[continued from previous message] 
  
 seem to have in common is that the victim was not white. Somehow a 
 wallet, a cell phone or a bunch of keys looks more like a gun in the 
 hands of a black person, and a thick jacket looks more like a 
 suicide belt on a brown man. 
  
 The police, in any country at any time, whatever strain they must be 
 under, cannot simply be given a blank check. In London, this is the 
 same police force that was famously called "institutionally racist" 
 by the Macpherson Inquiry carried out after the force's incompetence 
 and negligence meant that the racially-motivated murders of black 
 British teenager Stephen Lawrence got off scot-free. The 1999 report 
 which found widespread racism at every level of the police, was seen 
 as a turning point inter-ethnic relations in Britain. While 
 acknowledging some progress, one of the inquiry's advisors, Dr. 
 Richard Stone said in 2004, "In some areas things have got a lot 
 worse, random stops of young black men are now twice as likely as 
 there were five years ago. Today a black man is eight times more 
 likely to be stopped and searched by the police, this is definitely 
 not progress." This is the same police force that shot Jean Charles 
 de Menezes. 
  
 As the authorities fighting the "war on terror" claim more and more 
 leeway, Muslim communities feel greater pressure. It is now de 
 rigeur to demand that Muslims living in the west "do more" to root 
 out extremism. Yes, we must all do our part. But it is not clear to 
 me why a British Muslim, who works as a nurse, a bus driver or an 
 accountant, has a greater responsibility or ability to fight Muslim 
 extremists than an ordinary white British youth has to fight the 
 rising tide of racism from groups like the British National Party. 
 The responsibility ought to be the same, and yet it isn't. Muslims 
 are increasingly held collectively responsible for whatever any 
 other Muslim says or does, while members of the dominant society are 
 always allowed their individuality and autonomy. White youths who 
 get involved in anti-racism campaigns are sometimes lauded, but the 
 vast majority who don't are certainly not condemned. 
  
 On June 28, an Israeli soldier was convicted in the killing of Tom 
 Hurndall, an unarmed 23-year-old British peace activist, shot while 
 he was assisting Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in April 
 2003. Hurndall's death was only a rare example of hundreds of such 
 killings by the Israeli army to lead to a trial and conviction. 
 Initially, Israel lied that Hurndall had been armed. "It took months 
 and months and a lot of pushing by the Hurndall family and the 
 British military attach€ before [the investigation] got going," said 
 Jessica Montell director of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. 
 The problem is that Israel is a country where the tactics of the 
 army are widely justified and rationalized as being the necessary 
 actions of hard-pressed soldiers loyally protecting the country 
 against ruthless terrorists. And the army is allowed to investigate 
 itself. When the victim of these actions is a young westerner like 
 Tom Hurndall, rather than a faceless, nameless Arab, the balloon of 
 impunity can be briefly punctured. 
  
 Over the weekend, the Brazlian foreign minister Celso Amorim arrived 
 in London to add his government's full weight to the demands for an 
 independent investigation of de Menezes' killing. It remains to be 
 seen whether the British government will demonstrate the same 
 accountability they demanded of Israel, or whether the attitude that 
 a state defending its citizens against terrorism is entitled do 
 anything it wants with impunity has already sunk in too deeply. 
  
 Ali Abunimah is a co-founder of Electronic Iraq. 
  
 € 2003-2005 Electronic Iraq/electronicIraq.net, a joint project from 
 Voices in the Wilderness and The Electronic Intifada. 
  
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