LONDON, Aug 20: A Muslim academic who once said he was prepared to be a suicide bomber accused Britain and the United States on Sunday of waging a ‘war against Islam’, calling opponents of Tony Blair and George W. Bush ‘martyrs’.

“The greatest act of martyrdom is standing up for what is true and just. Martyrs are those who stand up in defiance of George Bush and Tony Blair,” Azzam Tamimi told 8,000 people in Manchester, northwest England.

His comments are likely to add to the current debate about Islam in Britain in the wake of the arrests of 24 people in connection with an alleged plot to blow US-bound aircraft from the skies.

Palestinian Tamimi, a director at the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, told the BBC in a November 5, 2004, interview that he was prepared to blow himself up for his homeland ‘if I have the opportunity’.

A supporter of the ruling Hamas party in the Palestinian Territories, he also refused to condemn a suicide bomb attack on November 1, 2004, which killed at least three people and wounded about 30 more in a Tel Aviv marketplace.

Tamimi’s presence at the ExpoIslamia conference has been controversial, with local Jewish groups expressing concern about the potential effect on Jewish-Muslim relations.

It also comes following the arrest of 24 people on August 10 over an alleged plot to blow up US-bound aircraft.

Since the alleged conspiracy was broken on August 10, many of Britain’s 1.5 million Muslims have expressed fears that they are being unfairly targeted by anti-terrorism legislation.

Others have pointed to British foreign policy in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan as a key driver for disaffection and radicalisation, particularly among young Muslims.

In his speech, Tamimi accused Blair and Bush of not pursuing a path that was ‘just and fair’.

“You stand up to them and you say desist. Stop this injustice. Stop this oppression. We are Muslims in Europe, not European Muslims. Being fair and just means finding the middle path,” he said.

“The middle path is not rubbing shoulders with Tony Blair and George Bush.”

Tamimi’s assertion that Israel had been defeated by Hezbollah in Lebanon was met with cheering and applause; on Hamas he said: “We are not terrorists. We are defenders of the truth.”

He added: “The (British) government is trying to turn the war on terror into the war on Islam.”—AFP