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Transatlantic think tank From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank, based in the United Kingdom. While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as right-wing,[1][2][3][4] neoliberal,[5][6] and neoconservative.[7][8][9] The Society identifies itself with a "forward strategy" to spread democracy and liberal values globally.[10] It is currently focused primarily on supporting global democracy in the face of threats from China and Russia.[11][12][failed verification] The Society is also known for its reports related to Islamic[13] and far-right extremism.[14] The Society is named after the US Senator and leading Democrat, Henry M. Jackson. American political journalist, Michael Allen, described the society as "a non-partisan group that convenes transatlantic center-left, center-right and independent figures committed to Jackson's legacy of 'democratic geopolitics.'"[15]
Abbreviation | HJS |
---|---|
Formation | 11 March 2005 |
Type | think tank |
Registration no. | 07465741 |
Headquarters | Millbank Tower, London |
Fields | Foreign policy, defence policy, counter-terrorism |
Executive Director | Alan Mendoza |
Staff | 22 (in 2018) |
Volunteers (2018) | 6 |
Website | www |
The Society was founded on 11 March 2005 by academics and students at Cambridge, including Brendan Simms, Alan Mendoza, Gideon Mailer, James Rogers and Matthew Jamison.[16] It was named after Henry M. Jackson, an American senator (Democratic party) who tried to run in the 1976 United States presidential election.[17] Jackson supported "New Deal" type politics at home and advocated for a strong anti-communist policy abroad. He opposed a detente with the Soviet Union.[17] Jackson was widely respected by Republicans,[18] and thus served as a symbol of bipartisanship. Republicans like Paul Wolfowitz prefer to call themselves a "Jackson Republican" as a substitute for the term neoconservative.[17] It organises meetings with speakers in the House of Commons. By 2017, the society was described as promoting interventionist foreign policy to protect democracy and human rights.[19]
In 2006, the Society worked to raise the profile of the Ahwazi Arabs of Iran, who it claimed were being oppressed by the Iranian government.[20]
In 2011, HJS merged with the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), a think tank deemed by some to have anti-Muslim views.[21][1] Douglas Murray also joined HJS in 2011. Both the merger and Murray's views were opposed by some HJS members like Marko Attila Hoare.[22] Hoare left HJS in 2012, over, what he called, Murray's anti-Muslim and anti-immigration views.[23]
After the merger, individuals who had donated to the CSC, became a significant source of income for the HJS.[24]
In 2013, the president of HJS submitted to the UK Parliament that Britain should consider militarily intervening in conflicts early (as opposed to "last resort") and that intervention "is what we do and who we are".[25]
In 2014, when far right news outlet Breitbart expanded into the UK, its managing editor was Henry Jackson Society member Raheem Kassam.[26][27]
In 2015, American politician Bobby Jindal spoke at an HJS event alleging that Muslims had established "no-go zones" where they enforce Sharia.[28] (See Bobby_Jindal#No-go_zones for further information)
Having been founded at the University of Cambridge, the organisation was later moved to London.
In 2017, Hannah Stuart, one of the Society's Research Fellows, released Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offences and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015), which profiled every individual convicted under terrorism legislation in the UK between those dates with an Islamist connection.[29]
In June 2020, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the UK's Department for International Development would be merged into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.[30] The plan had first been proposed in a report published by the Henry Jackson Society in 2019, for which Johnson had authored the foreword.[31][32]
The Henry Jackson Society was founded on the belief that Britain needed to take a more active and assertive role on the world stage. It was critical of the Clinton administration for, in HJS' view, not using its military and economic power to change the behavior of others.[33] As the HJS believed that "only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate", the HJS was critical of the UN and other multinational organizations that allowed membership to non-"modern liberal democratic" countries.[34] The HJS believed that if EU was to operate militarily, it should be within NATO, as that would allow the US a veto, something a purely EU force would not.[34] [17]
Among the HJS' early members and supporters were Brendan Simms and Conservative MPs Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey. Simms had written a prominent critique of the British policy in Bosnia.[35] Michael Gove had written pro-Israel documents, arguing Israel was legitimate to seize Arab territory. Gove also did not believe that the UK needed UN approval to invade Iraq, given the UK is a democracy while the UNSC gives the veto to non-democratic countries.[36]
The Society has produced a breadth of research reports and papers, with a recent focus on the impact of COVID-19 on civil liberties, critiques of far-right extremism in western democracies and the possible legal response to China's COVID-19 culpability.[37] Other areas of research include Islamic extremism and Islamist terrorism, crackdowns on human rights and democracy, and various facets of foreign policy and defence.[38][39][40] Its current workstreams include:
Recent projects by the think tank include studying the discrepancy between jail terms in the UK for Islamic extremists and far-right offenders. The Director of the Centre on Radicalisation and Terrorism found that Islamist extremists are sentenced to "an average 73.4 months compared with 24.5 months for far-right offenders, despite the government's ambition to treat both strains of extremism in the same way".[14]
The think tank has been described by The Herald as having right-wing and neoconservative leanings, though it positions itself as non-partisan.[58] It was described in the Australian Financial Review as neoliberal.[59]
Think-tank discussions on the Middle East and Islam have led to some media organisations criticising the Society for a perceived anti-Muslim agenda. Marko Attila Hoare, a former senior member, cited related reasons for leaving the think tank and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy was urged, in 2015, to sever his links with the Society.[58][60]
According to a report by the Cordoba Foundation in 2015, "right-wing politics is apparent not only in the ideas that the Henry Jackson Society promotes, but also emerges distinctly on examination of its funders".[61]
The Muslim Council of Britain criticised the Society in 2017 for making "oblique references to the usual slurs levelled at Muslims: that Muslims do not integrate, are not part and parcel of British society, and are therefore likely to be terrorists".[62]
Co-founder Matthew Jamison, who now works for YouGov, wrote in 2017 that he was ashamed of his involvement, having never imagined the Henry Jackson Society "would become a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist ... propaganda outfit to smear other cultures, religions and ethnic groups". He claimed that "The HJS for many years has relentlessly demonised Muslims and Islam".[63]
In 2020, the Society paid damages to the UK Muslim educational channel Huda Television Ltd, having confused it in 2018 with the similarly named Egyptian station, Huda TV, which it accused of a "radical agenda" and hosting Islamic extremist content.[64]
Facebook has partnered with the Society and spoken about it publicly. Their spokesperson has said:
Our work with groups like the Henry Jackson Society is critical to helping the industry understand and make progress on these important issues. It is through collaborations like these and with governments, academics, and others companies, through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, that we improve our collective ability to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms.[65]
Dr Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, criticised the group for hawkishly advocating for regime changes and war-mongering in the Middle East and "hyping up US homeland terror". He wrote in The Guardian that the Society's list of international patrons was like reading a list of 'Who's Who' of American right-wing hawks, and alleged that the think tank was behind Tory foreign policy that serves Anglo-American financial, security and fossil fuel interests in the Arab world.[66]
The Henry Jackson Society first articulated its statement of principles on 11 March 2005, two years after the Iraq War.[33] Some of the statement of principles were later modified.[67] Both the original and modified versions are given below.[68]
According to the Henry Jackson Society, initial signatories of the statement of principles included:[67]
International patrons included Richard Perle, William Kristol, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey Jr., and former Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis.[69]
The Henry Jackson Society is a registered charity in England and Wales and receives financial backing from private donations and grant-making organisations which support its work.[70]
The income of the Society increased significantly from 2009 to 2014, from £98,000 to £1.6 million per year.[70][2] It is reported that Edward Atkin, the retired baby care entrepreneur, made donations through his charity totalling £375,000 between 2011 and 2013.[2] The philanthropist Stanley Kalms has given the Society £100,000.[2] Nina Rosenwald, an activist who supported Henry M. Jackson's Democratic Party campaigns in the 1970s, donated US$10,000 through American Friends of the Henry Jackson Society. In July 2014 Lynn Forester de Rothschild claimed that she had financed the Caring Capitalism summit and that the Society and its executive director Alan Mendoza were holding £137,000 of "surplus funds" from the conference that should be returned to the couple's investment company EL Rothschild, and so moved to civil proceedings.[71] In 2017, the Society was accused of running an anti-China propaganda campaign after the Japanese embassy gave them a monthly fee of £10,000.[72] The campaign was said to be aimed at planting Japan's concerns about China in British newspapers.[73]
The UK Home Office paid the Society over £83,000 between 2015 and 2017 to produce a report on UK connections to Islamist terrorism.[74]
In 2009 the Society became the secretariat of two all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs), for Transatlantic and International Security, chaired by Gisela Stuart, and for Homeland Security, chaired by Bernard Jenkin. A transparency requirement upon non-profit organisations acting as secretariat at that time was that they must reveal any corporate donors who gave £5,000 or more to the organisation. In 2014, following a query, the Society refused to disclose this information and resigned its position, so as to comply with the rules. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Hudson, upheld a complaint against these APPGs, but noted that the Society had already resigned, and its non-provision of secretariat services therefore "appears to have taken effect" as the rules intended.[2][75][76] The case was closed with no further action taken, and the APPGs themselves dissolved with the dissolution of Parliament in March 2015. The APPG Rules were subsequently changed so that only non-profit organisations providing services to APPGs of more than £12,500 in value need to declare corporate donors.[77]
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