the BBC reporter, but nothing at all about his condition or state of health. He and his boss, prime minister Haniyeh, are not involved in any way in the halfhearted British effort to free him, simply because the Durmushes and Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, are locked in a blood feud.

At the same time, Hamad is important in the Hamas Islamist terror machine in his capacity as director of the smuggling routes of funds and weapons from Damascus and Tehran through Egyptian Sinai. The money is spent on the manufacture of the Qassam missiles which day by day terrorize the Israeli civilian population abutting on Gaza. Some of the cash arrives in the infamous suitcases whose passage is allowed by the international observers posted at the Rafah crossing from Sinai.

Israel’s government heads know all this. Yet foreign minister Tzipi Livni has refrained summoning the British ambassador to protest the Hamas smuggling expert’s admission to Britain as star of an august literary event; nor has the Israeli ambassador to the Court of St. James asked the Foreign Office for clarifications.

On the day of the Hamas terrorist’s star performance in Hay, Tony Blair initiated new anti-terror legislation. In Jerusalem, Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, declared solemnly at the weekly cabinet session: “No one involved in the Qassam offensive will escape; no one is immune.”

While Britain grants admission to the spokesman of one of the most brutal and destructive terrorist groups in the world and honors him alongside noted British writers, scholars, political leaders and self-styled peace campaigners, the Israeli prime minister tosses out empty words and conducts a misdirected air campaign, which failed in Lebanon to stop Hizballah rockets, in a vain effort to halt Hamas’ vicious missile campaign against Israeli civilians.

As long as people like Ghazi Hamad are made welcome at British literary festivals, there is little hope for Alan Johnston or the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, both kidnapped by the same nihilist al Qaeda-Hamas gangs. Neither will the UK be safe from jihadist terrorists, or Sderot live like a normal town.

Interestingly, leading UK organizations dish out the reverse treatment to the very people Hamas has singled out for destruction. British academic, medical and architectural groups have eagerly embraced a boycott of their Israeli colleagues - not to mention the Church of England’s divestment campaign. These arbiters of political morality generously offer Israeli academics and professionals a chance to avoid being blacklisted by disowning their government’s policies.