hello, i'm chris williamson and you're watching. declassified, broadcasting twice a

week, we're the only tv show that's dedicated to investigating and exposing the israeli regime's global war against solidarity with the illegally occupied people of palestine. after michael gove, the uk secretary of state for leveling up, announced the government's redefinition of extremism, we'll be examining the implications of his statement in this week's show. it seems mr. gobe is attempting of to invoke the divide and rule tactics of the former british empire to weaken the pro-palestine movement has been sweeping the country since october. the seventh as latifchakra will explain in this report: the british government has been grappling with the question of extremism for years now. it has failed even to define extremism in any clear fashion and has been struggling to fight back against an avalanche of criticism, of that its counter extremism policies are islamophobic. the genocide in ghazza has focused mines in the british elite because of of the massive sympathy for the palestinians visible on the streets. the des desperate

attempts to cast pro-palestine protesters as genocidal is a desperate attempt to split the movement. the government is trying to reframe extremism in such a way that more radical supporters of palestinian liberation are demonized, criminalized and disavowed by the rest of the movement. the minister leading this is the toxic michael gove, the most prozionist minister in the government. he has a history of involvement with zionist lobby groups and for example, what... as the first chairman of the neo-conservative and islamophobic think tank policy exchange. it's no coincidence that the new policy he is introducing was drempt up by the policy exchange in a paper published in 2022. all of its main proposals were adopted by lord william shawcross in his review of prevent, published in 2023. shawcross is famously islamophobic and was appointed as a senior fellow at the policy exchange in 2018. pride.

to being appointed to the prevent review in 2021. showcross's recommendations were all accepted by the government and thus the new policy has effectively been written by leading islamophobic think tank. among the innovations are new blacklisting agency in gove's department and a change in the status of the commission for countering extremism, which changes from being an advisory to an enforcement agency, but behind policy exchange are a shadowy group of foundations which provide cash for its work, though they are secretive, we can reveal at least two. the first and most significant is the charles wolfson charitable trust, which donates almost every year and has given policy exchange more than 3 million pounds between 2007 and 2022. the wolfson family, which runs the trust, are the owners of the next retail chain. the wolfson family also funds betul lokem, which channels money to the occupation forces and the jerusalem. foundation which is

engaged in promoting illegal settlements in occupied east jerusalem. another source of funds is the rosencrance foundation which has given to the thinktank for more than decade, along with other islamophobic causes. its director, robert rosencrance was appointed a director of policy exchange in 2010. in other words, british government policy on extremism is captured by policy exchange and policy exchange is in part a front for zine. interests. joining me in the studio as usual is our resident expert david miller. david's an academic and a former professor at bristol university and is now a non-resident senior research fellow at the center of islam and global affairs at istanbul zaham university. it's also a co-director of the lobby in watsog spinwatch and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel. our guest contributor today is dr. aital hudge. dr. laila is the director and senior caseworker at prevent watch which is a community.

initiative that supports individuals affected by the prevent program. she's written extensively on prevent and co-authored the people's review of prevent, which was an alternative to the widely boycotted official review. the prevent policy. welcome to the show. david, uh, the policy exchange, and i must be absolutely delighted me with uh, michael goves a statement. i mean, could have been written by them, what, what, what do you make of that to think tank? well, i mean more or less was written by them, i mean policy exchange is is the first think tank that i think i ever looked at back in the weight to naughties, and we looked at the uh the way in which it was encouraging islamophobia, and that was why we looked at it, and we discovered one of the things. we discovered was that amongst the people which who funded it with these foundations and the foundations were all named after individuals and we we tried to work out what they were and it tr transpired that you amongst the other things that they funded were these israeli occupation forces settlements in the west bank and we realized that what we were dealing with here was zinus foundations so

the ziners foundations who were largely funding the policy exchange and other new con think tanks and that's what we we have here we have effectively sign this interests using a think tank to talk to government and then the their views are then taken on by government by people who are appointed by government who come from the think tank itself and then those views themselves are passed to the minister who himself was a first chair of policy exchange, it's it's a completely self-referential and closed circle, dr. layer, mean what's your view then the of the 2022 policy exchange report? so that report was uh called delegitimizing counter-terrorism and it essentially attacked every single muslim organization or individual who had a boycotted the show cross review of prevent um and b who had signed up and endorsed and supported the people's review of prevent. um it was essentially a way to divide the muslim organizations from

the non-muslim organizations and individuals because if you look at who boycotted the showcross report it extended way beyond any the muslim organizations that had been highlighted in that report um but also try to then divide muslim organizations against one another as well because um following that report there was a tabloid splash of like four organizations that you know are seen as the main islamist agitators and so it kind of further then subdivided some organizations from the main list uh it didn't look any of the non-muslim organizations it didn't look at the fact that the people's review of prevent had the forward from the uh un special raporteur from um for protecting freedoms while countering terrorism. it didn't look at the fact that professor konageti had written the second forward, it didn't look any of the ngos, the mainstream ngos, amnesties, the running meeds who had also supported that report, so i think it was just a way to um aplagize the people's review of prevent buse 90% of that report from policy exchange just spoke about our report

without actually tackling any of the issues um whilst just trying to smear uh these organizations and the former prime minister david cameron wrote a forward to the policy exchange report saying that um these people who are basically raising concerns about prevent are enablers of terrorism? well of course lord showcross david was in charge of the charity commission, wasn't he? i mean, you say a word to will you about his role there will you? so he was appointed to the charity commission and he pointed a number of other people to the charity commission who were like him islamophobes and had connections to islamophobic organizations and his role at the charity commission was to take on muslim charities and to uh investigate them. now quite often those muslim charities were investigated after allegations were made about those charities which had eminated from israel uh unsurprisingly and so you you had attack a whole series of muslim charities actually and of course really virtually no zionist charities for example were were targeted and what it's meant is that the the whole muslim

charity sector lives in fear of of the charity commission and and to try and be in a charity and be be a muslim and to have a muslim charity is really very difficult now because of this british day on. slot on the muslim charity sector and of course then uh show cross goes after that to be appointed to the policy exchange and then to be appointed by uh government to do the review of prevent so he's you know he's not in the position to to do any significant serious review because of course he is party pre, he's all fundamentally uh conflicted. well as i mentioned in the introduction there dr. layler, i mean you you were part of that people's uh review of of prevent, which which actually engaged didn't it in in debate? with the review of extremism that was conducted by lord showcross, just tell us a little bit really about what you found during that process. yeah, so the people's review of prevent was set up as an alternative to the showcross review, because once he was appointed and boycotted we knew he wasn't going to take any of the real issues and concerns that had been raised for well over

decade, nor was he going to look at people who had actually been impacted, referred to prevent etc. so the people's review of prevent uh took into consideration almost 600 cases of people who had actually been refer. to prevent as well as all of the academic research that had come out previously on prevent um and at the end of that our three main conclusions was that prevent doesn't actually work, it's not fit for purpose, it doesn't prevent terrorism, there's been zero. evidence to suggest that, and in fact all the evidence suggest that it actively doesn't work, especially when you look at convicted terrorists who have been known to prevent prior, they weren't caught by prevent to stop and therefore prevent terrorism. um, the second main conclusion was that it causes harm, particularly to muslim families and children, traumatizing them. um, and the third main conclusion was that it is conttailing so many human rights um from freedom of expression to data privacy and data rights. so those were the three main conclusions and those conclusions were picked up by government or engaged with any point, not that we expected them to be, other than

that policy exchange report that was then subsequently uh published about a month or so after. david, um, we've mentioned the wolfson family uh on this show a number of previously occasions, haven't we, and i see that they are implicated in this process too, aren't they? so i wonder whether you can just outline what exactly then is their involvement in this particular issue, so... family uh have been making money in this country for decades and decades through the great universal stores and now most recently through next plc and they've made a reputation for philanthropy so they have number of different foundations associated with the family there are four or five different foundations they give large sums of money to wolson college oxford wolson college cambridge and many other uh charitable nations but of course also they give significant sums of money to sign projects so to to uh settlements and in the west bank and particularly they fund the jerusalem foundation which is engaged in illegal activities east jerusalem and they also fund

and indeed uh the chair of uh this charity b halkim uh is an organization which goes mine directly to the uh israel occupation forces so there's a real sense there in which they're involved directly in supporting the zinanis project and the genocide in gaza but also of course they're um involved in supporting islamophobic uh activities through the policy exchange and for example, or or simon wilson are involved with that, and um, as a result, what you what you have is that you can see that designists are are actually core to developing, pushing islamophobic ideas in the uk and in other countries too, and that's a thing we i've been seeing for for many years, now it's one of the things which attracted attention to to my views when i was at the university of bristol, but it's very clear that that there's a connection between the zionists and the pushing of islamophobia and you can see it through this particular connection between the wolson family and the cash they give to the policy exchange. michael gove uh was the first

chair, wasn't he of the policy exchange and as i was saying to david earlier, i mean this report or this statement could could have been written by them, what's your thoughts on that briefly before we go our next report? i mean, michael gover has been problematic for many reasons, not just the policy exchange link, i mean he was at the center of the trosian horse affair, effectively ruining education in the uk and many other islamophobic as well as... anti-palestinian sentiments have come from him, um, but i mean his involvement in this as well as policy exchanges involvement in the new so-called definition of extremism is to be expected, i don't think we can imagine anyone else who would have taken the reigns on this, not anybody who wanted to, i mean the independent review of terrorism doesn't have prevent under his perview, nor extremism, um, sarah kang when she was appointed as head of cce, everyone thought she was going to come out with definite of extremism and she didn't. um robin simcotz who then took over cce didn't

so significant then that that it's mark to go but it's important i think that we shine a light on on on his role and uh you know i think that will will undermine his credibility still further hopefully but we'll just take pause now to watch our next report about the the naked abuse of parliamentary privilege to stem the title wave of support for palestine from the british people. let me just ask in the interest of balance is there is there anyone here who welcomes what michael gove? had to say and supports what he had to say, not not a hand up, okay? the british government is in a bind, it can't define extremism, and yet it wants to pretend that it can. it claims that its new policy contains a quote, new definition of extremism, but there was never an old definition, and the text they have published is not a definition either, there is still... no legal definition of extremism, and this is why the governments are at pains to point out

that this definition is not statutory and has no effect on the existing criminal law. the reason for this is that the government knows that if they try and create a statutory definition, it will be subject to legal challenge, which it will most probably lose. there's a nervousness about this, which is intriguing. first of all, michael gove named five extremist organizations on the... parlimentary privilege, because he knows he would be subject to legal action were he to name them outside the house. secondly, though the aim here is to destroy and disrupt the palestine solidarity movement, no primarily palestine related groups were named, but pro-palestine groups, friends of allaxa, was named in drafts of the speech leaked to the media. the government were too nervous even to name them in parliament. go stated in the comments that islamism is totalitarian ideology, which calls for the establishment of an islamic state governed by shariah law.

he named three groups: the muslim association of britain, cage, and mend. all perfectly legal organizations, men immediately challenge gov to, quote, repeat his claims outside of parliament and without the protection of parliamentary privilege, to provide the evidence that mend has called for the establishment of an islamic state governed by sharia law. even normally staunch allies such as government advisor john mann have criticized the policy. the division is between those pushing for liquidnic scorch earth approach and those... to favor sophisticated engagement strategy. this is not just a political and strategic difference, but a question of defending the millions in state and zinis funding, plowed into the maintenance of hundreds of jobs in sophisticated engagement such as the interfaith industry. underlying all of this is the danger that the definition best fits genocidal zinis groups and their supporters

within government, most notably michael gove himself. the penetration and capture of key elements of security policy by designist is nothing if it is not, as the new so-called definition puts it, attempt to undermine, overturn or replace the uk system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights in the service of attempting to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, most obviously muslims and palestinians and their supporters. dr. "i mean, some people uh suggesting that this is just attempt to prescribe organizations by by the back door, what do you think about that? absolutely agree with that, because if you look at from legal perspective, there is nothing that these organizations are doing that is illegal, that could be used in a way against them to shut them down, um, and this is one way, as i say, this new definition of

extremism, it's not statutory, um, but it doesn't mean that it won't have impact, this will." have impact on the ground, of course it will, if you look at charities for example who are trying to host events with these organizations, they may have to jump through extra hurdles via the charity commission in terms of if you're inviting an extremist speaker and technically they will be on that list of extremist speakers without being able to not being afforded to even challenge it legally because there is no legal basis and exactly what we see with prevent, prevent technically is voluntary, doesn't mean that it hasn't caused harm to thousands of people across the uk, mean seen lots of people being cancelled, i mean david and i case casing point really, i guess this is just going to exacerbate that that that problem, but david, why do you think they're struggling so much then to to to define um extremism then? well because they start off with this idea that they they're um contracting and countering terrorism and of course that involves the commission of acts of violence and which are

you know identifiable as being against the law and and we have a burgening uh terrorism legislation uh um on on the statute books and that's been expanding uh over the years since then the first introduction of the the proventional terrorism act temporary provisions uh as it was called back back in the 70ss and of course they've then moved to this idea of non-violent extremism or of of extremism which which is of a sort which might not really be terrorism but might be leading up to terrorism but they can't really define that because of course it these are um these are actions which are not illegal which are not. and which uh only only arguably in their own minds are have anything to do with the process of leading up to violence, the process of what which they call radicalization and so of course we saw this in the in the the case of the irish conflict where in the 1980s uh from uh shin fein were banned from television so that the idea of supporting an illegal organization or an organization named in this notice shin fein

was was was prescribed but nobody could actually work out what supporting that organization meant and it was so ridiculous whole thing collapsed partly as a result of the the peace process too, so we'll find find something similar here, if you have definition then when you try and work out what actually means it will just be absurd and will collapse, and that's why they've got this this pretend definition, and also it's an attempt as dr. lee has been saying to intimidate, that's that these are the reasons they can't define it, well dr. leelor, i mean earlier documents seem to suggest that mr. gobe was considering naming much wider. group of organizations, including your own uh, prevent watching groups like palestine action and and friends of of alaxa, mean what's going on here? mean it's quite ridiculous, if you look at for example. watch we are literally a helpline to support people yeah who have had their rights abused um so we would never come under any definition and not that we would even respect any definition put

forward for extremism in a way because of the fact that the the whole trajectory and the history of trying to define it has been nonsensed including this new one um but do think it is just attempt to intimidate and to place that um idea that you know if you support these organizations "then there may be a problem, if you look at actually the shift from the old so-called definition of extremism to this new one, it's shifted from being very individual-based, so looking at individuals who might be extremist to the infrastructure that supports the muslim community, so we're now looking at institutions, and there was a report published few years back, i can't remember which report it was, but the soul purpose of that report was to look at all of these organizations and look at their social media influence, and so if you look at some of the organizations that have made the list" those organizations have huge uh impact when it comes to their social media reach um and it was by one of these right right-wing think tanks um this report that was conducted and

i'm sure it has influenced you know how many organizations are being put up whether they're officially named or whatever it's like oh we might leak these organizations oh no we won't i mean they've already leaked it the damage has been done potentially excuse me david what's your view of the three organization muslim organizations that that were. you know the muslim association of britain, cage and mend, i mean mentioned in the report there, i mean perfectly respectable organizations, um, just say about what's your view are those organizations, well i mean the muslim association of britain is an interesting uh organization, it's it's said by golf to be the the british affiliate them of the the muslim brotherhood, supposed to put scary quotes around it, but the muslim association of britain of course was one of the three organizations which set up stop the war coalition after the invasion to after the invasion of iraq. was core to the success of the of the anti-w movement, which had two million people on the streets in 2003, and of course the reason it was core to it was because it was a muslim organization and that was that was the essential success and that

is what scared the horses and whitehaul, muslims are getting politically active, and you see the same thing with with the the the the almost inclusion of friends, friends of course one of the key organizers of the massive uh pro- palestine demonstrations have been since october the 7th along with palestine solidarity and stop the war. so again this is attempt to to take out part of the key coalition which brings together this massive wave of support uh for for palestine and against british foreign policy complicity and direct engagement of the british in the genocide so that's that's one thing right the second thing is of course the other organizations cage is human rights organization dr. lily used to work there and and i've written uh number of occasions about k k should be not be attacked there a human rights organization and it's absord to to accuse. of extremism and and and i mean mend are are are milder than khr, it's completely absurd to say, i mean the idea that men is an

organization which calls for califate which would itself in my view be completely fine because it's not the is not any particular thing, it's a system of government which in which muslim ideas might be reflected just like christian ideas are reflected or hindu ideas are reflected in some other systems of government so this is this is a nonsense. uh from start to finish, and of course the reason why they have, they can't name these organizations outside is because they're going to be taken to court and the're going to just briefly then bause we're almost out of time, dr. what should we then make of mr. go's new policy? briefly, i think absolutely nothing of it other than another dog whistle politics attempt to intimidate people, not only to not support individuals who might have ideas that are very conservatively muslim, but also to try and attack the infrastructure. that helps these muslim to participate in public life, indeed, and probably we should be ridiculing it whenever we get the opportunity, it's so absurd, isn't it? but thanks for watching and thank you to

our guest, dr. laila aital hadj and our resident expert professor david miller. remember, you can follow the show on facebook, twitter and telegram where we post regular clips and updates. you can also help us to counteract the disinformation pedaled by the corporate media about palestine and the resistance to the design entity by showing today's program on your social media platforms. so. until next time when palestinely classified we'll be back with more forensic investigations and analysis. this is chris williamson saying bye for now. information about palestine abounds on social networks, many times without context. they do

not allow us to go deeper and understand all the dimensions of a catastrophe that is dragging on for centuries. daniel hardway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin, opens a window to palestine to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people, exploring its history and future prospects. do not miss a window to palestine. last week we showed you vand graph machine and how we would use proton beams emitted

from it. to determine the age of ancient artifacts, this week we're also determining the age of ancient artifacts, but this time using a gamma race, so stay tuned to see how that works. bismillahirrahmanirrahim. قل متاع الدنيا قليل والاخره خير لمن اتقى ولا تظلمون فتيلا صدق الله العلي العظيم.

your headlines on press tv, day 170 of the us israly genocide in gaza with the death told tops 32,200. the un chief race calls for sease firing gaza and says the territory needs a flood of aid, and protest is gathered outside the british embassy in the iranian capital condemning the west support for israel for his war on gaza.