The west is being ‘out-spent, out-manoeuvred and out-strategised’ by violent Islamic extremism, Tony Blair has warned. He said there had been a failure to challenge the narrative that Islam was oppressed by the west which was fuelling extremism around the world. Too many people accepted the extremists' analysis that military actions taken by the west after the 9/11 attacks were directed at countries because they were Muslim and that it supported Israel because Israelis were Jews while Palestinians were Muslims. Speaking in New York to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Blair said it was impossible to defeat extremism ‘without defeating the narrative that nurtures it’. Moderate Muslims who believed in coexistence and tolerance were, he said, being undermined by the unwillingness of the west to take on the extremists' arguments. ‘Examine the education systems that succour it. And then measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful coexistence.’

Pray: for strong leadership in all Christian nations to counter false Islamic arguments. (Jn 8:44)

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/06/tony-blair-islamic-extremism-west