“Islamists have encouraged hatred of Jews”: highly-anticipated report into Prevent strategy, revealing role of antisemitism in radical Islamism and Government failures
A highly-anticipated report into the Government’s Prevent strategy, which is designed to detect and prevent radicalisation, has been published this week, with scathing findings about the state of the nation’s flagship anti-extremism programme.
The report, headed by William Shawcross, who was appointed as the Independent Reviewer of Prevent in January 2021 by the Government, has made several shocking revelations.
Principally, the report laments that the approach to tackling Islamism has become ever narrower, while the approach to the far-right has become broader. This has various manifestations, including different thresholds for what constitutes Islamist extremism and far-right extremism, and an excessive focus on relatively minor threats from the far-right over more urgent and serious threats from Islamist groups. The Research Information and Communications Unit, a Home Office unit established in 2007 as part of the Prevent programme, comes in for heavy criticism in the report for focusing too much on the far-right at the expense of Islamism.
Mr Shawcross also suggested that fears of being accused of Islamophobia are likely to be hampering several aspects of Prevent and anti-radicalisation programming and training: “Practitioners who wish to focus on the principle terror threat to this country [Islamism] find themselves viewed with suspicion even by colleagues. This is an unacceptable state of affairs which I have seen in too many areas.” He further noted that officials can have “fears of being accused of being racist, anti-Muslim, or culturally-insensitive”, which results in “disproportionate” resources being expended on the far-right, rather than the more urgent Islamist threat. “The volume of resources devoted to each ideological threat,” the report observed, “is notably divergent from the UK’s current threat assessment.”
The Islamist groups of concern in the report include Hizballah and Hamas, both of which were outlawed by the Government following calls from Campaign Against Antisemitism and other groups.
The report welcomed the proscription of Hizballah and Hamas, but argued that their support networks in Britain must also be confronted. “These companies and charities operate legally. This highlights the importance of arm’s length bodies such as the Charity Commission in helping formulate the most effective response,” the report noted. Mr Shawcross is a former Chair of the Charity Commission.
The report observed how involvement in a group like Hamas can even be a gateway to even greater radicalisation: “There are examples of British individuals who travelled to Hamas-controlled territory before going on to join other terrorist groups and perpetrate acts of terrorism.”
The report also identified terrorists who were referred to Prevent but were never escalated to Channel, the programme for the most urgent and serious cases, who nevertheless proceeded to commit serious crimes. Among this number was Malik Faisal Akram, who took hostages at a synagogue in Texas.
The report observed that some organisations that have received funding from the Government to tackle extremism have promoted antisemitism. It also observed that antisemitism is present in both Islamist and far-right ideologies held by individuals referred to Prevent and to Channel.
Mr Shawcross was “alarmed at the prevalence of extreme antisemitism” among those who were referred to Channel, and examined cases that included “individuals expressing the intent to kill, assault or harm Jewish people or a particular Jewish individual, threats to burn, desecrate or blow up a synagogue…claiming religious or political justification for the murder of Jewish people…and adherence to extreme antisemitic conspiracies.” There were also “examples of individuals who made an association of British Jews with the actions of the Israeli Government, and the justification of harm towards individuals expressed as ‘Zionists’ or ‘baby killers’.” The report also observed that, “Domestically, British authorities have disrupted early-stage terrorist plots targeting Jewish areas, including in Birmingham and Manchester.”
In particular, the report noted, “The Islamist worldview is supremacist, Islamists have encouraged hatred of Jews.”
The report also made the disturbing finding that Rizwan Mustafa, the founding Chair of the West Midlands branch of the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP), shared content which reportedly called for the destruction of Israel and asked: “Where is the Caliph of the Muslims? Don’t you care that the Jews are defiling the place of the prophet’s nocturnal journey with their filth? The Jews are the most hostile people towards the believers’.” He also allegedly “shared conspiracy theories” about the origins of Al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Mr Shawcross wrote: “I was disturbed to learn that this individual has worked with Government departments on counter terrorism and security policy. In 2020, he authored a paper for NAMP advising Counter Terrorism Policing drop the terms ‘Islamism’ and ‘jihadism’, which was later discussed at a meeting attended by senior policing figures.”
The report was launched in the House of Commons by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, who said: “In too many aspects of British life, hatred directed at Jewish people has been tolerated, normalised, and accepted. Racism that would rightly be called out and enforced against were it directed at any other minority, is too often ignored when directed at Jews. The review makes clear that this double standard must change.” She pledged to implement all of Mr Shawcross’ recommendations.
