Hamas’s Secret Western Propaganda Network Has Been Tolerated for Too Long

Three recent reports have helped to give at least a partial answer to the puzzle of seemingly spontaneous yet simultaneous and near-identical pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli and antisemitic protests on the streets and campuses in Western Europe, Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

Mohammad Raad is the head of the Hezbollah group in Lebanon’s Parliament. In an interview with Russia Today TV on June 11th 2024, he said:

We’re currently investing in protests and demonstrations in Western countries, especially among college students. We already have Muslim students agitating, but it’s the Western students themselves who will destabilise their own countries.

This is a clear and chilling statement of the intent to destabilise Western society and build an anti-Israel coalition through a war on education and information.

On October 7th, the U.S. Treasury published a short account of how it was targeting a significant international Hamas fundraising network. The non-profit sector was being abused by terrorist financiers through “sham charities” to raise and funnel revenue to “Hamas and other destabilising Iranian proxies” to finance their campaign of violence. Treasury estimates these Europe-based “sham charities” have funnelled up to U.S. $10 million per month to Hamas this year. Sanctions were being imposed on several organisations and individuals in order to degrade their ability to raise money to finance their operations. This was the eighth tranche of U.S. designations to target Hamas’s financial support networks, some with allies like Australia and the U.K. Citizens and residents are legally obligated to comply with U.S. Government designations of terrorist actors. Non-U.S. financial institutions and individuals found to be engaged in dealing with sanctioned entities could also expose themselves to punitive measures by Treasury.

ELNET (the European Leadership Network) is a non-profit pro-Israel advocacy group which brings together leaders to foster close relations between Europe and Israel, based on shared democratic values and strategic interests, by facilitating in-depth policy discussions on key strategic issues, common challenges and opportunities. On October 15th, it released a set of four complementary reports that provide details on how Hamas has been embedded in five key European countries: Germany, Italy, U.K., the Netherlands and Belgium. The first part of every report is identical and covers the continent. The second part drills down into the specific situation in each country individually. The U.K., for example, is described as “a focal point for Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood-related activity since the mid-1990s” with 11 Hamas-affiliated organisations and individuals operating there.

The four reports highlight around 30 Hamas-affiliated actors across Europe which raise funds, lobby, recruit, disseminate propaganda and appear on media “sharing Hamas talking points and propaganda”. Their coordinated efforts aim to influence popular opinion and legitimise the groups to policymakers without disclosing ties to Hamas in order to avoid scrutiny from security and law enforcement agencies. Despite Hamas’s designation as a terrorist organisation by the EU in 2001 and several European governments on various dates, these organisations and individuals operate freely across the continent. Along with their leaders, six organisations are identified as operating on a pan-European level. Three of the six individual leaders of the groups, based in Austria, Germany and Italy, were designated in the preceding week’s U.S. Treasury report as persons of interest for sanctions. (Israel has identified 12 Hamas-linked individuals who operate across Europe.) Often, shortly after being designated as terrorist groups, some were dissolved but reconstituted under a different name but the same leadership. ELNET also identifies media outlets which serve as mouthpieces for the pro-Hamas network’s activities in Europe. In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood, which includes Hamas as a member, often uses “civil fronts” of innocuously named charities, humanitarian associations and other community-oriented NGOs to advance Islamist ideologies while offering community services.

Released to mark the anniversary of the October 7th 2023 atrocities, the U.S. Treasury and ELNET reports make for sobering reading. The operation is sophisticated, global and remarkably successful. The Hamas-affiliated actors operate under the cover of humanitarian and charitable NGOs to fund and support Hamas ideology and activities across Europe. Weak enforcement and supervision has allowed them to expand their networks, undermining Western values and cohesion, spreading Islamist ideology and increasing the threat of terrorism. The reports argue that, “Increased awareness about Hamas’s ‘civil activity’ across Europe is necessary to prevent Hamas from spreading its ideology and fomenting violence and radicalism among European communities.” What the ELNET reports don’t say but I alluded to in my last article, is that an open and honest conversation on the relationship between immigration (volume and sources), demographic change, societal breakdown and voter backlash is a prerequisite for eradicating rather than accommodating the rise of extremist rhetoric and politics. Instead, a recent “expert brief” from the influential Council on Foreign Relations, in a series on the ‘Future of Democracy’ project no less, argues condescendingly that, “Advances by Right-wing parties in recent elections in Austria and Germany could have a destabilising effect on domestic politics, as well as normalise anti-migrant and Eurosceptic viewpoints in European politics.”

Is there any reason to believe that the global reach of the Hamas-affiliated network doesn’t extend to Australia? And do we have the capacity and courage to absorb the warning signs from Europe in time rather than persist Micawber-like with a “She’ll be right mate” indifference to the danger? Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun is the man who, on the day after the mass atrocities in Israel last October, told a celebratory rally in Sydney that he was “elated… smiling” following the previous “day of courage”. At a conference in Sydney last month, Hizb ut-Tahrir activists and sheiks hailed the recently slain Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 2023 butchery, as a legendary hero, a martyr who “died a warrior’s death”. The conference heard that Islam will “dominate” and bring “justice to every corner of the world” amidst a “civilisational struggle”. In attendance at the conference, Dadoun insisted that he remained “elated” as “victory was coming” and he’d never before seen “the shift and the tide that has occurred over the last year against the Zionist regime”. What then are Australians to make of the revelation that his employer, the United Muslims of Australia, received about $1.65 million in Government funding in September? There are three serious problems with this. It gives the appearance of financially rewarding extremist rhetoric and behaviour; it gives extremist group leaders financial incentives to make sure that extremist ideology never dies down as this would dry up the bottomless Government funding; and it creates resentment in other groups that have adopted the Australian values of interfaith tolerance, inclusion and peaceful coexistence. Does the Government truly believe that we do not notice? Or is it the case that it simply doesn’t care?

Ramesh Thakur is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. This article was first published in Spectator Australia.