16^th December 2015
CST has submitted evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into the fight against Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), otherwise known as ISIS. CST is at the forefront in the fight against antisemitism, and this includes working with the gov­ern­ment to support the Jewish community in matters of antisemitism, extremism and terrorism.
CST’s sub­mis­sion states:
“Gov­ern­ment, Police and the Security Services have all assessed the serious terrorist threat that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) poses to the UK and its interests. A primary component of this comes from the security implic­a­tions of British nationals who travelled abroad to fight with jihadist groups, returning to the UK skilled and poten­tially motivated to undertake attacks at home.”
CST’s primary focus is antisemitism and the evidence submitted spe­cific­ally examines ISIL’s terrorist threat directed towards Jewish com­munit­ies in the UK and worldwide. A key component of ISIL and wider Salafi Jihad ideology is antisemitism and incite­ment for violence. Tra­gic­ally we have seen four attacks that have directly targeted Jewish com­munit­ies in Europe since 2012: in Toulouse, Copen­ha­gen, Paris and Brussels. These attacks were per­pet­rated by European Muslims who were followers and sup­port­ers of global jihadist organ­isa­tions, including ISIL, al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. Since 2010, the security services and Police in the United Kingdom have foiled and prevented at least three potential terrorist plots against Jewish com­munit­ies in London and Manchester, though these were unrelated to ISIL.
ISIL spe­cific­ally includes derog­at­ory ref­er­ences to Jews in their social media, pub­lic­a­tions and video speeches and messages. These include the propaga­tion of antisemitic con­spir­acy theories, including that the West and the Jews are part of the camp of the disbelief (the ‘Kufr’); that Jews control the world’s financial systems; and that Jews are colluding with Shia Muslims to undermine Sunnis. Since September 2015, ISIL sup­port­ers continued to use social media to dis­sem­in­ate antisemitism and violent incite­ment against Jews globally. In par­tic­u­lar, they used the Arabic hashtag “Slaughter the Jews.” In October alone, over 80,000 messages used this antisemitic call for attacks.
CST’s written evidence sub­mis­sion to the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry also analyses the potential for including Iran in the fight against ISIL. CST argues:
“While the current UK-Iran rap­proche­ment may be a positive devel­op­ment in some policy areas, the prospect of including Iran as a partner in the fight against ISIL could have a negative effect on the UK Jewish community and undermine HMG’s policies on counter-extremism.”
Iran continues to engage in global state-sponsored terrorism, through its Al Qods force and proxy Hizbollah. This includes terrorism that directly impacts Jewish and Israeli com­munit­ies inter­na­tion­ally. The threat was made clear in the March 2013 trial in Cyprus of Hizbollah operative Hosem Taleb Yaacoub. He stated that, “I was just col­lect­ing inform­a­tion about the Jews. This is what my organ­isa­tion is doing, every­where in the world.”
The Foreign Affairs Committee will examine all the evidence submitted, by CST and others, and will determine the threat itself “including related chal­lenges such as migration and sec­tari­an­ism. It will also explore the policy and action of regional partners as well as the inter­na­tion­al coalition against ISIL, and the need for political and gov­ernance solutions.”
Read the full CST written evidence submitted here.
See the full list of published written sub­mis­sions to the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry here.