On Thursday 16th March 2006 I attended a talk given by Bishop Riah, the Bishop of Jerusalem, on the situation in the Middle East at All Hallows on the Wall Church in the City of London. The bishop was introduced by Rev. Garth Hewitt of the Amos Trust who had organised the meeting.

Khaled Mash’al, leader of the Hamas movement which won the Palestinian elections in January 2006 gave a speech in Damascus which was broadcast on al-Jazeera TV on February 3rd 2006. He told the European nations to apologise to Islam because: ‘Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. This is not a figment of the imagination, but a fact. Tomorrow we will lead the world, Allah willing. Apologize today, before remorse will do you no good. Our nation is moving forwards, and it is in your interest to respect a victorious nation.’ His speech went on to say that the first phase of the Islamic world conquest would be the elimination of Israel and the defeat of the West in Iraq.