UK Extremism Tsar Ridiculed for Declaring London No-Go Zone for Jews During Gaza Protests

Radical Media - by Maajid Nawaz
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UK Government Extremism Tsar Ridiculed for Declaring London 'No-Go Zone' for Jews During Gaza Protests

This Radical Dispatch Newszine - below - is provided free for all subscribers.

At the top of this post, Resistance Radio presents our WARRIOR CREED podcast from yesterday Tuesday 12th March 2024, with a transcript provided: UK Government Extremism Tsar Ridiculed for Declaring London 'No-Go Zone' for Jews During Gaza Protests.

UK Government Extremism Tsar Ridiculed for Declaring London 'No-Go Zone' for Jews During Gaza Protests
- A Radical Dispatch

1) London ‘no-go’ zone for Jews

This week the UK government’s official counter-extremism tsar Robin Simcox declared that London has become a ‘no-go zone’ for Jews, albeit only on weekends, due to peaceful weekly Gaza ceasefire protests that he does not like.

The Telegraph reports on its front page 7th March 2024:

Other media outlets quickly pounced on the alarming line that London had just been declared too unsafe for Jews by a UK government extremism official.

The BBC Reports 8th March 2024:

The intent here was obvious. The sheer strength of weekly protest in Britain against UK support for Netanyahu’s war has left warhawks in government with little option but to clammer for new ways in which to suppress the anti-war opposition. Based in the Home Office, Simcox joins former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and other hawks who seek to cast all opposition to Netanyahu’s maniacal ethnic cleansing of Gaza as extremist.

The Daily Mail reports 7th March 2024:

“Pro-Palestine protesters are turning London into a 'no-go zone for Jews', Britain's counter-extremism tsar has claimed. Robin Simcox slammed the Government for letting extremists go 'unchallenged for too long'. The Home Office's independent adviser on extremism warned that the Government had allowed extremists to 'lurk just below the terrorism threshold..

..Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Simcox said Britain has a 'permissive environment for radicalisation developing that needs urgently addressing.”

Though brewing for a long time, the catalyst for this redoubled effort to ‘challenge extremism’ appears to have been George Galloway’s victory in Rochdale.

2) Genocide, Gaza & George Galloway

After veteran leftwing campaigner George Galloway swept Rochdale in an electoral landslide for Gaza, Radical Media warned readers of PM Sunak’s desire to deploy UK extremism levers against pro-Palestine protestors.

Sunak here sought to cast his opposition as ‘extremists’ who must be prevented from speaking their minds and barred from democratic campaigning. Ironically, this was presented as necessary in the name of protecting free speech and democracy.

The Times reports 3rd March 2024:

“Ministers are to broaden the government’s definition of extremism as part of a crackdown on people & groups ‘undermining’ Britain’s institutions and values. Rishi Sunak has asked Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, to update the government’s definition of extremism...”

Nice try, but it won’t work. Active duty US airman Aaron Bushnell who burned himself alive to protest the “Gaza genocide” was not an Islamist.

But the playbook was predictable. Biden had already used this play against the MAGA base in the US in an attempt to blunt Trump’s allegations that the 2020 US election was unsound (it was).

Radical Media reports 2nd September 2022:

3) Michael Gove announcing new government ‘counter-extremism unit’

The means by which to attempt this further suppression of anti-Israel dissent in the UK have already been announced. Secretary of State for communities Michael Gove has announced the creation of a new ‘centre of excellence’ to coordinate extremism policy across Whitehall.

“Michael Gove is to announce the creation of a new counter-extremism ‘centre of excellence’ tasked with naming groups and individuals that breach the government’s new definition of extremism.

The communities secretary will reveal a long-awaited update on Thursday to the government’s definition of extremism, which will govern which groups and individuals government bodies can and cannot engage with and fund.”

This is the context in which Robin Simcox’s announcement that London has become too dangerous for British Jews to visit on weekends should be read. The main impetus driving the UK’s renewed focus on extremism is to quash domestic dissent against Netanyahu’s war policies.

The Telegraph reports 9th March 2024:

“Some of the events have been organised by extremist organisations,’ Gove said.

..some of what’s said on these marches springs from an extremist ideology, rather than simply being an expression of passionate opposition to conflict. ‘From the river to the sea’ is not a call for peace … When you’re saying ‘from the river to the sea’ you’re explicitly saying, ‘I want to see the end of Israel as a Jewish state, the Jewish homeland erased’. Now, be clear about that and be clear about what that means.”

Gove here makes it clear that his new ‘counter-extremism unit’ will focus on policing slogans used to criticise Israel. The slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ is presented as an example of protestors’ extremism.

Except when it’s not.

Radical Media reports 20th December 2023 that Israel’s ambassador to London Tzipi Hotovely uses this slogan herself.

‘I want it to be clear that I do not recognise the national rights of Palestinians in the Land of Israel. I recognise their human rights and their individual rights, and also their individual political rights - but between the sea and Jordan there is room for one state, a Jewish state.“

How inconvenient.

In fact, contrary to being a terrorist’s chant for genocide, ‘from the river to the sea’ also happens to be the Likud party’s original 1977 party policy position.

But none of this complexity has prevented Gove’s former newspaper the Times from running multiple stories this week on why we must all take criticism of Netanyahu’s war on Gaza extremism more seriously.

The Times of London ran an editorial on the topic, 8th March 2024:

“Robin Simcox, an independent adviser on extremism and Home Office commissioner, warned this week of a “permissive environment for radicalisation”, whereby these protests have turned London into ‘a no-go zone for Jews every weekend’. There is an element of hyperbole here but British Jews do feel at risk, and with reason.”

The Times seems to be preparing the public for a return of last decade’s ‘War on Terror’ era culture wars, even referencing another report that Simcox commissioned on the highly toxic issue of Muslims and blasphemy.

The Times of London reports 11th March 2024:

“Protests condemning acts of apparent blasphemy have become more frequent and radicalised, according to independent research commissioned by the government’s counterextremism chief.

..It comes as Michael Gove, the communities secretary, prepares to set out a new official definition of extremism expected to cover those whose actions “undermine” the country’s institutions or values.”

They had also mustered the obligatory but compliant (and these days, scarce) Muslim counter-extremism voice to provide political cover for the agenda.

The Times of London reports 10th March 2024, by Ed Husain:

“..The time has come to tackle the Brotherhood and shut down its financial, media, charitable and political arms in Britain. The government recently banned Hizb ut-Tahrir for advancing the same ideology as the Brotherhood after October 7. Follow this lead and relations will be strengthened with Arab nations in the Gulf. The Brotherhood is banned in Mecca, but thrives in London, including under names such as the Muslim Association of Britain.”

Ed Husain here has endorsed the recent British decision to proscribe his own former group Hizb ut-Tahrir, only to double down and demand that the Muslim Brotherhood now be banned too.