{"id":981287,"date":"2023-02-03T17:36:14","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T17:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1645629"},"modified":"2023-02-03T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T17:36:14","slug":"uk-government-has-been-spying-on-palestinian-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/02\/03\/uk-government-has-been-spying-on-palestinian-people\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government has been spying on Palestinian people"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

An independent media outlet has revealed that the UK government was “spying” on Palestinian refugees<\/a>. The government was doing this under the guise of countering terrorism. The Electronic Intifada<\/em> (EI) alleges that a group of people posed as academics, and didn’t disclose their ties to the British Foreign Office. Instead, these would-be spies were there to monitor the threat of so-called ‘extremism’ by looking out for \u201ccriticism of Western and Israeli foreign policy\u201d.<\/p>\n

UK government: spying on Palestinian people<\/h2>\n

On Wednesday 1 February, EI <\/em>wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Revealed: British government spied on Palestinian refugees<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whistleblowers had given journalists Asa Winstanley and Kit Klarenberg a cache of documents about a UK-government-funded project operating in the Middle East. The premise of the operation seemed fairly straightforward. Its researchers would speak with Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. They would do so, as EI<\/em> wrote:<\/p>\n

to \u201ccounter\u201d the \u201cviolent extremism\u201d of groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida.<\/p>\n

A leaked Foreign Office document setting out the requirements for the project says the findings would be used to improve targeting of subsequent \u201cCountering Violent Extremism\u201d (or CVE) \u201cinterventions\u201d in the region, identifying \u201cwhat types of intervention are most likely to be successful.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, “violent extremism” depends on what the government of the time wishes to label as extremist. For example, the UK government have a history of ignoring extremism from the far right<\/a>. As EI<\/em> uncovered, it turns out that what this project was\u00a0really doing was trying to get intelligence on Palestinians. This in itself isn’t really surprising because Israel’s hardline government has banned the Palestinian flag from flying in public<\/a>, and continued their campaign of bombing<\/a> Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Private contractors and think tanks<\/h2>\n

You can read Winstanley, Klarenberg, and the EI<\/em>‘s full investigation here<\/a>. The government project ran from October 2018 to March 2019. Overall, the UK government initially gave it a budget of $120,000 from its ‘Conflict, Stability and Security Fund’. This money went to the following organisations to work on it:<\/p>\n