A group set up to advise the government on the concerns of young Muslims has written to the Prime Minister asking him to condemn the Israeli government’s attacks on Gaza as “violent extremism”. The Young Muslim Advisory Group, launched by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls last October, was set up to help the government tackle issues such as the prevention of violent extremism. The young people’s letter to Gordon Brown read: “As a group we have defined ‘violent extremism’ as being the indiscriminate killing of innocent people, wherever and by whoever this is perpetrated.” It added: “With over 450 innocent Palesinians killed in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli government, the British government must see this as an act of ‘state terrorism’, and as a form of ‘violent extremism’ it must be clearly condemned. By not doing so we are in grave danger of sending a message to the youth of today that the mass murder of civilians can be justified if the right grievances are cited.”
