Mick Hartley

From the Times:

The Home Office has been accused of allowing Islamists and fascists to glorify terrorism against Jews because it has repeatedly ignored recommendations for new counterextremist laws. 

Dame Sara Khan, the government’s former counterextremism commissioner, said new legislation was needed more than ever before to close gaps in the law.….

The aftermath of the October 7 attacks on Israel has seen numerous examples of pro-Palestine protesters glorifying Hamas without facing punishment. Among acts that have gone unpunished during pro-Palestine rallies include chants of “I love the 7th of October” and “I like any organisation that starts with H”. 

In December a group of pro-Palestine protesters were left unpunished when they chanted in Arabic to disguise their support for Hamas. They chanted “Yalla yalla muqawama,” translated as “resistance” and which is what the “M” stands for in Hamas. 

Khan also pointed to the images of gliding parachutes that have been seen on pro-Palestine marches; triangle hand-sign gestures that represent the downward-pointing red triangle used in Hamas videos to mark Israeli military targets before they are attacked and also “endless placards with antisemitic imagery and tropes”. 

She warned these symbols and slogans had been normalised through the “veil of legitimate protest”.

Urging the government to finally act on her warnings and recommendations, Khan said: “My request is to please go back and look at those gaps in legislation and do something about it because why is it okay for extremist groups to act with impunity? What does it say about our country?

“Other western democracies have shown there is a way of dealing with this issue as a democracy, there’s no reason why we should be allowing extremists, fascists and others to operate freely with impunity.

“There was a very deliberate reason why I chose to call the report ‘operating with impunity’ — to send a clear message to the government that you are choosing, under your watch, to allow extremists to operate freely in this country. It is the government’s job to act. 

“A lot of extremists — Islamists and Neo Nazis alike — are targeting Jews and Muslims and councillors and all sorts of people in our society because of their political or religious beliefs.

But the problem isn’t Islamists and neo-Nazis, or Islamists and fascists – it’s Islamists and the left. And not even the hard left any more….