Maajid Nawaz, reformed extremist, has unbelievably blamed the deaths of Muslim children squarely at the feet of Hamas. Anyone who drops a bomb on schools and apartments knows full well they will kill innocent men, women and children. The world's most evil nation has slaughtered 700 Muslims in this way in just these few days. Yet Majid Nawaz pins the blame on Hamas!

Jewish children everywhere are now "legitimate targets". This was the macabre warning uttered from the mouth of Hamas commander Mahmoud Zahar yesterday. In a shocking revelation the Hamas commander self-righteously declared, "The Zionists have legitimised the killing of their children by killing our children. They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people." The perverse al-Qaida logic used by Zahar in this proclamation is as simple as it is depraved, and the worst part is that it seems to have no end. What if the "enemy" was deemed to have raped or tortured, would we proceed to rape and torture in response as an instrument of war, anywhere in the world and against any Jewish person?

Is justice in the Palestine question reduced to a body count of how many children have been beheaded? Zahar, you have betrayed your people, and I hope and pray that others inside Palestine and indeed within your own movement condemn your dehumanisation of innocent babies.

Last April I wrote about the double standards that plague Islamists in this debate, and what I said then sadly rings true now:

The right to life must also be non-negotiable. Just as British Muslims condemn the deaths of Muslim civilians in Iraq or Palestine, they must also condemn suicide bombings that kill non-Muslim civilians. The silent barbaric logic behind killing 'a child for a child' must cease. Murder is murder.

Around a week before the Israeli invasion, Hamas had proceeded to institute a medieval penal code inside Gaza, whereby thieves would have their hands chopped off, adultery would be dealt with by stoning to death and alcohol consumption would be punished by lashings. Many people like me have spoken out in favour of the Palestine issue, and condemned the Israeli aggression in Gaza. How long will it take Hamas and generally those who support them to realise that it is not I, by writing this piece, who betrays Palestine? Rather it is Hamas's Islamist extremism and excess that provides the perfect pretext for the world to turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent Palestinians caught between two extremes, Zionism and Islamism.

Hamas does bear some responsibility in this current tragedy: the responsibility to resist occupation in a civilised way. Yes, Israel is not free from blame, as our Quilliam Foundation press release stated Israel's actions are condemnable, it has acted disproportionately and with utter disregard for human life. There is, however, one crucial difference that slices through this debate like a hot knife through butter. Israel does not have an active policy of deliberately capturing children to murder them, or even deliberately murdering civilians for that matter. Israel acts irresponsibly, with impunity and total disregard for the consequences of its military onslaught, and this leads to the deaths of many Palestinian civilians and some children. But it does not deliberately select children to murder, nor justifies doing so. Hamas just has.

Contrary to slogans shouted at Saturday's rally, we are not Hamas. If the sane voices that last week spoke up in condemnation of the Israeli offensive in Gaza do not speak now to address Hamas excesses, the cause will remain lost with the loss of a moral high-ground.

It is these very sane voices that I had hoped to hear yesterday, in an official briefing for leading UK Muslims. What I did not expect to hear were threats of "another 7/7, 8/8, 9/9 and more, with blame falling squarely on government policy, not on anyone else". How dare anyone issue veiled threats to hold the foreign policies of my country hostage to the whims of terrorists? If terrorists attack the innocent people of my country, I and countless others will blame them, not David Miliband or the Foreign Office. This is a democratically elected government, accountable to its people upon its policies; if you don't like policy, lobby your point.

What sort of distorted logic would see a link between the blood of the good people of Britain and Israel's atrocities in Gaza? Sadly, I know Islamists too well, and the only link is that both countries happen to be majority non-Muslim. Yet contrary to Islamist claims, the Palestine issue is not exclusively a Muslim cause, there are Palestinian and Arab Christians, for whom it is also a holy land, not to mention humanist campaigners and even Israelis, who all stand side by side with other Muslims seeking a Palestinian state for Palestinians of all faiths.

It is in times of such crisis that people's real moral fibre comes to the fore. I have witnessed torture and imprisonment for my past affiliations to Hizb ut-Tahrir. I know very well the sorts of frustration and anger that can lead to people contemplating revenge. However, no amount of anger can justify extinguishing the light from a child's eyes. As Sunny Hundal recently wrote sometimes, the friends of this cause can be its worst enemies.


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