Perhaps McShane has forgotten that many Muslims in this country are from countries that had a somewhat different experience of the “British Way”, and have recently seen the government’s dedication to peaceful means as demonstrated over Baghdad and Basra.

But of course the ’British Way’ means that bombs dropped from the air, however many people they kill, do not count as “terrorism”. (Then again, perhaps when the report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombs is published, and David Shayler and his colleagues are permitted to tell the truth about bombings like that in Libya we shall have a clearer picture).

More to the point, McShane’s arrogant remarks were on the front pages alongside pictures of the bombings in Turkey. No matter that the majority of victims were Muslims, this kind of demand addressed to British Muslims amounts to a “terrorist” smear attributing collective responsibility for distant events to an entire community - exactly the same thinking demonstrated by the synagogue bombers, incidentally - and just what racists and fascists like the BNP want to use to whip up hatred and violence against Muslims and other minorities. We recently remembered Kristallnacht. We have not forgotten how Hitler used the desperate act of a young Jewish refugee, Hirshl Grysnzpan, as the pretext to launch a massive state-pogrom against Jews in Germany, all in the name of reacting to a “terrorist conspiracy”. We also remember that here in Britain, in the 1940s, Mosley’s fascists tried to whip up anti-Jewish mobs in the wake of Irgun Zvai Leumi attacks on British forces in Palestine.

Violence against Muslims and anyone else perceived as “foreign” is nothing new, and the racists don’t always wait for a pretext. But as with Enoch Powell’s remarks about immigrants in the 1960s, remarks by supposedly respectable and educated politicians are quickly taken as the green light of encouragement by those who organise the lumpen racists. That is why we must hold leaders and professional communicators (and McShane is both) responsible, for their words can lead to others’ actions.

That is why the Jewish Socialists’ Group is declaring solidarity with the Muslim community over this attack, and is submitting the resolution below to the forthcoming National Assembly Against Racism:

DRAFT EMERGENCY RESOLUTION
The National Assembly Against Racism condemns the text of the speech that Denis MacShane was to make in Rotherham and the ’toned down’ speech asking the Muslims to ’make a choice’ in relation to terrorist bombings.

We utterly reject as racist the notion that a community and its organisations be required to take collective responsibility for what particular individuals have done - in this particular case acts of individuals from another country in a different country. We reject as racist stereotyping of Muslims as opposed to any other group of people, as potential terrorists, as people who need to make a choice of rejecting terrorism. We believe that his remarks, in their hard or ’soft’ form (the hard form is very much in the public domain on the front pages of newspapers) gives succour directly to the British National Party who use Islamaphobia as a key weapon to build support.

The National Assembly Against Racism calls for the immediate resignation or sacking of Denis MacShane as Europe Minister.

Jewish Socialists’ Group