A library photo of Livingstone and Al-Qaradawi.

LONDON, July 20, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Defying calls by pro-Israeli lobby in Britain to ban Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi from visiting the country, London Mayor Ken Livingstone has defended the prominent Muslim scholar as a “leading progressive Muslim” and blamed decades of western hegemony over the Arab world for recruiting "terrorists and extremists".

Speaking at his first mayoral press conference Tuesday, July 19, since the terrorist July 7 attacks, Livingstone said he invited Qaradawi to a conference in Manchester next month on means of fighting extremism, the Financial Times reported.

“I believe it (is) important that Britain's Islamic community hears, through every means possible, condemnation of this [London blasts] from leading Islamic figures and urge them to speak out with all the means they possess on this issue.”

“All information I have received is that [Qaradawi has] condemned the London bombings unequivocally as wholly incompatible with Islam,” he said.

Qaradawi, head of the Dublin-based International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), was quick to condemn the grisly attacks on London, which were carried out by four bombers, including three British-born Muslims, and killed at least 56 people and injured up to 700.

“We were dumbfounded by the grave news of the London bombings which killed tens and wounded hundreds of innocent people who committed no crime,” Qaradawi had said.

His office told IslamOnlin.net Tuesday, July 19, that the respected scholar was not expected to show up in the August conference because of his illness.

Livingstone condemned the vile media campaign against Qaradawi ahead of the August conference, saying that his views were distorted and misunderstood, rejecting that they affected the minds of the London bombers.

“What Sheikh Qaradawi pointed out was, given that the Palestinians do not have jet fighters and do not have tanks, they only have their bodies to use. I do not think he is actually urging people to go out and become suicide bombers,” Livingstone said, denouncing media for having “pandered to Islamophobia.”

He said Israel had “done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity in the way they have indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children in the West Bank and Gaza for decades.”

He said it is unacceptable that Israel goes on “indiscriminately destroying homes simply because a [Palestinian] bomber came from that area.”

“I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe in that punishment.”

In March, Livingstone wrote a piece in the Guardian saying that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was “a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office.”

Qaradawi, also a trustee of the Oxford University Center for Islamic Studies, calls for distinguishing between the Israeli occupation and the Jews themselves.

“We do not fight Israelis because they are Jews, but because they took our land, killed our children and profaned our holy places,” the venerable sheikh had said.

Livingstone apologized in July last year to Qaradawi “on behalf of the people of London” for the media fuss that overshadowed his last visit to Britain.

He had further called on British media to apologize to the leading scholar over their hostile campaign that sought to blemish his reputation during his visit to London in July 2004.

He had criticized the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which is led by a former Israeli intelligence officer, for fueling the hatred campaign.

Inayat Bunglawala, media officer of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), lashed out Tuesday at right-wing media and newspapers for smearing the reputation of scholars and intellectuals like Qaradawi.

“There is enormous pressure now from the pro-Israeli lobby to prevent highly respected scholars like Sheikh Al-Qaradwi and [Swiss Muslim intellectual] Tariq Ramadan from coming to the UK, and they engage in character assassination of these prominent figures,” he told IOL.

“It is disgraceful that the pro-Israeli lobby is seeking to further the interests of Israel at the expense of good community relations.”

“Israel had done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity,” said Livingstone.

Livingstone also blasted decades of western exploitation and occupation of Arab natural resources and land, holding it accountable for recruiting terrorists and extremists.

“I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil,” Livingstone told BBC Radio 4's Today program Tuesday, when asked about what he thought had motivated the London bombers.

“We've propped up unsavory governments, we've overthrown ones we didn't consider sympathetic.”

He went on: “And I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained [Al-Qaeda leader] Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians and drive them out of Afghanistan. They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that he might turn on his creators.”

A Guardian poll published Tuesday showed that two-thirds of Britons believe the London bombings were linked to Blair's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

In a report issued Monday, July 18, a respected British think-tank said the Iraq war has given a momentum to Al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising and made Britain more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Read Also:

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• Qaradawi Rejects Al-Qaeda’s Killing of Innocents

• Those Who Die Fighting U.S. Occupation Forces Are Martyrs: Qaradawi

• We Are Fighting Israeli Occupation, Not Jews: Qaradawi

• Qaradawi: Bali Blasts Heinous Crime, Total Barbarism

• Qaradawi Condemns Attacks Against Civilians

• Qaradawi To Lead Delegation To Afghanistan To Save Statues

• Aggression Against Innocent People (fatwa) 

• Are Violence and Extremism Islamic Phenomena? (fatwa)