In a highly charged report titled ‘Foreign Funded Islamist Extremism in the UK’, that was published by The Henry Jackson Society, Tom Wilson advances five incendiary propositions, including how governments and government-linked foundations fund Islamist extremism in Britain. In all instances, it is essential to ask whether any of this is accurate and, if barely tangential, to assess hidden motives behind their revelation(s).
Tom Wilson, who is a Fellow at the Centre for the Response to Radicalisation and Terrorism and the Centre for the New Middle East at The Henry Jackson Society, and who previously wrote for Commentary magazine as well as several conservative publications, intends to address violent and non-violent extremism, though his policy recommendations highlight polemical skills par excellence. He is, of course, entitled to his opinions, and the Henry Jackson Society — which advertises itself as a “policy-shaping force that fights for the principles and alliances which keep societies free, working across borders and party lines to combat extremism, advance democracy and real human rights, and make a stand in an increasingly uncertain world” — is also free to report as it wishes. What the author and his institution are duty bound to uphold, however, is to tell the truth as it is rather easy to point fingers because of policy disagreements.
Strangely, and no matter how often Arab officials refute accusations that they do not condone the actions or ideologies of violent extremists, there are still those who perceive that the vast majority of Arabs as unworthy. In fact, the anti-Arab positions of the Henry Jackson Society, named after a former American Senator from the State of Washington and who served between 1953 and 1983, are well known. Jackson (1912-1983) was a classic cold warrior as well as a rabid pro-Israeli politician who received substantial financial support from Jewish-Americans, many of whom admired his pro-Zionist views.
He seldom found a worthy Arab or Muslim who could be trusted with anything substantial save, perhaps, as fodder to protect Israel and advance Zionist objectives to divide and rule.
In fact, the demands included in the Wilson report focus on the pandemic that apparently involves everyone. That, however, is a facile ploy — the plague on all their houses, so to speak — and repeating speculations based on secondary and tertiary media sources cannot possibly pass for evidence.
What is even worse is that the report is touted as something of an authoritative resource, freely quoted by hundreds of journalists though, mercifully, serious academics lambasted its contents.
While few would quarrel with the notion that ultra-conservative ideas indeed breed extremism, sometimes going so far as to preach an intolerant and supremacist brand of the faith that moderates strive to uphold, it is vital to understand, once and for all, that most Sunni Muslims are the chief victims of terrorism.
Even if there are extremists on the Arabian Peninsula, and there are, their rejection of the existing order is not the blend between Islam and western values that nation-states adopted. Rather, it is to destroy traditional values that are evolutionary in nature, and which are painful to accept as these time-tested norms accommodate gradual change instead of the revolutionary fare.
Glaring shortcomings
The Jackson Society report focuses on the scholars and charges that they “assist with the spreading of hardline and illiberal interpretations of Islam to the wider British Muslim community”, but fails to discuss sustained efforts to raise religious education levels that place the faith on the human spectrum.
There is nothing in it on the government’s anti-extremist policies, even less on successful measures to arrest, try and jail those who joined extremist groups in Iraq and Syria. Regrettably, Wilson does not have the intellectual awareness to speculate on the rehabilitation programmes that bring individuals in from the cold, either.
Although the report acknowledges that “it is rarely the case that a definitive or causative connection can be established between foreign funding and individuals being recruited into terrorism”, a bizarre admission in a report that argues the opposite, the time has come to end these charades. It’s better to say nothing if one has no evidence.
Dr Joseph Kechichian is the author of the just published The Attempt to Uproot Sunni Arab Influence: A Geo-Strategic Analysis of the Western, Israeli and Iranian Quest for Domination (Sussex: 2017).
