We need to talk to the MCB

As I write, 70% of those users who have taken the time to vote in the JC's poll on whether or not the Government should have resumed official contact with the Muslim Council of Britain agree that doing so is the right course of action. This is despite the fact that the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council have written to the Government expressing their "deep regret" over the matter - which does rather remind me of the debate as to which extent, if any, either group really speaks for Jewish opinion in this country. But's that's by-the-by.

The letter highlights a number of issues, including the MCB's decision to boycott National Holocaust Memorial Day which the Board and JLC say was "deeply offensive." They're quite right there - it was indeed deeply offensive; not just to Jews but to all humans regardless of race or religion, because the Holocaust has come to serve as a reminder of what can happen when racist hatred and inhumanity goes unchecked and a warning that nothing like it must be allowed to happen ever again.

The MCB, which seeks "To build a confident,engaged and prosperous Muslim community/to strengthen family and community institutions/to participate fully in the social and political life of Britain and the European Union and to contribute fully in the social and political life of Britain/ religious activities/arts/culture/economic/community development", acts as an umbrella organisation with over 500 affiliates in the British Muslim world, including mosques, imams, Muslim cultural centres, teachers and all manner of other entities. This is a group that hears what the Government does not - the concerns and worries of the vast majority of British Muslims; British Muslims who, in many cases, may feel that they are living within a society that hates them, leading to a seething anger and resentment that leads a tiny minority down the path to radicalism as was the case with the young men who carried out the 2005 London bomb attacks (strongly condemned, incidentally, by the MCB which stated that "We must and will be united in common determination that terror cannot succeed. It is now the duty of all us Britons to be vigilant and actively support efforts to bring those responsible to justice"). They can tell us what makes a person take that path and they can tell us why some Muslims feel the antisemitic sentiments that some of them do - and it's only by knowing these things that the Government can address those issues, take steps to improve the lives of those that feel rightly or wrongly hard done by and provide the proof that is necessary for any education aimed at ridding the nation of antisemitism and radical, violent 'Islamism' (note the inverted commas around the misleading tabloid term).

We and our Government need to be able to hear what the MCB hears, and the only way we can do that is by talking to them.