In the UK, for example, a far-right terrorist murdered the Labour MP, Jo Cox, last year, and Muslims were targeted in the attack near Finsbury Park Mosque this June. There is a logic to this-you don’t have to look hard to see there is a problem beyond ISIS-inspired terrorism. Many of America’s allies across Europe take a more inclusive approach. Was CVE intended primarily as a soft-power complement to law enforcement, military and intelligence-gathering operations against violent Islamist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda? Or is CVE’s main focus on challenging all forms of radical ideologies-from Islamists to black separatists, eco-terrorists, white supremacists and the Far Right? The Department of Homeland Security defines CVE as the “proactive actions to counter efforts by extremists to recruit, radicalize, and mobilize followers to violence.” Yet there was never complete clarity over its purpose. All terrorist threats must be dealt with, but should they all be dealt with in the same way? This dilemma gets to the heart of creating an effective Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policy.
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