7/7 a year on

Mr Blair told MPs: "If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West.

"In the end, government itself cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities.

"I am probably not the person to go into the Muslim community ... It's better that we mobilise the Islamic community itself to do this.

"I know everyone always wants to blame the government for everything that is happening .... but we can't defeat this extremism through whatever a government does.

"We can only defeat it if we have people in the community who are going to stand up and not merely say 'you are wrong to kill people through terrorism... you're wrong in your view of the West, the whole sense of grievance, the ideology is wrong, is profoundly wrong'."

Just that religious extremism and support for terrorism is increasing in Britain.

He added that the profile of the terror suspect was changing, including "many" British people willing to mount attacks on fellow citizens.

"Another feature which is really very very concerning is the fact that so many of them are so young," he said.

My ISP's Associated Press wire service story originally quoted the Israeli ambassador as saying he had been told by government that there were terrorist warnings just minutes before the blast. I just went back to copy the article, but they now have different text in place. The current article quotes Blair as saying the attack is related to the G8 summit.

British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his position.

Israel was holding an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to attend the conference, but in response to the warning, did not leave his hotel to attend the conference, government officials said.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he wasn't aware of any Israeli casualties. Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy and said warnings of possible attacks had been received, the official said. He did not say whether British police made any link to the economic conference.

The Israeli ambassador to London, Zvi Hefetz, said Thursday that the embassy was in a state of emergency following the explosions in London, with no one allowed entering or leaving. Danny Biran, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said all phone lines to the embassy were down. The ministry has set up a situation room to deal with hundreds of phone calls from concerned relatives.

Thousands of Israelis are living in London or visiting the city at this time, Biran said. Amir Gilad, a Netanyahu aide, told Israel Radio that Netanyahu's entourage was receiving updates all morning from British security officials, and ``we have also asked to change our plans.'' Netanyahu had been scheduled to stay in London until Sunday, but that could change, Gilad said.

Source

"Israeli ambassador as saying he had been told by government that there were terrorist warnings just minutes before the blast"

can you elaborate?

The Israeli ambassador to Britain in London?
told by which govt?

Well, Steve, that's the problem, my ISP uses the AP service, but they update the articles regularly, and when i went back for a quote, the article had been changed. They don't archive the stuff there. I'll go to the AP site and see if i can find something.

This is the single statement which i read, and which i have just found at the Associated Press website:

AP-dot-org wrote:
A senior Israeli official said Scotland Yard told Israel minutes before the explosions that it had received warnings of possible terror attacks.

brandx quotes source

"Israel was holding an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to attend the conference, but in response to the warning, did not leave his hotel to attend the conference, government officials said."

The BBC states categorically that there was no warning given.

So a simple question to mr Netanyahu. Why did you stay in your hotel this morning and not attend the conference as scheduled?

WHATS GOING ON?

Just that religious extremism and support for terrorism is increasing in Britain

Mr Blair told MPs: "If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West. .

"I know everyone always wants to blame the government for everything that is happening .... but we can't defeat this extremism through whatever a government does.

"We can only defeat it if we have people in the community who are going to stand up and not merely say 'you are wrong to kill people through terrorism... you're wrong in your view of the West, the whole sense of grievance, the ideology is wrong, is profoundly wrong'."

the Südeutsche Zeitung's main comment ("Unworried in London")

I find the whole thing totally perplexing. What is really going on? Is Islam at war with us? And are we therefore at war with Islam? I just don't have a clue anymore, I'm tired of trying to understand it.