President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday forcefully rejected criticism of their Middle East policies by firing back at critics in the press and the Muslim community.
Bush took issue with suggestions in the media that his attempts to democratize the Middle East are to blame for Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel this month. He did not name a publication or editorial.
“You know, I hear this amazing kind of editorial thought that says, all of a sudden, Hezbollah’s become violent because we’re promoting democracy,” he said in an East Room press conference with Blair. “They have been violent for a long period of time.”
Blair lashed out at “propoganda” by some Muslims that American and Great Britain are enemies of Islam.
“Look, we’ve got a problem even in our own Muslim communities in Europe who will half buy into some of the propaganda that’s pushed at it: The purpose of America is to suppress Islam; you know, Britain’s joined with America in the suppression of Islam,” Blair said.
“And one of the things we’ve got to stop doing is apologizing for our own positions. Muslims in America, as far as I’m aware of, are free to worship. Muslims in Britain are free to worship.”
He added: “The propaganda is nonsense. And we’re not going to defeat this ideology until we in the West go out with sufficient confidence in our position and say, this is wrong! It’s not just wrong in its methods; it’s wrong in its ideas, it’s wrong in its ideology, it’s wrong in every single wretched reactionary thing about it.”
