Britain Shouldn’t Let Its Policies be Dictated by Fears of Offending Fanatics

Recently the case of Shamima Begum—one of a group of London schoolgirls that raveled to Syria to join Islamic State, and who now hopes to return to the UK—has consumed British public attention. Following an interview in which Begum, now in a Syrian refugee camp, expressed no remorse for her actions, Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of her citizenship. Douglas Murray notes a troubling argument against doing so, made by Britain’s extremism commissioner Sara Khan, whom he otherwise finds “hugely admirable”:

In a piece in the Sunday Times as well as a subsequent comment, . . . Khan has insisted that Begum must be allowed to come back to the UK. Not only, Khan has argued, does Begum have this right, but Britain would be “abandoning our values” if we did not allow her back. . . . There is one element, though, of Khan’s argument that has gone particularly unnoticed and is particularly disturbing. In her Sunday Times piece Khan argued that, “Far-right and Islamist agitators alike will use the case of Shamima to create a wedge between and within communities.” And well they might. In making this argument, however, the UK government’s extremism commissioner perhaps unwittingly demonstrates a slippage that has occurred in Britain in just over a decade.

In 2006, a small group of peers, members of parliament, and Islamist groups sent an open letter to the then-Labor government. . . . This letter suggested to the UK government of the day that British foreign policy “risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.” This is a commonly heard argument, of course, and is especially commonly heard from various Islamist groups. What is noteworthy about this, and what makes it worth dredging up, is not the argument but rather the response to the argument. . . .

[At the time], there was agreement from across the Conservative and Labor benches that such arguments should not merely be rejected but should be ignored. Sara Khan is certainly no Islamist, or any type of sympathizer with extremism. Far from it. In recent days, nonetheless, she has shown herself willing to deploy the argument that we must be careful what we do lest we offend extremists. Thirteen years ago, this argument was dismissed by Labor and Conservative MPs alike. Today, it would most certainly be deployed by the leadership of the present Labor party. . . .

[I]t is a sign of a wider slippage that, in 2019, such an argument would be deployed not by an Islamist, but by the government-appointed figure whose task is to tackle extremist Islam. It is in small slips such as this that a wider societal backsliding can be discerned.

Read more at Gatestone

More about: ISIS, Politics & Current Affairs, Terrorism, United Kingdom

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF