The Global Counter-Terrorism Forum reluctant to name either terror groups or their targets

On Wednesday,  September20, EU High Representative Josep Borrell will co-chair the 13th Ministerial meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum, co-hosted by the European Union and Egypt. 

According to its webpage, 

The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) is an informal, apolitical, multilateral counterterrorism platform. It is small, nimble, inclusive, and consensus-based. Its overarching mission is to reduce the vulnerability of people worldwide to terrorism by mobilizing expertise and resources to prevent, combat, and prosecute terrorist acts and counter incitement and recruitment to terrorism. 

The Forum brings together policymakers and practitioners from around the world to share experiences and expertise, and to develop practical, publicly available tools and strategies on how to prevent and counter the evolving terrorist threat. The GCTF is currently co-chaired by Egypt and the European Union. 

The words "consensus-based" is the problem. 

Looking at the site, one sees nothing specific about who terrorists are or who the victims are. The group cares more about not offending people (read: Muslims) that actually fighting Islamist terror. It describes terrorism on such an abstract level that it becomes meaningless. 

A search on the website for "jihad" turns up...nothing.

Same with "Palestinian." Or "Hamas." Or "Jews."  "Islamist" gets a couple of matches in referring to specific country anti-terror initiatives, not GCTF's own materials, but there is nothing on the site itself describing fighting Islamic extremism - or indeed any kind of named violent terrorists.

A recent GCTF report discusses "Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE)." REMVE appears to be a non-judgmental term for white supremacist or nationalism-based violence. But the report only mentions "white supremacism" in the footnotes - the entire paper cannot does not say "black" or "white" once. 

Here is one of its recommendations:

Recommendation 6: Regular (re-)evaluation of national P/CVE strategies. Online and offline strategies to prevent, detect, and disrupt REMVE as well as to rehabilitate and reintegrate REMVE actors and to support their victims continue to develop. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mechanisms are also necessary to ensure the efficiency of such P/CVE strategies in accordance with this development. Effective M&E needs to be comprehensive and consistently applied and should include all the relevant stakeholders who were involved in the creation and implementation of P/CVE strategies. Successful assessment strategies are those developed in the earliest stages of an evaluation. The M&E process could involve a multi-stakeholder feedback loop involving criminal justice, intelligence, social and welfare services, educational and private bodies, as well as local community leaders and civil society actors, which facilitates systematic whole-of-society substantive contributions. The feedback loop could focus on assessing the efficacy and sustainability of all strategies for the prevention of REMVE, intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration of REMVE actors, including legislative and policy measures, online or offline financial measures, and local or community-led measures, with a view to identifying gaps. Aside from assisting in revising or refining existing strategies, the feedback loop could also assist in determining future areas where novel national strategies for the prevention and countering of violent extremism could be created. Regular (re-)evaluation of national strategies for the prevention and countering of violent extremism could also assist States in ensuring compliance with international and domestic law.

This is so abstract as to be meaningless. White supremacist group members are not at all afraid of this strategy - because it doesn't even mention them. Similarly, the victims of right-wing violence - Jews, people of color, LGBTQ - don't feel protected by initiatives like this where groups ignore the specific attacks and justifications used against them. 

You can't fight something that you can't define. This forum may have been well-intentioned, but I cannot see how it will stop a single act of violence or terror. It appears to be more to make politicians pretend to be doing something than actually....doing something.

(h/t Irene)

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