LONDON - The nation's chief rabbi has called for an immediate crackdown on Islamic militants in the country, whom he accused of sowing hatred and promoting violence.
"This country has to crack down sharply on people attempting to radicalise the Muslim community," Jonathan Sacks, leader of Britain's 300,000 Jews, told Reuters in an interview.
"I have been warning about it quietly for years. (The rise in militant Islam) is attributable to a small number of individuals who have come and delivered quite a violent message to impressionable young people," he said.
The international hunt for clues in the wake of the September 11 attacks, blamed on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, has uncovered a web of links between London mosques, Muslim communities across Britain and Islamic militant violence elsewhere.
Sacks said the majority of Britain's more than 1.5 million Muslims were moderate -- but a small minority were not.
"I think the government should use the powers that it has, because these are people delivering a message of hate, explicitly violent, right now."
ANTI-SEMITISM KEPT AT BAY
Sacks said most Britons had not changed their views of the Jewish community during the 18-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, despite signs anti-Jewish sentiment was on the rise in other European countries, notably France.
"The British public is entirely capable of distinguishing between Israel and the British Jewish community," he said.
Britain's long history of tolerance, the moderate tendencies of most British Muslims and volunteer defence duties carried out by young Jews at synagogues and schools had helped reduce the risk of violence against Jews in Britain.
But media coverage of spiralling violence in the Middle East had affected how some Britons saw Israel, celebrating its 54th Independence Day on Wednesday.
Sacks said he was "very anxious" about what he said was Islamic radicalisation in universities and attempts there to campaign against Israeli policies.
ISRAEL, U.S. FACE SAME TERROR
Sacks said Israel was fighting the same terrorist threat in its conflict with Palestinians as the United States was in its self-styled war on world terror.
"Israel's fight against terror is precisely the same as America's fight against terror.
"This is a country fighting for its survival. Terror is much worse than war; in war you have a battlefield. With terror even a bus can be the battlefield," he said, referring to a spate of suicide attacks on Israeli civilians in recent months.
At least 1,276 Palestinians and 452 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
When asked whether Israel was partly responsible for the Middle East crisis by occupying Palestinian towns and failing to agree the establishment of a Palestinian state, he replied:
"If the Palestinians wanted a Palestinian state, the offer was on the table at Camp David and immediately after the Six Day War in 1967," he said.
"Israel has always been willing to make peace, and the Palestinians and the surrounding countries who have exploited them have always said 'no'."
Sacks urged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to halt the suicide bombings and violence that have rocked Israel, saying the reward of peace would be his if he did:
"All Yasser Arafat has to do is to say the word 'stop' to the terrorists and suicide bombers."