There has been a worrying increase in hate crimes since the attack. American law enforcers have closely watched over Muslim and Jewish communities’ safety post-attack, whereas the FBI recorded increased threats to these populations. Such conflicts that between Israel and Hamas usually result in hate crimes experienced by both sides of the affected communities. As a result, there are heightened concerns about increased violence and extremism.
As a response to this heightened risk of extremism, the UK government introduced policies aimed at tackling the issue. The government has put down certain rules to stop anyone or group following such ideologies as violence, hate, or intolerance from getting money from public funds or working together with national organizations. By so doing, these measures seek to prevent spreading and increasing of dangerous political beliefs, while safeguarding human rights of every citizen.
It should be noted that these alterations made by the UK government in terms of how it views extremism do not apply to any new laws concerning criminality. The prevailing legislation regarding criminal offenses is still the same. Outright hostility by Hamas against Israel did not spare anything as it led to various effects like hate crimes being witnessed more frequently and reconsideration by the UK government of what an extremist is. Extremism is defined under UK policy now as an ideology that violates civil liberties because it propagates violence and hate towards others. This has resulted in some precautionary strategies taken for the purposes of preventing all those individuals who follow such kind of ideologies from receiving any form of help from the state and engaging in collaborations with different Government organs; however, one should remember that nothing has changed in relation to the current laws on crime. The bombings that took place on October 7th led to many hate crimes, which made it important for us to redefine extremism.
A UK government big wig, Michael Gove, pleaded for a new way of looking at extremism in his talk after the attack on October 7th. The Education Secretary noted that hate crimes were becoming more popular even as far-right and radical Islamic groups were increasing their foothold on society.
Many people fear that terrorism and violence are on the rise despite government attempts to fight them by dealing with extremism more severely and punishing hate crimes. People wonder if these measures are enough and whether they deal effectively with the root causes of problems that may worsen the situation. People want an equal method that values freedom but is of high importance in public order.
Some people, including followers of the government, feel scared, as mentioned even in one of The Daily Mail articles. For this reason, questions arose concerning whether particular groups, like activists fighting for women’s rights or those supporting abortion due to medical reasons would be targeted.
Currently, no official extremist suspects have been identified following the new definition; hence, it is uncertain who the legislation was mainly aimed at. However, Gove spoke about a few Islamists and neo-Nazi factions that will be assessed, given their anticipated behavior.
