Heaping insult upon infamy

She had been told by UK Border Agency special cases directorate official Jon Rosenorn-Lanng last June 21 that "the disputed underlying evidence could make an exclusion decision vulnerable to legal challenge."

But May was determined to respond to information supplied by the Community Security Trust (CST), whose day job is monitoring anti-semitism but moonlights to harass anti-zionist Jews and others critical of Israel's racist and expansionist policies.

The Home Secretary took just 17 minutes after receiving a CST report, written by Michael Whine, before emailing her officials to ask: "Is there anything that we can do to prevent him from attending?"

Despite loose allegations thrown around that Salah is a propagator of "hate crime" and anti-semitism, he has never been convicted of such charges in the land of his birth, Israel.

He has indeed been jailed in Israel on a variety of charges which he describes as a "mockery" - namely, funding Hamas, having contact with an Iranian intelligence agent, assaulting a police officer and leading a violent demonstration.

Tel Aviv's real quarrel with Salah is political. Its security forces have thwarted, on spurious "security grounds," his peaceful efforts to involve Muslim and Christian Palestinians in mobilising opposition to Israeli excavation work near the Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied east Jerusalem.

He has engaged in Israel's electoral system, having been elected three times, in 1989, 1993 and 1997, as mayor of Umm al-Fahm, the northern Israeli city where he was born.

That he should be viewed by the zionist Establishment as a thorn in its side is understandable.

Salah is, after all, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement of Israel, which opposed the Oslo accords and refers to Israel as Palestine 1948.

What should be less understandable to people in Britain is why our government, which pays lip service to Palestinian national rights, should feel the need to jump to attention as soon as a pro-zionist - and thereby scarcely impartial - organisation sounds the charge.

May's knee-jerk decision to order Salah to be locked up without even telling him why has already led the High Court to rule last September 30 that he was entitled to compensation for wrongful detention.

This was not only humiliating to the British government but also stood in sharp contrast to its readiness to restrict our courts' capacity to issue arrest warrants against Israeli politicians who have been instrumental in the slaughter of Palestinian civilians.

Those who unleash military mayhem against Gaza and international campaigners opposed to Israel's blockade against the territory are apparently welcome in conservative coalition Britain.

But those who articulate the grievances of a people groaning under military occupation and subjected to ethnic cleansing, discrimination and daily oppression are denied the right to speak out in public meetings in this country.

Even now, the Home Office refuses to acknowledge the injustice of its actions and is contemplating the possibility of an appeal.

This would be to heap insult upon infamy, exposing beyond doubt the partiality of Britain's government to military conquest and colonisation of Palestinian land.

It illustrates the urgent need to build meaningful solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against colonial occupation.