Patrick Seale: Healing the wounds between Islam and the West

This week saw the formal launch in London of a major international think-tank, Conflicts Forum, dedicated to forging a new and healthier relationship between the West and the world of Islam.

A second launch is to follow in Beirut from December 12 to 18, when a founder of the Forum will explain its aims to the Arab media and will hold meetings with representatives of Islamic groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

The creation of Conflicts Forum is a development of major importance because it is the first systematic attempt by a new western institution to challenge the view propagated by Washington neo-conservatives that the West is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with militant Islam.

Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, right-wing officials and lobbyists in that country, several of them close to Ariel Sharon's Likud party in Israel, have sought to demonise Islam and portray it as a deadly threat to Western societies.

These views were embraced at the highest level in America, and to some extent in Britain as well, where the notion took hold that, for the West to be secure, militant Muslim groups had to be destroyed and Muslim societies had to be reformed, if necessary by force.

The decision to wage war in Iraq followed, as did President George W Bush’s “war on terror”, a global manhunt in pursuit of anyone suspected of sympathy for the cause of militant Islam.

The same attitude inspires the current US campaign of seeking to impose “democracy” on the Arab world in order to “defeat terror”. It is widely recognised that the conflict between the United States and a world-wide Islamic insurgency has become the most explosive issue in the world today.

The Middle East arena has become the epicentre of the world crisis. Across Europe, not only in Holland but also in Germany and France, there is evidence that the integration of Muslim immigrants has not always been successful and has led to severe tensions, sharpened by Israel’s brutal repression of the Palestinians and by the war in Iraq.

Rebellion against Western policy

Because it was waged on the basis of lies and false premises, the Iraq war has aroused tremendous controversy in many parts of the world – including inside the intelligence and diplomatic services of Britain and the United States.

In recent months, senior retired officials have written open letters sharply criticising the Middle East policies of their governments.

In London this week, an eminent group of nearly 40 ambassadors, military commanders and senior politicians have sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him to set up an official enquiry into the claim – made in October by the medical journal The Lancet – that the war has caused the death of up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

The founders of Conflicts Forum denounce the “climate of fear” promoted by Washington neo-conservatives.

Rebelling against official Western orthodoxy that perceives Islamism as a hostile ideology, they have set themselves the ambitious task of promoting a “new engagement” with Islam based on dialogue, mutual respect and tolerance.

Alastair Crooke, one of the Forum's founders, is a former British diplomat and Middle East expert, who among many other posts served as special security adviser to Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

He coordinated negotiations and mediation between all the parties in the Arab-Israeli conflict, establishing valuable personal contacts.

“We need to demonstrate,” he declares, “that there is an alternative relationship between the West and Islam other than one defined by laying waste of Fallujah”.

Conflicts Forum is, in effect, a club of disaffected diplomats and intelligence officers, who have been joined by prominent figures from the fields of politics, business, academia and religion.

The Forum has raised funds from charitable foundations, companies, individual donors and governments. It is planning a major fund-raising drive in the United States in the New Year and appeals to Muslim movements and governments to support its campaign for a “New Engagement” between the West and Islam.

Conflicts Forum has set up a separate but linked body called Conflicts Forum Consultancy (CFC) to provide selected clients with strategic analysis of world problems and political risks.

Through an international network of contacts and offices, CFC is present in several world capitals. Over the past year, it has held meetings with the European Union, the Congress, the US Department of State, the National Security Council, as well as several international organisations.

It has also briefed Western and Arab diplomatic missions in London, Brussels and Washington.

Alastair Crooke, a founder and director of Conflicts Forum, will be in Beirut from December 12 where he will meet political leaders and address the media.

The co-founder of the Forum is Dr. Beverley Milton-Edwards, a prominent academic analyst of terrorist and political Islam. She is assistant director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at Queens University, Belfast.

In Beirut, Alistair Crooke will be accompanied by Mark Perry of Jefferson Waterman International, a prominent Washington lobbying firm, with which Conflicts Forum has developed an association.

Mark Perry is well-versed in Palestinian politics and was for many years a confidential adviser to the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The message Conflicts Forum is seeking to propagate may be summed up in a few simple propositions:
The worsening estrangement between the West and Islam is a source of grave concern.