London, Jan 17, IRNA — Communities and Local Government Minister Sadiq Khan Saturday appealed for peaceful reactions to the ongoing Israeli slaughter of more than 1,100 Palestinians in Gaza.
“The events in Gaza are no excuse for crime and violence here in the UK,” said Khan, who is one of two Muslim ministers in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government.
His call comes after Justice Minister Shahid Malik warned that there was ‘immense anger’ among the UK’s two-million Muslim community over the Israeli massacres and that their ‘patience is running out’.
“There is a real feeling of helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness among Britain’s Muslims in the context of Gaza,” Malik said. “People have become so disillusioned that they almost appear to have stopped listening to politicians,” he said.
Khan acknowledged that the blood-letting was having ‘real repercussions in the UK’. In many communities, ‘feelings are running high’ and it was ‘easy to understand why there is a great deal of anxiety and anger’ with pictures being seen on what is happening.
“One of the great strengths of this country is the democratic right to express those emotions publicly,” he argued. “Peaceful rallies, meetings and marches have an important and legitimate role,” he said in an article for the Guardian newspaper.
But the minister, who is a human rights lawyer, warned that it should be recognized that there are ‘some who will exploit and distort the horrific events in Gaza to radicalize British Muslims’.
“Already, in towns across the country, they are trying to further their own objectives on the back of others’ misery. They misrepresent the British government’s position,” he said.
Khan defended the government’s policy amid accusations that it was pro-Israeli, saying the UK has been calling for a ceasefire since the outbreak of the fighting and was providing pnds 7 million (dlrs 10 m) of emergency aid to Gaza.
His appeal for peaceful protests comes after violence broke out at the second national march on the Israeli Embassy in London on January 10, which some peace groups have blamed on being provoked by the police.
There have also been reports of a backlash against Jews in Britain, amid claims that they were anti-Semitic as opposed to anti-Israel.
Khan said that incidents of attacks on the country’s Jewish community are ‘absolutely unacceptable, just as the attacks on Muslim communities that we saw after 9/11 — women wearing the hijab being abused in the street, attempted arson on mosques — were absolutely unacceptable’.