Weapons an ammunition discovered by Israeli Defence Forces in a mosque in Gaza in 2009.

The sighting by journalists of the Washington Post, of missiles being carried into a Gaza mosque during a humanitarian ceasefire called in the current Gaza conflict, shows us that Islamic terrorists will quite cynically exploit the idea that we, as civilised people have, that religious buildings are not legitimate targets. The use of Mosques, schools, hospitals and the homes of uninvolved civilians as weapons caches and firing points is seen by Hamas as a win-win for them. If the Israeli forces catch-on that it is fire coming from a heavily civilian area, or identifiably civilian structure then they will not attack. If the Israelis perceive that the threat from this launching site is too great to ignore and they have to attack, then the resulting civilian casualties are paraded by Hamas to an ignorant and often anti-Israel biased media.

The willingness of Islamic terror groups like Hamas to use religious buildings as de facto shelters and also to militarise them is not just a matter that concerns the Israeli government and military, it is something that we should be thinking about here in the UK. Specifically we should be asking one very difficult question, which strikes at the heart of issues of freedom of belief. The question we should be asking is ‘How many British mosques are being used as stores for offensive weaponry?’ We know from various revelations that bookshops, either run by or associated with mosques, have been caught carrying Jihadist stock or stuff like the notorious Tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which has been an essential read for the paranoid Jew-hater. If they promote hate, what’s to stop them becoming arsenals for an army of hatred?

Because mosques are, like churches, synagogues and temples, primarily seen as religious buildings there is a tendency by some in authority to consider them as being relatively similar. It would be hard for many people to conceive of a church or synagogue or a Hindu temple being used as a weapons store because that’s not the done thing, and people extend that assumption to Islamic religious buildings. Just because a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew would not use a religious building as a place to get ‘tooled up’, doesn’t mean that others would have the same scruples. This attitude of false equivalence is a grave mistake, because it cannot be discounted that Islam has a very violent aspect to it. You only need to look at the various wars, terror campaigns and acts of oppression that involve Muslims or Islam as an aggressor, to get confirmation that Islam is ‘different’ and much more violent than other beliefs.

The revelation from Gaza about mosques being used as weapon stores, should make us think hard about whether or not extremist Muslims are using certain mosques and other Islamic religious property such as Madrassas and Islamic schools as armouries?

The police really should be considering entering and searching every mosque in the UK for weapons and evidence of the mosque’s members being involved in Jihad. With massive Islamic anti-semitic riots across Europe, terror on our streets and Islamic sedition being promoted in schools in Islamic areas, it’s about time the gloves came off.

Although many who are liberal-minded may feel uncomfortable about specifically treating Muslim religious property differently from that of other religious groups, if we are to get a grip on the problems that Islam has brought to Britain, and there are many, then we have to acknowledge just where the majority of the problems are coming from, and the attitudes of those people to non-Muslims. Most Christians in this country have stopped praying for the conversion of the Jews, it is only Muslims who tell us they will not rest until everyone believes as they do.

Britain, as a nation, cannot run the risk of mosques being used to store offensive materiel just because the state is too politically correct to have a pro-active mosque searching policy. If major public disorder ever breaks out following another Islamic atrocity like 7/7 or Woolwich, or if the ‘quiet Jihadists’ in Britain ever decide to attack us, then the police may be facing Muslims armed with lethal weapons that could have been found and seized by the authorities, had they had the courage to search mosques.

I believe that only a few mosques may, at present, be being used in this way, concerns about weapons being stored in mosques doesn’t have to mean that every mosque is an armoury, but at present there is no way of knowing which mosques are of concern, because they are not being monitored or searched.

The prospect of the British populace and the British police, who are both mostly unarmed, having to face heavily tooled-up Jihadis, should frighten the Government enough to start an immediate campaign of mosque searches and monitoring of Islamic religious property and Islamic organisations.

What happens in Gaza today with weapons being hidden in mosques could be happening in London or Birmingham or even somewhere unexpected like Gloucester or Chipping Norton tomorrow. I think that it is better to ask this difficult question now, and take protective action today, rather than face a horrendous and probably lethal problem tomorrow. We have seen “sudden Jihad syndrome” break out all too often, to imagine it could not happen to us.