Finally, Mondal rejects Husain’s criticism of the oldest and most powerful Islamist organisation of all, the Muslim Brotherhood. This, he claims, is now a democratic movement that disavows violence and is similar to Turkey’s moderate ruling party. Naturally Mondal champions Tariq Ramadan, the Oxford academic who is now the Muslim Brotherhood’s most celebrated figure, against Charles Moore, who had the temerity to point out that Ramadan only came to Oxford because the French regard him as an extremist.

Yet Mondal is curiously silent about the Muslim Brotherhood’s most notorious offshoot: Hamas. Coincidentally, as I was reading his essay, it was reported from Gaza that Hamas gunmen had slaughtered 11 fellow Palestinians loyal to Fatah, then denied more than 100 wounded (at least 12 of them children) access to hospital. A handful of survivors of the massacre made it to Israel, where they were treated for their wounds. One said: “Most Gazans hope Israel will invade Gaza after what they’ve been through. We’d love to see the Israelis take out these [Hamas] people.” However, the Palestinian Authority refuses to allow these Gazans into the West Bank. A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said: “Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel.”

So the reality of life under Islamist rule – specifically the rule of Islamists who follow the precepts of the Muslim Brotherhood – is Gaza today. Rather than endure Mondal’s “Muslim middle way”, Palestinians would prefer to take refuge in Israel. Curious that Prospect, a magazine that really does belong in the Fabian tradition, should have been so naive as to open its columns to an Islamist rebranding exercise intended to undermine genuinely moderate Muslims.