Just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse, that really the very depths of wickedness have been reached, you hear that a further bit of nastiness has occurred. This time it’s an Israeli attack on a UNRWA station. At least 5 people were killed and 15 injured. Now that’s just nasty! How do you justify such an action. They need the UNREA workers to get food and medicines out to people who have lost everything.
By the way, UNRWA has been around almost as long as Israel. It was established in 1949 by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to provide relief to all refugees resulting from the 1948 conflict and the Nakba. It also provided relief to Jewish and Arab Palestine refugees inside the State of Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for them in 1952. So right from the start it has been recognised that there were Palestinians who needed help. And yet it was allowed to happen and the situation was allowed to get worse.
Now our government is coming up with a new definition of extremism (which Mr Sunak tells us is splitting the country apart). It goes like this:
“Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 1 negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or 2 undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or 3 intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).”
According to Michael Gove, author of the new definition, it would “ensure that Government does not inadvertently provide a platform to those setting out to subvert democracy and deny other people’s fundamental rights”.
So some organisations will be deemed extremist and there will be no appeal. But some people are already worried about it. For example, Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of state threat legislation (who knew we had one of those?) said that there are not enough safeguards and there is a risk of labelling of people as extremists by “ministerial decree”.
“The definition focuses on ideas, on ideology, not action. So it’s a move from the previous definition … Moving the focus from action to ideology or ideas is an important one because I think people will be entitled to say: ‘What business is it of the government what people think, unless they do something with that?’” he said.
“There’s no appeal body and where you have this lack of safeguards, it’s going to be really important to make sure that this labelling does not bleed into other areas.”
“If the government says that someone is an extremist, and is essentially saying ‘You are unacceptable’, then what would stop a local authority, another public body or even a private body from deciding they will adopt it as well?”
Hmmm! It’s getting a bit like 1984 out there! We’ll all be looking over our shoulders to see if we’re being watched and maybe be wary of joining organisations … just in case! And it’s very divisive in our multicutlural society.
This is a very pessimistic post but …
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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