Inayat Bunglawala, secretary of the Media Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, starts out in this article for Britain’s Telegraph trying to reassure readers that all British Muslims are not like the radical terror supporters at al-Muhajiroun—and then degenerates into a seething rant against Israel, with explicit support for Hamas: Don’t let the evil of extremism taint Islam’s good name.

From ex-colonial Algeria to the budding statesmen of the PLO, secular nationalist groups have almost become a byword for corruption and incompetence. Some in the Palestinian leadership and their families are known to have made small fortunes from the construction of the same Jewish settlements in the West Bank that they denounce as illegal.

It is only in this light that the rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, in Palestine can be explained. Hamas also possesses an efficient social welfare network, while its leadership lives in the same dilapidated homes as ordinary Palestinians. America’s unstinting diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel has only seen corresponding Muslim support for Palestinian resistance groups also increase.

Whereas in many Western eyes, the EU’s decision last week to proscribe the political wing of Hamas will be seen as just retribution for the recent atrocity in Jerusalem when 22 Israelis died when a Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus, much of the Muslim world sees the EU taking sides with the occupier, with Israel once again escaping any serious censure for its own systematic policy of illegal occupation, repression and assassination. While the Palestinian groups had declared and abided by a unilateral truce for more than 45 days, the Israelis had nevertheless continued on a daily basis their campaign of “targeted killings” and home demolitions. Are Palestinian lives regarded by the EU as of less worth than Israeli ones?