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National Observer, Australia, No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)National Observer, Australia No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)

 

Arab and Islamic funding of Islamic studies:
a question of Western security

by Anthony Glees

National Observer
Australia's independent current affairs online journal
No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010).

Readers of National Observer will recall Dr Mervyn Bendle's disclosure of Saudi funding of Islamic study centres in Australian universities.[1] In the following article, one of Britain's leading authorities on security and intelligence issues, Professor Anthony Glees, describes a similar pattern of overseas Islamic funding of Middle Eastern studies at Britain's major universities, notably Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh — funding which is wholly unregulated by the British government.

Wherever Islamists go on the attack, all are driven by the same malign and violent hatred of the West and its current foreign security interests. We still do not know much about Major Nidal Malik Hassan, accused of the killing of thirteen people at Fort Hood on November 5, but what we do know is that he was in regular contact with a radical cleric in Yemen, Anwal al-Awlaki, who was previously Hassan's imam in Virginia. Al-Awlaki was assessed by US intelligence to be a dangerous Islamist radicaliser and, according to a report published in London on 11 November 2009, his extremist views (for example, "The ballot has failed us but the bullet has not") are widely disseminated, particularly in the UK. Indeed, one of the British government advisors on Islamist extremism, Azad Ali, has publicly praised Awlaki ("I really do love him for the sake of Allah").[2]

While US government sources have been very quick to insist there was no "plot" against America at Fort Hood, the shootings were, it seems, most certainly part of the wider plot against Western policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Whether Hassan acted alone or with others, he was, if responsible, locked into a much broader conspiracy of terrorist activity linking Islamists in New York, London, Denver, Madrid, Mumbai, Peshawar, Kabul, Bali and in many other sites where extremist attacks have taken place.

The process of radicalisation

What is of concern is not merely that particular extremist worldview, but that it is one which all Islamist terrorists acquire. Much has been written since 9/11 about the process of radicalisation (some of it inferred from the absence of evidence rather than its presence). There are those who argue it happens via the internet, or even spontaneously.

In fact, there is increasing evidence to suggest that when Muslims turn to Islamism, it is the direct result of physical exposure to extreme ideology, frequently taking place in the penumbra of radical mosques and associated Islamic studies centres, be they in Western countries or in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Exposure to extreme and politicised interpretations of the peaceful faith of Islam is always the necessary precondition of terror.

Islamism is a specific system of political ideas which is found wherever Islamic ideas are studied and traded by extremist and radical preachers. Major Hassan, if found guilty, would be but one example. According to UK police reports, 22-year-old Nicky Reilly, a British Muslim convert, who in May 2008 attempted to detonate a series of nail bombs in a popular Exeter restaurant, had been recruited and groomed by extremists on the fringes of a new Islamic studies centre in Plymouth.[3] Countless other terrorists have begun their careers after contact at mosques, studies centres or madrassas with radical preachers like al-Awlaki, Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Muhammad or Abu Hamza.

Through brainwashing, Muslims are made ready for weapons-training elsewhere, if required, in the UK or Afghanistan and Pakistan. Extremist preachers are not usually arms and explosive instructors. They incite and make their recruits ready for action. Weapons-training is provided by others. Yet extremist reachers are a key link in the process (although Luqman Ameen Abdullah, shot dead by federal agents near Detroit on 28 October 2009, was described officially as an "imam whose primary mission [was] to establish an Islamic state within the US")[4].

Sometimes, of course, alert security services will detect potential terrorists, although frequently they fail to act pre-emptively (as in the case of Major Hassan and several UK bombers). Sometimes terrorists are spotted by watchful mainstream imams. The conviction in July 2009 of the Islamist Isa (Andrew) Ibrahim in Bristol, for example, was based on intelligence about his plans provided by his imam.[5] It served to reinforce the point that Islamism is not Islam but its antithesis, even if it clings to the coat-tails of this great religion. Too often, however, terrorists are identified only after they have acted.

Not surprisingly, there is general agreement that the best policy is to try to prevent the transfer of this lethal ideology. If it is acknowledged — which it should be — that Islamic studies centres can promote political extremism, it then becomes imperative to regulate and evaluate what goes on inside them or in their immediate vicinity and, if necessary, contain their number so that they can be properly monitored.

Proliferation of Islamic studies centres

It is therefore a matter of the gravest concern that Western democracies, instead of doing any of this, are actually doing the reverse. They are not only failing to monitor properly the activities of radical imams (the Fort Hood example is but the latest of many such intelligence failures), but allowing the Islamic studies centres to mushroom, totally out of control. They are making radicalisation and ideological transfer easier, not harder, and increasing the security risk rather than containing it.

In Britain, it is actually official government policy to expand the teaching of Islamic studies so that every single Muslim student in the UK will be able to take this subject. There are currently some 635 students undertaking Islamic studies in British universities. If the government succeeds in its stated objective, this number would increase by a further 89,365 (the Federation of Student Islamic Societies estimates that there are about 90,000 Muslim students in Britain).[6]

The government is following a line put to it by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre at the headquarters of MI5, Britain's state security service. It is that far from being "religious zealots", most Islamists "do not practise their faith regularly, many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices". MI5 actually believes that there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects a believer against violent extremism.[7]

Leaving aside the scholarship on which such assertions rely (if it exists, which is doubtful), or the likely fact that they are simply the expression of entirely self-serving arguments advanced by those favouring the expansion of Islamic studies, the point is not whether more Islamic studies can or cannot protect Muslims from Islamism.

Rather, it is a more simple, security-led point. More Islamic studies centres will add to the number of sites where Muslim students are taken and thereby increase exponentially the ability of Islamists to operate, as they do, on the fringes of such centres. These will be harder to police. Meanwhile, young Muslims, inspired by radical preachers, will be more susceptible to the influence of extremists, moving from them to trainers and to terror. Common sense suggests that Islamists may have pursued the wrong interpretations of Islam, but to argue that they will be deterred by what are considered the right interpretations is to fall into the trap of thinking that Islamism is a religious activity. It is not. It is a political one.

In what Nicky Reilly thought (wrongly) would be his suicide note, he wrote, "I am doing what God wants from his mujahideen", and he castigated the West for its drunkenness and sexual immorality as well as for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Everywhere," he declared, "Muslims are suffering at the hands of Britain, Israel and America. We are sick of taking all the brutality from you."[8]

The 7/7 London bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, said much the same thing in his own suicide message in 2005. "Your democratically-elected governments continually perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world," he insisted, making it plain that, in his mind, "your democracy" was the target, because it was responsible for the "atrocities against my people".[9] Even though Khan told his baby daughter he would strike "for the sake of Islam",[10] his terrorism was about politics, not religion.

Appointment of Tariq Ramadan to Oxford

Yet the government is plainly pressing on regardless. The announcement in July 2009 that the well-known charismatic Salafist preacher and intellectual, Tariq Ramadan, had been appointed to a new Islamic studies chair at Oxford University assed virtually unnoticed. So, too, did the fact that it was the product of a massive UK£2.39m (AUD$4.3m) donation to Oxford's Oriental Institute by the Emir of Qatar, His Royal Highness Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani (the new chair will bear his full name).[11] Rumours circulating in Oxford University two years ago that the donation was given on condition that Ramadan got the chair were strenuously denied by the university.

Ramadan's job will be to "ensure that the work of the Faculty will in future have a direct impact on contemporary debates and developments".[12] When, a few weeks later, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam announced Ramadan had been dismissed as professor of "citizenship and identity" (and the City of Rotterdam explained they had sacked him as "integration advisor"), once again few, if any, registered this fact. No eyebrows were raised at the reason for his dismissal (the extreme content of his weekly broadcasts on Press TV, which is funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran)[13] or that the links between the Emir of Qatar and Iran are famously close (and the cause of much anxiety amongst the other Gulf States).

On 21 October 2009, Tehran announced the execution of five individuals, including a mother said to be suffering from post-natal depression. Iran has at least 134 juveniles on death row and its current treatment of political dissidents (of whom many are awaiting execution) is the cause of widespread international condemnation (although very little coming from President Obama's White House). An Iranian-American student who took part in a protest to support free elections was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment.

Whether someone like Tariq Ramadan, who is regularly engaged by Tehran in its propaganda efforts in the West, is a suitable person to educate young British Muslims is surely something that should cause Oxford University to pause for thought. The argument is not that Ramadan promotes violence, for he has repeatedly said he opposes it in all its forms. In his case, it is his closeness to Iran and its vision of an Islamic state that gives rise to anxiety.

Arab and Islamic bankrolling of academia

The British public have not got their teeth into any of this, not least because it is so hard for the full facts to be put to them. What happens in our most prestigious universities appears arcane, even incomprehensible, to the layman. Moreover, Britain's stringent libel laws (which allow not only individuals but also institutions to sue) ensure that those within our great universities who are deeply anxious about these developments keep their counsel and will only ever speak "off the record". One might expect certain think tanks to support investigations, but they too are terrified of lawsuits. The "old boy" network and the favours that our older universities can bestow on those they regard as their supporters also combine to discourage too close a scrutiny of the evidence.

But there was also another reason that Ramadan's appointment (and the cash which underwrote it) failed to make waves. This was because, by that time, there was nothing especially novel about the Arab and Islamic bankrolling of British academia. In March 2008, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, had donated £8m to build an Islamic studies centre (to bear his name) at Cambridge University.[14] Prince Alwaleed has made a number of substantial donations to Western universities, including US$20m each to Harvard and Georgetown universities. Professor Yasir Suleiman, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, said: "The aim of the centre will be to foster a deeper understanding between Islam and the West through the twin paths of high-quality research and an energetic outreach programme."[15]

The new centre in Cambridge did not merely replace an existing one, but promised that its first research would "focus on Islam in the United Kingdom and Europe and Islam in the media". What is equally disturbing is the fact that, in accepting Prince Alwaleed's money, Cambridge University agreed he could nominate three members of the centre's management committee (one more than the university itself). The centre is required to submit written reports twice a year to the Prince. The Prince will obviously play a major role in his centre's work. This is certainly a curious way to run an academic centre in the 21st century.

A few weeks later, on 8 May 2008, the Prince gave the same amount to Edinburgh University to fund the "centre for the study of Islam in the contemporary world".[16]

Professor Carole Hillenbrand, head of Edinburgh's department of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, gushed: "This is the biggest thing to hit Islamic studies in the UK ever. It is the biggest donation to the humanities that the University of Edinburgh has ever received." She added: "There is ignorance and phobia about Islam. Our major aim is to improve public knowledge of Islam."[17] In 2005 Professor Carole Hillenbrand was awarded the King Faisal prize in Islamic studies, and in 2006 her husband, Professor Robert Hillenbrand, was awarded the Iran "World Prize" for the "book of the year".

The phrases used by all these professors ("direct impact on contemporary debates and developments", "an energetic outreach programme" and "our major aim is to improve public knowledge of Islam") show that this funding is not primarily academic, and questions may be asked as to whether it is appropriate for an institution of higher education to undertake propaganda work of this kind.

Over the past ten years, some £237m has been handed over or pledged. Of this at least an astonishing £172m (some 70 per cent) has been given to establish Islamic studies centres in the UK's state-funded universities. None of this money is regulated by the government in any way whatsoever.

Some 62 per cent (approximately £157m) of the approximately £260m of Arab and Islamic money that has come into British higher education over the past decade has gone into Islamic studies teaching. The British government has so far pledged only £1m. Or, to put it another way, Arab and Islamic funders have put perhaps 157 times more cash into Islamic studies in British universities than has the government.

Nor is this the only source of overseas money donated for this sort of enterprise. Recent reports suggest that the Iranian government is also busy in the UK, attempting to fund centres to push its own particular form of Islamic studies. Early in 2009, it was reported that Iranian "officials" were in Britain, talking to universities about funding Islamic studies to "set up and train experts on Islam to assist in the introduction of Islam and its realities". Currently, the US authorities are attempting to seize some $650m of Iranian government funding channelled through the Alavi Foundation whose aim is to promote Islamic studies. There is, alas, no indication that Britain will follow suit and every likelihood that it will not.

The lion's share of the funding (perhaps some £169.8m) comes from Saudi Arabia. Oxford University has been the chief beneficiary of Arab and Islamic generosity, pocketing about 74 per cent of the total donated or promised (£175.2m out of £237.5m), or 52 per cent of the total received to date (£49.9m out of £94.89m). The Saudi businessman and arms dealer, Wafic Said, has funded the business school which proudly bears his name (£20m already donated, a further £15m pledged). But this is no run-of-the-mill business school, as its "Saudi Advanced Management Programme" makes clear. The Saudis have also given at least £20m to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (a "recognised independent centre of the University" famous for its Muslim-only "leadership programmes"), which occupies a prime multi-million-pound site, sold by Magdalen College. It comes replete with an exotic mosque and minarets dominating the surrounding area.

Saudi educational values

Using the Oxford Islamic Studies Centre as a platform in February 2005, Prince Saud Al-Faisal delivered a bald statement of Wahabist principles. The Saudis, he insisted, were entitled to have a very special position in Islamic matters as their country "was thrust towards assuming a position of influence and authority to maintain the moral tradition and the purity of Islam". Islam, he insisted, had recognised the concept of human rights some six hundred years before Magna Carta. Saudi Arabia was "instrumental in the formulation of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights", which "codified the Islamic view of human rights". There could be no acceptance of Western ideas of human rights, he added, because this would lead to "political domination by the West and the transformation of a highly devout and traditional society into a self-indulgent one". In any case, he concluded, the "credibility of the West" had been "demeaned by its disregard and neglect of the greatest human-rights crisis in the modern history of our region — the plight of the Palestinian people", and he attacked bitterly what he called the "double standard, practised for decades by the West".[18]

Not surprisingly, the themes of this speech are chilling and uncompromising — the Wahabis' inalienable right to Islamic dominance, their unconditional demand for "pure Islam", the idea that "Islamic" human rights are better than Western ones (as if their universality should not apply in Muslim lands), the insistence that the West has ignored the plight of the Palestinian people, that the West is riddled with hypocrisy and double standards.

But it is by no means clear that Saudi educational standards are always as wholesome as one might hope, as was recently illustrated after court action in 2007 involving the King Fahd Academy in Acton, London. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf, the school's principal, admitted that the school, which is owned, funded and run by the government of Saudi Arabia, used textbooks that described Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs". She said: "Yes, I do recognise these books of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by our teachers. It depends on the objectives that the teacher wants to achieve."[19]

Of course, some Saudi money has no political or religious purpose whatsoever: Mohammed Al Jaber who has given generously to London University is correctly seen as a fine and humane philanthropist.

Vigilance needed to protect academic objectivity

Should we then conclude that Arab and Islamic money has been influencing the academic output of British universities in general and Oxford University (as the largest single beneficiary of this money) in particular? Oxford University, obviously enough, insists that it has not. Those looking at the outreach projects of its Middle East Centre (at St Antony's College) may be less sure. There is certainly very little in them that might deter an Arab or Islamic funder and a great deal to encourage them. Not surprisingly, under the circumstances, the Middle East Centre has been given £1m by the Saudis, and has also just received from an unnamed Islamic donor many millions to build an entirely new and futuristic "softbridge" building.

No one suggests, of course, that the academics there have had their minds changed by the lure of funding: they write and say what they would write and say in any event. But where their views are hostile to American and British foreign policy or to Israel, as they frequently are, the funding that their institutions receive gives those views far greater traction and prominence than they would otherwise have. That, after all, is why the new Middle East centre building has been donated to Oxford. Nor would there be anything very wrong about this: few would dispute that Israel's past and present policies merit careful scrutiny, even harsh criticism. However, the chief distinction between political debate and academic debate is the latter's emphasis on objectivity and on fair-minded balance. Here, the university's Middle East Centre seems wanting.

The centre's Professor Avi Shlaim, who writes "revisionist" tracts on Israel, has ublicly said that he no longer believes in the concept of balance when examining the complex situation there. He wrote: "Israel's policies towards the Palestinians surely cannot be described as balanced by any stretch of the imagination. The Biblical injunction of 'an eye for an eye' is grisly enough, but Israel goes even farther by its habitual practice of exacting an eye for an eyelash! As Israel's policy towards the Palestinians becomes more heavy-handed and violent, the very notion of balance needs to be re-examined."[20] He has also said "the political deadlock that persisted [in the Middle East]" was largely because of "Israeli intransigence".[21] Where there is no need for balance, no debate is needed. But without debate there is no university. It is not implausible to believe that many Arab and Islamic funders have little time for the finer but very necessary aspects of Western education.

Certainly, the web output of Oxford's Middle East Centre seems unbalanced when the Israel-Palestine conflict is under discussion. Bizarrely, for several years the salary of the Israel studies professor at the centre has had to be funded externally by a Jewish benefactor. Meanwhile, an event entitled "Israeli Apartheid Week" (which accuses the Israelis of racism) has been held more than once in the college which is home to the centre, and has featured speeches by some of its professors, including Karma Nabulsi who, before becoming an Oxford politics don, was from 1977-1990 the official representative for the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Britain.

How free societies should respond

Since British universities are plainly smirking all the way to the bank, and the government seems highly content to let others fund our state campuses, why indeed should anyone worry at this apparent generosity that knows no bounds?

There are two answers. The first is intellectual; the second has to do with the security of our liberal political democracy. It is hard to believe that Arab and Islamic donors are keen to promote the free and unfettered enquiry which is the basis of all Western higher education, as they do not do so in their own universities. Where Saudi- or Iranian-funded centres are concerned, it seems reasonable to suppose that their job is to advance their benefactors' view of Islam, both in terms of the unbending and uncompromising Saudi Wahabist view and Iran's different (because Shi'ite) politically-driven, if somewhat less extreme, programme.

Over and above this, it is surely good sense for a free society, in seeking to fight the seemingly unstoppable growth in Islamist terrorism, to do nothing to expedite it and everything to slow it down. That means not just that Arab and Islamic funding should be regulated by law, but that the expansion of Islamic studies centres, which could cause young Muslims to tip over the edge and descend into violence, should be halted at once.

Wahabist hardline believers in the essential purity of Islam grant no favours to those who wish to debate them, because Wahabis believe there is nothing to debate. In respect of Islam, Wahabis and many other Muslims who take an extreme view may even refuse to accept that non-Muslims should be entitled to teach the religion. Indeed, the Saudis do not relish debate about anything much as their extensive use of Britain's libel lawyers indicates.

The British government distinguishes between "extremism" and "violent extremism", arguing that only the latter should become a cause for concern. But extreme views, even where they are non-violent and intended to promote non-violence, can easily be bent to support violence by evil recruiters or be misunderstood by gullible young people.

What is the public advantage to Britain, to any Western state, in accepting without scrutiny large amounts of Arab and Islamic funding which will increase the threat of terrorism and Islamist subversion rather than diminish it?

The vast majority of Muslims reject Islamism. But a small minority will embrace it. The answer to this problem is not to increase exposure to Islam by building ever more Islamic centres but, as with all religious activity, to confine the study of Islam — and other Middle Eastern issues — in a balanced way, within the bounds set by Western ideas of pluralism and rational, even sceptical, debate. The last thing that Britain needs today is to increase the possible risk of violent extremism.

Foreign donations to British political parties are illegal on the grounds that they might give donors undue influence on British public life. Yet Arab and Islamic gifts of money to universities are not merely perfectly legal but also wholly unregulated by government, even though universities educate the political class from which the next generation of law-makers, diplomats and lawyers will emerge. Over and above this, in seeking to fight the seemingly unstoppable growth in Islamist terrorism, we must now regulate the Arab and Islamic funding of Islamic studies to be certain there is nothing untoward taking place at their fringes. All existing Islamic studies centres should be subjected to the most careful scrutiny, particularly when those who teach in them seem ill-equipped to defend Western democratic values on account of those for whom they willingly work.

This is not an attempt to stifle dissenting viewpoints, still less to crush the proper study of Islam. But the time has come to make life much harder for extremist reachers, not because extremism always leads to terrorism or violence. It does not. Yet every terrorist has been an extremist and a radical.

Where extremist preachers have radicalised Muslims, their activities should be terminated or they should be allowed to transfer to Islamic states. The Fort Hood killings are but another example of what we have already learned to our cost: Islamist preachers can be serious security threats. We should do nothing to assist them in their murderous activities.

 

ENDNOTES:



[1] Mervyn F. Bendle, "Secret Saudi funding of radical Islamic groups in Australia", National Observer (Melbourne), No. 72, Autumn 2007, pp.7–18.
URL: www.nationalobserver.net/pdf/2007_secret_saudi_funding_of_radical_islamic_groups_in_australia.pdf

Mervyn F. Bendle, "How to be a useful idiot: Saudi funding in Australia — Part II", National Observer (Melbourne), No. 77, Winter 2008, pp.8–24.
URL: www.nationalobserver.net/pdf/2008_saudi_funding_in_australia_part_ii.pdf

[2] Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Anwar al-Awlaki: The UK Connection (London: The Centre for Social Cohesion), 11 November 2009, pp.2–3, 12. URL: www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1257955617_1.pdf

[3] "Exeter explosion: Autistic bomb suspect 'radicalised by gang'", The Telegraph (UK), 23 May 2009. URL: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2016420/Exeter-explosion-Autistic-bomb-suspect-radicalised-by-gang.html

[4] "Feds: Islamic radical killed in Mich. raid", AOL News (New York), 28 October 2009. URL: http://news.aol.com/article/feds-islamic-radical-luqman-ameen/742061

[5] "Former ublic schoolboy Isa Ibrahim convicted of planning 'carnage'", The Times (London), 18 July 2009. URL: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6714836.ece

[6] The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), London. URL: www.fosis.org.uk/about/intro_to_fosis.php

[7] UK state security service MI5, Whitehall briefing, 12 June 2008

[8] "Bomber Nicky Reilly's suicide note", The Herald (Plymouth, UK), 21 November 2008. URL: www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Bomber-Nicky-Reilly-s-suicide-note/article-493852-detail/article.html

[9] "We are at war: I am a soldier", The Telegraph (UK), 2 September 2005. URL: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/1497473/We-are-at-war-I-am-a-soldier.html

[10] "7/7 jury see video of terror ringleader grooming his baby daughter to battle for Islam", Daily Mail (UK), 25 April 2008. URL: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-561732/7-7-jury-video-terror-ringleader-grooming-baby-daughter-battle-Islam.html

[11]   Oxford University Gazette, No. 4857, Vol. 139, 16 October 2008.

[12]   "Islamic Studies Chair is appointed", Oxford University media release, 30 July 2009. URL: www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/090730.html

[13] "The dismissal of Tariq Ramadan", The Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2009. URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360193435076088.html

[14] "Prince in £8m gift for centre", Cambridge News, 15 March 2008. URL: www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=298770

[15]   Olga Wojtas, "Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities announce new Centres for Islamic Studies", Cambridge University News and Events, 8 May 2008. URL: www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008050801

[16] "Saudi prince donates £16m to improve Islamic studies", Times Higher Education (UK), 8 May 2008.URL: www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=401799&c=1

[17]   Loc cit. Professor Carole Hillenbrand, her husband Professor Robert Hillenbrand and Professor Yasir Suleiman, (previously at Edinburgh where he held the Iraq chair of Islamic studies and now professor of modern Arabic studies at Cambridge and director of the new Islamic studies centre there) all declined to be interviewed for the record for this study. URL: www.imes.ed.ac.uk/EISAWI/newsletters/eisawi2005-2006.pdf

[18] HRH Prince Saud Al Faisal, "Overcoming disconnect", a statement delivered at the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, Oxford University, 24 February 24, 2005. URL: www.oxcis.ac.uk/lectures/Saud%20al-Faisal.doc

[19] "We do use books that call Jews 'apes', admits head of Islamic school", Daily Mail (UK), 7 February 2007. URL: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-434506/We-use-books-Jews-apes-admits-head-Islamic-school.html

[20] Avi Shlaim, "Israel, free speech and the Oxford Union", OpenDemocracy (London), 13 November 2007. URL: www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/israel_palestine/free_speech_oxford_union

[21] Avi Shlaim, "Israel confronts its past", Lectures Archive, St Antony's College, Oxford University. URL: www.sant.ox.ac.uk/events/lecturesarchive/shlaim.html

THE AUTHOR

Anthony Glees, MA, MPhil, DPhil (Oxford), is professor of politics at the University of Buckingham, UK, and directs its Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) for postgraduate students. He has a specialist concern with security and intelligence issues and has written and lectured on aspects of the history of British intelligence, on Islamism, on terrorism and counter-terrorism, and on subversion in Western democracies, both today and in the past. Among the books he has written are The Secrets of the Service: British Intelligence and Communist Subversion, 1939-51 (Jonathan Cape, 1987) and The Stasi Files: East Germany's Secret Operations Against Britain (Simon & Schuster, 2003). He has co-authored, with Chris Pope, a study, When Students Turn to Terror: Terrorist and Extremist Activity on British Campuses (Social Affairs Unit, 2005).

National Observer, Australia, No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)