Israel/Palestine and Chilcot

[lenmoore]

I've kind of enjoyed Chilcot though we're hearing nothing new, but I've thought of it as primarily a domestic matter. Karen Armstrong's article of 5 Feb in the Guardian shows the error of this. Muslims the world over are watching but crucially for us because Iraq is one element along with Palestine/Gaza/Jerusalem in their anger at Western policy. I was struck by reference  to a survey of more than one billion Muslims, between 2001 and 2007, in 35 countries, showing that what Muslims admire most about the west is its political liberty and freedom of speech. This gives the lie to frequent assertion that Muslim anger derives from their rejection of western values. Its not our values that they reject but our actions and our refusal to listen to their arguments, eg., about western hypocrisy and inaction over Palestine.