Sanctuary No More

...Zawahiri started promisingly enough, endorsing the views of the London metropolitan elite that Blair was responsible for the bombings, and, like Livingstone, insisting that more would follow unless Britain changed course...

...The police would be given the opportunity to hold terror suspects for weeks before pressing charges...

...I have rights...

...If Blair gets his way, the next time some would-be terrorist invokes the Magna Carta in this way, the arresting officer will be able to say: "Oh no you don't, sonny...

...Though the appeasers are still fighting hard, it is increasingly evident that Britain is not in a mood to follow the Livingstone-Galloway-Zarqawi strategy to peace and justice...

...Withdrawal from Iraq wasn't going to be nearly enough to turn off the spigot of suicide bombings, al Zawahiri said...

...But events in Britain have led me to revise that view...

...But then he veered badly off-script for the "None of this would have happened if Blair hadn't invaded Iraq" brigade...

...BY GERARD BAKER IT WAS ALWAYS A CHEAP SHOT to accuse the leaders of the antiwar crowd in Britain of working hand-in-glove with the terrorists...

...There will be a struggle...

...I used to think Galloway and his ilk should be incarcerated for such self-evidently treasonous acts (in fact the death penalty, contrary to popular belief, is still available in Britain for the crime of high treason, though we wouldn't want to create more "martyrs...

...The latest proposals demonstrate to the public as much as to outsiders the reality of a nation at war, with all the painful compromises with authoritarian measures that involves...

...Last week we got firm proof that there is no coalition between the jihadis and those who generously seek to understand them in the U.K...

...Misguided, certainly...

...Justifying or glorifying terrorism would become an offense...

...Having compassionately deigned to treat the deliberate targeting of innocent Israelis by Palestinian fanatics as morally indistinguishable from the military efforts of the democratic Israeli government to eliminate terrorists, Hizzoner got on to his main argument...

...Roughly translated, this meant: Leave us free to do exactly what we want from Jerusalem to Jakarta, submit to all our demands, stop driving cars, and we might, just might, agree to stop blowing you into oblivion as you go about your everyday business...

...The dreadful irony of Britain's status as a liberal haven in which terrorists are protected by the very society which they seek to destroy was well illustrated when Ramzi Mohammed, one of the failed bombers in the July 21 attacks, was finally arrested...

...And a list of extremist Islamic clerics would be drawn up who would be excluded from the United Kingdom permanently...

...Instead, it seems the country is slowly, steadily shifting to a war footing...

...On Thursday, one of the principal figures in the antiwar movement, Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, trotted out quite succinctly the familiar analysis of the anti-Blair, anti-Bush section of British opinion since the attacks of 7/7 in an article in the Guardian...

...They really aren't on the same page at all...

...Naive, possibly...

...Instead that would only happen when Britain left all "the land of Mohammed...

...But Blair made clear last week his determination to see the proposals enacted— and suggested he might recall parliament early from its summer recess to speed the process...

...While visiting friendly Syria, he told Muslims, via Al Jazeera, that their two beautiful daughters, Jerusalem and Baghdad, were being "raped" by foreigners...

...Fifth columnists, probably not...

...If Britain was to avoid further bloodshed it needed to pull its troops out of Iraq—immediately...

...As police moved towards him, this jihadi who, one imagines, is just itching to get Britain's fuddy-duddy old liberal laws replaced by the sturdier prescriptions of sharia, shouted: "I have rights...

...Blair will have to take on some in his own party, the Liberal Democrats in the opposition (though not it seems, thankfully, the Conservatives), and perhaps most threateningly, the rest of Europe— much of what he proposes may contravene rulings of the European Court of Human Rights...

...and yes, that meant the killing of Palestinians by the Israeli military as well as the killing of Israeli civilians by suicide bombers...

...George Galloway, the antiwar "Respect" member of parliament for London's East End, certainly seems to think this prescription for British foreign policy is dead right...

...Under the proposals, Britain would be free to deport any foreigner who frequents a list of extremist centers and jihadi websites—with the suspects denied any appeal to be heard in Britain...

...The British government is beginning to grasp, belatedly and reluctantly, that tolerance of those who would destroy it is suicidal...

...On Friday, Tony Blair announced his boldest initiative yet since the terrorist attacks in London—proposals for a string of draconian new laws to be put to parliament...

...This is startling new ground in the country that invented habeas corpus and which, rightly, treasures the freedoms of its people...

...Instead I am now certain that the more those like Livingstone and Galloway are allowed to vent their poison, the more damage they do to the very cause they espouse...

...Later on Thursday, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's deputy leader, issued a finger-wagging lecture, courtesy of Al Jazeera, to the British people, about the evils of British foreign policy...

...Anyone with any connection to terrorism would be automatically denied asylum...

...And for good measure the British and the Americans should stop "stealing our oil and our resources...

...Now, in fairness, it should be noted that there are some in Britain who are happy to comply with al Qaeda's demands for unconditional surrender to their every last wish...

...True, some of them in recent weeks have sounded remarkably like apologists for al Qaeda, with their talk of "understanding" Islamic rage about Iraq or Israel, and their calls for Tony Blair to be held responsible for the bombings of July 7 and the near-misses of July 21...

...But the idea that they were actively giving succor to terrorists and doing the fanatics' job was a bit harsh...

...But no sooner had London's mayor delivered himself of this utterance, than another, somewhat more authoritative source on what the Islamists were really trying to achieve in London trumped him...

...He was all over the land of Mohammed last week expressing moist solidarity with the Zawahiris and the Zarqaw-is...

...And he had high praise for the "resistance" in Iraq, the people who have been killing innocent Iraqis as well as American and British servicemen: "These poor Iraqis . . . are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day...

...Now Ken's a fair man, and his first task was to demonstrate how even-handed he is, so he began by carefully insisting that he was against all terrorism...