British PM sez Muslims "quietly condone" Islamic State

UK Prime Minister David Cameron was in Slovakia today for a conference on "security", which these days means protecting ourselves from militant Islamists. He charged some -- not all but some -- British Muslims with "quietly condoning" the radical ideology of ISIS: "the West is bad and democracy is wrong; women are inferior; homosexuality is evil."

Mr. Cameron urged British Muslims to do more to stop IS from recruiting young Britons. He blamed radicalization in part on "people who hold some of these views who don't go as far as advocating violence, but who do buy into some of these prejudices, giving the extreme Islamist narrative weight."

According to AP, about 2.7 million of Britain's 64 million people are followers of the Prophet. Police say at least 700 of them have travelled to IS territory. These "radicalized Muslim youths" include a 17-year-old who blew himself up in Iraq last week, and three sisters from northern England believed to have gone to Syria to become Islamist wives.

The usual suspects -- people like Tony Bliar -- condemned Mr. Cameron's remarks as racist, Islamophobic, "unhelpful", yada yada yada. But some British Muslims defended his message. Haras Rafiq, managing director of anti-extremism think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, said he didn't see the speech as anti-Islam. "He is not saying that all Muslims are the problem," Mr. Rafiq said. "He is saying the Islamist ideology needs to be tackled."

And Kalsoom Bashir, who heads the counter-radicalization group Inspire, said Cameron has a point that some British Muslims have a degree of "sympathy, empathy and envy for the people who are going out to Syria." AP quotes her as saying "We need to be back in a place where we can dismiss this ideology as a loony fringe of Islam,said. "But unfortunately it's becoming mainstream. I think that fightback has to come from within the communities as well."

Walt has no further comment except to wish Mr. Rafiq and Ms Bashir good luck in their encouragement of "moderate Muslims"... both of them!